Barranquilla Carnaval February 15, 2010

Barranquilla Carnaval February 15, 2010
One of the festivals I heard about in Colombia quite a while ago is the Festival at Barranquilla, a large city of friendly and active people who apparently like to Party!! It’s a few hours bus trip from Cartagena and is held four days before ash Wednesday to have a good time before the restricted lent before Easter, as the once pagan festival has had a bit of a religious significance added, but not an overabundance as you will see in my pics.
Dan and I had planned to go for some time. We were going to go with a very small group and stay in Barranquilla for one overnight. Plans changed to a one day trip when we all found that reservations were not to be had. The prices would perhaps triple during festival and it was first come in the few hotels! We also had the small complication of Dan on crutches..and he decided not to go. (news flash: He has started almost daily therapy for 20 days and will be rechecked by his doctor soon. He’s sick of not being able to move and walk normally.)
Barranquilla was described as an awesome festival and after viewing pictures on-line I decided I would not miss it despite Dan’s not being able to go. It is a four day long festival that has a great deal of history – only I can’t figure the historical part out. There is a series of animals like the “marimonda”, spider monkey, and special dances such as the conga, gaita, cumbia , paleta and others that had significance to the various participating cultures, as well as salsa and champeta, marimba and others. It apparently was a slave festival of freedom and gaiety where “anything goes” was once the expectation. It has evolved into a presentation of blended cultural beliefs. One of them is that the King? Josalito dies of overdoing the partying on the last day of Carnaval and all the wives-every woman- mourn and cry. The last day of the festival is a funeral for Joselito. The Google translation to English from the website Spanish is very difficult to decipher. Check out the website. When it comes up it will be in Spanish, but Google will translate. http://www.lasmarimondas.com/historia.php THEN THE OFFICIAL SITE http://www.carnavaldebarranquilla.org/previo/tradicion.html if after the viewing of my latest set of pictures if you care about the history.
So Let’s Party!
Preparation: The day before there was an optional morning dedicated to decorating our tee shirts. Once we got the spellings of carnaval and Barranquilla correct it was all color and glitter after that. In my pictures Jan, our paint and marker supplier and artista extradinar, is modeling her hand-painted tee. Mine wasn’t quite as pretty, in fact it is rather pathetic-but I like it.

Two small buses arranged by Sharon and Jim picked up our group in the morning. Sharon added more glitter to our outfits by supplying any willing cruiser with a brightly colored bead necklace- she and others had been to other Carnavals like Mardi-Gras and Trinidad and felt we needed a day out of cruiser drab. The buses brought around thirty cruisers from the anchorage at Cartagena to the city of Barranquilla. We left at 9:00AM and arrived about 11:00AM under the watchful eye of our guide Rafael in bus number one and Alex in bus number two. Rafael was our guide. He told us a bit about the city and made it a point to suggest we whoop it up on the bus, asking if we knew any songs and if we wanted to stop for “Ron”! (rum- it’s 9:00AM- I want Dunkin Donuts but that wasn’t available either, of course.)

Rafael asked if we had any questions and I asked about the figure called “marimonda”, the symbol of the festival- and got a very vague answer. I chalked it up to language barrier and asked a follow-up question about the origin of the festival. That brought up the reference to Joselito and something about slaves, but was another not too helpful answer and so I figured I’d look it up later. I did look it up by following the link above. What a shock!

We had been warned to carry no more than was needed with us, not even to take a camera was suggested. “Pick pockets are everywhere! They might slash your pocket to take anything you have.”
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/culture/8267-murder-rate-low-at-2010-barranquilla-carnival.html

Barranquilla Festival includes parades, with costumes and floats. None of us were going without a least a pocket camera, although my friend Cindi do lose hers from her pocket! We stuck the family money in our bras and in our shoes, tied cameras to a belt-loop and hoped for the best. The ringing sound of “stay together, stay together “was heard as we exited the buses, were supplied with a cellphone number for Rafael and herded on down the busy street toward the location of the parade route. (We had been told not to have extra stuff so few people had defied that order and brought their cells.)

We had arrived early and were looking to find good seats for the 1:00PM start of the awaited parade. A set of plastic chairs was rented to us for the equivalent of $2.50 each. No problem, it was under a red Aguila tent, so we’d have shade-NOT! The locals were charged $1.00 for the same chairs after the military stationed every few feet along the parade route bodily picked up the red tent and moved it way back and the beer venders and locals moved in, leaving our chairs near the front but no cover at all. By waiting by the parade barrier fence in the sun, I was able to perch myself right up front.

Since the beer vendors moved near us, and by that time it was 1:00PM, there was nothing to be done but have a beer and buy fried food. Then have fried food and a shaved ice treat. Then……what?????

