First Impresssions - Luc

We arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, on Aug. 20th. Soon after getting out of the security zone, I kept thinking that this was a place where you should watch for your luggage, wallet, at all times. I was also surprised by the number of policemen everywhere.

 The taxi ride, after bargaining for the price, was also an eye opener for me. I kept thinking about how I will maneuver through traffic later on. We never see blinkers and cars and buses keep changing lanes all the time. No one is impolite and aggressive as when you drive in Boston or New York. No one is in a real hurry, but everyone uses their horn. Taxis klaxon to ask people walking on the sidewalk if they want a ride. Buses do the same. Very noisy!… Again, not aggressive!

We see so many policemen on 125cc motorcycles. Most of the time there are 2 on 1 bike. They are friendly, smile and answer you when you say hello. I even ask two of them if I could take a picture. They posed for me near their bike. 

The public buses are shorter than ours, and so colorful and ornamented. I really get a kick of looking at them. People enter and get out through the front and the rear doors. When the bus is moving, 1 worker is hanging out of each door to block the people from jumping out and also to signal the driver to stop to pick up people. We would never see this at home. Safety rules, right???

Talking about safety, we took a stroll on top of the old walls. Guess what? no fencing at all. You can walk right off if you don't pay attention. Same thing on the construction site next door to us. No fencing… Never in North America...

You have the impression that the city is very safe. This is what also say the locals. We sure had the wrong impression before getting here.

People on the street, no matter what their jobs are, seem happy, smiling, singing.

I don't want to repeat what Jen is writing, so I will not go into the beauty of Cartagena.

We both love learning Spanish and the class is going really well. Our main teacher, Jesus, extremely competent, gifted, and you can see that he enjoys teaching, even at people like us.

Music is present everywhere, and the latin rhythms also. 

Very few people are white like us. The population comes from Indians, Negroes and Spanish origins. Everyone is dancing while they move, or sitting drumming rhythms with their fingers, and all seem relaxed. This is a nice change after the horrendous 4 hrs drive through the traffic in NYC, and the aggressively of the drivers in FL, especially around Ft Lauderdale and Miami. 

One more week of Spanish classes and then hop on the bike.

We are trying to figure out where the safer routes are. We keep reading to avoid deserted areas. Until we become more comfortable on the road, we will go where most of the tourists go, at least for a couple weeks.

So much to see! It is unbelievable to have the chance to be here. So happy that we can do it!