8/6/2014
What a day it was proving Colombian elegance and gratitude over one after the other event. I woke up early in Bogota and headed toward Cartagena for the rest of my stay in Colombia. My colleague Erika met me at the airport in Cartagena with such hospitality; she took me to the hotel she chose herself by an earlier visit to make sure I would have a comfortable room to stay in for three days. Hotel Mocambo is indeed a lovely boutique hotel with comfortable and clean rooms, as long as you are OK climbing up the relatively steep staircase. The receptionist Andres is very welcoming, not solely out of professional courtesy, but more so out of pure generous heart, I can tell. Although it is too early to check in, he takes in my luggage into a secure room and Erika and I take off.
Erika takes me to a beach restaurant, a neighborhood one with no fuss or showy-ness, just as i had asked her to introduce me to; want to see how locals dine... We order a ceviche and an "arroz con camaron" (rice with shrimp) dish, but it turns out the fried rice has snail, octopus and perhaps scallops in it in addition to shrimp, both dishes are delicioso, one more time. I am yet to eat anything not exceptionally delicious in Colombia. Well... Perhaps with the exception of fried green plantains (patacon), I don't think they have much flavor unless they are garnished with something very flavorful. Today, a sour cream-like milk product is served with Erika's request, apparently unique to Bolivar region (department as they call it in Colombia). We garnish our fried plantain slices with this, and it does taste much much better, indeed.
Erika has to work at the hospital starting at 1 pm, and we rush out of the restaurant so that she is not late, she chuckles at the cashier's comment when Erika tells her she is in a rush: The indigenous attractive woman in her 30s or so murmurs "Lady, take it easy". She explains to me this is the life style on the coast, people take it easy, enjoy life, and don't push themselves too much! She tells me about the "Chacachos" and "Coastanios" nicknames the coastal people and Bogotanians have given each other respectively, with a slight judgmental, critical connotation of course. She believes coastal people find people of Bogota too rigid, too rushed and boring. In return, people from Bogota find coastal people too laid back to the extent of laziness, taking life too lightly as I understand it. I can't say I have encountered either group enough to generate an opinion of my own, I am just conveying to the reader what I was told...
Once I send Erika to work, I visit the Iglesia de Santo Domingo church on my way to the hotel. It is peaceful as I always find religious temples to be as architectural structures, especially when there is no religious activity going on. After a brief meditation at the church, I arrive at the hotel; my room has already been cleaned, air conditioning and a lovely tune on TV turned on: I like my space-to-become for the next three days very much. Andres is very sweet to carry my luggage to the third floor up the steep stairs. He is young and doesn't seem to mind. I start unpacking to a certain extent. When I unpack my carryon, which would have all my necessities for the last three days as well as everything that I cannot and should not lose, I notice that my jewelry bags are not in it. Just as I turn to my main luggage, it downs on me that I forgot to take the two little bags out of the safe at my hotel in Bogota. A surge of anxiety flows through my entire body.
I recall my reading of "Radical acceptance" that I was listening to on my audiobook as recently as this morning. "We have to live in our bodies and be aware of the sensations we feel rather than avoiding them". I stop for a moment, notice how tense I have gotten with the realization of the missing jewelry, not that they amount to much monetarily, but they are all gifts and mean a lot to me: I start taking deep breaths to calm down a bit before I can take notes of my sensations. The tension and fear I feel is not really about the material value of what I left behind, which might be lost, it is more about the sentimental value since I have at least 3-4 pieces that were (Oh my, I am already into the "they are gone" mood!) gifts from special people in my life.
Breathing helps quite a bit; I recall again one of our yoga teachers reciting "You can't imagine what marvels three deep, mindful breaths can accomplish for you at times of distress...", so true, I am much calmer now and able to move from "What if... (they are gone forever)" mood to "What is... (I don't know that they are lost, yet)" mood. This has become such a powerful tool lately for me to deal with any kind of tension-provoking event. I discovered after learning about this tool via reading, meditation and mindfulness classes I have been taking, that my mind mostly lives in the future, worrying about what can go wrong in the future, or wishing the good things of the future to happen right away! Both are equally not helpful to be content and fulfilled, not at all helpful toward being mindful....
