Thinking Back
26 October 2016 | Colombia, Cartagena (posted from Bethel, ME)
Elizabeth
Ed and I both have been nostalgic lately, remembering where we were this time last year (Cartagena, Colombia), reliving some of the fond images of our time traveling between South and Central American countries. We look further back and decide our time in Bonaire in the ABC's was at the top of our list for favorites. Ed said he would return there in a heartbeat, on or off a boat. Bonaire was friendly, beautiful, open, welcoming to cruisers, easy, affordable and accessible, offering scuba divers an opportunity to explore countless dive sites, all marked and conveniently mapped. I wouldn't be far behind him. We laugh while remembering how wretchedly hot it was in Cartagena, how we had to force ourselves to walk through the old city after being drenched in sweat from the short jaunt between Skylark and the dinghy dock. We recall being frustrated the water was too dirty to swim in, with no option for cooling off unless we were fortunate enough to be invited over to eat Sunday dinners with our friends in their air-conditioned yacht. Those were the days. We spent hours on their boat (s/v Babe shown in the photo on approach to Cartagena from Santa Marta) and while we like to believe we simply wanted to play endless games of Mexican Train Dominoes, if the truth be known we probably just couldn't bear facing the oppressive temperatures back on Skylark. We felt fortunate to befriend Paul and Trish and even if their vessel hadn't been equipped with a/c, we would have loved our time together just the same. We miss the tropical breezes, water sounds off the boat, the adventure of finding our own way, exploring new places and creating friendships everywhere we landed. And now? We are reviewing our warm clothes, complaining about cracked skin and flyaway hair from the dry air. We are digging out socks and scarves and hats and gloves and Luna's booties. Somewhere around here is her little pink fleece jacket, which in spite of its color, is pretty darned cute. We are counting the days until November when we see our kids and long time Charlotte friends. We are having a good time living in Bethel and at my mom's. But I suppose we are mostly waiting for this absurd state of our nation to pass into a distant memory, as all markers in time are prone to do.