Cartagena ...what a great city
22 May 2018 | Cartagena , Colombia
Rolfo...cloudy 32 C sticky hot
The weather is grey ,its sticky hot. But walking thru the old town or even better : Getsemani , the lively town with a million backpackers makes up for it .
Today we needed batteries for our stupid smart phones. A few alleys are only that ; phone shops. Repair man sit everywhere on little desks, changing displays or anything you like... for peanuts .Its like Asia only much livelier and super friendly . If they haven't got it , they send a boy to search for that Samsung one two three...
Apples, Huaweis and the rest. Most of it with a big smile from a gorgeous women.
Here is the thing with gorgeous Colombian women. You laugh and joke, while you bargain for a cheaper battery . Try to chat up a beauty in Switzerland...forget it . You get the evil eye .
For 3 US$ you get a whole roasted chicken. I stuff half of it in ,while i watch the people around me . Its difficult to explain , but this town has a certain beat and the beauty of those buildings , the smiles everywhere.. its contagious .
The music:
Check out Vallenato on youtube , it gets any old ass of the chair.
To top it all ,Jorge came to see me . We met 18 yers ago when we both bought a boat. We sailed a similar route and now he lives on the West-coast of Colombia . HE DROVE 1200 KILOMETERS ON HIS BIKE TO COME AND SEE ME . We had many good laughs on Yelo as we talked about the good old days and today.
Recently i started to doubt ,if people still like my presence . Another "old friend" asked me if we could meet in the Caribbean . We sailed for a few days to get there and after only one long lunch he had enough of me . He need to spend time with his family, he said . I was sad and could not really explain Daniela that this was once a good friend that he didn't care much anymore.
As we sail around the world i see less and less of my old friends .But its a heart warming experience when the friendship is still there after so many years. Its also a sad revelation when the friendship is dead on one side only. So sad, you just want to cry or shit in you're pants like a little boy.
Friendship can be both i guess , warm and energizing when its good and cold and lonely when the other drops you like a stinky dead fish.
Thank you Jorge . You are driving back home now ; another two days thru dust and tropical rain . Nobody ever drove so far to see me . It was great.