Having returned to Cartagena like celebrities(!) we returned to Soy Local hotel with a window this time, fancy!
Everyday in Cartagena Olive asks when we will take a horse drawn cart round the centre. I’m not overly keen on animals having to do stuff like this, but we ended up doing it anyway with a friendly chap called Archimedes, great name.
On our last day we walked round the main sights of the historic centre, the Cathedral, San Pedro church and Bolívar Square with its colonial buildings.
We spent a couple of nights on Playa Blanca beach an hour or so out of Cartagena. We stayed in a beach hut right on the beach.
So nice, there were only a few places to eat so we took it easy, gorged on lobster and enjoyed the absolute peace with the gorgeous sound of water and bird call during the night (with the odd dog bark!). It was lovely. We all got sunburnt even though we tried so hard not to.
We could see fish in the lovely turquoise water and we treated ourselves to a night time boat trip to then jump into a lagoon and swim with plankton lighting us up, very cool. Olive was super brave and just leapt in in the pitch black. The journey back to Cartagena was a surprise as well. The planned return bus journey got upgraded to a speedboat, nice!
We took a day trip to a tiny volcano full of mud which, obviously, you can bathe in.
I think it is impossible to drown in it and bubbles of gas gurgled up as you sit in it. It felt very strange moving in it.
It’s meant to be great for your skin and there are lots of people on hand to help you get in, take photos with your phone and even wash you after in a nearby lake (they even took my trunks off so I could have a proper wash while they cleaned my trunks! Really going the extra mile!) It was ridiculous and great fun. Olive loved it.
We have a few weeks in Colombia, staying in the north bit near the sea. First stop, Cartagena. We kicked off with a two day ticket on the the city tour bus. So we got to see the historic centre, Getsemani and Bocagrande and get our bearings.
We are staying in the Centro Historic which is super touristy, with loads of Americans. The area is surrounded by a stone wall and the buildings look cool.
We are treated to some amazing sunsets.
Selina has always fancied seeing the Panama Canal, and why not! Copa airlines were doing a stopover offer so it was easy to break our journey from Mexico City to Cartagena in Colombia with four nights in Panama City. So we found ourselves on an expensive tour of the capital city on our first morning with Shayra which included seeing the famous Panama Canal at Miraflores Lock. It was super, but admittedly looks rubbish in photos. The key is how big the boats are in such a small canal which photos don’t do justice, honest!
Shayra gave us so much interesting info on history and Panama that we felt it was worth it. The Cathedral was very impressive
Shayra was great, even waking some monkeys in a tube for us. Although it all got a bit much for some of us!
It was all a bit downhill from there for us. We tried and failed to go to the Smithsonian Museum and ended up getting rained on and going to a weird contemporary art place. We went to a fish market but our cooked fish was ridiculously over salted. I did have one of my best ever coffees at Unido
The Cathedral was impressive but we found it a bit strange how much they had invested in the crazy number of Panasonic tv screens and Bose sound systems when right next to the Old Town there is a poor area with people struggling. Panama City clearly makes a lot of money from the Canal and American business and there is a whole infrastructure around America yet there is a whole section of society struggling. But I have very limited understanding of Panama, so maybe things are a lot better now than 10 years ago.... overall though Panama City was fun. .
And so our time in Oaxaca draws to a close. We have been here for nearly four months which is the longest we have ever stayed in one place on our travels. It has also been a different stay to previously - with Olive at school and us not directly involved in a full time volunteering set up. So we have really “lived” here, really settled in and got stuck into daily life - taking classes in swimming, Spanish, cooking and roller blading; getting someone to clean the house; letting the street sweeper in on Fridays; putting the rubbish out when we hear the bell ringing (ridiculous system!); and using WhatsApp to do everything like ordering more Gugar drinking water, organising all our classes, booking moto-taxis with Alex, meeting up with friends, getting our 20 minute warnings for school lifts and generally coordinating our lives. And - we have loved it.
We seriously love Oaxaca. Number 1, the climate is so good, lovely dry heat in the day, cool at night, comfy wearing jeans and t-shirt all the time. Number 2, the food is AMAZING, mole, tacos, tlayudas, consommé, hot chocolate, jamaica juice, churros, salbutes, ALL the fruit and chilli rellenos. Number 3, it genuinely feels safe, even if facebook groups can sound a bit scary, although with two little ones we are never out later than 8! Number 4, the people are super, friendly, welcoming, warm, always smiling - eyes twinkling even with the face masks on! We didn’t love Mexico 12 years ago, but maybe we should have spent longer in Oaxaca. I take away lots of smiling faces, tasty food and beautiful comfy weather. I really hope we get to come back here again and stay for an extended period. Adios Oaxaca - yo te amo!
We have really enjoyed getting lifts into Paz with Sergio and Citiali and their super family, Amber and Estefan. It’s been lovely getting to know them and learn about Oaxaca. We went for a day trip with them to Ixtlan which is a couple of hours away. Citiali used to work there and this year they have just opened a Mirador viewpoint that looks out across Ixtlan. It was also my birthday so the whole day was a treat for me too. To be honest, the mirador itself was not quite my cup of tea. I hate heights and the viewpoint walks out on a see through floor. However I managed to walk on a bit and the views were stunning. Sergio even got a live band to sing happy birthday to me. On the way to Ixtlan we stopped for tasty breakfast in a lovely restaurant, then we went to a fish restaurant on the way home where they breed the fish next to the restaurant. We were able to feed the fish after they had fed us (washed down with a few mezcals)! All in all it was a lovely birthday thanks to Sergio and Citiali driving us all day, knowing the best places to go and being great company.
