Ecuador - Guayaquil, Playas de Villamil, and Cuenca

Playas de Villamil

So we've been back from Ecuador for...almost a month.  Because it's been so long, I think I've forgotten a lot, so think of this as highlights from our trip.

Why did we go to Ecuador?  We knew we were going to spend Christmas alone in Colombia, so we decided to go visit our friends in Ecuador for the New Year.  We also thought we might as well check out another country while we're down here!

Our friends Kaley and Aaron are having a similar Latin American adventure, getting some travel out of the way before they have kids.  They run a travel website called liveinsouthamerica.com, and are just bumming around South and Central America!  They are currently in Ecuador for a few more weeks, then they're briefly vacationing in Costa Rica, then are moving on to Nicaragua.  If that sounds as cool to you as it does to me, check out their website!

Our trip:

We started in Guayaquil, which is a 4 hour bus ride from Cuenca, where our friends live.  Why did we do this?  Because the flights into Guayaquil were cheaper, and the 4 hour bus was only like $8 a person.  *Note* I would recommend looking into this for anyone flying to Cuenca...but maybe just for one-way.  It was pretty grueling sitting through that bus trip twice.

Weeks before our trip, we were closely watching Cuenca's weather, because, well, I get cold when the temperature drops into the 80s here.  Oh, Cartagena, how you've ruined me!

One cloudy day before our trip,  I compared Cartagena to Cuenca.  Cartagena had 75% humidity, 7 mph winds, and it was raining.  We clocked in at 83 degrees F.  I looked at Cuenca, which also had 75% humidity, 6 mph winds, and a 40% chance of rain.  And it was 63 degrees F.  My heart dropped.  Same exact weather conditions, but 20 degrees less?!  What a difference elevation can make.

So we packed coats and sweaters (but, of course, I forgot my thick coat at home. D'oh!) and braced ourselves for the "terrible" weather.  We were grateful for the layers during our short layover in Bogota (which was also cold!), but we were shocked when we got off the plane in Guayaquil.  Why, it almost feels like Cartagena here!  In our extensive research of Ecuador's weather conditions, we neglected to check out our first stop.  But hey, I would ALWAYS rather be surprised by heat than by cold.  So I was happy.

Our wonderful friends were kind enough to make the 4 hour bus trip and meet us in Guayaquil.  After our excited hellos, we walked from the airport to the bus station, a relatively short distance away.
We decided to get lunch before our bus ride to our next destination.  As we walked into the food court, I heard James say "look, Ariel, Pizza Hut!".  I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized by the beautiful red and black sign.  I almost cried in that moment.  Difference #1 between Cartagena and Ecuador: More American food chains.

We got lunch, passing over the Ecuadorian food for some sweet, sweet, pizza.  Silly gringos.  And yes, it was delicious.

After lunch, we caught a bus to our next destination, Playas de Villamil, or just "Playas" to the Ecuadorians.  Yes, that is the word for beaches...I'm sure it gets very confusing when speaking of other playas.  Our bus ride was about an hour and a half, 90% of which Kaley and I spent gabbing over the backs of the seats.  The other 10% I spent listening in awe to the great music blasting from the speakers.  Difference #2: Ecuador has way better Spanish music, like the stuff we used to listen to in California.  They also had more American music, but I was just pretty happy with my Reggaeton.

As we were driving through and out of Guayaquil, James and I commented how different it looked from Cartagena.  In a few words...less ghetto.  It seemed like there were fewer hovels and the hovels that we did spot were clean and well taken care of.  Difference #3: sooo much cleaner than Cartagena.  Even the most humble abodes were clean, free from trash in the yard, and well kept.  This is my main problem with Colombia.  I understand that there is severe poverty...but that doesn't mean that you need to have trash all over your yard.  Take some pride in what you do own and keep a clean place.

We got to Playas and Kaley and I jumped into a tuk-tuk to get to the hotel.  I was impressed with how kind the tuk-tuk driver was, but thought it might just be a fluke (get it?).  We arrived where Aaron had told the driver to stop, and waited for the boys with some anxiety, as Kaley didn't have our AirBnB address and we could've just been dropped on the other side of the city.  Now that would have made a good blog post.  Luckily, we were in the right spot, and Aaron led us to our AirBnB a couple of doors down.

Cute little tuk-tuk!

The house we stayed in was so. cute.  It was ALL bamboo...no, not other materials covered with bamboo, straight up bamboo everywhere you turned.  So. cute.  Unfortunately, as we found out over the next two nights, bamboo is the least sound-proof material ever.  But despite the noisy neighbors, rooster duels, and construction, we enjoyed our stay.

Innit cute?

We arrived in the afternoon, so we decided to go check out the beach.  James opted for a nap, because he was recovering from the worst illness he's had since I've known him.  Seriously, we think he got food poisoning on Christmas Day (just when you want it) and we left for Ecuador on the 27th.  Luckily, he was feeling good enough to fly by then, but he was still not well.  Aaron, Kaley and I went down to the beach and chatted until sunset.  The beach was sunny, lovely, clean, but a little windy for my taste.

The next day, we all prepared for a full day at the beach.  James haggled us a cabana (he's a good guy to have around) and we settled into our terribly uncomfortable beach chairs...but the bonus hammock made up for them.  Unfortunately, the sun never came out that day, so we stayed under the cabana and just chatted.  We watched the fishermen's balsa wood rafts (we think) almost get sucked out to sea...we watched a kid in an outrageous speedo strut his stuff...and we witnessed what can only be called a mass fish suicide.  Actually, we have no idea what caused all the dead fish.  We just started noticing people flinging fish up to the hundreds of surrounding birds and thought they were expert fish catchers.  Then we went down to the water's edge and noticed that there were hundreds of dead fish everywhere.  As we waded into the water, our legs were smacked by the hordes of dead fish.  Needless to say, none of us got in the water after that.  It was one of the strangest things I've ever experienced.  If anyone can let me know why hundreds of dead fish wash up at Playas after 3 PM, I would be delighted to hear what you have to say.

Side story:  James climbed up onto this raft, and the owner of our cabana immediately rushed over to volunteer to take his picture, despite the fact that James was there with 3 other people who could have taken his picture.  So James called me over, handed the guy his phone, and we posed.  The guy originally pointed the phone to a place nowhere near us. Then he turned it towards us but facing the wrong way.  Then he had it upside down, before finally figuring out how to actually take the picture.  It was hilarious, and Aaron was able to get a photo of the 10 minute long photo shoot.

James and I noticed that there were almost no gringos in Playas.  We thought this was strange because we had heard our friends talk about how many gringos retire to Ecuador and how many gringos they had in their ward at church.  Plus, Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency (p.s. dollars look super strange after you live somewhere else for a while...why are they so long?! And so green?!).  So we were perplexed.  And this town clearly did not often have gringos...people were openly gawking at us in the street.  It was a strange thing, because we are definitely NOT a novelty in Cartagena.

After our blissful beach day (which also included a delicious trip to Carl's Jr.!!!!!) we headed back to Guayaquil the next morning.   Again, we got off the bus, ate lunch (I had Pizza Hut again, but it was cold :(), and got straight on the bus to Cuenca.  So we saw Guayaquil...but only a little.  But I'm still counting it as one of the "places I've been".  Don't judge.

The first hour of the bus ride was driving past palm farms.  Then, it started to get noticeably colder quickly, as we drove into the shadow of a mountain.  We headed up this mountain, into Cajas National Park.  The rest of the trip was winding up, and then down again, the Andes mountains.  It was cold, but I was weirdly hot (for once in my life), so it was refreshing.  Going up the mountain was absolutely beautiful.  I will always pick a beach view over mountain view, but I cannot deny that those mountains were breathtaking.  We were often at a level with the fog (well, really, clouds), so we could just see the dense greenery on either side of the bus, and then a straight drop into cloudy nothingness.  It was terrifying and so cool.  There were various farms nestled in the 20 feet between the road and cliff and James saw some wild llamas (I freakin' missed them!).  As we were nearing the peak of one of the mountains, we passed a little girl in a poncho, standing outside her glorified shack, holding a string with a goat on the other end of it.  And all I could think was, wow, I can't even fathom how different this girl's life has been from mine.  Seriously, it's unimaginable.

