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Guatemala and the Taking the Long Way Home

We  woke up to overcast skies. We went to get breakfast at a place called the Bagel Barn. It wasn't great. The bagels were very dry, and despite asking for chocolate chip, tragedy struck when I received raisin. After this, we walked briefly around Parque Central, where they have a fountain of mermaids shooting water from their breasts. That's just what mermaids do. From there, we walked up Cerro de la Cruz, a hill overlooking the city. From above, we could see that the town of Antigua is in a grid, something that made Antigua unique in its day.  The peak of the volcano was still obscured by cloud cover, and though the weather reports predicted a clearing around 11, this would never happen.

After walking back down hill, we went down by the Arco de Santa Catalina, which is like "Main Street," Antigua. On weekends, it also becomes a pedestrian-only zone. Other historic walled cities should take note. This is how it should be. The sidewalks are too small. We did a bit of shopping and I tried to get a decent shot of the arch. I guess back in the day, it acted as a pedestrian bridge to allow nuns to cross the street without being seen. Previously they had ordered the street closed so nobody would see them when they left the convent. The bridge was a compromise. Like most things in Antigua, however, it was destroyed in an earthquake, and a clock was added later on.

We explored the streets a bit more after dropping off our purchases at the hotel. We went to a place called Convento de Santa Clara. It's not a working convent, evidenced by the lack of a roof, as well as steps leading to nowhere, but that is what made it interesting. It had a large courtyard area, and we could see that people were setting up for a wedding in a chapel also missing its roof. Rain could be an issue.

We were able to climb up into the choral area above the chapel for a good view over the ruins and courtyard with the mountains in the background. After our self-guided exploration of the convent and grounds, we went to go get some lunch. We went to a place called Cafe Sky, so we could be on the roof and look out. I got a massive tortilla soup with avocado and onion. Antigua was historically known for its usage of avocados, and the variant they most often consumed was brought to California, and is said to have cultivated the entire avocado industry in California. That's big doings. No Antigua, no avocado toast.

We walked the streets a bit more before returning to our hotel to gather our belongings and catch an uber to the airport. The ride was about an hour and we discovered that the morning Delta flight must have transferred some of its paying passengers to our flight, which made our chances of getting on seem a bit dicey. We switched to Avianca, which left an hour earlier, and went through customs and security. Avianca boarded, Avianca had seats up front, but those cannot be awarded to the likes of us. Avianca left. We did not. We went over to Delta. Delta awarded us seats. We sat down. We got ready to depart. A gate agent came on board and informed us of a miscount and that there was now just one seat. I can't jumpseat on Delta internationally, so that was that. We took a walk of shame off the plane and tried to figure out a plan C.

We were starving and got some baked goods from a store and then slumped into depression. A Delta gate agent, named Isabel, found us and offered suggestions. She would become our best friend over the next several hours. She kept finding us at different places in the airport and was the conduit with the United agents in trying to figure out our best bets. They were pushing Newark. Our options were to go to Newark and change planes there to LA. This added about 7 hours of flying to our initial plans, and also included Newark which is undesirable. A stop in Houston was more direct, but would require waiting another two hours and the flight from Houston to LAX was anything but guaranteed. Lastly, we could get a hotel near the airport, attempt the morning flight on Delta direct to LA. While there are no guarantees in standby travel, Houston and a direct flight the next morning were a bit dicey. Newark to LAX had a surprising amount of seats as long as we arrived close to on time. After already spending seven hours in the airport, we willingly chose to make our day even longer. Isabel asked us to update her if we got on.

We got middle seats to Newark and did the headbob for a few hours until we landed at a timely 5:15am. Our flight to LAX was leaving at 6:00am. As we had arrived on an international flight, we had to go through customs and security. Things weren't looking great, as the "efficiency" of the Newark airport has broken the likes of even the calmest traveler. Like some kind of miracle, though, we were the last people to arrive at gate C92, were awarded business class seats, and the door closed a few minutes after we got settled. Thanks to the nice seats, we were able to at least rest, albeit sometimes fitful. Around 10am, we finally landed in LAX, a bit burned out, but home, and with a new instagram follower named Isabel.

