Romancing the Family Stone: I should NOT become a travel agent.

It has been a week since my last post, and a crazy adventure of a week at that. On Wednesday of last week I took the 6:30AM bus from Ibagué to Bogotá so that I could make it to the capital in time to greet Mom & Deb at the airport. I taxied to the hotel and left my bags with a bellhop, scoped the surrounding area of the town, checking restaurant menus and treating myself to a Juan Valdez cappuccino while I waited for the E.T.A. to arrive! Finally I jumped on the Sheraton airport shuttle and arrived at El Dorado International Airport with about 30 minutes to spare. The monitor said that their flight had landed early, so I anxiously bobbed between heads, searching for my two ladies! I spent about 30 minutes waiting, bouncing about with an increased heart rate, and when I finally saw their faces I yelled out "Mom! Deb!" and everyone I had been waiting around jumped and turned to stare down the foreigner. I didn't care. I raced around the crowd and the gates and hugged them both with all my might.

We headed to the hotel to drop bags and rest up a bit, and then headed to lunch at a fish market restaurant nearby. My first taste of the translator role. Yikes. Tastey food (no pictures, sorry), and then we headed back to the hotel. We booked tickets through the busniess center, and headed to an immense shopping mall, at the top corner of which was a movie theater, to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part I (in English with Spanish subtitles). Oh lord, heaven. We were in the premium section of the theater, which meant that we each got fatty arm rests on both sides. Mom commented on how comfy the double wide armrests were after the flick. 30 seconds later Deb repeated it. Apparently she didn't notice that this had happened. This became a trend throughout the trip, to the point that I began recording the repeats - very creepy. They must share brain parts.

We zoomed back post-HP fix to the hotel, and then off to Usaquen, a hipster zone of Bogotá that I love, to a restaurant that I went to with Juliana last time I was in Bogotá, which features local ingredients and a homey feel. Laura & Sebastian, the host siblings, joined us for dinner, and Mom got a chance to know some of my Colombian family! It was a delicious meal and a lovely evening. We headed back to the hotel to crash, as Mom & Deb had taken the red-eye from Colorado to Miami, and then an early flight from Miami to Bogotá, and we less than well rested.

Thursday morning we headed to the city center and headed up to Monserrate, a monastery on a mountain above Bogotá with views of the entire city. The cable car we rode up was packed with obnoxious tourists, screaming in English and making crass comments, which turned me off the experience in general. Up on the mountain, the entire grounds, church and bushes and brick walkways included, were covered in tacky Christmas decorations (and we were still in November). This only added to the distaste for the experience, and we decided to head back down to Bogotá's center after a quick walk through of the grounds. We searched for a vegetarian restaurant that I had read about, and found what turned out to be a rather sketchy natural food shop & breakfast joint, so we ate at a large and busy restaurant. We ordered ajiaco, the potato and chicken soup that comes with corn on the cob inside, and avocado, cream, and capers on the side. Tastey. Plus the restaurant had a huge salad bar, so we loaded up on veggies. After lunch we headed to the Museum of Gold and the Candelaria, the central square of Bogotá, where the government buildings are all located. Unfortunately there was an ice rink taking up the majority of the central square, and we took a quick look around before heading back to the hotel. The taxi driver we got to take us back to the hotel was reading the newspaper while driving. We were all a bit nervous. I also had to ask a taxi driver to slow down, when he was speeding around an entrance ramp on a curve, passing another car in a single lane, and Mom and Deb were holding their breath, waiting for impact. Oh Colombia....

Friday morning we headed to the airport for our 9:30 flight to Cartagena. When we finally were able to check in, after being sent to multiple different lines, the woman told me that we were pushed to the 10:30 flight because the Cartagena airport had been flooded and therefore closed every night that week, and the flights from Thursday night were all pushed to the morning flights on Friday. Major bummer. We went through security and found ourselves in a jam packed departures hall, with not a single seat to be found. Apparently the woman at the counter failed to mention that Bogotá's airport was also closed, due to fog, and we were joining every other domestic traveler of the morning in the wait. Yippee. I left to ask about boarding at 9:45, and learned that Bogotá was still closed, and that the 10:30 flight we were supposed to be on was a plane that had yet to leave Barranquilla. It turned into a 5 hour wait, and we got into Cartagena and to the hotel to drop our bags at about 4 in the afternoon - so much for a morning flight to take advantage of a day in Cartagena. But it was pouring anyway, so we didn't miss much. We took a taxi to the hotel, and at one point along the way we went through a puddle that was deeper than the bottom of the doors, meaning water came creeping through the door. We got stuck in the road lake for a bit, and I was sure I would be getting out to push with the taxi driver, when luck came our way in the form of a bus, whose wave we rode to the other side of the puddle.

Saturday morning we played tennis in one of the rare dry moments of the trip, and we were not dry for long. The humidity in Cartagena rivals that of Singapore, and we were dripping after warm up... Not to mention that we were playing with rented rackets, which were less than comfortable to play with. We cut our 2 hour court time down to an hour and a half. We showered and got ready to head out to the old city, the historic section of town famous for its colonial architecture, but the torrential downpour began again, and we ate lunch at the hotel and waited for the rain to let up. Finally at 2:30ish we headed out to the center, and toured the soggy streets for a couple of hours, including a quick stop at the famous Castillo de San Felipe, a colonial era fort, at which Deb asked "How many pictures of a wall can a person take" in response to my overly eager camera (after days of rain and waiting in hotels and airports, any frame was a treasure...) Travel on Saturday was once again characterized by the feeling of waves beneath our feet as we braved the taxi ride.

