NEWSFLASH, friend stabbed in Cartagena
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Mon 13 Jul 2009 15:29
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Cartagena lived up to all our
expectations.
The old is nicely complemented by the new. The
flavour and character of the old town is supported by the hustle and bustle of a
successful port city. The result is that you can get pretty much anything done
here at a good price due to the low labour costs and you can relax and
enjoy the grace of the old town while its being done.
   The infrastructure is in moderately good shape
with the streets in a reasonable state of repair but unfortunately
that doesn't seem to make them any safer largely due to the wacky modes of
transport and even wackier drivers.
  The roads are packed with psychedelic painted
buses, yellow taxis, rickshaws, donkey drawn carts, bicycles and mopeds all
ducking and diving down the streets changing lanes seemingly haphazardly
with one hand firmly attached to the horn. The horn seems to be a
necessary accessory to any vehicle here. It is always applied sometime before
the brake and is used instead of the indicator and is the only
accepted form of road communication including get the ****out of the way,
I'm here ****head and get a move on ****face. Crossing the road is an
interesting experience. Fortunately 'cos the traffic is so heavy it doesn't move
too fast and is only manic around the outskirts of the old
town leaving the 'Centro' a relatively sedate place to walk
around.
   There is plenty to see and do here. Lots of
colonial architecture, sculpture and restaurants by the bucket load. Eating out
in the old town is our favourite bit. There are restaurants with attractive
courtyard gardens serving great food at very reasonable prices. Eating out
at lunchtimes is the best value. A three course meal can cost as little as 5000
Pesos (approx $2.00).
Nights out in Cartagena are great too. There are
clubs, Salsa Bars, and street entertainers doing their stuff pretty much every
night.
   Groups of students start folklore dancing in
the parks, musicians play on street corners and magicians & mime artists
perform pretty much anywhere where this is a crowd. But Cartagena is most
famous for the salsa bars and out all of them, 'Donde Fidel's is the most
famous. Fidel is the grey haired chap in the bar photo above and he has
pictures all around the bar of him with famous people,salsa bands and dancers
performing at his bar. There is hardly room to swing a cat in the place and so
it is no surprise that the dancing ends up on the street. It is a cool place to
grab a table outside and people watch while you get slowly mullered on the local
beer & rum.
But it is not all fun and frolics in Cartagena. The
anchorage is crappy and boats drag all over the place when the Cullo de Pollo
(chicken arsehole wind) comes through at wind speeds of upto 50 knots. And
like all big cities, Cartagena can be a dangerous place......and yes this is
where the stabbing bit comes in.
  Pals Roger & Vicki (S/Y El Vagabond) arrived in
Cartagena shortly after us and quickly got in to the swing of
things. Clearly Roger let his guard down completely. He was obviously
beguiled by this friendly city and promptly got himself stabbed in the head as a
result. Shock, horror, probe!!!
The story goes something like this.
He went to the local DIY superstore to buy some
wood. But while he was in the check out queue, some over zealous
assistant tried to help him by breaking the sticky tape that was holding the
pieces of wood together. He used the point of his biro as a knife
and promptly stabbed Roger in the head with the very same offensive ball
point pen..... I nearly pissed myself laughing when he told me the story. It was
just what I needed, cos Jo had dragged me around the shops for another
desperately unhappy experience. But poor old Roger was more embarrassed by the
fuss created in the store than he was hurt by the stabbing. He received so much
unnecessary attention that he was bemused by it all. It doesn't help much when
you cant speak the lingo but he ended up walking out the store with a huge
dressing on his noggin followed by copious amounts of apologies and arse
licking, albeit, in Espanol.
Of course Roger posed for the photo, and with a
little help from tomato salsa, he made a good wounded little
soldier.
Clearly it was time to get out of Cartagena for
much needed rest and recuperation after such an ordeal. So we scooted off 20
miles down the road to the Rosario Islands.
  We were back cruising again.....ya know, swimming,
diving, kicking back, drinking and eating too much in these delightful group of
islands. And Jo managed to get her doggy fix with El Vagabonds newest crew
member, 'Monty'.
   We also treated ourselves to a feast of locally
caught oysters, lobster and crab. Unfortunately, Vicki doesn't do seafood
and ended up sharing a bit of chicken with the dog. But she did
say that she enjoyed watching the rest of us tuck in with gusto. It
was well scrummy, and it was all washed down with plenty of good grog......oh,
and by the way, Vicki did join in with the wine drinking bit. The
whole Rosario affair helped to put Rogers 'near death
experience' well and truly out of everyones mind.
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