And then Antigua

It was a rather unexpected and fateful day. You see, there seems to be an issue with either Avianca’s ticketing system and/or the website that I use to list for flights because when I want to change to a flight at a different time or go somewhere else, it keeps giving me an error when I try and cancel my previous listing. It came up when we took an earlier flight to Cartagena. I told the ticket agent that there were probably two that were showing up in the system, and to cancel the later one if it was possible. (She wasn’t able to do it either, but that’s beside the point). I had created two listings for today. We had to fly from Cartagena to Bogotà regardless, but the next leg was a bit different. One went from Bogotà to Los Angeles direct on Avianca. The other went to Guatemala City, a holdover from when we thought we would be spending the night in Bogotà and the direct flights for tomorrow didn’t look good. From my research, I discovered that there were seats to Guatemala City and then a direct from there on Delta to LAX. You follow all that?

  To get to the point, I had two listings to two very different places. In my research I discovered a small colonial town called Antigua, a UNESCO heritage site, an hour or so drive outside Guatemala city. It looked very nice in the pictures, so I was a bit intrigued. On the flip side, we had been on the road for the last two weeks dealing with holiday stress and a suitcase that had both winter garments and bathings suits. There was a certain appeal to getting home and going back to our lives.   

  The Avianca counter in Cartagena was out of control. For some reason they have scheduled three flights to Bogotà all within the hour plus a flight to Medellin, so the line extended well beyond the ropes. Luckily our rudimentary knowledge of Spanish let us know that an Avianca employee was motioning people on the 9:11 am flight (us) to go to a separate line. From there, we were quickly called to the counter. It was at this point that I asked Nicole what she wanted to do. She was noncommittal, so it was up to me, except I didn’t say anything and the ticket agent never asked. Eventually we were handed four tickets, with only the Cartagena-Bogotà leg visible in the stack. I had my hands full with other things, so I couldn’t flip through to see where we were going next until we got to security. I looked at Nicole, “You ok with going to Guatemala?” Sure.

  After a somewhat confusing situation where we were given seats on an earlier delayed flight, which had already boarded by the time we got into the terminal. We were transferred back to our originally scheduled flight once we realized what had happened. Once in Bogotà we worked at a brisk pace to exit the domestic terminal, enter the international terminal, process through customs, go through security, and walk to our gate just prior to boarding. About three hours later, we were in Guatemala. We got an Uber to take us to Antigua. With traffic, it took about 90 minutes due to some slow trucks climbing through the hills. The town of Antigua looks substantially different than the views from the car leading up to it. We made a turn and all of a sudden went back 500 years. The streets were cobblestone and we saw our first white people, who appeared to be involved in some kind of yoga retreat. Figures. Our hotel was an old mansion built for some conquistador. It would have been quite the house. It has a large courtyard and fountain. I’m not sure if it’s the wood or what they’re cleaning with, but the place has an aroma of something that’s 500 years old.  

  After settling in, we walked around briefly. The clouds had moved in, obscuring the usually photogenic volcano and dulling some of the colors of the buildings, so I didn’t take any pictures. Uncharacteristically, we were able to get an ornament for our tree at the first shop we entered. It is a grouping of “worry” dolls stitched on a wreath. The worry dolls were/are a tradition for Guatemalan kids, who place them under their pillows and by morning, their worries have gone away. Perhaps they should make worry dolls for adults too. We walked a bit more and got dinner at a place called Angie Angie. They also had a large courtyard, where they had strung lights and started a fire. It was a very nice atmosphere. Worth noting is that we were wearing jackets because despite how one might picture Guatemala, we are currently more than 5000 feet above sea level and the temperature dropped quite rapidly after the sun went down. After dinner, we returned to our hotel to sit in the courtyard and relax after a long day of unexpected travels. Tomorrow we hope the sun shines down once again on Antigua so we may see it in its glory.

