2-9-20 - Exploring Caribbean Islands

We are writing this entry, or least starting it, while on a speedboat from Cartagena to the Caribbean islands of Baru and Isla Rosalia.  Wind blowing through our hair, we enjoy listening to Doralis’ salsa music booming over the speakers as we ready for a day of beach and ocean fun. Let’s be frank here, this is simply not reality. This is a pure fun and exhilarating day but let’s see how educational we can possibly make it! 

First up, we stop by the boat driver’s island home to drop off breakfast for his dad and then we pass one of four connected forts on adjacent islands that the Spanish built in the 1500s to protect Cartagena from pirates.  Pirates looking to hijack the gold Spain gold had “gathered” (or stolen as some would say) from South America.  The four forts are connected under the water by tunnels that were used for communication to each other.  These forts are so well built and well maintained they truly look in nearly  perfect condition.  

So with history lesson down today, we ready for Science as we snorkel through a shallow part between several small islands.  First of all the water is a light shade of turquoise and perhaps the clearest ocean water one might experience in a lifetime.  In one spot, there are actually differentiated segments of water with three different distinguishable shades of blue that make for a stellar picture.

We see small islands with a few houses dotting right on the water’s edge.  Leanne and Kyle busily set to looking up how much it would cost to buy one. We anchor the boat and get on our snorkel gear.  Snorkeling in the Caribbean is out of this world. We see dozens of species of brightly colored tropical fish just hanging around the white coral reef.  A huge green brain coral the size of a beach ball plopped right at the floor.  

Unfortunately, a local jellyfish found Corey’s right shoulder particularly delicioso.  Within minutes, an area the size of a small dinner plate starts to turn an angry purple up on his shoulder where he was stung.  Several of us offer to give him the standard first aid hack one resort to when in a boat in the remote middle of the sea. “I’ll pee on you, Corey,” offers one teen with a snicker. “No, I WILL pee on you,” another says with Corey now having two offers to choose from. “No! No, but thank you,” a completely disgusted yet hurting Corey responds.   

“Dad, didn’t you know someone that died from a jellyfish sting?” asks Justin. Corey’s face displays a look of sheer horror.  “Well actually I did, it was someone from our company got stung by a box jellyfish in Thailand in 1999,” Kyle responds. Boxed jellyfish are in the waters of Australia and SE Asia during certain months of the year and can poison a human to death within seconds. “But I’m pretty sure there are no box jellyfish here in the Caribbean,” Kyle responds.  Pretty sure?  It’s the kind of fact Corey is looking for a full guarantee on. Kyle offers him Advil but Corey toughs it out while attending to his sting. 

Next up, we head to one infamous snorkel site for a government / economics lesson.  Here, we see a small private plane that was intentionally sunk by the Colombian government sitting on the bottom of the sea about 5+ meters down. Why you might ask?  Well, nearby this popular snorkel site is the dilapidated government-seized residential property of none other than former billionaire and criminal drug lord Pablo Escobar — in fact he owned this whole island just like he owned the US-Colombia cocaine market in the 1970s and 80s.  

Pablo Escobar, as the sole head of the Medellin Drug Cartel, was the wealthiest drug lord in history and was worth $60 billion (in today’s dollars) when he died in 1993.  At his peak, he made $420 million per WEEK which is more than the monthly salaries of all of the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 Companies put together. That’s insane.  At one point, he tried to make a deal with the President of Colombia that he would pay off Colombia’s entire national debt of $10 billion in exchange for passing a law that he could not be extradited to the US. In the end, the Colombian government worked extremely hard to bring Pablo to justice and eventually killed him when he escaped prison. The show Narcos dramatized much of his infamous rise and fall. 

Despite significant progress and improvements made by Colombia in the past twenty years, Pablo Escobar is still unfortunately associated with Colombia today by the outside world and especially tourists.  So apparently, the government decided to take advantage of the tourist association and sunk his plane outside his island.  It appears to have worked as the bay is teaming with snorkeler angling for a look at the plane. Justin and Kyle dive down the 20 feet so they can look inside the plane. 

Then we head over to Playa Blanca on Isla Baru for jet skiing and lunch.  Yes, yes, we know, jet skiing? After yesterday? Well, Justin really want to take Doralis out on the jet ski and her being her is a special occasion.  And we have Doralis, the super-local, to negotiate. In the end, the price is a fair bit more than Cartagena but it’s a straightforward negotiation because there is exactly one guy on the beach with jet skis and he knows we have to other choice.  This is not getting scammed; this is just the market economics of a monopoly at work in a capitalistic society.     

