Need your luggage fixed? Recommendation for you here

Ah, I’m back “home” in Cartagena for a few weeks. It’s been fun reacquainting myself with the maze of Old City streets, drinking tropical fruit drinks, eating coconut rice, catching up with people, watching the Caribbean fisherman, and sweating in relishing the heat….

But more on all of that in a later post. What I may be most thrilled about is that I brought here with me two suitcases which had been deemed throwaways and they are now back in full working order!!

Excuse the “country dropping”, but while traveling in Europe last year, I used my sturdy Rick Steves roll aboard suitcase. In Spain, the rubber tread came off of one of the wheels. “Ay perdone señora, but I am sorry, that cannot be fixed” I was told at repair shops I visited. No biggie; I dealt with the crookedly rolling bag. 

In Italy, while running from one train to catch another, one of the suitcase “feet” fell off. “Mi dispiace, signora, no repair possible.” Now I had a bag that stood even more lopsided—if I forgot to stand it up by a wall, the bag was on the ground. Could be dangerous should an unsuspecting toddler walk by; I need to do something.

In the U.S., a call to the Rick Steves store said replacement wheels and feet were not available, but they’d be happy to sell me a new bag. “But it’s still functional!”, as a London friend of mine said. She was right….why are we often told that the best way to "fix" a broken item is to replace it? I knew just where it could be fixed: there are guys in Cartagena who have a street workshop right in front of the ATM I always used.

Fast forward to now and my spur of the moment trip to Colombia. Not only am I here to update myself for my vacation rental work, and all the reasons above, but another goal was to get my bag working like new again!! I had brought along my sister’s “unfixable” roll aboard as well. Sure enough, went to my former bank & right in front of that I found Luis & his father, working away. A day later I had two fully functional rolling carry-ons.

So my recommendation to you? Come to Cartagena for sure — it’s a UNESCO world heritage site well worth a visit, easy to get to, & the exchange rate is currently in most tourists' favor. But as a bonus, bring your broken luggage along with you, visit Talabartería Luis & head home with a “new” bag!

Luis's father told me he has been working here for some 40 years!

They fix luggage, briefcases, purses & leather paintings. Located in front of Davivienda bank on Panama St

Travels with Sara 2 -- San Basilio de Palenque

Monument to Benkos Biohó, San Basilio de Palenque founder

Sara arriving in Palenque via mototaxi

I had wanted to visit Palenque, not far from Cartagena, ever since I read a little blurb about it shortly after I arrived here last October. Hard-working "Palenqueras", or women from Palenque, walk around Cartagena in their colorful dresses, selling fruit and sweets which they carry in bowls on their heads, and have become symbols of this city. What was the story of the town they're from?
"Palenques" ("walled cities"), were small towns founded by escaped slaves in the 1600s. San Basilio de Palenque, about 50 km from Cartagena, was the first such town and the only one still in existence in Colombia. Most of the some 3,500 residents are direct descendants of these escaped slaves and they have a unique culture reflective of their African roots, including having their own language.  The town has been recognized by UNESCO as an important cultural space.

Me with Maria & a friend

Sara was all for visiting Palenque and the adventure of getting there. We took a ~45 minute local bus from downtown to the bus terminal, then another ~45 minute bus trip to where the road to Palenque met the major "highway." From there you take a "mototaxi" the ~3 miles to Palenque itself. A mototaxi is a motorcycle that takes a paying passenger; no, it's not a legal business but they are widespread here on the coast. Having seen the mototaxis speeding dangerously through the jam packed streets of Cartagena, I never wanted to take one, but here it was our only option. I asked my helmetless driver for a helmet but there was none to be had. I will say that our drivers drove quite carefully and slowly over the partially paved/partially unpaved road in to Palenque and it wasn't so bad. Still, I don't anticipate taking one anytime soon in Cartagena.

