OUR RETIRED ADVENTURE
qUEREMOS VIVIR AL SOL
KSha
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
5 AM on December 7th came pretty quickly as we got ready for our ride to the airport and took our last pics in the Coronado Bay house that we have enjoyed for the last nine months. We were sad to leave this cool house and the many new friends we have met here, but we all vowed to keep in touch and check in on each other. We scheduled our early pickup ride to the airport because we wanted to be sure we wouldn't have any road closure/protester problems even though the Supreme Court voted favorably for the Panamanian people and against the mining contract. Many Panamanians are still not satisfied that their government will "do the right thing" in regards to this issue; so the unrest is diminishing but not gone. We happily arrived at Tocumen International Airport 3 1/2 hours later with what seemed like normal traffic delays. We had time for a leisurely breakfast, a little walk and before we knew it we were boarding the plane for South America. I had to get a couple of last shots of Central America as we left Panama City from the plane window. I also couldn't help recording our first views of South America as we started our descent in our 45 minute flight from Panama City, Panama to Cartagena, Columbia. The plane landed, taxied and parked and we walked down the stairs onto the tarmac in the bright afternoon Cartagena sunshine. Before I got to the bottom of the stairs; and as I was looking ahead and saw the long walk to the terminal, I realized it was hot. No, you don't understand...it was HOT! If you thought Panama was hot, you need to stay in the sauna longer to appreciate the heat here. As you probably have already guessed, Blog Boy was soaked by the time we made it to the zigzag lines of Immigration prior to picking up our checked bags. An easy path through Customs found us walking along the yellow line to the taxi stand. We were informed our taxi would be $10 to our new home in the Getsemani district and NGG shut down the dude that wanted us to pay $20 and we got in our $10 taxi. Now I'm sure you recall me discussing the fact that Panamanian drivers are terrible drivers; well they now are not even close to the worst I've seen. Cartagena drivers are something. The road may be 2 lanes wide; but there may be 4 cars and a couple of motorcycles vying for a share of those 2 lanes at any given time...especially at intersections where everyone knows somehow to stop at the same time and allow cross traffic a chance to move. Totally glad to not be operating the vehicle we were in as we made our way along the coast from the airport to the Getsemani district of Cartagena. Cartagena is divided into two sections; the Modern Cartagena and the Old City. It is one of the major ports on the northern coast of Columbia. The current population is just over 1 million people. It was founded in 1553 making it one of South America's oldest colonies. Prior settlement by indigenous people around Cartagena Bay dates back from 4000 BC. In 1984, Cartagena's colonial walled city (Old City) and fortress were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The currency is the Columbian peso and $1 USD is about 4000 COPs. The last two photos above are of sections of the walls of the Walled City. Getsemani, our home for the next month, is part of the Walled City section of Cartagena. Our address proved a challenge for our taxi driver to find. His persistence paid off because after driving around our neighborhood a few times; as well as enduring a traffic cop yelling at him to move as he was looking at his Google map, he parked and walked along the block and found our entrance. It was no wonder it wasn't easy to find as the entire block in front of our entrance door was under construction. We have a gated locked front entrance to the complex that is manned 24/7 where you are buzzed in and out. I was happy for the help with our luggage to the second floor unit we will be staying at for the next month. (Hit play button in top left corner to get a look at our home.) Our initial research into Cartagena had indicated that this was a cool area to be at in the city, and it didn't take long before we knew we were in the "happening" place in Cartagena. We ventured out for our first night's dinner and walked along the street with the flag banners right behind our building and found the restaurant Sierpe, not even a 3 minute walk from our front door. Some sangria and crab dip to start; followed by mushroom risotto for Sha and squid ink pasta and shrimp for the bald one; delicious! A second round of sangria before we walked home helped prepare us for the all-night cacophony of music, taxi horns and sounds of people laughing coming from the street we left after dinner. Our early exploratory trips of our neighborhood began to give us a taste and flavor of this vibrant place we came to visit. The below pictures can give you a little idea of our immediate neighborhood here in Getsemani. As you can see, the neighborhood streets are very narrow (luckily mostly one-way) and many homes and businesses have about 2 steps from their front door to get to the street. We have continued our routine of rising early and doing an exploration walk in the mornings. Some first walks incorporated exercise with little seek and find missions for grocery stores. After we finally found our first one, we realized we walked more than twice as far as we needed. GMC, or Google Map Chick working with maps doesn't know her head from a hole in the wall when it comes to navigating Cartagena. It's a good thing that our frequency of walking the area helped us find things better than GMC has; because she needs adjusting. On day 2, we decided to find and walk the wall of the Walled City. Here's what we saw...