8/8/14
My last day in Cartagena and Colombia. Isa, our conference chairperson, gradually becoming a dear friend and Robin my American colleague from the conference we attended in Bogota have decided to stay at the hotel I am staying at. That will make things much easier. We will definitely have dinner together, which will give me an opportunity to not only chat about how things went since my departure from Bogota, but also I will be able to take over the possession of the jewelry I left in Bogota in my hotel room that I vacated! Isa makes a joke and tells me, you want to leave your jewelry with us it looks like. True, what she doesn't know is that there are several metaphors in that statement as well.
I consider my heart the core jewel of my existence (most likely like everybody else) since I wish the best for all creatures on earth and try to do good in the world as much as possible for especially those that need it. I know that I will leave part of my heart behind with the gracious, elegant, warm people of Colombia. Secondly, my daughter is also a central jewel of my life. Having traveled to Colombia in the past and fallen in love with it, who knows, she may choose to settle down in Colombia... And, there may be a metaphorical connection there in my attempting to leave my jewelry in Bogota.
Since, I am essentially free till the evening, I would like to repeat some of what I did yesterday if I can. I go downstairs. Dear Andres, our gracious receptionist is already in when it is barely 7:45. I tell him about my plan. He tells me enthusiastically, he knows of a tour he could call. Sure enough, they do have room for me and Andres makes the reservation. They will give me door-to-door service and lunch is included. And the tour is going to the Baru island, which I had been curious about. All is well, although since the price is one third of the price to Maja Gua Hotel, I am a bit skeptical about the service, but "what the heck, I will see a different type of tour service at a lower level of quality." I take it.
A young African man arrives in a taxi cab to pick me up. We are heading to where all the boats were docked yesterday that had raised my curiosity about what they were up to when we were headed to a secluded, private looking dock to catch the elegant yacht that took us to Maja Gua yesterday. I smile to myself with a silent murmur "Isn't everything relative in life?" Only after seeing the boat and dock of today, I discover that the boat of yesterday in fact was an elegant yacht and the dock was a quiet, private dock!
Our boat today will be Nautico and we are shown to the rows of white plastic chairs lined up on the pier to wait for our boat. I chat up a Mexican young couple, who turn out to be running a restaurant of their own in Guadalajara, and they are on vacation in Colombia now. After half an hour of waiting, Nautico arrives and all 42 seats are occupied, maximum allowed per the ordinance put up on the wall of the boat. The way we are cramped up in the boat reminds me of the "chicken bus" concept of Guatemala. Sitting next to me is an "African-indiginous" mixture of an adolescent beauty, a zambo. She tells me she lives in London with her parents. She has this adolescent insecurity and her answers are brief. I leave her be.
Later on, when her mother volunteers to chat, she tells me her husband is a chef in London and she stays home with her four children. We go through the same routine of discussing the meaning of the fortresses at the entrance of the bay before heading toward the Rosario Island National Park. I will learn in the evening from Isa that in fact, there was a chain between the two fortresses and they would raise it when a ship approached and not allow the hostile ships even enter the bay.
When we arrive in Baru, some people are offered to stay here to enjoy the beach, which is crowded to the nth degree. The Mexican couple among other people get off here. Since I did snorkeling yesterday, I would like to do something different today. Besides, I would like to leave my snorkeling experience at the climax it reached yesterday. The snorkeling they offer doesn't seem to be very inviting anyway. I choose to stay with the group heading to the aquarium. As we rush out of this cove, I see evidence that I made the right decision by not volunteering for snorkeling here. There are 5 heads per square yard of water 100 yards off the shore with pretty much no guidance as I can see it.
Aquarium on the other hand, is an interesting place, at least a place worth visiting once. Along with the enclosed mini acquariums, in which smaller sea animals are displayed, there is an outdoors display area. This section of the aquarium is sectioned from the ocean itself with metal chicken wire fencing. In each section, sea creatures live in their more or less natural environment, although a bit crowded one might say. One section is dedicated to dolphins, another to big brown fish, yet another to sea turtles, on and on. Well trained caretakers put on a show for us in each section during their feeding process. It is quite a spectacle to observe the crowd move from the fencing of one section to the other not to miss the show. I join in.
