Cartagena, Colombia

Colombia : Cartagena

Cartegena is a cool place, and if the rest of Colombia is anything like it, I´m gonna like it here.

The old city is gorgeous, the only place to compete with Antigua, Guatemala... if Cartegena had cobbled streets and a Volcano, it´d win for sure. Say what you want about Spanish involvement in Latin America, but they built some magnificent places.

The old city is walled to prevent pirate attack from the coast, and attack from the British army (If you´re keen to know more, look up "the war of Jenkin´s ear", no lie!).

There are statues and churches and plazas every few minutes. The main plaza, plaza Bolivar, has fountains in each corner and a statue of him on a horse in the centre, and palm trees all around.
Between the palms, the african drummers that play here for tourists most days, and the sound of the water in the fountains shooting out at high pressure, it has a weird miox of the cultured with the exotic, the wild. You cna sit in the cathedral opposite, and hear the africna drumming echoing around... I´m sure Christ would dig it, although I´m not sure about his most ardent followers.

There´s a lot going on on the street here, at all hours: crazy Madames with missing teeth, cheap hos that blow kisses at you, old men gathered round a table playing cards or dominos, a young couple snogging (the girl with a lollipop in her hand), stalls selling lottery tickets, or building tools, or fried cheese, or fruit juices (Lulo juice is wkd)... and there´s always some weird sound somewhere, Reggaton or salsa or a room full of sowing machines going at full pelt.

Strangely, for a country so famous for its coffee, they don´t seem to savour the experience: there are precious few cafes, and people get their coffee from street vendors with thermoses, always served in tiny espresso sized cups, evne though it´s not that strong. Even the police take their coffee like this on the street, which makes them a lot less intimidating (You are under arrest for spilling my Machiatto!!!!).

They also have a particular phrase here, "alla arden," or something simlar, which means at your service, but it sounds exotic to me, and makes me feel like I´m very important when they say it.

Next stop: Medellin!

The Panama Canal

I actually visited the canal today.

There´s a pretty shit exhibition and museum, and an observation deck where you can watch the locks being filled and emptied for massive boats.

I enjoyed it... In the distance you can see ships all waiting for their slot, and as the cargo ships get closer you realise quite how fricking massive they are, and how little margin of error there is as they go through the canal.

It´s also the first modern tourist attraction I´ve paid to see, after Mayan ruins etc.
And I´m reminded that the things that we do now adayas and take for granted are pretty spectacular, and worth celebrating... we carved a water highway across a country to join two oceans so that bananas from Honduras can end up all over the world in a week or so, in cities, like Panama city where people work in skyspcrapers, towering so high above the ground that we could piss on Tikal and the Pyramids from a great height, and then we party in places like the jade seahorse in Utilla, a tree house gaudi mosaic bar, and we can fly around the world just for a business meeting, or to travel around.... wow, we´re so freaking lucky you have to take stock of it some time.
I´d liek to think that in the future there´ll still be tours of the canal, and they´ll be like "before the invention of teleporters, people would transport their goods in these masssive boats that look like they should sink, across a canal that bridges two oceans, just so they could all have their bananas in a timely fashion," and the future people will struggle to comprehend the way we lived, just as we struggle now to think about the Mayans and their weird football games and sacrifices.

Panama city

Panama city is a nice change of pace.
I love the beach, but I'm a townie at heart, and it's great to be in a place with some iron and concrete and real energy. Although the city also has an old quwarter, a mini crombling Havana with backaley rum joints and the presidential palac, which has amazing grey African cranes wandering around in the foyer, visible through the bars.

The Panama canal, joining the Atlantic to the Pacific, is the heart of this city: it's the reason for the American influence, te reason for the banks, the sky scrapers, the casinos, the 24 hour supermarkets. In fact, the answer to almost any question about the city seems to be the canal. It made it what it is. The canal was handed over to the Panamanians after years of American control in 1999. I heard about the history before from Paul Theroux, and from talking to Panamanians: entire sections of this city were American suburbs, the canal zone, and the zonians lived as if they were in buttfuck USA, not even larnign spanish, with their own schools, hospitals, and funeral homes.
Now the causeway, an island chain off the bay, joined up like the Florida keys, which used to be for the high up zonians, is full of restaurants and convention centres. From here you get great night views of the bridge of the Americas, supposedly joining central to south America, althougfh I´m not convinced that´s true (the darien gap, surely?).
An ex US army listening post there has become a hotel... we're making the world a better place guys, one mall at a time, sweet Jesus, one mall at a time.