Three hours later as we were finally driving into Cuenca, it got *slightly* warmer, and the greens turned from dark forest green to bright, grass green.  Driving into Cuenca was mind-blowing.  "Cuenca is so weird!" was the anthem to our Ecuador trip.  As we were driving in, it looked like we were in the Swiss Alps.  The fields and the houses looked like NOTHING either of us had ever seen in South/Central America.  And as we got into the city, we were even more flabbergasted.  It was so beautiful.  Cobblestone streets, European buildings with red tile roofs, beautifully landscaped parks and plazas.  Don't get me wrong...Cartagena definitely has it's beauty.  Coral walls, colonials houses paints all hues, flowered balconies...but Cuenca was...strange in how different it was (difference #4).  It really looked like a little town in France or Italy.  But, difference #5, it strangely had way more graffiti than Cartagena.  Most of the buildings had some graffiti, but a lot of it had been turned into "street art", which means they just spray painted over the word with a picture.  I'd rather have a clean building, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Cuenca or Switzerland?  Hard to tell. (It's Switzerland)

It was fairly cold (to me) while we were there.  We were usually all wearing at least a light jacket.  I think it was in the 60s-70s.  The weirdest part to me was that it wasn't very sunny there.  While we were there it was always cloudy, but if you looked up beyond the patchy sky, you could see beautiful blue sky.  So it wasn't like rainy-cloudy, but just like we were constantly in the shadow of a cloud.  Kind of strange, not my favorite.  But when the sun was out, boy was it strong!  The sun would peek through for 30 seconds and we'd be stripping off layers as quick as we could.

Difference #6: The Ecuadorian style.  My first impression was that they dressed classier than Colombians...but then I just realized that they were all wearing jackets and boots, and the mystery was solved.  The clothes underneath those items were the same, but a good jacket and boot can really class up a look (apparently).  Difference #7, we also noticed how easy it was to understand every single thing that was being said around us.  The Cuencan Spanish is BEAUTIFUL.  I never had a problem understanding anyone, whereas here in the land of the Costenos, I understand 50%, at best.  But they did use different words, which I thought was interesting...there are a lot of verbs that mean the same thing in Spanish (or any language), and Ecuadorians seems to use all synonyms to Colombian words.  They used manejar instead of conducir (both to drive...but we use manejar more like manage).  They used departamento instead of apartamento (apartment).  Those are the only ones I remember now, but everywhere I looked the words were different from Cartagena's.  And they used the diminutives more, -ito and ita-ing everything, which is like saying "little", or as I like to think of it, cute.  "Tengo una preguntita..." "I have a little question..."

Difference #8:  There were A LOT of gringos there, which I didn't love.  We also heard a lot of English being thrown around.  It made it feel all the more European.  Cool, if you're in Europe...but I want a different culture!

Difference #9: the Ecuadorians were SO NICE.  I had low expectations, because as you already know, my perception of Cartagenians is that they can be, well...cold.  But I felt super welcome everywhere we went, and the Ecuadorian ladies totally fell for James' charms.  I am, to this day, shocked that Colombian women don't giggle at James' every joke, because older women in America certainly do.  But the Ecuadorians were like putty in his hands.

Kaley and Aaron had an amazing apartment that was less than a block from a huge park and two cathedrals (with a least two more cathedrals just one block further).  Their apartment was a studio, but a huge studio that was just perfect.  And it had the most amazing view of the nearest cathedral.  They were kind enough to let us crash on their uber comfortable sectional, so we didn't have to pay for a hotel.  Win!  Plus, they cooked us delicious meals so, double win!

How 'bout that view, eh?

While in Cuenca, we checked out many a good restaurant.  Difference #10: all of the food was better than anything we've eaten in Colombia.  A lot of it is similar, but it's just more flavorful there.  The typical Colombian plate is meat or fish, rice, "salad", and patacones, or fried plantain (like a banana) patties.  The typical Ecuadorian meal was meat or fish, rice, menestra - which seems to be really soupy lentils - and patacones.  We saw tons of menestra, but I didn't try it because I'm very picky and frankly, it looked pretty gross.  They also had salchipapas, which is cut up salchichas (hot dogs) on top of fries.  I was really surprised that's not a Colombian thing as well, because that seems right up their alley.  And they sold plantains "maduro", which was really strange to me.  In Colombia, to make patacones, they buy green plantains.  When they are green, they are almost the consistency of a potato, so they're much easier to squish and fry.  But it doesn't work when they are yellow, or maduro (ripe).  Trust us, we've tried. #gringofail. I don't know what the maduro is like, but I hope it's better than what James and I tried to make at home.

  Anyone for some barf on a plate?  I guess it doesn't look much different than refried beans...

One of our days in Cuenca, we went up to a cathedral on top of a neighboring hill, and got crazy views of the whole valley that Cuenca is so sweetly nestled in.  From there, we could see how strange all of Cuenca is (red brick buildings everywhere), which caused us to utter "Cuenca is so weird!" furthermore.   This area also holds an adventure zone (naturally) which has a famous swing that pushes you out over the valley.  We got in for a measly $2 each, and each took a turn on what I call a jungle swing.  We were (sort of) harnessed, and then flung over a 15-20 ft drop(I'm probably exaggerating that).  It was super fun, and free, after our $2 admission!  We went to check out the famous swing, and decided it wasn't worth the money.  You essentially sat in a patio chair and then swung out for 30 seconds.  We were satisfied with the amazing view we already had, and from the free activities, so we didn't do it.

 
Another day, we got on a bus to go to the famous Ingapirca ruins.  From what Aaron could find on the internet (which was next-to-nothing), we thought the bus ride would be 1 hour - 1 1/2.  After making multiple stops to pick people up, we finally got to Ingapirca 2 1/2 hours later, to be told that our return bus would be back in less than an hour and a half.  Here's the thing...James and I have been gone from the states for a looong time.  We walk everywhere in Cartagena, except once a day on a mototaxi for James and a short bus ride once or twice a month if we are going somewhere far.  So we are not used to being cooped up in cars.  Count it, to this point in the trip, we had been on two 1 1/2 hour bus rides, then a 4 hour bus ride, then this 2 1/2 bus ride, plus countless taxi rides and our flights coming in.  At this point, I honestly didn't think I could do it.  I am a lover of road trips, but Colombia may have changed that for me.  I really thought they would have to drag me back on the bus.  I was contemplating living in the ruins of the Incan temple for the rest of my life.  But I digress...

The very friendly ladies at the front desk told us we needed a guide to get in to see the ruins.  We weren't super keen on that, since we only had a little over an hour at this point to see the ruins and try to cram some food in our gullets before getting on the bus back.  So we walked over to the gate to try to get in and the guy told us we had to wait for a guide.  Urgh!  Ten minutes later, a lady comes up and promises to hustle through the tour.  And she did!  It was great.  Honestly, I don't think we would have wanted to spend more than an hour at the ruins, but after the long bus ride and with our hungry stomachs, we needed more time to eat something substantial, stretch our legs and maybe wander around the valley.  But we got our pictures, saw some cool Incan ruins, and got some snacks within our allotted time.  The nice ladies told us that our bus company shouldn't have given us a round trip ticket...if we had bought a one-way ticket, we could have just hitched a ride with any of the buses in the neighboring town.  So, lesson learned.  If you ever go to Ingapirca, get a one-way ticket and figure it out from there.  Worse comes to worst, you have to spend one night in a quaint Ecuadorian mountain town.

Kaley and Aaron, are, like us, Mormons.  We were excited to go to their ward (Mormon-speak for congregation) to see how similar/different it was to ours.  Aaron left an hour early and we promised to be right behind him after we got ready.  But then...Kaley couldn't find her keys, and you can't get out of their apartment building without keys.  After turning their apartment upside down, we realized that Aaron must have both sets of keys.  He came back to rescue us, but unfortunately, we had missed the first hour Spanish sacrament meeting.  By the time we got there, the second hour Sunday School was ending, so Kaley and I headed to Primary for the third hour.  I met some wild kids and was graciously offered some pan de Pascua for the New Year.  Pan de Pascua is actually Easter bread, but apparently they give it to you at New Years and Christmas as well.  We have this in Colombia too.  It's bread with raisins (but like, BIG raisins), nuts, and other things that I don't really want to spend too much time thinking about.  It is not very good to my gringa taste buds, but it's a tradition.  After Primary, we went to English sacrament meeting.  What?  Yes, they have enough gringos in their ward to have an English sacrament meeting.

New Years Eve was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.  In Ecuador, they burn effigies of people or characters at midnight to get rid of the bad and make room for the new.  Or, at least, that's what it used to be about...we also saw a lot of cartoon characters that I don't think anyone really had a personal grudge against (what did Woody and Buzz ever do to you :(?).  The humbler effigies were a papier mache head with a stuffed cloth body.  And real clothes!  I'm surprised they would burn perfectly good clothes.  Seems more like a wasteful American thing to me.  The more elaborate, bigger effigies were all papier mache, or something similar.

We walked around at about 9 PM to see all of the effigies before they were burned.  There were some amazing, intricate, large presentations.  It seems like it's kind of a contest now, like Christmas lawn decorations.  We saw Angry Birds, the Toy Story characters, the Colombian President, countless Ecuadorian politicians, and the Brazil soccer team that recently died in a plane crash (I thought it was in bad taste to burn them, but 1) we don't know if they actually burned them and 2) the display was very respectful and clearly mourning rather than mocking).  However, our favorites were the ones of Trump.  There was one display close to the apartment, with a 10 ft. tall Trump behind a wall with fake people climbing up it.  They also had actual people surrounding it in costume.  There was Trump, and a beauty queen, and I honestly don't know who else, but there was a cast of like 9 real people.  Pretty impressive.  The real gem of the evening was a super elaborate, and frankly, frightening, display of a 15 ft. Trump, with gravestones of all the Latin American countries placed before a giant American flag with a swastika in place of the stars.  We walked pretty quickly away from it, just in case things got a little heated.  But Kaley and Aaron's gringo friends were there for the midnight burning and said that the atmosphere was very light, so apparently we had nothing to worry about.  But I was a little sickened by it, simply because it's hard to know that that is the way some other countries see America now.