I was just standing there minding my own business gawking, when one of the fun lovin’ locals -Whoosh! sprayed me and lots of others with a shaving cream like stuff from a can. Soon it was every man, woman and child for themselves as the spraying continued with sneak attacks for the next two hours, ammunition supplied by willing vendors of the foam and silly string stuff, leading up to the carnaval parade we had been told was to step off at one- it was 3:30PM before the first marchers danced down our way. Foam fun, drinking and eating all made the wait in the hot sun more bearable, not shorter.

Then young boys, faces painted black with shoe polish, circled around the group menacingly, carrying sticks. The “game” is to scare you into giving them some change or they will put black polish on you! We heard from other cruisers it was really harmless, although in the later evening you could expect the participants to be older and carrying machetes! “Just go along with it, maybe hug them”, the experienced festival goers said. They had brought towels because they knew about the foam, the finks!

When the parade did finally start, it was worth all the wait and more. I had a fantastic time and was totally awed by the Carnaval Fantasy parade; the costumes, the energy, the music and dancing, the shaking, shimmying and champeta, and the beauty of the participants who put on a 100% show over the three kilometers of the route. In my pics you can’t see the bandaged feet, the broken high heel of the dancer in red, the chafing costumes.

But from behind the fence where I was sitting, what I saw was (an excuse for some of my photos)- Colombianos young and old excited about giving everyone the best show possible!

Viva Colombia! Viva Barranquilla! were the words of the day.

Enjoy- especially the video clips!!

Don't forget to double click each picture for a slide show!!


First the cruisers and the crowds..

Barr- Crusiers and crowd

Choosing a Queen is important in Colombia.

Barr-The Queens

The first part of the 3 hour parade

First Parade- Barranquilla 2010

Hopefully the videos load so you can watch without gaps

Barr-movie clips

Finally the second part of the parade

2nd half- Baranquilla

FUN AND GAMES AGAIN IN CARTAGENA February 11, 2010

FUN AND GAMES AGAIN IN CARTAGENA February 8, 2010

Last night (February 7) was the Super Bowl for American football. A group of at least fifty cruisers went to a local pizza hangout because the manager/owner said he would rent a 52inch TV, which made two TV’s in his open air restaurant. Oh, and he promised the cable would be on- not like other places people had tried to watch playoff games.

Dan and his crutches got out to the road. We rented a taxi for the four city block trip to Paucho Y Guillos. Lots of friends were already there at other tables but we sat where we could as America the Beautiful and the Anthem were sung. Dan watched the game, chatting with the other guys and hoping for the underdog Saints.

I went from table to table, chatting with people, and ordered our drinks and pizza. I chatted with Judy, the Texan who in my last post I wrote had given shots to her cattle. She also was, before cruising as crew, a telephone linesperson, and doesn’t mind climbing sailboat masts.

I bought a beer for the aforementioned nurse who gave Dan his shot and just by chance had the previous night helped another cruiser to an ambulance. He had fallen in his cockpit and went unconscious.

I talked with my friend Suzi (mentioned in other posts as social director)who was yelling when everybody else was-but hates football. (Kinda like yours truely)

Well, it wasn’t the Patriots – I thought about how we always had our friends and our boys around for a Super Bowl party, made chili and pigged out. At Paucho Y Guillos there was a gambling pool like we would have at our house- I still didn’t win! The game progressed and at the end of the third quarter before the Saints big push, we left, thinking it’s the Colts all the way. When we got back on the boat and Dan checked on the internet- Surprise, surprise! He was able to see bits and pieces of the play later on the internet. When the crowd came back to the marina, all excited, we were sorry we had left!

There’s another (well, lots of other) good place to go for a quick and cheap meal. One night on the dock we gathered for a fried chicken and baked beans get-together with Frisby Chicken-Yum!

Other cruisers on the Club de Pesca dock invited us to go to the “Shwarma” place. “Uh, ok. What’s a Shwarma?”
“Well,” answered another Judy- this one makes it her point to know all the cultural events in the city and tells us about the movies, fiestas and the schedule of the Music festivals, as the newspapers keep things like that a secret, “a Shwarma is like a Gyro. You choose pollo or puerco or mixto with chicken and pork. It’s tightly rolled up in a kind of pita bread thing and they give you four great sauces to put on. One is garlic mayonnaise, pineapple and sweet, flaming hot sauce and mustard based.”

In pleasant company we ate our first of many meals of Shwarmas. At 8,000 pesos or $4.00US why bother cooking?

Speaking of cooking- yes we do eat many meals on the boat. Sadly, they don’t do breakfasts here like we are (were) used to in the States, so all breakfasts have been aboard except for the hotel when Dan was operated on. There they served us scrambled eggs with tomato, fresh fruit juice and fresh fruit; papaya, mango, great coffee and bread. But we’ve not seen or heard of a breakfast place where one could buy a breakfast like that. On board we alternate between pancakes, French toast , egg dishes and cereal. We haven’t found a good bacon for a long while. It’s usually pressed ham or chorizo-not bad but different.

