Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Settling Into City Life

We are well anchored in the muck of Bahia de Cartagena. It's been hot, humid and quite rainy with a regular dose of squalls. Some of the squalls have been exciting with gusty wind and lots of lightning. Some of the gusts have really pulled the anchor chain through the muck of the bay – making it something to look forward to when we have to pull it up (yuck!) We are sitting in a good spot with enough swinging room between boats (we hope).

The bay is fun as there are lots of boats coming and going everyday. We always call the goings on in an anchorage as "bay movies." Well, in big city anchorages – it's like a multiplex theater. Lots of movies everyday! The boats are from all over the world with a plethora of flags flying. That makes time on the docks and in town always interesting with lots of well-traveled folks, accents and stories. We always learn so much from these well-traveled cruisers.

On Sunday, we had an appointment with the DAS agent. That's immigration here. Our maritime agent, Paola, set it up and we cabbed to the location to meet her. Because we arrived before she did, we started to walk towards the building. A uniformed man with a big automatic weapon stopped us. With our beginning Spanish we realized we couldn't proceed until our agent arrived. So we waited and had a few chats with the armed DAS agents who were all very friendly. We chatted (in our Spanish/English/Sign Language way) about baseball, the wild west and Colombia. It was fun. Then our agent arrived and we went into this incredible old building with high ceilings, many carvings and fancy concrete work, beautiful windows – many of old stained glass, and lovely wood and tile floors. It was quite a sight except for the very industrial desks within its rooms. The immigration agent was a very friendly guy – even though he had only two hours of sleep. It seems there are only two agents that handle all the boating traffic – including cruise ships. The day before there were two huge cruise ships in town – so he was one busy guy. But he maintained a great attitude and it was a pleasurable experience.

We cabbed back to the dinghy dock to change out of our "going to officials" clothes and then head into town to exchange US dollars for Colombian pesos. Because it was Sunday, we weren't certain if the "cambios" would be open. There is a big con in town that everyone warns you about - "never exchange money on the street." Banks do NOT exchange money – you can get pesos from ATMs, but they won't take US dollars and give you pesos. We did find an open "cambio" and exchanged some dollars. Now we could buy street food and drinks. We enjoyed a limeade from a street vendor who makes it with fresh limes. Very refreshing.

We tried to make a few calls to Colleen (Hans' daughter) so we could arrange to meet her and deliver her package. But we had no joy. As we walked back towards Manga (where the boat is), we stopped into a store and bought a SIM card for our cell phone. It was an interesting experience and we managed to get it done without any English spoken. Then we went to another spot to buy additional minutes (the first place would only do it with a credit card). Our last stop was Carulla – the big grocery store. We have a "tarjeta de Carulla" (Carulla discount card) which we got on our last visit to Cartagena. We loaded up on some fresh fruit and veggies and called it a day.

On Monday, a holiday here – day of the dead – we did boat projects (laundry and deck scrubbing - thanks to all the rain) and Michael spent hours trying to get online (no joy). Now we have lots of wet clothes and no place to dry them in the continuing rain. Monday night we went out with our agent Paola and her husband Mark and Les and Sara from a boat named "Wild Matilda". We were going to walk into the old city but it started to rain again – and so we went to a great local eatery that Paola knew. You had to buy your beers across the street at a tienda and bring them into the open air (but thankfully covered) restaurant. We enjoyed the local fare and then stopped on the way back in a pastry shop for a dessert.

It was pouring as we headed out to the boat in the dinghy so we were soaked upon arrival. Got the dinghy and outboard up and locked and tried to dry off.

Another rainy morning...so we sit amongst wet clothes. Today we should get the bid for the arch and will decide if we can afford it. Want to contribute?

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