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!