Casa Lola Cartagena

HII ALL!!!


Cartagena is amazing!!! Since I've been here its been nothing but good things, good food, and good people! The first day was mostly getting aquatinted to the boat, and going grocery shopping and going out to dinner. After that the work started cleaning, organizing, fixing stuff, installing, polishing, more cleaning, more organizing, more fixing stuff, its like it never ends.. but its fine because I've been learning a TON of stuff. The names of all the boat ...

Cartagena je grad na sjeveru Kolumbije te ima skoro milijun stanovnika. Bila sam tamo u 9. mjesecu dok je bilo uzasno vruce. kazu da inace nije tako. ali meni je bilo cak toliko vruce da sam bila lijena otici i vidjeti stari centar grada zbog cega su mi se kasnije smijali, ali me i grdili. ali bila sam upozorena na klimu tako da ne mogu reci da nisam znala :)
inace, ljudi koji su bili u Cartageni i u Dubrovniku kazu da im je Dubrovnik ljepsi od Cartagene ...

... stayed at our spot on Calle Porvenir, The El Viajero Hotel. Awesome place.
One of the wonderful cleaning ladies, Astrid, always took care of us cleaning our laundry and bringing us towels. She was amazing. We constantly sought her out and tried to buy her juice smoothies. The final day we left I gave her my email and I was sad to leave such a nice place and people. We'll definitely come back and stay there again.

... is not to be had everywhere...or even in most places. That includes my lovely little room at Hostal Real (again, said with sarcasm). I do have a fan though. Well, enough with my whining. Other than the heat factor, Cartagena is splendid.

Cartagena is so splendid that I would say that if there were a beauty pageant of cities, Cartagena would be a top contender. It is romantic and charming. As I told you before, old buildings with wooden balconies and bouganvilla, painted ...

... between ejaculation and death? There is a computer problem. On Ivan's memory card is a virus. I discovered it and engaged on the resolving process right away. Like ambulance personel that doesn't want to waste a single second. When I work with computers, which I don't like, I can't do only one thing at the time. So I download a couple of programs and try to restore the data with some tools simultaneously. This takes me a few hours, in the burning midday sun and I was kind of happy ...

... almost every street corner.


Peru on the other hand is a motoring museum of different sorts. Containing a melange of American automobile atrocities from the 1970's the collection is testament to just how wrong those boys in Detroit can get it when they really put their mind to it. Gigantic 2 door land yachts styled by your 4 year old nephew complete with nautical handling, lethargic performance and voracious appetites for gasoline.


As the US car industry knocks on ...

In Cartagena angekommen hatten wir zunächst Probleme ein Hotel zu finden. Deshalb sind wir am Ende alle in der selbsen Unterkunft gelandet. Cartagena ist wohl die bekannteste Stadt an der kolumbianischen Karibikküste. Es gibt unzählige Cafes und schicke Hotels. Die Häuser und Plätze sind wirklich schön, alle restauriert und echt nett gemacht. Aber deshalb ist es auch sehr touristisch und für ...

... 18th century. We are staying in the ghetto (i.e. outside the walls). As yet, we have had no encounters with pirates, but we remain on our guard. Notable events so far: - Lilly's sandals broke while in the historic centre, so she had to walk back to the hostal barefoot on the hot paving stones (ouch!). Next destination: Medellin

... help out. Our waiter was Candido from the Philippines. In conversation with him we had mentioned bring married 25 years, so at the end of our meal he comes over and says he has a present for our silver anniversary (which was last August). He unfolds a paper napkin and starts to form a rose out of the napkin while serenading us to 'Only You'. By the end of the song he hands the paper rose to me to give to my DW and the whole restaurant has stopped to applaud him. Thank you, Candido.

... and fancy hotels. Basically - a resort.

For my 4th day in Cartagena, I had booked a trip to the coral islands of Islas del Rosario. I had been wondering for a while whether I should go and dive there, but after a lot of mind-struggle with myself I decided to use this Sunday, the most dull and lifeless day of the week, on the cruise, because I had sort of had enough of diving for now, but just within the same week I had dived twice in Margarita Island in ...