A quiet week on Galt until Saturday arrived. Our contractors have been busy working off the boat so it was just us on the boat this week until the cabinets were ready for install on Saturday. Bill had worked all week on the galley floor in preparation of the arrival of the first set of cabinets. I spent time ripping out the old ceiling material in the front cabin. A portion of it had been ruined by a leak in the forward hatch. Considering I hate the original ceiling material on the boat (rotted old foam covered with beige vinyl), ripping it out was a pleasure. A dirty, dusty pleasure but still quite satisfying. Next steps on my project will involve prepping the ceiling for paint and trying to make it look better without putting a lot of money and effort into the project. Considering we use the front cabin for storage and no one ever sleeps there, good enough will be good enough. The cabinet builder showed up Saturday and we guess he expected the install to take a couple of hours. Six hours later he was still not done. As with most things boat, no surface in the galley was even so he would try unsuccessfully to fit the cabinet, take it up on deck and shave a bit off, try to refit, back up on deck for more shaving and so on. Bill made him stop at 5:30pm so we could eat and have a break from the constant buzz of the saw. He wanted to return on Sunday to work again but Bill convinced him we all needed a break for a day. So tomorrow, the buzzing will commence!
Our tourist event this week was a visit to the Convento de la Popa here in Cartagena. It was built in the 1600s by Augustine monks. The small chapel was beautiful and the entire structure was reminiscent of our time in Spain. The Convento was located on the highest hill in Cartagena and had amazing views of the city. I did not realize how sprawling Cartagena is! We were lucky to get some good pictures before the clouds and rain made an appearance. We have had several thunderstorms this week with some excellent lightning shows. The storms do not seem to put a damper on the fireworks in Cartagena. The Colombians are obsessed with fireworks. Almost every night around 9pm, we get a fireworks display of some sort. Not small fireworks like you see from the roadside stands in South Carolina but large displays of fireworks. At first, we would wonder if we had missed a Colombian holiday….now we know fireworks just seem to be an everyday event. The Colombians also seem to be obsessed with food item containers being pouches instead of jars and bottles (Bill says the official name is “flexible packaging” because, of course, he knows this very useful information in life). If you have seen the applesauce packages made for toddlers that have the cap you remove to suck out the applesauce, that is the same package. Sour cream, mustard, ketchup and even jelly come in these packages. When I opened my jelly this week, all the jelly juice squeezed out onto the plate so it was like grape juice. I am not finding this style of packaging very functional! I managed to find an imported jelly that was in a jar so from now on, I can reuse the jar for my “nonflexible packaging!” We will be busy this week getting ready for our trip to Ecuador midweek. Our flight leaves at the lovely hour of 6am so there will be little sleep that morning. Bill is currently working on the chore of finding a taxi that will be around at that ungodly hour. We did not time our Ecuador trip well as their elections are taking place today. One candidate was assassinated last week so we are hoping that any protests or issues will be done by the time we land. Gotta love South American politics! They are a passionate bunch! ***No blog will be posted until we return from Ecuador
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We did our best to improve our work/life balance this week. The contractors were here early in the week to polish the final touches on the deck. As soon as they finish one job, they immediately hold out their hand for money to begin the next job. Trying to explain that we want to hold off a few weeks on the next job is near impossible. So, we now have kitchen cabinets being built and the bowsprit project underway. At least both of those projects take place off the boat until they are ready for install! In the meantime, Bill continues to demolish the galley and I go behind him to clean and repair whatever we are re-using. On Wednesday, we kicked the guys off the boat and told them we needed a break until Monday. It was nice to have a bit of a lazy morning before we started on our chores. There was also a “taxi strike” in Cartagena due to the high fuel prices so it gave us a good excuse to laze about a bit.
On Thursday morning, we grabbed a taxi to head over to the Old Town. Last time we tried walking to Old Town, I had to give up and turn around due to the heat so this time we took a taxi which was a smart idea. The park outside the entrance boasts a family of sloths and monkeys. One of the locals showed us the sloth tree and we were lucky enough to have one of the sloths awake. He was a little difficult to capture in a picture because he was in constant movement, even if it was slow motion. We did not take time to find the monkeys this trip but we will find them at some point. The Old Town is surrounded by a fifty-foot-wide wall that is seven miles long so it was well protected! We have definitely determined that no one could build a fort or walled city better than the Spanish! The buildings in the Old Town have been well-preserved and we found our way to two of the Catholic Churches. One of the churches also had a museum so we learned a bit of history and saw some unique art. We learned that the Colombian Catholics are hardcore! They had services daily that ran from 9am to noon and then picked back up again from 3:30 to 6:00pm. That’s a lot of churchin’! We have been surprised that we have not been inundated with street vendors in Cartagena because it has the reputation of being one of the harsher cities for determined vendors. As we wandered the old town, we had a few vendors approach us but they were all very polite and accepted ‘no’ graciously. As we approached one of the main squares, we found where all the vendors were hiding. Ladies with fruit hats wanting pictures, men selling Cuban and Colombian cigars, one man selling “genuine” replicas of the statue in the square that he was painting gold at the same time he was trying to sell them and of course, the cheap jewelry guys. As we were heading to get a drink, a man approached us and waved us to a table. We sat down and he dragged a waiter over to get our drinks. The man introduced himself as “Johnny. The Fixer.” It came across much like Bond, James Bond as he said it several times. His English was perfect which is always a dead giveaway that the person has spent time in either the States or Canada. Johnny, The Fixer, had spent time in several States. He had something for everyone. He had tours, contacts for boat rides, dinner reservations and even announced he could take us to a cock fight that night if we were interested. I definitely declined the