A few minutes before midnight, we went out and lit small fireworks in the streets.  After we ran out of those, we walked to a plaza in front of a cathedral, where they already had a huge pile of effigies burning.  People would walk up and just toss theirs onto the pile.  The DJ and the crowd counted down to midnight and everyone kissed their partner.  Who needs Times Square?  Eventually, the pile got very large and the fire was very high.  At this point, boys starting jumping over it.  So, naturally, Aaron and James both did it as well.  The DJ and crowd were goading people to do it, and it was fun to celebrate with a crowd of happy Ecuadorians.

Our last day before heading back, we went to a spa.  If you got there early in the morning, you could get in 2 for 1 and spend the whole day there.  We quickly handed over our $35 per couple and headed in.  This spa was amazing, although small.  I would never even consider paying for even one of these luxuries at an American spa, but $17.50 for an all access pass ain't bad!   We hit the steam room then headed to the mud pools.  They had two outdoor mud pools...a red and a blue.  Each mud was supposed to do something different (which I don't remember) and they left our skin feeling silky smooth.  We would get into the warm (water) pools, smear mud (from the sides of the pool) all over our bodies, and then sit out to dry.  This would have been 100% more enjoyable if it wasn't "cold" outside.  I chickened out and got back in the pools early every time, but the pools in themselves were nice to soak in.  After that, we went to a cave (!) for our hot-cold pool treatment.  The cave was dark with candlelight and soft music.  So dreamy.  We hung out in the hot tubs and then all braved the cold pool.  I didn't get in past my feet, but everyone else fully submerged, and regretted it instantly.  The water felt like snow-melt from just that morning.  It was inexplicably cold.  After going back and forth a few times, we went for another steam treatment.  This time, we were all placed into boxes with just our heads sticking out so the rest of our body got steam while our heads were out in the fresh air (thankfully).  If we had been smarter, we definitely would have gotten a picture of the 4 floating heads, but alas, we didn't, so you'll just have to rely on your imagination.  After that, we went to one of the many swimming pools on site which were also super warm.  And then we did parts of the circuit a few times and just chilled in the pool until lunch time.

While in Cuenca, we also explored the nearest cathedral, a small "museum", the flower market, the artisan market, the food market, a river, and some sweet ruins that were smack in the middle of the city (with llamas!).  While wandering around, we also learned difference #11, that Ecuadorians cannot dance. Let me rephrase that...they can dance, but they dance like gringos, "shuffling their feet and putting their hands in the air," as a Colombian once accurately described gringo dancing to us.  I thought it was hilarious, because Colombians, specifically Costenos, are all born with terrific rhythm and amazing dancing skills.  Seriously.  Every single one of them can dance to salsa, champeta, vallenato, bachata, cumbia...I'm sure I'm forgetting at least 30 others.  The point is, Cartagenians can dance their brains out, and look dang good doing it.  Ecuadorians...not so much.

I dreaded our 4 hour bus trip home and even looked at flights from Cuenca to Guayaquil.  But they were more than we wanted to spend, so we gritted our teeth and got on another bus.  Unfortunately, we missed the bus we wanted to take to make sure we had plenty of time to get to and through the airport, so we had to sit in the bus station for an extra 40 minutes.  And once on the bus, despite all the dramatics, we didn't even die, or lose our minds, or get permanent damage to our tailbones.   But we were both hangry and generally ornery, so after a rushed meal and getting turned around on our way to the airport, we finally made it.  After some super ridiculous antics at the airport (that I'm still fuming about...you've fallen from grace in my book, Avianca), we made all of our flights and hated every minute of the ride home.  We finally got home after midnight (after my usually calm, collected James blew up at 3 Cartagena taxi drivers) and vowed to never go anywhere again.
 
The next morning, we felt better and now we look back fondly on our trip to Ecuador.  Bet you didn't see that ending coming, did ya?

We loved a lot of things about Ecuador.  I would definitely be willing to go and check out more of their beach towns.  We don't care to live in Cuenca because it's cold, doesn't have a beach, and isn't the South American experience that we want.  But we loved visiting, and I'm glad we've seen something a little different.  And I'm grateful that we were able to spend part of the holidays with good friends.

The wide, clean streets of Cuenca

November festivos, ghetto beach trip, and Greg the gecko

To get you in the spirit of Christmas...this is our lobby's Christmas decoration. It's a nativity with large ceramic figurines, toy animals and vegetation, green kitty litter (I think?), with a backdrop of brown paper, like a grocery bag.  And like 80 strings of lights.  It's just about the ugliest thing ever.

We have a lot to catch up on (things from October and maybe even beyond!), so let's get into it.

Fun experiences:

-First time I've ever seen a firefly.  It was in our house, and it was awesome. 'Nuff said.

-Hurricane Matthew came through and it just rained and rained...and rained.  That was really all we got.  The ocean was rougher than usual (which means it was still only about half as rough as our beloved California coast) and it rained.  That's it.  But it was a big deal to the Colombians, because they don't have weather here in Cartagena.  Ever.  But our internet and power didn't even go out. Usually a slight wind will take one or both out.  But I attribute that mostly to it being General Conference weekend, and we needed to hear from the prophet.

-We went to a Family Home Evening with a bunch of ward members one night.  At the end, someone suggested that we all go to a beautiful beach nearby on the next Monday, which everyone had off from work.  Beautiful beach? Nearby?  We're in!  We show up at the appointed house at the appointed time to find that we are the only ones there, besides the family that lived in the house.  I thought, of course, everyone will be late.  What were we thinking coming on time?  However, we quickly learned that we weren't waiting for anyone, and none of the family was coming with us except for the dad.  So me, James, and Man set off for this beach.

I'm not going to lie, at this point, I was already pretty disenchanted with the trip.  Beach trip with group of ward members, some of whom would be around our age, sounds a lot more attractive than beach trip with Man who could be our dad. But we obviously had to go, otherwise it would just be Man on beach trip.  But maybe he felt just as obligated as we did...we all probably should have just called it a day at that point.  But instead, we hopped on a bus that was more full than any other bus we have ever been on.  I was holding onto a bar with 2 fingers and hoping that my feet wouldn't slip off the step I was on, because I'd be dead.  James was even worse.  He was most of the way out the door, with just his toes in the bus, the rest of his foot mere feet from the asphalt.  It was a horrific bus ride.  Luckily, it emptied out fairly quickly and we were able to get seats.  What we didn't realize was that this bus ride was going to be like a half hour+ long.  It's pretty easy to get car sick just from a short bus ride, so we were pretty green by the end.  The cool thing was, the bus went through some slums and emerged onto the beach, where it drove on the sand for 10 minutes.  Didn't help the sickness, but definitely a unique and awesome experience.

The bus dropped us off at the end of the beach, where the beach abruptly gave way to a little lagoon.  Man informed us that we had to pay to cross the lagoon in small, rickety, barely-boats.  So we hopped on and prayed that the boats would last the 100 feet across the lagoon.  I was comforted when I realized that the means of getting the boat across was to push against the bottom with a long stick (a la gondola).  So if the boat sank, it's only in like 6 feet of water.  As we disembarked on the other side, we saw three men trying to get a motorcycle onto one of these boats.  Good luck, guys!

The "boat".

As the boat stopped, I had the feeling that I was an explorer entering native lands where I was not so much welcome.  I always say that I have never felt unsafe in Cartagena, which was true, up until this point.  This neighborhood, La Boquilla, was sketchy.  Hopefully Man can protect the gringos!  Man then informed us that we had to walk a short distance to the beach.  So we walked through this neighborhood, with mud streets, mostly naked children, and pigs in the road, and finally went down an alley to the beach.  But wait, this isn't the right beach.  We still have to walk.  Dang good thing, because this beach was even MORE trash-filled than our beaches.  I have never seen anything like it.  Actually, I have.  The gross, trash-filled lagoon behind our house.  I don't know why any Colombian would be shoe-less...if they just walked down this beach, they could easily make multiple pairs of shoes.  Sure, they wouldn't match, but with a variety like this, how can you complain?!