El Maestro in front of his portrait

There are a couple of Palenqueras who work outside of my school & I had asked one, Maria, for advice on how best to visit her town, knowing this would mean we'd end up with a guide, which was fine. She set us up with her daughter (who I didn't realize was only 13, but that's ok...) and had us start out at the "Maestro's" house, an older gentleman who leads a Palenquero musical group that has traveled around the world, which we discovered when we met him. It was interesting, and quite a contrast, to hear him talk about his international travels while we were sitting in the back yard of his very humble home in this town which has only had electricity since the 1970s and where many people don't have running water.

The swimming slash laundry hole

Our guide Liliana showed us the cultural center; the river where many wash their clothes as well as swim; the main square with a statue of the town's founder Benkos Biohó, an escaped slave; the school; boxing area; and then took us to a restaurant where we had lunch. It was all quite interesting, even if there was not really much to see, but such an obviously different type of life. The people there live on agriculture (& Liliana was explaining to us what she learned in school about planting, harvesting, etc), tourism (there is a music festival every October when the town is packed), and the women who sell their fruit & sweets, etc. Such a different life.

 More photos of Palenque here.

Bienvenida a Colombia! (x2!)

October 23, the day before I was to leave for Colombia, was the first day I felt a bit nervous--what the heck am I doing?!??! Ah well, just keep packing & getting stuff done...the trip was fine except that given my free tickets, I didn't have the most direct routing: SFO to Houston to Bogota (arriving in Colombia) to Panama City (leaving Colombia) to Cartagena (back to Colombia). A bit crazy, & despite having been told that my bag would be checked all the way through to Cartagena and that I wouldn't have to do anything out of the ordinary, I not only had to get my bag in Colombia but had to go through customs/immigration to enter Colombia in Bogota, to leave Bogota to go to Panama City, and to return to Colombia in Cartagena, all in the space of a few hours. The airline personnel & immigration folks found it odd and amusing.

My hotel is the orange building to the right.

Once I arrived in Cartagena, the butterflies were gone. I had only spent 3 days in this city in 2009 but it seemed the right place to come back to & start my Latin American adventure. I reserved a budget hotel room in the center of town for the first several days and had already been emailing with a few contacts about a semi-permanent places to stay for several weeks, as well as advice on where to study Spanish. People who I didn't even know (but who were friends of friends of friends of friends...) were being incredibly helpful & generous in offering help, accommodation options and advice!

A minutero outside a shop in Cartagena

My first adventure was in trying to make a phone call. Among the many street vendors in the center of the city are people selling minutes on cell phones. I later learned they were called "minuteros" & that this is a relatively new occupation in Colombian & many other places. As cell phones proliferate, the number of public phones is on the decline. This opened up an opportunity for people to sell minutes from their private cell phones to those who didn't have a cell phone, such as a newly arrived gringa. There are 3 cell phone companies in Colombia and the cost of a call depends on the carrier you're calling from and to; minuteros have 3 (or more) cell phones, one for each company, and the one that they give you to use is the one for which your call will be the least expensive. Some minuteros have the phones connected by chains to their little tables or to their belts. It's a bit of an experience!

I needed a minutero to call a new (friend of a friend... :) friend's brother-in-law who was going to help me buy a cell phone. There is a possibility that a gringa could be charged more for something than a local would be; Edwin was great & helped me get an inexpensive cell phone. He helped me set it up, get it loaded with minutes, input his own as well as his sister & brother-in-law's names/numbers, and on my first full day in Cartagena I was ready to text and call!

My other missions were to check out the various Spanish language learning possibilities as well as housing. I had three great housing options and am, as of the 1st, settled in an apartment in the historic center living with a Colombian woman, who is a friend of my new Spanish teacher. In looking into the various Spanish language schools, it seemed that with my background in Spanish, it might be better for me to have private lessons. So Claudia & I meet for an hour once a day; not only do I need to get used to Colombian Spanish (vs the Iberian Spanish I learned), but the Spanish they speak here on the Caribbean coast is very fast, they drop a number of "s's" (someone said to me "B Dos Tres" as in the apt number B 2 3, which I interpreted as "B Oh 3" -- really, I can't tell when someone says "Dos"??), and they have a lot of their own colloquialisms. Ah well, all to be learned...!