(play button top left for slideshow) You may have noticed the bird at the top of the building in the last set of pics; NGG has not lost her touch. We are across the street from Centennial Park, a square block of green space with statues, athletic spaces, street vendors and is a meeting point for tours of the Old City. It's also home to sloths and monkeys! The parrots come early to the balconies of the units around our pool and like to loudly squawk good morning to everyone. They were munching on a fruit of a tree by our pool one afternoon when NGG recorded them here. The parrots were cleaning each other atop a pole on the building in the second to last pic. Our last pic above was in the grocery store at the butcher's window...I think Sha was thinking of going totally Columbian and was thinking of cooking a local dish with this guy. Luckily I haven't had to carry him home yet. Sha booked us a private walking food tour in the Walled City with a local guide, Andrés--I don't remember which day it was as I'm having difficulty keeping track; that was packed full of historic information that Andrés shared from being born and raised in this very area. We met him just across from the "start" of the Wall and began walking through the streets. This was on display at the University and dates back to 1626. Our first goal was to find one of Andrés' favorite street vendors for a taste of arepas de huevos. His first choice needed 20 minutes before his food would be ready. Surprised, Andrés lead us off to find another vendor. When the second vendor wasn't ready as well, Andrés said "That's never happened before." So we continued on, all the while being told about the sections of neighborhood or the history of the buildings we were walking by. This was a prison for women until it was closed down during the Covid 19 pandemic. Now it is a parking garage. We continued through the neighborhood in search of the elusive arepas and were rewarded when we finally came to Magola's. This small place was full of people; a great sign! Arepas de huevos: fried circles of cornmeal stuffed with an egg, meat and cheese. Fresh out of the fryer, these were hot and delicious. Adding a little of the local sauces gave them a distinctive taste. Our next stop was back through the narrow streets to find Andrés' favorite fruit stand featuring mangos and papayas sliced thick in a cup. Sha and I split a mango cup as they were huge. We heard about the sauce the locals put on the fruit and we had to try it; pepper and some other good stuff really added a unique flavor to the sweetness of the mango. It was a two-handed job managing the fruit cup, so sorry no pics. We needed to walk off the mango (filled me up and I wasn't sure I'd have room for whatever was left) and we headed a short distance around the corner to the Circo Teatro, the multi level mall in the Walled City that originally was a bull fighting stadium (it is now outlawed in Columbia). The remodel kept its original style and is now home to 4 levels of "high-end" shops that occupy the outer circle of the building. The top floors have the stadium type of seating still a part of the design and there is a water and light show that occurs nightly that we will report on later when we attend. There was a restaurant on the top floor that had an outdoor patio, and Andrés wanted to share what he called the "best views of the city". I have to agree with him. Having cooled off a bit inside the mall, we were off to our next stop for some shrimp cocktail. Back through the narrow streets we went and ended up in a spot we were somewhat familiar with, but had missed the actual food stand we went to visit. The family running this business has been in this spot for the past 50 years serving seafood cocktails. We took a seat in a park-like area and awaited our sampling and Andrés brought us his favorite childhood drink. Andrés' soda was fantastic and tasted like creme soda; plus the shrimp cocktail was awesome and the circus of people getting served and walking by was excellent! Feeling pretty good (despite having walked a good distance for a round bald guy), we set out for our next stop; the Clock Tower for some local homemade sweets. I was super pleased to be walking in the direction of our home and an area that we were familiar with the location. Like the entire neighborhood we are calling home; the Clock Tower plaza was alive with people and activity celebrating the holiday season. We each got to choose 2 different treats and we got a quick sugar rush from the samplings. I thought you'd enjoy this little sampling of the activity at the Clock Tower plaza... We had one more sampling to partake in with a choice between local coffee or beer...with only one coffee drinker in the group, we decided on the beer option. I was again pleased to be heading closer to our home as we walked through Centennial Park (right across the street from our townhouse) where Andrés again gave us historic information and told us of the sloths and monkeys living here. We tried to see them but the darkness made it difficult to see anything in the trees. We emerged from the park and walked down the street behind our townhouse. We stopped outside of Trinidad Plaza and found a neighborhood favorite little shop to sample a local beer, Costeñita. They might be 6 or 8 oz.; so we had to have two of them each. We enjoyed the beers and the activity of the plaza before we headed home. The feel like temperatures since we arrived have been at 104 or 105; so our early morning walks have avoided the supremely intense heat. We save that for our pool time where you can cool off in the wonderful pool we have here. By the time mid afternoon hits it's time for some shade inside the townhouse and maybe a beer to rehydrate. We have enjoyed the proximity of many restaurants to our place and are looking forward to branching out a bit to sample the local cuisines.
I will sign off for now and hope you and yours are enjoying the preparations for the upcoming holiday season and have plans to be with family and friends as we send our love to our families far away. Until my next report from South America, be well and safe. Pura Vida!
1 Comment
Sergio Pena
12/25/2023 12:13:30 pm
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year guys!! Love the Pena’s
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