As we were walking, we come to another lagoon, this time without boats.  There is no way to walk around, and we have ALL of our stuff with us.  So I just plunged in, the highest part going about to my waist.  No, I didn't particularly want to get my shoes or dress wet, but what are you going to do? We were not prepared for any of this.  As we got to the other side, an SUV and a little crappy hatchback drive up.  The SUV cruises across the lagoon with no problems, then motions for the smaller car to come across.  We instantly knew this was a bad idea, since the water was like 3 feet deep.  But after much deliberation, they decide to try it.  The car makes it about half way across, the water practically lapping at the windows, and the car starts to smoke.  The woman inside pushes it a little further and then gets scared and turns it off, making it slide back to about 3/4 of the way.  She then opens the door, letting a foot of ocean water in her car.  Some locals had been swimming nearby and ran over to help.  They told her to just try to drive it out.  The poor car just died.  Then they tried to push it, but it was lodged in sand, and filled with ocean water, thanks to the brilliant door-open.  James went to help push, but they just couldn't get it out.  One local grabbed a large stick and tried to pry it out.  Meanwhile, this woman keeps opening the door to scream at them.  Her husband is on the shore screaming at her to open the window instead of the door.  Uh, duh!  The SUV driver provides a rope to attach to both cars, and he tries to drag the car out.  Finally after everyone pushes for 10 minutes, the car finally pops out.  Welp, that's their beach day ruined, not to mention their car.

We keep walking and finally encounter the beach.  By the way, we had no idea we were in for all of this.  We were told: short bus ride then beach.  We had no idea it would be long bus ride, gondola ride, 1/2 mile walk through sketchy neighborhood, 1 mile walk (in sand) to actual beach.  So it took us like 2 hours to get there.  I was not happy and quickly realized I was not up for an all day beach trip.  But it just took us 2 hours and twice as much money as we thought!  I was even less enthused when I found out that we had to purchase fish lunches to have use of the shade and hammocks on the beach.  I had no desire to stay for lunch.  But I plopped myself in a chair and enjoyed the sun and the deserted, slightly-nicer-but-still-not-great beach.  After we had been there for about an hour, Man asked if we were ready to go.  Oh...I guess?  I wasn't disappointed, since I had been ready to go from the moment we got on that crowded bus, but really?  Two hour terrible trip, spend an hour on the beach, then prepare yourself for another horrible two hour trip?  So we hiked back, took the gondola, rode the bus and got home.  Being sick and hungry, we decided to order Dominos, our comfort food.  However, upon opening the website, we were informed that they weren't delivering to us for some reason.  NOOOOOO!!!!! All in all, one of the more hilarious, but more terrible experiences we've had here. James loved the adventure.

Oh, Cartagena.  So close, and yet so far away.

-For my birthday, James bought me a weeks worth of intense Spanish classes.  A lot of the people that come to South America to "find themselves and learn Spanish," learn from such places.  It was great to have to speak Spanish for 4 hours a day. The whole class was in Spanish, and we could only speak English for strange vocabulary words.  So it was great for my listening/speaking skills.  And I learned a lot about Colombia from my teacher.  I used this as an opportunity to ask him every question I had about Cartagena.  So now, when I write stuff about Colombia like I know what I'm talking about, it's probably because it's something he said.  Probably. :)  The other weird bonus about the class was how much I learned about Australia and Europe.  My class had 1 Australian guy, 2 Swiss-German ladies, and a German couple.  So as we asked questions or compared our countries to Colombia, I learned all sorts of random facts about their countries.  Did you know that these people only have to work for a couple of years and then they get like a year sabbatical?  Why is the US so behind the times in regards to work time off?  People need a break!  So now I can boldly act like an expert about even more places!  Yes!

November festivities:

Cartagena is famous for the November festivos.  Barranquilla has Carnaval, we have festivos de Noviembre.  It starts with All Saints Day (I think?) then ends with Cartagena's Independence Day.  James had Monday off, then had to go into work for training on Tuesday and half of Wednesday.  Then he didn't go back to work until the following Tuesday.  Pretty sweet deal.  I will definitely miss all the excuses not to work when we get back to the States.  People cautioned us to be careful and wear crappy clothes from Monday-Monday.  They told us not to take our phones out and maybe even to just stay inside.  So, we didn't listen to them, and tried to find the fun.  OK, calm down, we weren't that reckless.  But we had not seen any of the things that everyone talked about...the firecrackers, the partying in the street, the men who would douse you in black chalk if you didn't give them money...nada.  So we went about our business as usual until Friday.

Friday was the day that everyone told us to be VERY careful, so we decided we probably would stay inside.  There is a highway between our house and the ocean that stretches along the whole coast of Cartagena.  They closed it down.  Sorry everyone, hope you weren't going anywhere.  I tried to order Dominos, the order went through, and then it never showed up.  Stupid me, I should have known that one street being closed would mean no Dominos.  Thanks for letting me down once again, Colombian Dominoes.  One side of the street was for the parade, and the other side was for the crowd.  The crowd started building around 12, and we people-watched from our window as people sprayed foam at each other.  The parade was supposed to start at 2, so it came by our house at about 2:40.  By this time, the crowd had grown immensely, so they almost completely filled up the two lanes of traffic allotted for them.  The parade was just like any parade except it had a lot of dancers and bands and very small, very sporadic, floats.  The floats didn't really seem to have themes.  Palm trees and half naked girl.  Mini replica of the wall and half naked girl.  Giant face and half naked girl.  So, the theme was half naked girl.  Usually during the November festivos they have the Miss Colombia contest, right here in Cartagena.  I was super pumped to hear this because for some reason, girls like watching beauty contests.  But I was let down, because this year, of all years, they are not doing it in November.  C'mon!  But I would assume that the floats usually have Miss Colombia candidates instead of random half naked girls.  Or maybe they did, and I just didn't know who they were.

After watching the parade for about an hour, James and I decided to go down and join the fun.  By this point, we had seen teenage girls getting rushed by hordes of teenage boys, foam being sprayed EVERYWHERE, random strangers smearing paint on each other, and firecrackers being thrown right at people's feet in the middle of the crowd.  So we left money, phones, jewelry, etc. at home, put on clothes we didn't care about, and headed downstairs.

The moment the doors to our building opened, we were assaulted with the smell of street food, shouting, and loud music.  We thought we were getting a pretty good idea from 15 floors up, but we had no idea.  I don't think I've ever been in the midst of a crowd so wild.  It was so fun!  We walked 3/4 mile down the parade route to our grocery store, all while getting foamed, smeared with paint and corn meal, and avoiding the many firecrackers exploding at our feet.  It was exhilarating.  When we got to the intersection by the grocery store, we found ourselves at the edges of a street fight.  We didn't get a chance to take a look (yes, we're those people) because all of a sudden, a large group of laughing Colombians started charging at us like they were running from zombies, but enjoying themselves while doing it.  We backed up to see if the zombie threat was real, and were passed by Colombian cavalry cops on horses, wielding small bats to break up the fight.  It was, to date, one of the most hilarious things we've seen in Colombia.  Seriously, I'm laughing my head off just remembering it.  It's one of those moments that you just wish you could drop in a Pensieve for everyone to be able to watch it.

Five of these came charging at us.  I felt like I was in the Civil War (?)

We decided to go into the center of town to see if anything was going on there.  We made a detour for some McDonald's ice cream and were confronted by two homeless people dressed and painted in black.  These were the guys everyone cautioned us against.  You are supposed to give them money, otherwise they will "get you" with black paint or chalk.  Hearing about this months ago, I was outraged.  Beggars are going to THREATEN me if I don't give them money?  Uh uh.  But, in that moment, I realized that it was part of the tradition and fun.  We quickly slipped small coins into their hands, and they walked off to harass someone else.  Not a big deal.  We got our ice cream and headed into the center.  Unfortunately, nothing was really happening there, so we decided to head back to the coast.

On the way back, I saw a Colombian man angrily throw a half-full beer bottle at an unsuspecting shirtless gringo's back.  It missed, and the gringo didn't even know that it had happened.  From what I saw, the gringo did nothing to provoke the man.  However, we have been told that walking around shirtless is something that only tourists and crazy people do, so maybe he was outraged about that?  That was the only time I worried about being gringos and being out on the streets, but of course, the rest of the Colombians couldn't have cared less that we were there.  Maybe I missed an altercation of some sort, but, really guy?  I think that having beer thrown at me would be the worst insult ever.

As we walked back, it started to rain.  Most of the Colombian found shelter, or started heading home, but we walked the mile back to our apartment in the rain and got SOAKED.  Seriously, our clothes and shoes didn't dry out for days.  Despite the rain, the people in the parade were still going strong.  The poor high school marching band and salsa dancers were soaked through, but they didn't seem to mind at all.  Their heads were in the game.  On the way back, we passed a few floats that were blasting music.  For each of these floats, there was a crowd of regular Colombians following alongside them, singing at the top of their lungs and dancing.  We made it back to our apartment and the parade was STILL going on!  It ended up lasting at least 3 1/2 hours, maybe even more.  Colombians know how to party!  We loved every single part of the festivos.

Differences between Colombia and the States:

-I know I've talked about it before, but the singing in church is just awful.  However, even though they are terrible singers, they sing with gusto.  I love it.  Never have I sung so loudly in church.  I'm going to go back to the States and be that person that sings so loud but doesn't have a great voice and you think "does she think she sounds good?".  Nope, she probably just lived in Latin America for a while.  And good on 'er.

