Viva Colombia!

A few highlights from Cartagena, Colombia thus far... Cartagena is situated on the north tip of Colombia on the Caribbean Sea.  The old city was a main shipping hub during the early discoveries of the Americas.  Much of the architecture is very colonial mixed with a Caribbean flair. The Chiva Bus, let me explain.  Everyone told us we HAD to ride the Chiva bus, for fans of "Romancing the Stone" this shouldn't be a new experience.  I however had never heard of such a thing.  There are several buses painted red, yellow, or blue (colors of the Colombian flag).  The tour is done at night and each bus has a live band.  My understanding was that this was going to be a nice romantic tour of the city.  Once again a few details were left out.  So basically they pack way too many people on the bus (the bus is a convertible), then the music starts... Thats when it started to get sketchy.  Wilson, our tour guide put us all through sort of an initiation process that included; standing on your seat shaking your booty, shaking tambourines, and doing the macarena just to name a few.  There wasn't any explanation of the historical buildings we were passing, but a good time was had by all.  At one point I turned around only to see a baby lipping a Rum bottle (proof can be found below).  On the Chiva tour we met three American guys from California.  They were professional Salsa dancers, they showed me some new moves.  They tried helping Matt but said he would need at least 3 months of daily practice.  Anyone who has seen Matt bust a move would completely agree. :)  

The Colombian beaches.  I have never seen so many people packed onto a beach, there are a million vendors pestering you, and women begging to massage you.  It is truly a new experience.  There was one vendor who wouldn't stop bugging us, Matt said, "Man we are just trying to enjoy our lunch, please."  The guy responded "At least you have food to eat."  Major guilt trip.  

Now we are in Santa Marta, I will be attending a three day crash course for scuba diving and Matt is trying to convince me to go to a surf camp with him next week.   We found this great apartment here, it's very art deco.  You can rent apartments here for a fraction of what you would pay for a hotel.  Anyway we have really been enjoying cooking on the grill by the pool overlooking the ocean.  We had one small hiccup last night.  It was two in the morning and our neighbors were still blasting their music.  Matt was sound asleep so I figured I would go down and try to get the security guard to make the music stop.  Needless to say there wasn't much lost in translation when I dragged him onto the elevator, he could hear that there was a serious Salsa/Disco party going on in 5B.  Andele! He had the music off within seconds, whew.  I got back to our room to find Matt in a tizzy.  "Dude, where have you been?  It's two AM, and you are in a third world country!"  Sometimes the risk justifies the reward.  

Good news,  two Colombian captives were released this week after being held for five years.  One a reporter, the other an American.  Matt tried to shield me from this story, but Julia broke the news to me via e-mail.  Needless to say, I will not be leaving Matt's sight again.