I go back to "What is?". The answer is that, most likely nobody has entered my hotel room in Bogota, yet, since it is barely 1:30 pm, and the housekeeping never came to my room before 4 pm. It is true today may be different, if the room has been assigned to a new guest, it might be cleaned as early as 1 pm. I decide, the best thing to do is to call the hotel. However, before that I send an e-mail message to my colleagues, who are still staying at the same hotel, one of whom will be coming to Cartagena in two days, to retrieve them and bring along to Cartagena. However, I also know that they are all at the conference all day long and won't be able to attend to this issue until later in the evening. Calling the hotel is the best way to go. Andres is again extremely helpful. He finds Bicentenario's phone number online:
Color returns with all its might!
After Andres' call and couple of trips to my ex-room at Bicentenario by Carlos Jimenez, his face is before my eyes, one of the most polite and helpful staff that I recall, finally finds my two little bags of jewelry that I had put into a black bag to stick into my carryon before going to bed the night before. He promises he will save them in a secure place until my friend Robin picks them up to bring to me. The good in the world has come together again and no harm is done, furthermore, I am full of positive energy and all the tension is gone to such an extent, after expressing Andres my thankfulness profusely, I change into a very light attire to tolerate the heat of the tropics and take off into the old town.
Cartagena was the trade capitol in South America of the Spanish Empire, as a result of which, it became a very rich town very early on with Spaniards luting all the gold of the native tribes of the land. However, other nations wanted to have their share of the pie of gold and Cartagena was attacked by not only these national fleets but also by pirates. The solution was to build a very thick and long wall all around the city. Before I start my tour near the infamous clock tower, I want to buy some fruit: I have already seen numerous vendors pushing carts loaded with a variety of tropical fruits. Especially after discussing with Erika the variety of fruits in this region, I am more well versed on them.
So far, I have tried granadilla, guavanava, lulo=dragon fruit, star fruit=carambolo, tomate de arbol, mamancillo= a strawberry like fruit, mango, passion fruit in Bogota. Let's see what Cartagena will offer. Erica tells me about guanabana (a fruit with 9 white, juicy, sweet sections under its skin), cocada=fried coconut, which unfortunately I won't be able to have throughout my stay, somehow it seems like something to have in a kitchen the safety of which I should be confident of.
Or this... I eventually surrendered and tried all kinds of fruits that I did not peel and cut!
Except for mango and passion fruit, I didn't know any of the rest before coming to Colombia. What a treasure to learn with all senses, no wonder old Turks memorialized "who wonders more than who reads". It is surprising to see how much more pricy they are down in Cartagena than in Bogota, though, perhaps due to the touristic nature of old town. What can you do? I pay COP $3,000 for a glass of cut up mango, and COP $5,000 for a glass of guavanava juice. They are both delicious. No wonder, Colombians have a hard time surviving in America, where there is none of the juices and fruits they have access to here. Erika tells me they were stunned to have to pay $8 for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in the USA, which is dirt cheap here!
I visit their Modern Art Museum, Inquisition Museum, Cathedral de Santa Pedro Claver among other churches. Modern Art Museum strikes me with a number of paintings by Benny Schuster that display women, whose prominently pictured skirts are very colorfully painted to display a multitude of items that the painter clearly makes a statement with. What strikes me the most though, in the museum is a tree drawn sideways on a wall, the roots of which, extending into the perpendicular wall turn into a network of electronic devices and their extension cords.
This is what the roots and living core of each organism is gradually turning into on earth with the ever digitization of our daily lives...
That's it! I find myself murmuring: The answer to the question "where are we going with the ever increasing digitalization of our daily lives, of our relationships, and communication?" that I have been asking myself for some time now is right there on the wall: The tree has already fallen on its side representing what I fear may happen to mankind; we may fall down on one side or another if we lose the source of our liveliness, our roots or communication channels to digitalization. What better way of expressing my worry...