Sunday we woke up early to head out of Cartagena to Taganga, a small fishing-village-turned-hippie-backpacker-destination on the other side of Santa Marta. I had been told that the trip from Cartagena to Santa Marta takes 2 hours, and to Taganga another 15 minutes. We planned to lay on the quite beach Sunday and head to Tayrona National Park, a coastal reserve with gorgeous beaches and glacier topped mountains all in one spot. Unfortunately, a combination of the El Niño rains and Colombian-time, the trip ACTUALLY took 5.5 hours in total. MAJOR disappointment. We waited a solid 45 minutes at a single traffic light in Barranquilla, because the road was a river. I had seen news clips of the waters taking SUVs crashing along through buildings and other cars, so I was not mad that the driver was being cautious, but we had NOT planned to spend so much time in a car. Deb said "I am going to be like Robin Williams in that genie movie when we get there: 'It is so good to be OUTTA there!'"

We finally arrived at the hotel, which was on a super crowded beach with no room to breathe, and were led to the restaurant to feast on overpriced fresh fish while they readied our "ocean view suite". After lunch we brought the bags up, and I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity. We were paying a very hefty chunk of cash for this suite that could accommodate 3 people, and the third "bed" was a concrete slab with a plastic-covered 2-inch lounger cushion over it. Yikes. Also, the bathroom didn't have walls or a door. It was a toilet in the room, plus a sink. So instantly we were rearranging our plans to not stay the 2 nights we had planned. How do you say "disaster" in Spanish? We strolled around the single, crowded, dirty, broken down, and sketchy street, and then headed back to the hotel. We ate dinner at a tourist trap surf shop, which turned out to be frozen pizza. Oh joy. We met with a tour guide, who described a few options for seeing Tayrona in one day, and decided on a private boat tour to a Tayrona beach with white sands and snorkeling.

Monday we arrived to board our "private" boat, and were told that 6 others were joining us. Interesting. We were to board a VERY small motor boat, and then switch to the larger boat at a larger beach. Something about regulations in the order of leaving the beach? We putted out to the next cove over, and sure enough, the switch was to be conducted in the open water. No docking or reaching land. Interesting... We continued in the larger boat (which Deb referred to as a row boat with a troubled motor attached, so you get a sense of the size) out of the cove and towards open ocean. Once around the furthest point out, we were in waves from about 7 to 9 feet in a tiny fishing boat with 6 other people, including a family with two small children, who were sitting on the outside and without even an arm holding them in place. I was even bouncing about a foot off of the seat as we crashed through the waves. Sketch. We pulled into a rocky "beach" and the driver said we would be snorkeling there for 30 minutes (which of course in Colombian time meant an hour or more). As Deb hadn't wanted to snorkel, and they had mentioned a string of other stops before and after the white sandy beach, I took the driver aside and told him how we had ordered a private boat specifically to avoid what was transpiring: we were on a tight schedule (so American), and we didn't want to spend the entire day getting to the beach. We wanted to be on the beach until we had to leave for our bus ride back to Cartagena. Not to mention that the "20 minute" boat ride to the beach was actually a 45 minute ride. So we headed to the white sandy beach and left our boatmates to snorkel. As soon as we arrived, the blue sky that we had not mentioned for fear of jinxing our luck, turned dark and gray, and the rain came (but of course!). I swam anyway, but we spent the day under a cloth tent that we paid $10 for, getting wet anyway. But we did eat some expensive but FRESH fish (yum!). The ride back in the afternoon was even more exciting, as the waves were now about 9-12 feet high, and we were pointing diagonally so that we were rising and crashing as much as possible on the waves. Oh boy.

Sunny ride, visible rain once we arrived....

Before & after shot of lunch. Plus Mom & I in our tent.

We had booked a private van to return to Cartagena that evening to avoid the hours of delay in Barranquilla, but we still spent 4 hours in the car (whoever told me it was 2 hours... you have lost my confidence...) The driver stopped off to go to the bathroom, so we all decided to go as well, but he came out running and slapping all over his body: ants. So needless to say, we didn't dare go in. We checked into the very cool colonial-building hotel in the center of the old city at around 7:00PM, and headed out for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant that we were lucky enough to stroll by. We all ordered veggie lasagna (Mom & Deb ordered spinach and I ordered eggplant), and they proceeded to make it from scratch (we were waiting a while...) Yum. Tuesday we woke up and toured the old city a bit more in depth, visiting some of the attractions, and photographing the colonial architecture (to death, some might say). We took another "clown car" taxi to the airport, and took off on time, headed back to Bogotá Tuesday midday. We headed to the Pink Zone of Bogotá and ate dinner at Andres D.C., a famous 7 story restaurant with quirks up the wazoo. Very tastey meal though, and fantastic music, which everyone (including the 3 of us) was bouncing and swaying to.

Wednesday the ladies took off from Bogotá, back to reality, escaping our somewhat disastrous vacation, and I headed straight to the bus terminal to hop a ride to Ibagué. Armando's soccer team had their semifinal game in Espinal at 7, and I was hoping to get back in time to drop my suitcases at the apartment and join them. Unfortunately, we hit traffic on the highway, and I got into Ibagué at 5:45. The entire team was in the bus when I got off at Fedearroz, waiting for their good luck charm (me). How sweet. Unfortunately, they needed more than luck, because they lost 4-0. But it was straight back to Ibagué life for me. A good distraction from the sadness of saying goodbye to Mom & Deb. But the mamitis came back with a vengeance this morning, when I woke up alone. But only 3 weeks to go until I am home for the holidays. JOY.

p.s. food blog was created thanks to this trip. check it out @ caseythomaseats.blogspot.com