-I woke up one night with a cockroach crawling on my arm.  Yes, I know that could happen in the States.  But I still think it belongs here because I would wager that it happens much more often here than in the States.  It was gross and traumatizing.

-We have a wild gecko living in our house.  We have named him Greg.  He has been living with us for like 4 months, no joke.  He lives in the space between the plaster and the casing around our front door and he usually only comes out at night.  Do you think Colombian customs will let me take him home with us?

-A lot of the Colombians got full head braids for the festivos, and dyed pieces of their hair red or yellow.  I'm sure there's a name for that other than full head braids, but I don't know it, and I'm sure you can imagine what I'm talking about.  I'm not sure why we don't have holiday-specific hairstyles, but I think we should start this tradition in the States.  I do look good with a mean corn row.

-November has proved to be the season of high seas.  To me, it seems that for the first time, the waves are big enough for beginner boogie boarders.  To Colombians, it's time to surf!  There have been surfers most mornings for the past few weeks, and we watch as they try to surf in 4 feet of water.  It's commendable, really.  They actually do pretty well.

Well, it's been a great few months in Colombia.  Christmas decorations are going up everywhere and we're excited to spend the week before Christmas with a Colombian that James knew on his mission, and after Christmas with our friends in ECUADOR!  The next posts should be fun!  Until then, Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo!

James bought me a $2 Christmas tree and some blue LED lights.  Our house now looks like the inside of a stripper club (I assume).  This was the best picture we could take, and I think it conveys the spirit of the tree nicely.  If you don't hear from us for a few days, it's probably because our brains exploded and we're rotting away in Colombia.  On that note...

The Adventures of Aunt Jeanie: A Complete Retelling

You've all seen the pictures, now you get to hear the tale of Aunt Jeanie's epic trip.  I have plenty more to write about, including November festivos, the American election from Colombia, ghetto beach trip and more, but I feel like I need to get Jeanie's trip out of my brain before I forget all of the hilarity.  So without further ado...

First, an introduction to Jeanie.  Jeanie is James' hilarious, sweet, fun aunt.  Like, if James were a woman, he would probably be pretty similar to Jeanie.  It's fun to watch James and Jeanie banter back and forth and enjoy each other.  And she's also super positive and sweet.  The Colombians LOVED when she tried to speak Spanish (of which she actually learned a lot this week!) and she was so excited about EVERYTHING.  She was like Buddy the Elf, but not stupid.  She literally said this to James one day:

So James and I were pumped when Jeanie started seriously talking about coming down to see us.
She arrived on Saturday afternoon and was instantly taken with our ocean view from the apartment.  And our apartment in general.  She proclaimed it "perfect", which it honestly is (minus hot water).  Saturday we just sat around and visited while Jeanie people-watched from the window.  We had dinner at our favorite restaurant, La esquina de Yina, and Jeanie was super pumped about how good the food was, since we always complain about Colombian food.  Yina's for the win!

Jeanie was most excited to go to church with us on Sunday.  She was so amazed at how similar it is to Mormon churches in the States. Our Relief Society uses a tablecloth and flower vase and everything!  But really, our church is amazing, in that it is an instant community anywhere you go, and everything is pretty much the same around the world.  However, this Sunday was a little different...our ward had been to the temple in Bogota all week, so almost no one was there at the beginning because they were still on their way back.  So we had Primary first, Sunday School second, and Sacrament Meeting third.  Starting out with Primary was great...except I only had like 6 kids.  But Jeanie loved the singing and the lesson and the Primary President's son, who really is the cutest 4/5 year old on the planet.  James taught Sunday School and likened the lesson to Doctor Strange (naturally) which Jeanie and I thought was hilarious but the Colombians didn't really seem to understand.  He got the point across though, and looked really cute doing it :).

Monday was our big day.  We went to the castle in the morning, and Jeanie got to take her first bus ride.  She loved it.  We got off at the castle and were instantly ambushed by a vendor selling hats.  Vendors are generally terrible, but Jeanie needed a hat so we didn't just dismiss him like we normally would.  In fact, Jeanie made the mistake of looking interested, and so he wouldn't leave us alone after we walked away from his overpriced hats.  But never fear, James the haggle-master is here!  James got him down from 45,000 pesos ($15) to 8,000 (less than $3).  Win, win, win.  It was a dang good thing we bought the hat, because, while it was "cool" and overcast when we left the house, 20 minutes later at the castle it was super sunny and blazing hot.  One of our first stops at the castle was a little movie in the old hospital.  This was not available when James and I came the first time.  We went and sat down for the last 5 minutes of it, and then the lady offered to play it again for us in English.  So nice!  So we watched a 25 minute movie about the castle and learned so much about Cartagena's history.  Like really, the little history we thought we knew before this was wrong, and this cleared up so much confusion.  To give you a mini lesson, the Spanish built the wall around the city to protect it from pirates on the Caribbean.  Then the English decided to come down South America way for some reason. They were a greater threat, since they came from the bay side.  So the Spanish built a subterranean wall at one entrance to the bay, and then put forts at the other.  But the English somehow were still able to attack by land, so they built the castillo and protected the city from that direction.  Interesting, no?  Clearly I don't actually remember very much of it.  But the best part of the castle other than the movie was when Jeanie got brave enough to go down into the tunnels and James tried to take her picture.  I crouched in a nearby alcove so that I wouldn't be in the picture.  Jeanie turned around to ask where I was and I was lurking in the shadows behind her and accidentally scared the crap out of her.  Hilarious.

After the castle, we went to the mall.  Jeanie was amazed at how American the mall seemed.  Now you know why it's my favorite place.  We meet the gringos from our ward there and were entertained all through lunch by the 3 little girls playing with their McDonald's Cajita Feliz toys.  Jeanie had another A+ meal, which included chicken, pork, steak, chorizo, yuca fries, and plantain.  Honestly, the best part of this trip was that Jeanie got great food every time...because it really is a hit or miss, even if you go places that you find you like.  So we were super grateful for that.

The gringos dropped us off near the wall so we could go explore the center of town.  Jeanie was instantly charmed by the balconies with flowers and vines growing on them, and was instantly repulsed by the black mold growing on the buildings.  It's an interesting juxtaposition.

Tuesday, Jeanie went to school with James.  James teaches for like 5 hours in the morning, so the plan was for me to come after the first class so Jeanie and I could do something else.  But Colombia had something else in mind.  The sky opened up and POURED for a few hours.  It started right after Jeanie and James walked out the door and they had to huddle under a bus stop for 10 minutes before an available taxi came by.  That rain was the worst weather we've seen here, besides Hurricane Matthew.  It was crazy.  So Jeanie had to stay for James' next class...and no one showed up.  So Jeanie and James just watched the rain until I finally got there.  They had a 5 gallon trash can in the courtyard of James' school, which filled up TWICE in an hour from the rain.  That is some crazy rain.  When I left the house, I had thought that the rain had stopped.  But I was wrong.  So when I got to James' school, we still couldn't do anything, so we all just sat around in an empty classroom.  James' next class was speaking corner, which is where people can pay to come and speak English to a teacher for an hour.  So Jeanie and I went with, and spoke to a 15 year old girl about things she liked.  Spoiler alert, they were the same as an American 15 year old girl.  Jeanie tried to tell her about Wyoming, but then she learned that James and I had lived in California and wanted to know all about that instead.  Here's the thing...Colombians think that America is New York, Miami, or Los Angeles.  Like I think if you plopped one in the middle of Nebraska, they would be so disappointed and confused.  But I'm sure Americans have similar misconceptions about other foreign places too.

After we had chatted with the Colombian girl for a few minutes, Jeanie and I left James to it and went to the Bovedas.  These are vaults in the old wall where people have little tourist shops.  This is pretty much the only place in the city that a random person on the street speaks English.  Or at least knows a few English words.  We both were quickly overwhelmed by the vendors, and so we went back to meet James for lunch.  For lunch, we went to Woko Woko, which is kind of like Colombia's Panda Express.  It's pretty good.  After that, we went to the grocery store, which Jeanie said looked just like America.  Until she got to the meat section.  Colombians use ALL of the animal, and display intestines, hooves, etc.  So that's fun.  Then we went over to the produce section, where Jeanie found green oranges, passion fruit, tree tomatoes, and yuca.  The cashier didn't have 10,000 of change (about 3 dollars), so we had to wait 5 minutes for her to get the change.  I'm so glad that Jeanie got to see some of our everyday Colombian experiences.

On Wednesday, James had to work until noon, so Jeanie and I went on a bus tour around the city.  It was so wonderful!  It was nice and cool(ish) and the headsets spoke in English.  It was great!  We saw all the sights, and all of the different neighborhoods (in the coastal, touristy part of the city).  My favorite part was at the very beginning, when we confirmed where Gabriel Garcia Marquez's house was.  There have been rumors and hearsay, but now we actually know where it is.  Thanks City Sightseeing Buses!