Cartagena Take Two

Things were a little bit calmer this morning, though the heat was already quite intense. We walked outside the city walls for the first time to an area of town called Getsemani. We were already having a few issues with people stopping abruptly on the narrow sidewalks. We knew very well, however, that things could be much worse. We walked toward the Castillo de San Felipe, but as we crossed a bridge to get there, I was a bit concerned about the heat and being completely exposed without shade for an extended period of time, so I snapped a picture from a distance and we turned around. We took a different route back to the old town, passing some graffiti as we walked by. We did a little bit of shopping, but didn’t end up buying anything. Stores essentially had the same stuff from one place to the next, but not the key items we needed like . . .a pin for Nicole’s camera bag, or an ornament for our tree. Even good magnets were hard to come by. If you wanted a Panama hat, however, you need not look far.   

 We had lunch across the street from our hotel at a pizza place. We had hoped to snag one of the seats in the plaza, but an older man who looked like Dr. Hammond from Jurassic Park stole the last one. Some nerve. We ended up being the first to be sat indoors, but there was a balcony upstairs which worked out nicely because it eliminated the hawkers trying to sell us cigarettes and panama hats. After our pizzas, we regrouped at the hotel to formulate our next plan. We still needed to get aforementioned pins and ornaments and such, so I did a bit of research. We ended up going to a stretch of stalls at the Mercado de las Bovedas, which was an old military storehouse. It’s now about 20 “different” shops selling mostly the same stuff. We ended up getting a keychain of one of the colorfully-dressed fruit vendors which I will convert to an ornament.  I also ended up getting a Colombian national team soccer jersey because the price was right. It ended up being about $10, so I didn’t feel right trying to get a lower price any lower than that. Later on we found a flag pin for Nicole, but it really took some hunting.    

 I had made a dinner reservation for 630pm (when most restaurants just start opening for the night). I thought perhaps a reservation was needed since outdoor space is often limited, but it turns out it was most definitely not required. We were the first people there, and watched them physically open the restaurant and put out the signs and menus. I had picked this place because I wanted to try a local dish called Posta Negra Cartogena. It’s basically steak cooked in a sauce made out of Worcestershire sauce and Coca Cola amongst other things, so it’s a kind of tangy/sweet flavor served with plantains, and coconut rice. Unfortunately, the restaurant I had reserved told us that they were out. It had been a frustrating evening of running into people and nearly getting hit by cars, so we were in a bad place when we heard this news. I basically said there’s no point in even staying, so we up and left. We hunted around briefly. Another restaurant I remembered from my research ended up having a guard posted outside, blocking the entry. I took this to be not a great sign, and we continued elsewhere. As we neared our hotel, we passed the restaurant next to the place where we ate pizza for lunch. They had one seat outside, though it was an unusual setup. Because a group of twenty girls had showed up and wanted to eat at ONE table like the Last Supper, our table ended up being off by itself as if we were eating at a completely different restaurant, or had perhaps brought our own table.   

 To make matters worse for Nicole, she was alerted that due to previously mentioned group of twenty girls (who had all decided to order pizza, even though there was a pizza place next door), the wait for Nicole’s margherita pizza would take at least 45 minutes at best. The waitress suggested various salads and fish dishes, but I think she could sense the fear in Nicole’s eyes. She then brought Nicole with her to order a pizza from the neighboring restaurant. As it turned out, I got my posta negra a while after Nicole received her pizza, but it was a delightful dish that was topped off with some kind of banana dessert. It was perhaps the closest thing we will have to any authentic in Cartagena.

    We went back to our hotel and sat on the rooftop, away from the chaos all around us as car horns and salsa music from different bars wafted into our ears to create a kind of dissonance that pretty accurately sums up lively and wild Cartagena.   

Feliz año nuevo!

