A Geek’s Think

The last week has included two interesting events - a port visit to Cartagena, Colombia, and passing through the Panama Canal. Cartagena was an interesting visit in that the two days I went into town were completely different. The first day I went with a couple of other guys, one of whom is from Cuba, so he worked as a translator for us. I could understand quite a bit of what they were saying from my high school Spanish and my Portuguese from my mission to Brazil, but it was nice to have him around. That day we went to a section of Cartagena called the Old Town. It is basically a little city with some preserved buildings and monuments. Though I tend to enjoy visiting historic places, I wasn’t a big fan of the Old Town for two main reasons. First, the streets in the Old Town are full of people, all wanting to sell you the same things and give you a tour. You end up saying ‘No thanks’ about once every two minutes to someone or other approaching you and trying to sell you something. It got aggravating very quickly. The second reason is our meal there at a little restaurant recommended by our ‘tour guide’. They gave us menus made up specially for tourists, meaning the prices were about three times what the locals were paying. And the food wasn’t even that great. I didn’t say anything, as I didn’t want to make a fuss, but I was not happy about getting ripped off that blatantly.

The next day in Cartagena was much better. I went out with two other guys, neither of whom could speak Spanish, making me the sole translator for the group. That day we visited the new city of Cartagena, which was much more like I would have expected from a South American City. The people were nice there, and though there were street vendors, they weren’t nearly so persistant and irritating as those from the previous day. The city, in many ways, reminded me of the two years I spent in Sao Paulo, Brazil as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The smells were similar, the methods of construction were the same (red hollow bricks on concrete), and the people were very similar. They even sold ham and cheese croissants in the local panaderia, or bakery, which by the way is one of my favorite places to visit in Latin and South America. I ate several pastries while in the new town and loved every one of them. Mmmm, mmmm, good!

A couple of days ago we passed through the Panama Canal, which was an interesting event. They use a series of locks to raise or lower the ship a little bit at a time until you arrive at the other side. The ground isn’t that far away from you on either side as you go through, and we’re a fairly small ship compared to some of the vessels that pass through the Canal. I took a few pictures, which I’ll post as soon as I get enough bandwidth to do so. Until then, click here to see a small photo of us going through that taken from a webcam overlooking the canal.