We met James at his school and arrived in time for the last half of speaking corner again, where we talked with two other Colombian students.  The girl had lived in America for a couple of years...when we asked where she had lived she said "Coral Springs" (as in Florida, the only place Colombians ever move to), but Jeanie and I heard "Colorado Springs" (like, real America) and so we got all excited and started talking about Colorado.  Then James stopped us and told us it was Coral Springs, because he had made the same exact mistake the first time the girl came.  Whoops!  After school was out, we went to lunch in a restaurant right in front of the San Pedro cathedral.  Jeanie had the Thai fish and proclaimed it to be the best fish she had ever had ever.  James tried it and proclaimed the same.  Score another for Colombia!

Then we explored Getsemani (the missionaries joke that it is so named because of all the blood that was spilt there...because it was the most dangerous neighborhood in Cartagena through the 70s-80s).  Now it's a bohemian hipster neighborhood with tons of hostels and bars.  This is where we stayed when we first came to Cartagena, and while it was fun, we much prefer our quiet beach living now.  Getsemani is cool, because it has super old buildings and tons of people in the street...but it's also kind of ghetto and graffiti-y (oh, excuse me, it has a lot of "street art").  Jeanie was less charmed by this neighborhood, but we still saw some cool things.  On the bus home, James told everyone in Spanish that he was going to take a picture and tried to get them to smile and say "Whisky!" (that's what they say instead of "Cheese!") and most of them were NOT amused.  I heard a lot of grumbling.  C'mon James!  These people just want to get home!

This is my favorite grouping of people from that picture...we've got a couple of smilers, some people who are totally ignoring him, and a sassy "c'mon, really?" smile.

Thursday was our chill day.  We woke up late (7:30 AM...the noise from the street usually wakes you up promptly at 6), and headed down to the beach when we felt like it.  Up to this point, Jeanie had not been in our ocean at all.  She had looked at it plenty, but never been in the water.  We were just doing so many other things, that we didn't even realize it.  She was amazed at how warm the water was, but because the day started out overcast and the ocean was slightly colder than usual, I was cold.  The ocean quickly became unattractive, because there was the usual trash floating around us.  We sat on the beach for a few minutes and then went to our pool.  James and I were too big of babies to get in the freezing unheated pool, but Jeanie swam around for a few minutes.  Then we took our chairs over to the edge and just people-watched the people on the street below and talked about books.  A+ activity.

For lunch, we went into town to get some arepas at a place highly recommended by Colombians.  Arepas are like the #1 food of Colombia (at least the coast where we live).  They eat them everywhere, all the time.  They are corn flour pockets filled with an egg, cheese, beef, or chicken, or any combination of those things.  Usually they are pretty plain tasting (to me).  These ones were pretty good!  James and Jeanie found a sauce that they really loved, and said it transformed the arepa and was delicious.  Then we went to a vendor who sells deditos (my favorite), which are the bread covered mozzarella sticks that I've raved about.  Jeanie loved them.  She said it tasted like the crust of a stuffed crust pizza.  After that, we went to Rafael Nunez's house, which is just down the street from our apartment, and somewhere we pass on a daily basis.  After going through the house, I kind of feel like an idiot for never going through before.  It was free to get in, and you could pay a guide in tips.  We declined the guide, because we just wanted to wander around.  James and I stopped to look at something, and the security guard came up and started telling us all about the house, basically giving us a tour because he thought we were too cheap to pay a guide...which we were.  Unfortunately, it was in Spanish, so James and I listened while Jeanie found a nice, cool place to sit.

Rafael Nunez was a President of Colombia in the late 19th century, who served 4 terms (not all consecutively).  He is most famous for creating the constitution and for writing Colombia's national anthem (which is SUPER cool, by the way.  More on that later).  He got married in Panama and had a few kids, and then decided to leave his wife, but not divorce her.  He then met Soledad Roman, who was a Cartagenian, and whose family owned this beautiful house.  He decided to marry her, but the Catholic church had some major issues with him getting married again, since he was still married, and so Soledad was shunned at church.  So she decided to build her own church right across the street from their house.  Hilarious.  The most interesting part for me was that Soledad's dad was a Spanish chemist who brought over a recipe for a soda drink, which is why one of Colombia's most famous drinks today is a soda called Kola Roman, after her dad!  My mind was blown!  Because we seriously have that drink at any Colombian event.  James always describes it as "red flavor", but I would describe it as incredibly sweet artificial strawberry?  It's pretty good, and I like it more now that I know it's history (for some reason).

That night, we took Jeanie to Crepes & Waffles at the rich people mall in Bocagrande.  Our crepes were delicious.  Then we went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  It was in English with Spanish subtitles, so it was pretty much the same as in America.  But we sprung for the preferential, expensive leather seats (still less than $5 a ticket), so we watched in style.  Jeanie liked the movie (she hasn't read the full Harry Potter series) and James and I were slightly disappointed at things, but also pleasantly surprised by others.  I give it a B.  But Jeanie got to see the Colombian hot dogs that they pile with sauces, and the popcorn popper's display sign, which is still in display mode and says things like "Happy Easter", and "8 bright colors for you to choose from!".  We haven't figured out if they just haven't read the manual and don't know how to change it, or if they just don't care.  Either way, loads of laughs for us.

Friday we woke up early to hop on the boat to the Rosario islands.  This time with Jeanie, we opted for the day tour package which left at 9 and came back at 3:30.  We got one of the cheaper packages, so we were on board with all Latins, not a gringo in sight.  We smushed into a seat with 2 Colombian women, and were packed tighter than sardines.  But Jeanie LOVED the boat ride.  Before we were even out of the bay, the sky opened up and started to pour again.  We had just made a stop at an island that is really close to Cartagena, Tierra Bomba.  We picked up another boat hand there, and then headed back out to sea.  About 5 minutes later, it was raining so hard that we had to turn back to that island.  In that 5 minutes, everyone on that boat was soaked through, despite the fact that we had an awning over us.  I literally had a puddle in the lap of my dress.  So we turned back to the island and they parked the boat on a random crop of sand right by a construction site.  So Tierra Bomba doesn't have the best reputation for being the safest place, and even as you pass the little villages you think, "yeah, I would probably get killed there".  But when it's too rainy, you gotta pull in!  So the boat hands carried all of the ladies off of the boat and onto the sand and the guys had to hop out and get even more wet.  But I thought that was very courteous.

That's a poor, Colombian stranger hefting me out of the boat...other victims of the rain on the beach...and in the background, the construction zone we invaded for shelter from the rain.

So our whole boat (50 people) went and huddled under this building that was being constructed.  It was so hilarious, and I'm so happy that this happened.  But the coolest thing was that not a single person was mad or upset about it.  They were all so chill and happy to be out of the rain.  We talked about how in America, people would be demanding their money back and furious that they parked on this sketchy island, etc.  Not a single person was the least bit upset.  We have a lot to learn from Colombians.

We only huddled under the building for about 10 minutes and then the rain had mostly stopped, so we climbed back in the boat.  I was super grateful that we weren't all freezing to death for the rest of the boat ride.  Being on a boat is generally COLD.  But not in Cartagena!  We were a little cold when we were sopping wet from the rain and huddled under shelter, but once the rain stopped, it was fine. I thought that the rest of the boat trip would be miserable, because we'd be wet and in the ocean air.  But it was totally fine, and we even started to dry off.  Have I mentioned how much I love the heat here?  So we rode about 30 minutes to our first stop, the aquarium.  The aquarium was pretty tiny, but they only give you an hour to look around, so it was about perfect.  They had a couple of large tanks with medium-small fish and turtles, and then the had pens (?) outside with the bigger fish.  The cool/slightly ghetto thing about the aquarium was that the pens were literally just fenced off parts of the ocean.  And really, why not?  It's their natural habit anyways...and I bet they saved a TON of money doing it that way.  The only problem was that it was hard to see through the darkish water when it was overcast, and then when the sun came out, there was a glare on the water.  So you had to kind of stand at an angle to actually see any fish.  But they had sweet fish!  James was enamored with the nurse sharks, and repeatedly touched them (no, they weren't in a touch pool...there just weren't any rails or employees to stop you from touching them).  I loved the dolphins who were sort-of-trained?  They had a trainer do a show but the dolphins followed her directions like 80% of the time.  So that was funny.  The coolest part wasn't even a part of the show, but at the beginning and end, when the trainer hopped in the water and had one of the dolphins push her to the stage in the middle.  No big deal, just she just has a dolphin slave.

While everyone was gathered around another tank, two men passed us with a large piece of foam with a large animal inside.  I thought it was a big dead tuna for a shark or something, but turns out they were transporting a live baby dolphin.  I guess that works?  But I don't think the creators of Blackfish would like it.

Dolphin transport foam...and a better picture of the ocean pens.