Doralis and three kids head off on the jet skis while our boat driver drops us at the restaurant where his wife works — nepotism is everywhere — but since it only served seafood (a clan-no-no), Kyle offers to walk down the beach to scout out other places. Kyle sees two other places and checks out the menu but mostly seafood.  The third place, as Kyle is looking at the menu, the guy offers that he can make hamburgers, chicken sandwich, whatever non-food stuff we want.  The tables and decking are nicer than the others so Kyle opts for this one.  

We all join up and have a great lunch.  There was small cat that was lurking around and under the table looking for table scraps which did not go over well with one of the kids. “Look at the cat, it’s in attack position, we have to get out of here!” The cat does not attack and we finish our lunch in piece.

We get the bill and Kyle almost falls on the floor.  The drinks were USD $15 a piece. We’re talking soda, non-alcoholic drinks, everything.  The first three places Kyle checked all had the exact same pricing of $5 a drink so he says, “you’ve made an error, these are supposed to be $5.” The waiter shakes his head no and brings over the menu which shows food with prices listed and on the back side are drinks with no prices listed. 

Scenario one is that Kyle assumed the drink prices were $5 like everywhere else when he looked at the menu and didn’t notice the drinks on the back didn’t have a price when he originally checked out the menu. Scenario two is that the original menu did have the prices but the waiter has presented us with a different menu with no prices.  Either scenario is possible but it does not seem to matter as Doralis is passionately arguing with the waiter but to no avail as he won’t budge.

To make matters worse, the bill is no high Kyle doesn’t have enough cash to pay it so he ask about a credit card.  The restaurant doesn’t have a machine but the waiter produces a guy off the beach who has a mobile card reader and informs us that any credit card charges will incur a 20% surcharge.  Incredible but not surprising at this point.  Kyle uses all the cash he has and gets whacked with the surcharge for the remainder. 

The Colombian scammers are awarded 3 points.  The restaurant rip-off was so egregious that they get 2 points and the credit card guy gets one point.  The resulting score is Colombian Scammers 6, Huebner Touistos 0.  This has turned into a complete blow-out route and its only day 3.

We return back to the Hyatt in Cartagena.  Doralis knows from experience that the waves become incredibly rough if you try to return via speedboat after four so we head back at 2:30 after lunch. Oh my.  Oh my!  Boom. Boom. Boom. The front of the boats slams into the water hard enough to sound like it is cracking the boat’s hull.  Up and down. Up and down. Leanne and Doralis hang on for dear life in the back of the boat while the kids very much enjoy getting slammed and whiplashed in the front of the boat. “HANG ON!” Screams Leanne and the kids just laugh. Oh to be a teenager again. 

We return to the Hyatt for a couple of hours to sit by the pool before our night flight to Bogota.  Leanne buys the teens Ecuadorian hats to support local kids with cancer and to ensure they will stop borrowing her Ecuadorian hat.  In the US, you may better know them as Panama Hats as they were popular with the workers building the Panama Canal.  

We are counting these hats as a UNESCO designation. In fact, they are although not a UNSESCO site, the Ecuadorian hats are considered a Cultural Intangible by UNESCO.  With this factoid and a dip in the pool (counting for PE class?), we call it a wrap for this “world school” day and head off to the airport. 

In Bogota, we find our scheduled airport transport and we can’t believe he gets all our luggage and us in his van.  The driver goes to close his sliding van door but Leanne’s fingers are in there searching for her seat belt. Bang. Ouch!  Ouchie ouch!  Oooh. Ooh. Ooh.  That hurt! For a half a minute there, Leanne is in shock, and she can’t feel her fingers.  Oh no, she thinks, “broken fingers, just my luck.” 

Yet after a minute or so and a ton of handshaking, the initial pain subsides, lucky break.  Or shall we say “lucky no-break”.   Shout out to whatever engineer invented the child safe sliding door!  Which is actually certified mom-safe now too.  “Buena suerte!” Leanne exclaims to the driver as he gets behind the wheel.  So thankful that didn’t leave Leanne with a few broken dedos.  Maybe this is our sign that our luck in Colombia is just about to change. 

We arrive at the hotel late but it’s a beauty in Chapinero in the Parque 93 area, one of the best parts of Bogota.  John will be performing his South American concert here in Bogota so Saffron, who is the performance pianist and vocal coach from New York, arrives at the same time we do.  Saffron collaborates with John on this concert series and played for his concert in Helsinki.  

There’s a pizza place two doors down and after a long fun day of boating and traveling, we opt to skip the local and go with the convenient.  The kids are so tired they opt to stay in and ask us to bring them back pizza after our dinner.  So Leanne, Kyle and Saffron head out to the restaurant and it’s the absolutely best pizza in the world.