Since Dan isn’t walking right now full provisioning ; buying gallons of drinking water and food is what I do. Also I haul our laundry to and from the same grocery store as there are no self-service Laundromats available. Two ladies take the time to insert a plastic stem with a hand-written number written on paper on it into each item of clothing; underwear, socks, kitchen towels, whatever. Then, meticulously, the clothing numbers are regrouped, the items counted and you go home, hopefully with everything ‘cause the paper numbers do fall off in the wash, to snip off each stem to wear the clothes. Labor is cheap.

The nearby grocery store is not a Stop and Shop but certainly food is available but costs as much or more as in the States for anything packaged- like pasta noodles are $3.50 and the poor quality bacon $12.00. We had supplied well in Panama but are lowering the mountains of cans slowly and more meats and fresh products are needed. After I shop I can have a young employee push my shopping cart all the way from Carulla to our boat- a distance of perhaps a mile and pay her $2.50- and she is thrilled to be making more money than she makes at the store. I don’t see how the locals can eat for what they are paid.

The internet is available here for a fee. Both Dan and I spend probably too much time on-line in frivolous pursuits. Dan is a political junkie and Sarah Palin is driving him insane as well as the stupidity and gullibility of the American public.(as he sees it) I surf a few cruising blogs of friends, do my blog and pictures which takes a long time and now Steven has gotten me on Facebook so he can put pictures there and stay in touch. If you let yourself you could spend days on Facebook and UTube videos. I became all excited when the name of an old friend came up as wanting me to call her. She had emailed, through Facebook, simply a cell phone number. I called her number on Skype - to find at the other end a lovely woman with the same name as my friend from Oregon not Colrain who thought she was being scammed! She was really nice about it- she thought I was someone else, too. Her old friend trying to find her!

One more thing cruisers do to amuse themselves is Mexican Train dominos every Sunday. The game of matching little dots goes on in relative quiet for about three hours. The players have to move tables after four hands to mix up the groups. Some of the better players can be heard slamming their ivory dominos onto the table for emphasis. After the games the lowest score is recognized as the winner and the person with the highest score "had the most fun" when the results are brodcast by radio on Monday morning.

John and Suzi celebrated their 19th anniversay on Sea Star. They came over to visit Dan and give us something else to do to counteract the bordom of staying aboard so much. They taught us a card game they call "Diminishing Cards." The first hand 7 cards are dealt to all. You bid how many hands you will be able to take, as one card is played by each player in a hand. If you don't make your bid you are slammed with points. The hand with 7 cards starts with a 10 point penalty. The hand with 1 card carries a 70 point penalty. We had fun and the guys won.

Soon we'll have more than physical therapy and Spanish lessons to look forward to. I'll log then!

Lounging at Club de Pesca February 7, 2010

Lounging at Club de Pesca February 7, 2010
Sometimes paradise is just like being land based with its problems; such as aging and finding a place to live. Lately we have had other things rather than cruising on our minds.
Sea Star remains at Club de Pesca. It’s really comfortable. For a small fee (he! He!) we can use our air conditioning, lounging below while the hired boat boys clean and polish Sea Star and Dan heals and ices his knee from his recent arthroscopic knee surgery.

In my last post I mentioned that cruisers often come to Cartagena to access medical services such as dentists and general health care check-ups, and also schedule Lasik eye surgeries, and plastic surgeries of all types. If one has the money health care is available, and quite a bit cheaper than the “same” surgery elsewhere.

Unfortunately, Dan had one knee that was not "right" and causing him pain when walking. He had it looked at when we were in MA in November, had a shot of cortisone and went back to Panama. When we arrived in Colombia he knew he had to do something about it.

I’ll abbreviate a little here but the steps went something like this- He went to one doctor, a surgeon named Valiente ($40.00) who suggested an MRI which he had the next day( $420.00). Doctor suggested surgery.


Went for a second opinion($50.00). Was told to take some medication for a week and therapy and see the doctor again in two weeks. The result was surgery recommended.


After Christmas and New Years struggling to walk around the Walled City, Dan decided- ok, surgery -and decided to go back to MA to utilize insurance there. We would need a place for the boat, tickets, a place to stay, and rental car but we would be “safer” with the US standards so we believed.


After mentioning plans to more than one other cruiser we were given lots of moral support and heard stories-all positive- about the medical access in Cartagena. In the meantime we found a slip for Sea Star. We re-considered our options and decided to go ahead and have the arthroscopic surgery in Cartagena with the second Doctor at Medi-help Clinic in Boca Grande, a clinic with a good reputation that encourages and helps foreign tourists who are medical shopping.