There were also non-performing dolphins in the next cage over...when we walked up, one was slightly out of the water just gazing at the open ocean which was only separated by a chain link fence that came 6 inches out of the water.  So we joked that the dolphin was sad, just gazing out at freedom.  But the hilarious thing was that he didn't move the whole time we were there.  He really was just gazing out at the open ocean.  And then two of his buddies joined him and just gazed out to sea.  C'mon dolphins, you can jump a 6 inch fence!  It was sad, but also really funny because they acted like humans.

So by the islands, the water is super clear and shallow, and if there isn't dark coral beneath you, you can see down to the bottom.  So while the boat was briefly stopped in the middle of the ocean, I looked down into the water and saw two rays swim past along the bottom.  No big deal.

After the aquarium, we hopped on the boat to Playa Blanca, which is the most famous beach in this area.  It's a white sand beach that is just swarming with tourists and vendors.  Luckily, our boat dropped us off on the less busy side of the beach, but it was still super crowded.  We headed over to get our lunch which is included in the ticket.  Everyone generally gets the same lunch which is a fried fish (totally intact, bones, head, and eyes included), coconut rice, "salad" (chopped up cabbage and carrots drizzled with oil), fried plaintain, and limeade.

Jeanie and James liked their lunch and I was happy to find that I could get chicken instead.  After lunch, we headed to the beach.  It's a super steep beach, so there's no room for you to lay out.  And there is no stretch of sand that is not covered by a cabana or umbrella.  So James haggled us a reasonably priced cabana and we headed out to the water.  So it's a white sand beach with beautiful blue water...but it's also dirty.  In our first 5 minutes, I saw a suspicious looking brown lump headed our way, so I asked James what it was.  I was thinking maybe a gross looking tree part, or maybe even a small bag of garbage...but he picks it up and identifies it as a DIAPER.  That's the worst thing it could have been!  We made a beeline for a different spot, but we were all disenchanted pretty quickly.  Also in the water where guys on jet skis trying to get you to pay to take them out...but they were feet away from the swimmers.  No one go underwater, because you may get run over by a reckless jet ski!  Jeanie went to the beach to sleep off the effects of the Dramamine (tell me about it) and I read.  Once again, the clouds started moving in and despite the fact that the water was >80 degrees, I started getting cold.  But I found a small place that I could lay out in the half sun behind our cabana.  Up to this point, I had been very impressed with the vendors.  Everyone always complains about how aggressive the vendors are on Playa Blanca but we would just tell them "no, gracias" and they'd walk away.  I mean, we had to do that to a new one every 5 minutes, but it was still way less than I had expected.  Just as I was reflecting on that, one of the dreaded sunscreeners came by.  She told me she'd sunscreen me up as a gift, no money, it's a gift.  Yeah, right.  I used all of our usual tactics to deny her, and nothing worked.  Finally, she was able to get past my defenses and slop some sunscreen on me (which is when they think they have you), and I had to get up from my towel to get her to stop.  She finally walked away.  C'mon!

At about 3:30, we headed back to Cartagena, and had another wonderful boat ride, this time minus the rain and beaching at a scary island.  We had made arrangements to have dinner at the other gringos' apartment, so we hopped on a bus and showed up to their house in all of our beachy, sandy glory.  We had chimichangas and were entertained by the three girls regaling us with 4 different renditions of the happy birthday song.  So that was hilarious and fun.  But after seeing the rich, Americanized side of town, Jeanie decided that she liked where we lived better.  And we agree.

Saturday we walked along the wall and through the center again.  We went through the Museo de Oro (gold museum) which was also free, but nothing to write home about.  We had some ice cream in our favorite ice cream place by James' work (Jeanie got Kola Roman flavor), and then we headed back to the apartment for a quick lunch and tearful goodbyes.  One of the things Jeanie really wanted to do on this trip was ride a mototaxi.  James does this pretty much every day, but I'm still too big of a wuss to do it!  Not Jeanie!  Jeanie and James hopped on two motos and I took the bus.  The mototaxists were super nice and stayed near each other so James could get some hilarious pictures and videos.  But really, is there anyone cooler than Aunt Jeanie?

We were so glad that someone came to visit us in Colombia, and we were doubly glad that that person was Aunt Jeanie.  I'm certain I'm forgetting things, but I think you get the general idea of the trip.  Lots of fun!

And people, we now have an actual guest bed in our apartment, so I'm hoping that this post entices someone else to come visit us.  Any takers?

Isla Grande, Pablo Escobar, and the Farc

 

Disclaimer - I talk about a lot of science and events, current, future, and past, in this blog, without having done, uh ANY, research. So don't take my word for it. But I call things as I hear/see them. But it all may just end up being a very bad round of Telephone.

Fun experiences:

- We went to one of the Rosario Islands for James' birthday weekend. The Rosario islands are an archipelago of 27 islands about an hour down the coast from Cartagena. We went to the biggest island, fittingly called Isla Grande. The day of our trip, we went through the mildly confusing lines at the dock and waited for our whole boat to show up. We actually left on time, and the boat ride was glorious. I LOVE being on boats, but I get sea sick pretty quickly. So I always take a Dramamine or two, but then I'm super drowsy and, frankly, delirious (even with the non-drowsy kind). Luckily, I did not get sea sick or delirious this time! The first half hour of the trip was spent in the Cartagena bay. The sun was beating on us, the boat wasn't going crazy fast, and the wind was perfect. The tour guide pointed out some landmarks along the way and we saw different parts of Cartagena, which was cool. We also passed the island that is right off of the coast of Cartagena, Tierra Bomba, and decided that we should go there and spread the gospel...or get killed. Maybe if we ever come back here, we'll live there. Once we finally got out to open water, the wind was slightly colder, and the ocean was choppy, but overall still a delightful boat trip.

One of the humble villages on Tierra Bomba...not my picture, but a good representation of life on the island.

We got to our resort and were ushered in for our orientation.  Most tourists who come to Cartagena usually make the Rosario Islands one of their stops, despite the fact that it's a little bit of a hassle (I think). But MOST people who go to the islands are just there on a day trip. So they leave at 9:00 AM from Cartagena and have to get back on the boat on the islands at 3:00 PM. But during that time, they get to enjoy the resort. We didn't think it was worth the money to do that, so we paid a little more and stayed the night, meaning we had the resort pretty much to ourselves after 3:00 PM. That's the way to do it, if you ever go to the islands. We got juice upon entering the resort and I think it was the tastiest juice we've had since coming here. We asked the guy multiple times what it was made of, and he just kept saying "fruit". So that's pretty sketchy. But it was delicious. We went and staked out some hammocks and just tried to kill the time until lunch time, because we were starving. We love all-inclusive resorts because you can eat any time you want. Seriously, I think eating any time we want is our number one thing in common with each other. So we were expecting this all-inclusive island resort to be the same as our cruise and our Mexican resorts. Silly us, having expectations in Colombia. The guy at the desk told us that lunch was from 12:30-2 and dinner was from 7-8:45, and then we'd get breakfast and lunch the next day. And that's all we got. We tried to go to the pool bar and see if they would feed us, and they told us that we only get the meals for free. And they didn't have anything anyways. It was at this point that we realized we DID NOT bring enough snacks.  I initially wrote like 4 paragraphs detailing the ridiculousness of every meal, but I ended up deleting them because they were just negative. So let's just leave it at this: this all-inclusive resort was different from others we have been to and we would not pay for it again.

After lunch, we went back to the room where I promptly feel asleep on top of the covers in a Dramamine induced coma. Poor James. When I woke up, we wandered around the mangrove forests and found two other resorts plus a grouping of abandoned buildings where we almost certainly would have been killed if it had been dark. There were land crabs EVERYWHERE in the mangrove forests.  And we got eaten ALIVE by mosquitos. And we totally had bug spray laying on our bed in the room, too. Stupid Bullingers. I still look like a meth addict a week and a half later.  The forests were cool, but alas, we did not see any monkeys or cool island wildlife.

