Tuesday,May 13 - Sunday, May 25, 2008
I have been in Colombia for about 12 days or so now, and it has been great. I spent my first five days in Cartagena, Colombia hanging out with all the people from my Sailboat trip. We all bonded well together, and eventually we all exchanged information and parted our separate ways. The city was a beautiful colonial city that has many tourists. As a result, with all the tourists, the prices were higher than I expected. So when everyone else moved on I decided to move on as well.
I ended up heading north to Barranquilla where I know Melina through my friend Alejandro that I worked with out in San Diego. They both went to school together in Barranquilla, and she told me I could sleep at her Dad´s (Alvaro) place for four days until her aunt from the states arrived. We have been having a good time hanging out together. The first two nights she gave me some salsa and merengue dance lessons (it´s amazing how the women dance here...Shakira was born here, and they all move their hips like her), and we have been helping each other out with English and Spanish. She definitely can speak english way better than I can Spanish. After the four days were up she offered for me to stay at her mom´s place (Myrna), so I packed up and moved over to her Mom´s place. I will have spent five days at her mom´s place come Sunday when I heading farther north to Taganga. I plan to spend at least a week up there if not more, and Melina is going to meet up with me the next weekend there in Taganga to hang out one last time before I continue on from there.
I have been meeting all of her friends and family, and everyone has been great to me. All the people are always so warm around here, and I really like it. It was kind´ve funny because I met her little cousin Christina who is 7 years old and speaks both english and spanish fluently, and I started talking to her in Spanish. Of course, you know little kids are blunt, and she says to me ¨Your spanish is pretty good, but your vocabulary could use some work...¨lol...I am trying to read the newspaper etc. to expand the vocab, but I still am learning more and more each day (poco poco poco cada dia). It is definitely a difficult language to learn!! I was so amazed by how smart this little girl was and that she was fluent in English from living in the states for six months.
I know Colombia gets a bad reputation from the media etc, but I think it is a great country and the people have been great. When I was in Cartagena I was talking with one of the local guys who was younger and working selling his candy on the streets. I asked him where I could bring my camera to get it fixed. He put his work on hold, and told me to follow him to a little camera shop. It was about a 2 mile walk that he took me on through all these little shops, and sure enough there was this little camera shop that I would have never found. Usually in other countries after they do something like this they ask you for a tip, but this guy just shook my hand and said I will see you around and enjoy your time in Colombia. I was quite impressed because this happened quite a bit in Cartagena.