The city feels really safe, I walk around at night coming back fom clubs and stuff with no worries, but I'm beginning to realise there's more to ti that mets the eye: the glass font to the building with our hostel has a small, neat bullet hole in it, and the other day, when I went to get some chow,I saw the aftermath of a shooting. Police had cordoned off the area, around a SUV, where a man lay, covered by a sheet, with one arm and the ends of his legs poking out.
It was outside a jewlers, so the contrasts of this dead man under the flashing neon lights saying 'joyeria' was quite darkside. I considered going back to take a photo, then decided that was too morbid. I'll never make a press photographer, clearly. I´ve asked several ppl what happened, and heard different stories from each: car accident (I don´t see how), attempted robbery of the jewelers (he´d have to have been very thick), and a drive by (more than likely) . The next some tout trying to tempt me to strip bars told me "this area isn´t safe, a Colombian killed a Mexican here the other day." Not safe, really? Do you think the fact that you work here trying to get Gringos into strip bars is a sign of that?


My next stop is Colombia, and despite everyone's recommendations to take a boat through the San Blas islands, I'm going to fly... right now, islands have lost a bit of their appeal and novelty, and I think I'm ready for some more city life. Cartagena, here we come!

Bocas to Panama city (uncertain transitions II)

I was leaving Bocas Del Torro for Panama city.

Waiting for my boat at the jetty, I was occasionally glancing at a pretty girl, all made up with tight jeans etc, when I noticed she had two machetes with her, and decided it would be best to stop looking.

The boats always seem full from the jetty, but they managed to squeeze me in, and as usual the ride was great, the boat banking and weaving like a fighter jet, or those land cruiser things from Jedi... although as we neared the shore, the great views couldn´t hide the squalor, where decrepid houses jutted haphazardly into the water and the shores were awash with filth and rubbish.


I took an unmarked taxi (always fun on your own) to the bus station, where a black guy spoke English and directed me, with some assertion, to the ticket office.

The ticket guy was crazily effeminate, and must have been gay, although this one-horse town didn´t seem like a hive of tolerance and gay bars. I think he was meant to be born in Thai land. Maybe somewhere in Koh Samui there´s a macho Thai guy that´s meant to be here.

He told me that the bus had broken and there was no direct bus today... which the black guy proceeded to translate for me.

The black guy offered me a hotel in the town for the night and to get a direct bus in the morning.

Having seen the town, but not wanting to laugh in his face, I said "If I was staying, i´d go back to
the islands...." when he suddenly remembered I could take another bus and get a connection.


I went to wait for the next bus, paranoid that he was lying to me so that I would miss my boat and have to stay in this god awful town for the night (trust is a very precious commodity when travelling solo), so I confirmed with like 5 people, as best I could in my broken Spanish.


The waiting room was also a cafe, and they were closing up, pulling the cloths from the tables to reveal that the surfaces wer wire mesh grills, like fences. I´m sure there´s a deep point to make about the thin veneer of civilization here, but I´ll let you think about that yourself.

When the mini bus arrived, the conductor was well dressed, all in black, with a fresh hair cut, and slightly bulbous features inside a well defined outline of a face.

He didn't say anything to me, and later I realised he was mute, the only sound he made was a high pitched squeak, like Beaker from sesame street.

Confirming for the Nth time this was the right bus for me with the man sitting next to me, I began to chat in my rubbish Spanglish. From his phone, he showed me pictures of his wife. "Muy bonita", I tell him. His daughters. "Que bonita, bonitas todas". He showed me a picture of his car. I couldn´t fake much enthusiasm for that.

A German traveller got on the bus. I was glad to have another traveller on the journey, so glad in fact that it took me quite a while to realise he was nice but a bit boring, telling every story in minute detail without putting any emotion into the telling.
We stopped in David for changing to the night bus for Panama city, and I bought some cookies from a stall there, form a woman with a lazy eye. I tried my best not to let the german guy know how bored I was by his conversation, so I kept going outside for cigarretes. We got the bus, I hardly slept, we arrived in Panama city at 4AM.