When we are done, I feel I desperately need some juice, coconut juice comes to my help. It feels really good, refreshing, rejuvenating as we wait for our boat Nautico to come pick us up. I look around, nobody familiar. I ask somebody about whereabouts of Nautico, he shows me a boat approaching. Come to see, the boat that has arrived has nothing to do with Nautico, and now the guy I asked for help is gone. I ask somebody else. The same process repeats itself, which makes me a bit anxious, especially given the fact that I don't see anybody from my group on or around the pier.
Fortunately, I spot the Colombian couple, a young architect and a civil engineer, with whom I will stay for the rest of the day, and I learn from them this is how it works. The time set for our meeting 12:20 apparently is just suggestive with some +/-, and how large that variation may be is open to imagination. We are in the Caribbean and I am not in a rush for anything anyway. As long as I know Nautico will come pick us up at some point, I am at peace. I sit down and enjoy my coconut juice until finally Nautico collects its snorkelers and comes to pick us up with 35 minutes of delay, which is not considered a delay around these waters...
I have learned my lesson, this time I sit in the back of the boat: These boats are like jets. They probably do 80-90 miles an hour on the water, causing the water to become almost a non-yielding solid surface. Since they also try to cover the shortest distance, they don't mind riding perpendicular to the waves. As a result, it is not rare for the front end of the boat rise up to the sky and land on the surface of the ocean from several feet! You can imagine the impact of such on somebody who may have a lower back pain, which I do since yesterday's excursion. In the back I expect the "slams" to be felt much less. And... It turns out to be very true.
Fruit juice is the most abundant item via street vendors
When we get to Baru island, we are rushed through the crowd from behind the shade-tents into a make-shift restaurant. The servers are not as friendly as yesterday, but people who leave the area with a plate seem to be happy. The plates are loaded with a whole fish, I am sure it is morollo, this will be my third morollo in subsequent three meals, for the first time in my life! And the best morollo of all three, too, since it must be so fresh; with this crowd, all the fish must have arrived this morning.
I am now not only with the couple from Medellin, but also a young man from Chile, vacationing in Colombia. Sabrina, the architect and I enter a discussion on the political circumstances in Colombia. The men, who don't speak much English start their own conversation in Spanish. I show them how Turks eat whole fish with head and all, they are interested, Sabrina is a bit disgusted with the eyes and the brain, but is good sport; that makes me chuckle... We are having our lunch under a straw canopy providing the deepest shade to the tables laid out for the needs of these humble boat tours.
Indigenous women parading in Bogota Festival
Today, I am definitely meeting a different crowd of Colombia and South America. Except for me, everybody on our boat is either Colombian or from somewhere in Central to South America. Age average is much lower and these younger people are either students or young professionals. Middle aged people on the other hand, are from the blue color section of their society. Yesterday, we, a combination of Europeans, North Americans and upper class Latinos had a private beach all to ourselves. Today, I am sharing my day with the real people, mainstream people of a cross section of Latin America.
More from Bogota Festival
After lunch, Sabrina and her husband Rudolpho ask me whether I would like to share an umbrella with them, "Claro!", but I would like to pay because I am their senior. We chuckle, they agree, but Sabrina tells me we will pay before we leave. When we are ready to leave though, I discover that it was just a trick, Rudolpho has already paid for the umbrella. They smile at me and Sabrina tells me "you are a guest"! How Turkish, knowing this common element of our cultures, I smile back accepting their hospitality with gratefulness. When we get under our shade, I tell Rudolpho and Sabrina to go swim as I look after our stuff. They are pleasantly surprised. At this age, I feel motherly instincts toward protecting all young people, who are in my daughter's age range now. I hope my daughter, who will soon embark on a 1 year-long travel across the world may come across good people to give her a hand and good guidance should she need it. After all, I have a sense that all good deeds on earth are interconnected and hopefully my daughter and I will remain connected through our good deeds be it when we are half a world apart geographically.