Inquisition museum is another very profound place, which clarifies the question Walter and the rest of the group discussed in the last several days. Dear Ed, who has a strong interest in Jewish history had shared with us how Inquisition had reached even Americas at its height and the Jews fleeing from Ottoman lands including Europe (who were by the way called Turkos in Americas). Walter didn't agree with Ed during the discussions; yet, there the evidence is, before my eyes. Two "high homes" housed the Inquisitors of Cartagena whereas multiple additional homes adjacent to this large complex housed the victims, who were tortured by the use of multiple devices and instruments, that are on display at the Inquisition Museum before execution again by the use of multiple other "ingenious" devices. They even have on display the list of questions that the alleged witches were asked and convicted by! You may go to: http://www.takethatvacation.com/slideshows/Destinations/South%20America/Colombia/Cartagena/slides/questions%20for%20witches%20Spanish%20Inquisition%2C%20Cartagena%2021.html to see some of them more legibly posted online
33 questions to interrogate suspect witches, generated by the all-knowing priests...
Furthermore, the rebellions of African and indigenous origin against the ruling class of Spanish origin also saw multiple witch trials in the context of Inquisition: I wonder one more time if this would be adequate proof to convince some nay-sayers on how organized religion has traditionally collaborated with the ruling class to rule the "ruled" better and easier by instilling fear and intimidation into those who uprise for equality and human rights? I also wonder what the good man Claver thought of the Inquisition? He was a priest that lived adjacent to the Cathedral under relatively humble circumstances and indeed helped the slaves brought from Africa by providing food, medicine and some protection to them. However, even the paintings hung up on the walls of the Cathedral make it clear that his mission was to win as many of the slaves as possible into Christianity. I wonder what his position was when the slaves started uprising? I wonder whether he helped any of the indigenous people to freedom whether they chose Christianity or not.
Stained glass at Claver's cathedral showing him with the indegineous people
Before dinner, I come to the hotel to see if any of my colleagues responded to me via e-mail regarding the jewelry. None, I am not surprised, the conference barely ended. Now dear Isa must celebrate her and her team's success. However, I need to call her to alert her about the situation. The hotel receptionist team has changed. No difference, they are as kind and attentive to my need as Andres.
Gabriel García Márquez's home in Old Town right around from my Hotel
The lovely indigenous looking lady at the reception desk calls my friend Erika to obtain Isabel's phone number. We then call Isabel twice until we reach her, now I am at peace, Isabel knows of the situation and she will meet Robin for dinner, who will take care of the situation. All the good people of Colombia and Americas will resolve this problem for me and hopefully, next time I will be more mindful about the details of my travels... While addressing all this, I can take only one picture of a beautiful sunset, but I am sure, I will enjoy two more before I leave this land. I am at peace with that, too.
I top my day with a dinner at an Argentinian restaurant, lamb chops and two kinds of salad. Patagonia, the restaurant is a very interesting place, the walls are almost entirely covered with pictures of the celebrity that have apparently eaten here, newspaper clips regarding Patagonia's gourmet status, wine bottles, horse shoes and all kinds of other restaurant paraphernalia. And what is also interesting is that their menu is printed on a wine bottle.
Menu on a wine bottle
When the waiter comes to me with a wine bottle I tell him, I won't have wine tonight, I'd like only ice water, he has a quizzical expression on his face, leaves the bottle at the table and goes away. Now I am perplexed, why did he leave the wine bottle here when I told him I didn't want wine. I reach to the bottle, weird, it is very light as if it is empty, and it is, too! Dah, I see the inscription on the bottle that looks like a list: of course, it is the menu... I explain it with my broken English to the waitress, who serves me for the rest of the night, we both chuckle, I bet they will tell this story for some time, or I wonder if they encounter this often?
Time to go crash, I will go to the Rosario Islands National Park tomorrow...
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| First sunset in Cartagena |
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