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.
