Back to Medellin

Cartagena is quite the town. Most people do not call a place that has over a million people a town. But it feels more like a town than a city. I did not explore the new part of the city with all the skyscrapers and I had no desire to. You can see below a picture of the old town and across the bay, a picture of the newer city. The pictures are taken from the same spot. Now where would you go?? Most of the people must live over there as well, especially since the Old City is primarily businesses.

I love all the walking I have done here. I walked the perimeter of the Old City on the wall itself, I walked to the beach, I walked to classes etc. Granted most of the walking was amid much of the bustle of city traffic. The taxis and buses here like to communicate with their horns. They are many different types of beeps, depending on how bad they want riders or how much competition there is or from what direction they are approaching a person walking. But I had to cross a bridge over the far end of the bay, so I had some nice views. At sunset, the pelicans would perch (roost??) in the trees for the night. It was quite the sight to see - 15 - 20 pelicans perched in 2 trees. (If you look back to the picture of the entire Castillo, the trees you see in the forefront next to the water are where I saw all the pelicans) Walking along the Carribean Sea, I got to watch the local fisherman work. Boy do they work hard!!! I watched 12 - 15 men pull in these huge nets. There were 2 boats - 1 boat had 2 men and the other boat had 1 man. There were 2 - 3 men pulling the lead line and then 2 lines of about 5 men each pulling the nets in. It was fun to watch! The men were hams and didn’t mind me watching and taking pictures. Throughout the 20 - 30 minutes, several of the men came over one at a time and talked with me. Colombianos are so darn friendly!! They love to make sure everyone is happy, content and love to talk, dance and laugh! Anyway back to the fishing, the pescadors let the nets sit for about an hour right before the tide comes in. On this particular fishing net, they caught about 3 milk crates full of fish (which they said is about average) and were off over the jetty to pull in another net.

I took another bus back to Medellin. This time, I left at 7am so I could travel by day and see the landscape. It was well worth it (even though it is 2 hours longer by day) Colombia is gorgeous and remote. There was a 2 lane road (one lane each direction) that drove 14 hours through vast, untouched lands or farm(primarily grazing) lands. The land was green, lush, and full of mature trees dotting the open fields of varying shapes and sizes. I cannot believe how much land is untouched by humans - I LOVE IT!!! Granted the land closer to the coast are in flood plains and further inland, it is rugged - hilly and steep. But it is wonderful to see. I wish I could have taken pictures, but there are no view points and no places to stop even if I could get the driver to stop (let alone ask him). Very expansive this land is. The closest we have to this amount of open and untouched land is in Alaska.

Boy these bus trips are quite interesting. I really do not understand much of how it all works yet. There are no announcements when we pull into a station of where we are or how long we are going to be there. People just disappear and new passengers appear. There are no visuals or written schedules. I did not want to get off the bus for fear of being left behind. It was funny at one stop, most of the people got off so I started pouring more water into my water bottle that I drink from and the conductor (there is a driver and what I call a conductor who addresses the needs of the passengers and somehow keeps track of who comes and goes) says we are stopping and can get off. By this time, I am the only passenger on the bus, I continue to pour my water. He tells me again that I can get off and seems like he wants something. So I ask him if it’s necessary that I get off and he said yes. I apologized and got off. He then locked the bus up and went to get something to eat. Somehow I was supposed to just know that it was time for everyone to eat lunch. I am going to try and ask for a schedule my next bus ride. This bus ride, I sat in the middle of the bus but this bus had 3 tv’s so it really did not matter but the volume was low so it wasn’t as bad as my last bus trip. They showed 4 movies - 2 were family oriented and 2 were absolutely violent and about the corruption of cops and prison guards. In between the movies, the bus played some great music. It was very similar to the people - upbeat, happy and energetic.