Birthday Weekend in Cartagena

Our first trip to Cartagena was a dream.  Before visiting a city like this, it's hard to imagine what it's really like by what other people say... you have to go there yourself to really experience it.  I have a feeling that one trip is not enough and in each and every visit, the city reveals new and unexpected things.  

The streets were definitely made for wandering and that's exactly what we did.  Upon arrival, we dropped off our luggage at the hotel and walked around the walled city where 300 year old buildings lined the brick streets.  We were charmed by the balconies, the street musicians, the clop clop of horse hooves.  We stumbled upon Plaza Santo Domingo where we sat and had a few cold Club Colombias to take in the vibe of the place.  Although still in Colombia, we felt like we were in another country.

Our hotel was just outside the walled city near the main entrance, at El Torre del Reloj (the clock tower).  See our hotel?  It's the building in the picture looking through the arch...

Our amazing roof-top pool looking on to the Catedral de Catragena

... and the sunset.

With Saturday being our only full day in Cartagena, we headed out early to Castillo de San Filipe de Barajas, the greatest fort ever built by the Spaniards in any of their colonies.  From the fort, we could strategically see the places from where invaders repeatedly tried to attack.  One story was told to us about the English where, over a period of several days, the people of this walled city watched as 130 ships from England gathered to try to take this important port city in the 1740's.  23,000 British soldiers and sailors were ready and willing to attack.  In the end, 16,000 British died in battle, from sickness and disease and 800 Spaniards were killed.  

We know how this story ended... the Spanish were able to keep a stronghold on this part of Latin America until 1810, when independence from Spain was declared.

San Felipe Fort with the new (left) and the old city (right) in the background.

After we were hot and sweaty from our morning tour around the fort, we headed 45 minutes north of the city to Volcan de Lodo el Tutumo.  From afar, it looks like the world's largest ant hill.  However, it's a crater of a volcano where luke warm mud now slowly gurgles instead of lava and ash.

We floated in the mud for quite a while.  As you can imagine, when first getting in the mud, we were a bit awkward and giggling nervously.  Bit in no time, we acclimated to our new surroundings.  Finally, they had to tell us it was time for us to get out.

We headed back to the city.  After a good shower, we were ready for a tasty dinner.  I cleaned my ears three times (over several days) before I stopped seeing mud on my q-tip.  

We didn't eat here... it was our hotel at night.  

On our final morning in Cartagena, we stepped into the walled city early in the morning to get pictures of the streets, plazas and buildings.

It's hard to go to a major city in Colombia and NOT find a 

Botero statue... we spotted this one in Plaza Santo Domingo.

Boca Grande is in the background... it provides a distinct skyline to Cartagena... the new high rises in close sight of the old, colonial city.  

This fabulous weekend was called for to help me ring in a new decade... 40 years!

Jardín Botánico José Celestino Mutis

Imagine a garden in the middle of a city where plants from every region, climate and altitude of Colombia can be found.  We spent several hours in the botanical garden today.  The garden was established almost 60 years ago to honor Spanish naturalist, mathematician and astronomer José Celestino Mutis.  The day was a bit overcast, so we were able to amble about the 19 hectare garden without much bother from the sun.  We were able to spot many plants that we had grown in our own garden in northern California and we also came upon a nice herb garden where we nibbled borage, fennel, and mint.

The first wildlife that the kids spotted was an orange cat.  We later saw geese and ducks and heard more birdsongs than we've heard anywhere else in the city.

 This concrete thing offered a lot of entertainment for the kids.

 We found a lot of edibles around this solarium where a yoga class was happening.

 Eric's next batch of beer has it's name...

 ...and here's the flower

 Cilantro, strawberries, chard, chives and tomatoes

Peter

We have always been pet-people.  We mostly lean toward a pet of the canine variety.  Our first pets were great dogs.  Since Eric is allergic to cats, they have not really been an option to have as a pet.  So we have always had a dog.

Before we moved to Honduras, we made the painful decision to find a new home for our dog, Milo.  It was a heart-breaking thing to do, but we knew that he would adapt much better to a new family with outside running space than to apartment living.  He now lives with a great family.  In fact, he went to live with a family that used to dog-sit him for us when we went out of town when we lived in Sebastopol.  He is very happy there living with their 10 year old daughter who lets him lay on her bed.  We learned that he has become quite the gopher hunter.  Milo just had his 9th birthday last month...

...he's so pretty.

Now that we have been apartment dwellers for almost 3 years now, we were feeling the need for a four-footed pet in the house, but we couldn't see the use for a dog.  Sure, there are thousands of dogs that live in apartments in big cities, but I just can see the justice in that... for the dog or for the person.  We have friends who have to take the dog out at 5 a.m. to go to the bathroom, and they are not allowed to use the elevator because of the dog, so they are descending 7 flights of stairs in the wee hours in the morning for the dog to do his thing.  Sounds too much like having a newborn human to me, and I want nothing to do with it. 