Meat Market in Bogota
Back to being in the shade... I take out my book titled "A Few Small Moments" by Carol Scott-Connor, a surgeon who rose to the department head position at the University of Iowa Hospitals, a rarity for a female to become a surgeon, especially during their time, even rarer to become a surgery department head. As soon as I read the blurb on the back cover, instantaneously I ask myself "At what cost, I wonder". As I read through this book, Kim Ephgrave, a dear friend, albeit brief, who died due to terminal lung cancer after three years of very gracious battle with it, keeps popping into my mind.
And... The holy fish world...
It warms my heart that Carol mentions her as one of her guides in her work in her preface. As soon as I return home, I will contact Carol and meet with her to share with her how much I enjoyed her book and her honesty in it. So many things I read here resonate with what I heard from Kim throughout her experiences as a female surgeon in a manly world of surgery. I am so surprised though, that as many things resonate with my own experiences... Expectations of perfectionism, first and foremost from my own self, but then from my secretaries, from medical students... I wonder if I make their life as difficult as Alexis in the book, does her counterparts'. As I move on, though, I feel a sign of relief since I have never done anything to make a staff feel humiliated or angry to the extent of filing complaints... Still, food for thought in this life of mine, which I have identified as work in progress till last breath...
Vegetables are also abundant in the market
It is not possible to keep a train of thought, though, since every minute or so, an indigenous man or woman stops by and tries to sell something, beads, fruit, baked goods, fried coco, massage, water, you name it... I almost feel like there are as many salespeople on foot as clients trying to enjoy the beach! I now understand what Theresa meant by "Public beaches are not very pleasant, they are extremely crowded and every minute somebody is trying to sell something to you". I get it, but I also notice the similarity between what I observe today with most of the beaches in Turkey.
One of many delicious dishes in Colombia
All in all, when all is said and done, my day on Baru island was not that bad at all. I was in fact able to get a glimpse to a different section of Cartagenian society, which enriched my life and understanding of Colombia. All is good. On our way back to Cartagena, the boat unexpectedly approaches a ready-to-fall-into-the-bay type of a pier in front of a village or shall I say "suburban" shanty town east of Cartagena. In the meantime our "tour guide" another zambo, who proved to have a very good sense of humor from the amount of laughter he brought out of my fellow Latino boaters is shaking hands and bidding farewell with all of us.
Another delicious and vegetarian dish
"A bit early?" is my thought, but not quite, since by the time he is done we are at the pier and off he jumps onto the pier with his graceful backpack on his back and another of his villagers jumps on the boat. That's where our handsome tour guide lives, in this neighborhood that looks like a very poor one, in which the only thing that is sparkling is the church painted in the brightest blue and yellow. I wish him and his villagers well. I know there is a world outside of the touristy vivaciousness of the old town and showiness and luxury of the towers and hotels of the new town in Cartagena....
Where our host jumps off the boat
I believe each country or location that we visit is an iceberg. What we tourists are allowed or choose to see is the tip of the iceberg. If we have contacts from within we may reach couple-of-feet-below-the-surface section of the society. Only if we live in a society long enough, at least 6-12 months, will we be able to dive toward the deeper depths, perhaps never to get to the bottom of the iceberg for a variety of reasons... Locals may not want us to see the bowels of their society, we may not feel safe to explore those depths or have the desire to do so. After all, what proportion of our own society do we know well enough that we may say, I have reached the bottom of the iceberg ?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez' home in old town Cartagena
All in all, Colombia gave me very good glimpses of her society from intellectual professionals, to intellectuals interested in politics of their own land as well as distant lands, to working class, to small business owners, to a variety of ethnicities... I am grateful for all the exposures and appreciate the grace, dedication, and warmness of her people, whether they came from the poor working class or blue color or from upper class intellectuals... Colombians opened my eyes to a different way of existence in Latin America. Looking forward to repeat visits to discover more of it in the near future....
All in all, Colombia gave me very good glimpses of her society from intellectual professionals, to intellectuals interested in politics of their own land as well as distant lands, to working class, to small business owners, to a variety of ethnicities... I am grateful for all the exposures and appreciate the grace, dedication, and warmness of her people, whether they came from the poor working class or blue color or from upper class intellectuals... Colombians opened my eyes to a different way of existence in Latin America. Looking forward to repeat visits to discover more of it in the near future....
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| Colombia is a country that one must visit... |
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