Worth mentioning is the only other gringo at the resort at this point. He was a man in his 50s with a smoking hot Colombian "companion" in her 40s. We tried to figure out what the arrangement was here because they were super PDA but clearly didn't know each other very well.  She spoke very broken English and he did not speak a word of Spanish. My theory was that they had been chatting online for 3 months and he finally came down to meet her in person. Whatever the arrangement, it was clear by the boat ride home that neither of them got what they had expected from this trip, if you know what I mean. But this gringo man deserves a mention. He was the worst possible gringo tourist. Never tried to speak Spanish, spoke English to the employees whom he knew did not speak English, demanded to speak to someone who spoke English (of which there were none), talked about how ridiculous Colombian things were, asked for extra things and service that no one else asked for, and commanded his girlfriend to translate things that she clearly did not want to translate. He was the worst, but also hilarious to watch. I just felt bad for the Colombian employees. I'm sure they were so happy when he left the next day.
The next morning after breakfast, we went to go grab some hammocks before the new horde of day-trippers arrived, and got stopped by a Colombian who wanted to take us snorkeling. James talked him down to half price (ended up being about $15 total for both of us) and we grabbed our snorkels and left. He took us to the other side of the island and we snorkeled for about a half hour with a Colombian couple that had come along with us. I had never seen coral, tropical fishes or anything like that, but James had, so he wasn't impressed. But there were lots of cool fish and the water was the perfect temperature and perfectly clear. We hopped back in the boat and he took us to a different part of the island where Pablo Escobar (allegedly) had sunk one of his planes. Uh...what?! James and I hopped out of the boat to go take a look (the Colombians couldn't swim in deep water) and looked down about 20 feet to see the eeriest thing I've ever seen. The plane was only about 20 feet down but you could see it perfectly from the surface. It was just a little plane, but it had been down there 20+ years (according to our guide) and so things were growing on it, swimming through it, etc. And the ocean wasn't as clear there, so it was weirdly shadowed and had a green tinge. Super spooky and one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I was super excited to get back home to research it, but after James and I looked on the internet for 20+ minutes, we could not find any record of Pablo Escobar sinking a plane near Isla Grande. Even while editing this post, I went back to see if I could find record of it...still no. So, uh...what the heck was that? Or is this some conspiracy? Super weird. On a similar note, across the small cove from the sunken plane was a huge abandoned estate. We excitedly asked the guide who owned that house, naturally thinking it was Pablo Escobar's, and he said "Oh, some guy tried to build a resort and he ran out of money so his son takes care of it now."  Even from across the cove we could see that there were at squatters living there, since there was laundry strung up, so his story seemed strange.  We were disappointed, but upon our research when we got home, we found out that that WAS Pablo Escobar's house, and there are squatters/protectors living there, making sure no one takes over his grounds? Here's an interesting and eerie read about it: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/breaking-into-the-ruins-of-pablo-escobar-s-secret-island-mansion. But why did our guide say it was someone else's? SO WEIRD! But definitely the coolest part of the trip.

Pablo's former island estate

We got back to the hotel and swam until lunch. The water by our hotel was clear for about 30 feet, then dropped off into coral and open ocean. But there were more fish in the water by our hotel than there were out where we snorkeled. We may or may not have seen a barracuda and we saw the weirdest looking needle fish ever. They were my favorite of the trip. Lunch was pretty uneventful, except for the gross pudding dessert that still haunts me, and then we swam some more before the boat came at 3. In this time, the new wave of people had shown up, so the table where we had laid our stuff in the morning to go swimming was occupied when I got out of the water. One of the guys (picture a Latin Hank from Breaking Bad) asked if it was OK if they put their stuff there and I told him it was fine. Then he offered me some rum, which I declined. James came up and he started talking to them. Turns out they were Peruvian and they hate Colombian food as much as we do. Fun coincidence...other guy in the party was wearing a Heisenberg shirt. Latin Hank and Heisenberg! Is it sad that that was one of the highlights of the trip for me? We had another delightful boat ride home in the setting sun. One of the Colombians in the boat pulled out a baby bottle, poured a juice box of Ensure into it, grabbed her 4-YEAR-OLD, tipped him back and plunked the bottle in his mouth. Baby bottle for a 4-year-old? Oh, Colombia. Anyways...overall, it was a great trip.

Neither of these are our pictures, but they look like the Barracuda and Needlefish that we saw.

-So apparently there has been a war going on in Colombia? I know it makes us sound downright ignorant to say that we had no idea that it was going on but...we had no idea it was going on. Apparently the guerillas (the Farc) have been fighting the government in the interior of the country. Who knew? But they have finally reached an agreement to end the fighting, and so they will be signing a treaty with the Colombian president later this week. The best part (and really the only reason we know about any of this) is that the Colombian president and Farc leaders will be signing said treaty right next door to James' school! Pretty cool, right? And, bonus, he gets that day or the next Monday off, because it will now be a national holiday. September is one of the only months that does not have a national holiday in Colombia, but not anymore! So we'll be witnessing history...the end of a war, and a new national holiday. I think that's pretty cool! I hope we see/experience something in that time but...really, it will probably just be a normal day. We'll see and report back.

-Speaking of the Farc, one of its leaders was captured and put on house arrest in the rich part of Cartagena.  Some Cartagena residents decided to take matters into their own hands and try to kill him, so there was a shoot-out a few days ago, a mere 3 miles from our house. I'm just surprised that things like this can happen so close to you, and it doesn't affect your day at all. Not to say that these things happen here all the time...because they never do...but I think I would have affected me more in the states, but that's just because it would have been all over TV and social media. You can't get away from stuff in the states.

-Last weekend, I went to a baby shower for one of the ladies who is in Primary with me. I walked onto the patio and Big Mama, her mom who is also in our ward, looked at me with delight and then the expression quickly turned to one of worry, and then she plastered a smile on, but still had worried eyebrows. It was hilarious. I will never forget that moment. You know when you invite a friend to a party, and you really want her to come, but you know that it will be awkward for her because she doesn't know the rest of your friends? That is exactly what was running through this woman's mind. So I tried to act really enthusiastic so she wouldn't worry about me...but then after 5 minutes, Big Papa kicked someone out of their seat so I could sit next to a woman from Bogota who spoke English. I was kind of bummed, because I was hoping (and dreading) to get out of my comfort zone a little and try to communicate with the rest of the party, but I ended up having a really nice time speaking English with this woman. And I got a few awkwardly phrased Spanish conversations in as well. So all in all, I had a good time at the party. My favorite part was when they passed around a plate of deditos, which are breadsticks filled with mozzarella.  Those are my favorite things I've found in Cartagena.  But these were even better. They were batter dipped or something, so the outside was similar to a Utah scone (or a Native American scone? I'm not really sure what those are, but I've only ever had them in Utah). They were delicious. So they sent deditos around twice, then chips, soda, marshmallows, lollipops, caramels, and rice with hot dogs and chicken and crackers. And that was just while I was there...who knows what else they had after I left. They had a table full of cake and cookies, so there was at least that as well. Moral of the story, Colombians know how to party.

Differences between the states and Colombia:

-The dogs here are weird looking. Manginess aside, they are breeds that I have never seen before.  James says that they look like dogs that have bred with anteaters. That is exactly what they look like. Their noses are longer and pointier, their bodies are a little bit too long, and their tails are skinny and gross. Just picture a medium-sized, tan-colored dog breeding with an anteater, and you've got it.

- A lot of the girls/women here don't shave their armpits or legs. And if they shave, they usually only shave their calves, which means that you can see their dark, curly, thigh hair when they wear short shorts. Which they do often. So it's every woman's dreamland.

-Sales tax here is like 16%. That's crazy, right?! We used to complain about 8+% in California, but geez! The weird thing is that I didn't notice this until recently. We noticed it when we go to the rich part of town because our Subway total is greater, but I just thought that the tax was higher there. And I still think it is only in parts of town...but I haven't quite figured it out yet. Sometimes I pay 16% and sometimes I pay less.

- Our utilities have been all over the place lately. One day, they turned off our gas for all day. They warned us the day before, so we were prepared, but then instead of one day, it ended up being 2 1/2. Which meant I couldn't cook for like 5 meals. It was not good. Luckily, we have a microwave and toaster oven, but they don't really sell freezer meals here...so we had to get pretty creative. Then yesterday, they told us the water would be off from 2-6. The water finally came on at 7:50. I just try really hard not to actually expect things to come on when they say they will...but it doesn't work. I just get angry. Maybe by the end of our time here, I'll be more laid-back.

- In the states, people talk about how delicious Colombian coffee is. Being non-coffee drinkers ourselves, we don't really know. But Cartagenians and tourists alike say that the coffee here is terrible. They ship all of the good stuff out of the country. So that's interesting.

- When we were on the island, the smell that I call "the Colombia smell" was super strong. I was confused, because the island was relatively clean and not filled with thousands of people. BUT we went wandering through the mangrove forests and James said that one of his students told him that mangroves give off methane gas, so my "Colombia smell" has actually just been tree farts, not trash, pee, and gross food like I thought. While I'm sure those do contribute to the overall aroma of Cartagena, the pungent Colombia smell is actually just coming from the mangroves surrounding the lagoon. I'm relieved and disgusted.
- I was trying to find a way to send documents here from America this week for less than $80 (seriously). While searching, I came across a blog that could have been written by me, if I was a better writer. Seriously, it's PERFECT. An Irish guy living in Cali, Colombia (other side of the country) wrote about 21 things he hates about Colombia. I don't want that to turn you off, because he actually really loves living in Colombia and is generally positive about it, but this post talks about dang near every single thing that makes Colombia seem ridiculous to our more developed (spoiled) countries. I loved it, and thought I'd share it here in case you guys also wanted to take a gander: https://thedancingirishman.com/2013/02/12/21-things-i-fking-hate-about-colombia/ . Like this man, I also think that there are a lot of great things about Colombia, and I don't want to focus on the negative, but it's a hilarious article that I feel like paints a pretty good picture of what it's like for an American/European to live here.

That's all for this week!  Chao!