Common breeds of dogs to see here in the city are smallish dogs.  I think the cute ones are the beagles.  The ugly ones are the schnauzers and silky terriers.  Of course, our favorite small dog lives in Sebastopol.  

Here's Theo, our dog friend who also lives in a house that we frequently house-sit at.  He is the perfect size for apartment living and has a great personality.

Photo by Linnea

But we knew that we weren't ready to get a dog with our current lifestyle, so the next best thing was to get a hamster.  We got Peter last November and his is proving to be way cooler than we thought a hamster could ever be.  

He is a Russian Hamster (did you ever know there was such a thing?) and super cute.  He's smaller than a regular hamster, but what he lacks in size, he makes up for in bravery.  He jumps off the couch, scales the walls of his cage, and runs so fast that his legs look blurry.  I read that hamsters can run about 8 kilometers a night on their wheels, and we have taken to putting him at the farthest part of our house at night and closing the door so that we don't have to listen to the proom proom sound of his wheel.  

Not a Typical Day in Bogotá

We went to Usaquen today for some fun diversions, and things were waaaay more diverse than we've ever seen before.  Lucky for us, when the rain started we were in a restaurant.  We watched the rain fall. Then we watched it pour.  Then the hail started and it continued for about 30 minutes.  After the hail ended, Usaquen was transformed into an equatorial winter wonderland.  

Huevos

 When we first moved to Latin America, we quickly learned that eggs are not handled in the same manner as those of us from the northern part of the Americas.    The most glaring difference is that eggs here are not refrigerated once you get them home.  Of course, you can refrigerate anything you want once you get it home.  But the norm here in Colombia and in Honduras was to just leave them out on the counter, in the pantry or on top of the fridge.

 Growing up with chickens and regularly eating fresh eggs, we went by the rule that if the egg was not yet washed, it didn't need to be refrigerated right away, but once the egg was washed (to get the poop, straw and feathers off), it needed to be refrigerated.  I've read read that before washing the eggs, there is a natural protective coating that helps preserve the eggs.  I suppose if you're eating the farm eggs each day as they are laid, they never have a chance to go bad.

  

Quail eggs

Egg stall at Bogotá's biggest market

The other difference, which is much more minor than the first is the quantities in which you can buy eggs.  Up north, a dozen eggs is the norm.  In Honduras, we would buy them 15 or 30 at a time.  Here, we are buying them 30 at a time, although at the big grocery stores it is also common to buy them by the dozen or half dozen.  In the big supermarkets and at the small town stores, the eggs are sold off the shelf, not kept behind glass doors in a refrigerator.  Also, quail eggs seem to be quite common here.  I'm not sure yet how they fit into Colombian cuisine, but I'll ask around.  We have been buying the campesino eggs from the outdoor market that sets up each Saturday in our neighborhood.

So, if your wondering where we keep our eggs now, here's the answer...

No need to take up refrigerator space with these guys... I'm a leave-your-eggs-in-the-pantry convert! 

Sunday in La Candelaria

Last Sunday, we hopped in a cab to Plaza del Toro Santamaria.  No, we didn't see a bull fight.  But we did admire the beautiful architecture from the outside.  We couldn't seem to get to a good place to take some post-worthy pictures, so click here to see some spectacular pictures of it.  We were amazed by the high-rise apartments that surrounded the ring.  I can only imagine what it would be like to live in one of those apartments when a heated match of man vs. bull was in high swing.

We actually happened upon Plaza del Toro by accident.  We were headed to Parque de la Independencia, which sat right next door to the bull fighting ring.  This park spans about 2 city blocks on a hill.  There are brick paths that spiral down to a central part of the park where there were beautiful flowers, eucalyptus and palm trees.  Of course, there were plenty of friendly dogs roaming freely around the park. 

After leaving the park, we took advantage of the weekly Sunday event of Ciclovia where miles and miles of roads are closed to cars.  We walked from about Calle 26 in La Macarena along septima to La Candelaria - about 20 blocks.  Along the way, we saw this man ...

                           

... his hands were blackened with some sort of polish (?) and he had all these dead stuffed rats (they were real!) around him.  I can only assume he was selling them.  The rats were all posed in walking positions and were gathered around him.   I shutter to imagine what he had in his black garbage bag.

More than 20 blocks later, we made it to the colonial barrio known as La Candelaria, the birthplace of Bogotá.   You can visit the Gold Museum and Botero Museum, count the thousands of pigeons in Plaza Bolivar and stroll through the narrow streets and alleys to discover amazing murals, sculptures, restaurants and shops.

                             

                                         

We had lunch at El Gato Gris.  It is probably a 200 or 300 year old building that used to be a house.  We ate upstairs in what used to be a bedroom, but now it had 3 or 4 tables and comfy chairs for lounging in on a slow Sunday afternoon.

The view from our window...

                                         

                                  

After lunch, we made out way back toward the main streets to catch a taxi.  We passed by a kid who was riding his big wheel down this sidewalk... see him on the right?  He would barrel down the sidewalk and then make the tight right at the bottom of they hill just before the next street.