NEGATIVES for us were:

* We didn’t get to see our friends and family in Massachusetts where three nurses are in the family.
* We had some confusion because of our limited Spanish language ability.

* Staff at the clinic do not speak English at all except one office girl during the day and another young man at night. When Dan ran a fever of 101.7 F and we tried to contact Doctor Rivera, his cell phone wouldn’t work and we had to call the clinic. The language barrior was significant.

* We live on a boat- with stairs, that rocks.

* The hospital Johny kept untying and outpatient wards seem to be unisex.


BUT POSITIVES were everything else:

* Dan is healing well, working on his muscles and planning our next adventures!


* Total costs of operation, Doctor fees, anesthetic (local) and medication under $2000.00. Under my HNE insurance the same operation is $14,000!

*Doctor Edgardo Rivera Martinez is very competent and caring. He has presented at conferences in US and spoke enough English to make us comfortable with his recommendations.

* The Medi-help Services Clinic was clean, seemed well equipped, efficient, well staffed with very helpful people.

*Our Spanish tutor, Oscar Quintana, gave up his entire Saturday from 10:00AM to 5:00PM to support us. He stayed with me, giving me my regular Spanish class and waited during the operation, and three hours of recovery time. He ran out and purchased the crutches and medication, and helped us get Dan into our hotel room when we arrived there by taxi. I was worried although we had reserved a first floor room, as there were three large stone steps and no railing at the entrance to the hotel. Dan did fine getting in.

*We stayed at a great hotel- Casa de Las Palmas for three nights and a lavish breakfast was included- a place I could walk from to check on the boat.

* IT'S ALL OVER- but for the hard work Dan has to do to strengthen his muscles around the knee and see if the pain of movement goes away- We are very hopeful.

I’ll just mention one episode that seemed kind of funny to me, a difference between the United States and Colombia. Dan was still wearing his Johny, cute blue hair cap and blue booties during recovery. When he was to be released from the clinic he was handed a prescription for pain medication and for three days worth of injections to prevent swelling in the knee. When Oscar returned to the clinic with the medications, the prescription read, “inject one time a day for three days.”

Duh…Who was going to Inject?!

The young and pretty nurse(remember-lots of plastic surgeries are completed in this clinic) at first could not understand us, then could not understand our concern. I confessed that I had never before given an injection-and the nurse looked in disbelief. She agreed to administer the first one; I could watch and thus be ready to give numbers two and three.

She took Oscar and me behind the curtain where Dan was waiting for his intramuscular injection. She took the needle (sold at the corner drugstore as part of the prescription!), broke the vial, loaded the syringe - and meanwhile Oscar is translating.
She showed me how to find the proper spot, to be careful about hitting a nerve, getting the air out of the syringe - now I’m really getting nervous!

"Draw a line across the rear and a perpendicular line where the nerve is and a 45 degree angle from that then get ready to insert the needle in the corner of what would be a square"…..

“yeah, OK”, thought I. "Maybe I can do this."

"But be careful because the medium is oil and you have to draw back the syringe like this until a little of the liquid comes out and you must release the plunger really slow or it’s going to hurt a lot and just keep it steady, but not too fast and" …..

“No way,” thought I “I really cannot do this!”I seemed to recall when my sister, Barbara, was studying to be a registed nurse and she told me "Even the orange screamed when I practiced my injections!" This was to be my first needle and given on my handicapped husband. Not a good idea.

Well, shot number 1 was done- and before it was time for shot number 2,we had two options. I had located a cruiser nurse, and another great cruiser woman from Texas who used to shoot up cattle.

The nurse, who is a friend, came to our hotel and gave the shot and all was well. The Doctor gave the third shot in his office and took the used disposable syringes off my hands. I wasn’t going to leave them in a hotel wastebasket!

When I asked the Doctor if many patients in Colombia have people in the home to give them injections he replied, “Yes, it is very usual.”

“Well”, I said to Dan, “it is Colombia after all!” My reference being to the narco-trafficers or users we hear are everywhere in the cities.

The arthroscopy was on Saturday, and we stayed off the boat until Tuesday afternoon after Dan's Doctor’s appointment. We had a taxi bring him close in to the Club de Pesca where, with the crutches, he could walk down the dock about 10 boats to Sea Star. I pulled the lines in to bring the side of the boat close to the finger pier and he could step on to the rail, then hold on to the bimini supports while easing into the cockpit seat. After that it was through the hatch, sitting down and lowering himself the four steps and he was back aboard safely.


A few more weeks on the crutches, probably some physical therapy and we’ll see how things are with the movement. Next post - back to fun and games in Cartagena.

Pics of hotel, and Dan!

Lounging -Colombia-OL