Traveling with Emily!

Bill’s First Colombia Post

I started the first leg of the trip to Colombia yesterday with a drive to St. Louis. The night was short with an early morning flight, at least this was our choice for this trip. With luck or on time flights we will be in Cartagena about 1:00 pm.

Getting through STL was rather quick, I did get flagged for my snacks. Must be a thing about snacks, the guy in front of us did as well.

Atlanta was easy, we had a short layover but it was enough time to get to where we needed to be and use the facilities.

We are going to be in Colombia for 2 weeks and from the way it sounds Emily was able to pack almost a change of clothes for everyday there in her new Hynes Eagle 44L carry on. I only brought a weeks worth so my outfit will reappear in photos.
I highly recommend this carry on bag! You should get one if you travel. Get the inserts if you really like to be organized. No checked bags means in and out of the airport on both ends. You can get you tickets at the automatic kiosks and go right to security checkpoint. On the way out there is no waiting for the luggage at the carousel. When we went to Peru I packed enough for the two weeks with my personal bag. Emily packed about everything she had in her giant suitcase .

We made it to Colombia! I was a little tired and cranky. I’m okay with 5-5:30, not so much 4am. It’s hot and humid, but from looking at the weather back home there’s not a lot of difference this week. Here there is an ocean breeze that’s not too bad. The buildings are not as rough here. In the better neighborhoods they look like Miami from what other tourists say. I believe it. Surprisingly I’ve only been to the airport there. The airport was fairly easy to get through, short wait getting our passports stamped. We exchanged money and our driver was waiting for us as we exited. He was friendly and works for the school. We met up with a couple more people from the school who helped us to our apartment.

Our apartment isn’t too bad. I was a little concerned about it and the school I picked due to some hiccups. I also need to lower my standards some. The A/C works and we have security in the building all the time so those are pluses. Hot water is iffy but Emily says that’s how it is here in South America.
They put us on the 12th floor and we look out over the ocean. The beach is across the street, went there today and though I’ve been in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific I have never swam in the ocean until today.

The walled part of town where the school is, is interesting. We spent some time down there today, found our school and looked at the shops. We found a American style pub that was nice. They played excellent music, 60s, 70s and 80s. The food was good as well.

I’m interested in classes. I’m not sure how well I will do. I’ve been doing Doulingo for a while now and they seem to think I know about 3000 words. Reading them, I do okay but when I am listening to people talk that number seems to go down. I think it will be good to get to the point where I can have a conversation. It would have been handy last week when We had two patients that didn’t speak English. Next time I should be more prepared!

This trip is more relaxed than Peru. The schedule is much more open with the exception of classes. And other than our choice to take the early flight here we shouldn’t have to many days were we, or at least I, have to set and early alarm.

It’s nice we have a kitchenette. Should save on food costs and no hotel breakfasts. We have a little store down the block from us that has a fair selection of things. I could go pretty basic with ham sandwiches and eggs but we are going to cook some actual meals. We will have to go to a bigger market to see about some seasonings, our little one was limited in that area.

It’s 7 million pesos to take a cab to the walled part of the city. That’s about $2. They say 2 and mean 2 million even though they have some 200 peso coins. I’m not sure the coins are worth getting. It’s interesting they can technically price things to such a fraction of what dollars are worth.

Speaking of buying things, I bought myself a Juan Valdez hat today. You can roll them up and the bounce right back. Not sure how long it will last but for now it’s nice to keep my face in the shade and not burn my scalp, my hair is not as thick as it once was!

The city is big! Not as big at Lima, 10 million people, here is around 1 million. Emily said it’s made up of 4 islands. We are going to try and see a couple of museums and maybe do some tours. I have a guide book so we may just take some of those multi million peso cab rides and see what we want. We may just end up hanging at the beach.

Tomorrow morning we go in for testing. Should be interesting how they do it. I’m hoping they don’t go by just reading. For them to understand how much help I need they will need to try and have a conversation with me!

Flooded Apartment

Well, we flooded our apartment today. Bill tried to wash a load of laundry and the entire tub of water leaked all over the floor. It flooded half of the apartment with about a quarter inch of water. It took us about an hour to get all the water mopped up. It was an experience!

Otherwise though, we had a good day. This morning, we walked along the beach down to the old, historic, colonial part of the city. It was scorching hot, but the beach, which is gray, volcanic sand, sparkles. It’s very pretty. Bill thinks that an erosion of oyster shells created natural glitter. The old part of the city is very pretty. We found our school and some neat restaurants and Bill bought a “Juan Valdez”- style Colombian hat. It’s in the pictures below. We walked along the wall that fortified the old city. We were melting by the time we finished, so we got a taxi home! We bought roasted chicken form the grocery store for lunch and some delicious mangos. This afternoon, we swam in the ocean. Bill doesn’t think he’s ever been swimming in an ocean, and he had fun body surfing on the waves. We aren’t in a touristy part of the city at all and there aren’t many English speakers here in general. There were lots of Colombian families on the beach with adorable little kids. We think it’s mostly people who live in the neighborhood and walk over to the beach. There are probably some Colombian tourists as well. It’s much nicer that way than being surrounded by drunk tourists.

We just got back from dinner at an Irish pub. We took a taxi back to the old city and found a pub with hamburgers, coconut chicken and good music. It wasn’t very Colombian but it was a fun evening. We got a taxi back when it started to rain.

We go take our Spanish placement test at 8am tomorrow morning. I hope classes go well and we have good teachers. It will be 3 hours of Spanish every afternoon! I think Bill is working on his update, so I should be able to post that soon. Pictures are below.