cockfight! After chatting us up for about twenty minutes, Johnny, The Fixer, gave us his contact information and stated that whatever we needed, we could get in touch him. It’s always good to know the town Fixer….you just never know when something’s gonna need fixing! Our day of fun ended at a fish restaurant where we ordered an amazing seafood stew with coconut rice followed by a limon cheesecake. A feast for two under $30.00! We rounded out the week with a trip to the grocery store where this week’s salesgirl was pushing Vegan Chicken Nuggets. That exchange was pretty much identical to the previous week’s vegetarian hamburger episode. “No pollo, no nuggets!” Then, when I walked down the next aisle, a different sales girl tried to sell me regular chicken nuggets. All we could figure was Americans must be known for loving chicken nuggets! Bill managed to locate some coconut rice at the store so once the galley is functional, we are going to see if he can make it like a true Colombian! I am sure if he struggles, Johnny, The Fixer, will be more than happy to show up and help. **More pics on Pictures tab A week of planning, boat jobs and new experiences. I have been very busy planning our first outing from Colombia for the end of this month. We will be going to Ecuador! I have only been to mainland Ecuador for one day while making my trip to the Galapagos Islands back in 2017 and Bill has never been to Ecuador. I spent most of the week fighting with the Latam airlines website booking flights. I would try to book a flight and then the price would suddenly increase as I was booking so we had to play the clear cookies and cache game and use phones and two computers in order to get the flights booked. After much ado, we are ready to fly to Quito and Cuenca for a 10 day adventure in a couple of weeks with much cooler weather. A much needed break from the heat! Before we could leave Colombia, we had to meet with our immigration broker to make sure we were following all the Colombian rules for non-citizens who arrive via boat. We took a taxi over the port and then attempted to find her office. We stopped by the security office where several officers were standing. I asked one of the officers, in perfect Spanish I might add, “Hola, donde es Largamar?” The officer stared at me blankly and responded, “I don’t speak English.” Bill and I burst into laughter since I was not speaking English…evidently I was not speaking any form of intelligible Spanish either! In spite of our communication difficulties, we located the broker’s office and were given the green light to travel at any time as long as we be sure that Galt is re-registered by next July.
Following the broker escapades, we headed to the grocery store. I am not sure what was going on at the grocery store but evidently it was “push certain products” day because there were sales girls everywhere yapping at us in Spanish and pointing to certain items. One woman approached us trying to sell us vegetarian “hamburgers”. Bill said, “No hamburgesa! Vegetables. No carne, no hamburgesa!” The woman looked confused and stared at the box, certain she was showing him a box of hamburgers. She pointed and responded, “Si, hamburgesa!” Bill pointed to the word vegetarian, then to the picture of the burger and restated, “No carne. No hamburgesa!” Finally getting the joke, the woman laughed and shook her head. I am not sure the Colombians quite know what to do with Bill but he certainly seems to entertain them. Our week ended with a trip to the central market and the mall. We needed to buy some shoes and pants for our trip to Ecuador and everyone told us the central market was the best place to find items “cheap”. Cheap in Colombian terms means CHEAP because the prices here are already crazy cheap on American terms. It was Saturday and the market was already packed at ten in the morning. We made our way through the first section which was prepared foods. As we walked along, there were open fires with pots of soup, rice, fish and lobster. Women stopped us and shoved spoons of food in our mouths gesturing for us to come sit at their booth. We had quite a time trying to explain that while their food was delicious, it was a little early for lunch and we were not hungry. I apologize that I did not take any pictures of the market but making us stand out as tourists more than we already were did not seem like a wise choice at the time. The next area was the unprepared food and there were live chickens, rabbits, meat counters with every part of the animal displayed, fish, fruits and vegetables. The watermelons were the largest I have ever seen and were about the side of a microwave oven. The further we walked into the labyrinth, the grittier it became. Bill stated that the market was as if a Moroccan souk had married Bourbon Street after a rough Saturday night. As we came into the clothing section, thousands of shoes greeted us and Bill began his search for hiking boots. He stepped into one shop to try on a pair of boots while I remained in the alleyway. The alleyway was about 4 feet wide and somehow, people moved about easily dodging grocery carts that had been adapted to run on the broken concrete, hordes of people and puddles of I don’t want to know what at every turn. The shop across from me had a large stereo system with music blasting throughout the market. As one song started, everyone in the market froze. Standing silently, awash with anticipation. It took me a minute to realize they were waiting for the song to begin. As the singer began to sing, the entire marketplace began to sing at the top of their lungs. I felt as if I were in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or a bad episode of Glee! I came to the conclusion that the song must have been the Colombian equivalent of I Will Survive or American Pie because the crowd sang it with such gusto and passion. Sadly, Bill missed the show but he did find a pair of boots that fit! After battling our way through several more blocks of the market, we emerged on the other side alive and well. We headed to the mall to pick up our new stovetop and sink for the galley remodel. The mall in Cartagena reminded me of the malls in America back in the eighties. All the stores were open, restaurants were busy and people were everywhere. The main thing the mall had was air conditioning so as long as the AC lasts, the people will come. Continuing our boat projects, the kitchen floor is coming along nicely and the carpenter will begin working on new cabinets next week. The deck work has been completed (except for the painting which will be done at a later time) and the bow pulpit where the anchors hang will be completed in about a week. Galt is loving all the attention but we are a little weary with the dust and constant flow of people on the boat. Monday is yet another holiday in Colombia so we are looking forward to a small break as well! In the meantime, I will wish you a “Bonita dia” in my awful Spanish! *Found some pics of the market on Google images for you! |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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