After a Christmas in New Jersey and a followup visit to Houston for the holidays, we elected to continue our adventures down to Colombia. From Houston, it’s a short five-ish hour flight to Bogotà. Unfortunately for us, there was a two hour delay on our New Year’s Eve flight due to some sort of runway restrictions down at El Dorado Airport. This would mean that we would arrive in 2020 as opposed to having a little buffer back in 2019 to get through customs and to our hotel for a chance to get some much needed rest. As it turned out, we touched down with about five minutes to spare and were pulling up to the gate when the flight attendants announced that it was now 2020. We were fortunate to have gotten business class seats, so we were off the plane in short order. As we walked the long length of the terminal toward customs, we saw fireworks erupting all along the horizon. A group of about twenty rampers were watching it as well and eventually turned and looked at me and waved. Welcome to 2020.  

 We breezed through customs and took an Uber down the empty roads to our hotel near the old town, about twenty minutes away. Some shady looking characters immediately ran up to the car when we got out hoping for some change, but Nicole and I are millennials and didn’t have any actual cash to give anyway. To heighten the tension, our hotel door was locked and nobody was there to let us in. After a minute, a security guard at the adjoining building was able to get a hold of the hotel to let us in. For having touched down around midnight, it was now about 1am, which wasn’t too shabby. We settled in for the night. 

We were awoken the following morning by heat consuming us. You see, while it was really only about 50 degrees outside, the altitude and the shade’s absorption of heat made it feel like 80 in the room. We had an early start to the day, just to get out. In spite of our phones telling us it was only 58, we didn’t need our jackets while walking outside. We explored a neighborhood known as La Candelaria. The streets were nearly deserted. We eventually reached Plaza Bolívar, where we encountered more people, but they were far outnumbered by pigeons. Virtually nothing was open at this hour, so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We then caught an Uber to take us up the hill to where we thought we would catch a cable car or funicular to the top of Monserrate Hill. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, and it looked like a line for a ride at Disneyland so we simply walked down the hill back toward our hotel. Since we had pretty much exhausted our to-do list for Bogotà, we decided to take an earlier flight to Cartagena. A little while later, we found ourselves back at the airport, but this time in the domestic terminal.   

 Though we were able to depart earlier, it only saved us maybe 40 minutes in the end, as it was a very long taxi for departure. We will take what we can get. Our hotel in Cartagena is also in the old walled area of the city. It was very quickly apparent that this is very different than Bogotà. It is quite busy and there are a lot of tourists. After checking in, we walked around to explore. It was a bit overwhelming. It has similarities to Casco Viejo in Panama City, but it’s not as . . .nice. It’s perhaps a little too wild for our tastes, and very difficult to walk. Gaggles of tourists stop abruptly as they try to figure out where they’re going or pausing for a dramatic selfie. We would have to jump off the narrow sidewalks into the street to avoid them only to be almost run over by a taxi or horse-drawn carriage, which are surprisingly frequent. I didn’t even want to stop for pictures because everyone behind me would surely run me over.  

 It’s like a cross between Panama City, Ubud in Bali, and New Orleans — it’s a nice looking neighborhood with the colonial architecture, but it caters to a clientele and inauthenticity that is a bit of a turnoff. We had dinner at a place called, “Beer Lovers.” This was a nice chance to escape the crowds on the street and enjoy some local brews. Nicole had a red ale and I had a coffee stout, not standard Caribbean beers, or tropical beers, but delicioso nonetheless. We also got a couple beers and some snacks to go because they were so yummy and we were now just seeking ways to avoid the crowded streets. We figured we would enjoy the beers on the roof of our hotel. Perhaps I am being unfairly negative toward the poor walled city of Cartagena, but when you’re spoiled like we are, you have a lot to compare it to. It does appear that everyone else is enjoying themselves, so take that as you will. Tomorrow is a new day, and maybe things will be different when it’s not a holiday. Fingers crossed.