Bill in the old city center with his new hat. The seller assured us it was handmade and authentic!

The mandevillias here are beautiful and the historic center is very colorful.

Me on a colorful street. This part of the city has lots of fun shops.

Cartagena

We made it to Cartagena! Our flights were all on time and our driver was waiting at the airport so it was a smooth trip. It has been a long day though! It’s scorching hot here in the daytime – 90s with humidity also in the 90s. We got up at 4am to make our flight at 6am and neither of us slept all that well last night. We’re exhausted! We got to the apartment and someone from the school was waiting for us. He seems very nice and gave us basic instructions. When he left, we discovered that the air conditioner in the main room of our apartment wasn’t working and the air conditioners in the two bedrooms aren’t powerful enough to cool the entire apartment. We spent most of the day melting! We went to eat and found a restaurant with AC. However, what Colombians consider air conditioned and what we consider air conditioned are not the same thing. The restaurant had a tiny wall unit that barely cooled at all. It was a long afternoon!

Not everything has been bad though. First days in a new country, especially in the developing world, require adjustment. Things we take for granted in the US are luxuries here. Our contact from school came to fix our AC this afternoon so we have a nice, cool apartment now. Our apartment is really lovely and we have a beautiful view of the ocean. I’ll try to post a couple pictures below. The apartment complex also has a nice pool, and everything is neat and clean. It’s fun to be back in a Spanish speaking country. The family that runs the restaurant where we had supper spoke very little English, and our driver only spoke Spanish as well, so I’m getting some good practice. It’s good practice for Bill too, and I think he’ll be able to join conversations once we start classes on Monday. Around 6:30, the sun starts to go down and it really cools off here. There’s a nice breeze that comes off the ocean. We found a small grocery store around the corner to buy food and other supplies and I’ll start cooking some of our meals in our neat little kitchen.

Once we get settled in, I think it will be a good trip. I’m excited to see the old, colonial part of the city and start Spanish lessons. I’m going to go watch Colombian TV for a few minutes before I crash in bed. I’m running out of energy fast! Bill will probably have an update to add here soon.

Spicy Shrimp Pasta

I made a good shrimp pasta recipe last night. Here’s the recipe if anyone is interested.

Ingredients:

1lb uncooked shrimp peeled and deveined (scallops can be added too)

2 c. Heavy cream

2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tbs each chopped thyme and basil

1/4 cup chopped green onions

2 or 3 red, yellow and/or orange sweet peppers chopped

1 box of fresh mushrooms cut up

1 tbs minced garlic

1 c. Shredded Swiss cheese

1/2 c chopped fresh parsley

2 tsp. Salt

Butter and olive oil

1 lb of favorite pasta cooked (I used penne)

Grated parmesan

Sauté chopped mushrooms, vegetables, garlic, pepper and salt in butter and olive oil until soft. Add shrimp, cream, basil, thyme and parsley. Cook until shrimp is cooked through. Add cooked pasta and then Swiss cheese. Top with parmesan.

This is a very easy recipe, but it has good flavor.

Ninja U and Stand Up Paddle Board

Occasionally (especially in the summer), I like to watch American Ninja Warrior. The obstacle courses look fun, and the people who run those courses are amazing athletes! I’ve been thinking for the last few years that it would be fun to try out a course, so I was really excited when I found out that there’s a new Ninja Warrior-style gym in town. I discovered it accidentally while I was shopping at Kohls. In the past, I would have never considered trying something like this, but I want to live a more exciting life, so I decided to go. ( I also tried out some temporary butterfly tattoos to see if I want to get one permanently. I’m still on the fence about that, and unfortunately they washed off before my trip to Ninja U. That seemed like a good place to wear tattoos.) One of my colleague’s wanted to try Ninja U too, so we went together. We’re both early 40s and in pretty good shape, but the course was incredibly difficult. You need huge amounts of upper body strength to do it successfully. The course had rubberized ramps that you run up, bars that you swing from and a warp wall (unfortunately no water obstacles). There’s a climbing wall with no harness, so if you fall, you splatter on the mat below. Fortunately, I could only make it about a foot off the ground, so it was a short fall for me! There were a lot of little kids swinging effortlessly like little monkeys, which made me feel very old. My colleague suggested that the experience would make us more empathetic toward even older people with mobility problems. Long story short, neither of us are going to make it on TV. I’d like to try the course again. It’s good exercise and it’s something interesting and different to do. It might be especially good in the winter when it’s hard to get outside.

After my Ninja U experience in the morning, I tried a stand up paddle board yoga class that afternoon. I’ve done paddle board a few times on the ocean, and it was hard. I felt like the waves were against me any way I went. This time, I was on a lake with calm water so it was much easier. Yoga on a paddle board is really good for balance. I fell once but managed to stay on my board. I don’t remember slipping, but all of the sudden, I was on my butt on the paddle board! Next time I go, I’m planning to just get a paddle board and paddle around on my own.

Both activities were a lot of fun, but I could barely move for three days afterward!

Introduction

Hello All! Welcome to my blog site. My partner Bill and I post to this site twice a year when we are on vacation. We write daily updates describing our adventures, but we also try to provide readers with useful information about the places we visit. The blog is a great way to share our experiences with family and friends, especially those who don’t get to travel. We also craft to blog to help anyone who wants to plan a trip to the places we have visited. We include information about where we stay, what to expect in different locales, tours that we like and don’t like, packing tips, and any other information that might help people who are considering a trip. We also like to review products that we find particularly useful in travel. Bill and I have travel backpacks that we love, and we have experimented with many kinds of sunscreens!

We hope that you enjoy the blog. If anyone has questions, feel free to send us a message!