Travel Monkeys

Colombia Trip Report – Days 9 & 10

Saturday & Sunday, March 18 & 19, 2023 – Back to Cartagena & Home Again (Author: J)

(photo: sunrise at El Dorado)

Some things we learned on our final morning at El Dorado. Don’t feel guilty about sleeping in; the sunset from the cabins is just as nice as the sunset from the San Lorenzo Ridge. There is a discount if you settle your account with cash. You can make it back to Santa Marta pretty quickly if you don’t slow down for curves in the road. Just honk as you round the bend. Folks will know to get out of your way. (That last bit is what I told myself to keep my mind off the risk of plummeting off the side of the mountain as we sped towards town).

After making the trip to Santa Marta in record time, we switched cars and drivers in a grocery store parking lot in Santa Marta. The new ride was a fancy looking SUV designed for tourist transport; it had TV screens on the backs of the seats and everything. Before hitting the road, we popped into the grocery store to buy some snacks for the drive. Then we headed back to Cartagena on the same road that had taken us to Tayrona several days earlier. Along the way, our driver pumped his favorite American pop hits from the early 2000s. We initially thought he was humoring the American tourists, but our assessment changed when he started belting the classic Backstreet Boys jam, I Want It That Way. Clearly American pop of the early 2000s was his jam.

Our destination in Cartagena was the Hilton in Bocagrande. Since we had already spent time in the Historic Centre, I opted to finish our stay in the more affordable tourist area along the beach. I selected the Hilton because it had an elaborate-looking pool area.

We arrived in Bocagrande around 1 pm – perfect timing because I was getting hungry. It soon became apparent that our driver was lost though. We made several circles around the block, getting tripped up after each lap by the GPS, which was rather forcefully suggesting that we drive into the ocean. As we circled the block trying to find a road that led to the Hilton, we were surrounded by a group of men selling the usual tourist trinkets. Unwilling to squish anyone, our driver stopped. Then he rolled down the window and asked directions. The trinket vendors obliged and then parted to allow us to proceed on our way. 5 minutes later, we were at the Hilton.

The friendly folks at the front desk were able to check us in early, so we headed to our room to change. (Although we were happy to be able to check in early, it seems like housekeeping was rushed as a result. Our room wasn’t as clean as I would have liked and some of the items in the room – such as coffee for the coffeemaker – had not been replenished). After changing, we spent our afternoon at the pool area where we had a light lunch and some fruity drinks at the pool bar. Although the sky was cloudy, the threat of rain never turned into actual rain and we were able to enjoy a long swim. That evening, we had dinner at the on-site restaurant (convenient, but not very tasty) and then relaxed in our room before our final night’s sleep in Colombia. Bocagrande was a relaxing place to end our trip, though it cannot hold a candle to the Historic Centre when it comes to charm.

Because our flight home was not until 3 pm, our final morning was a leisurely one. We slept in and then headed to the Hilton’s breakfast buffet – a choice we made because it allowed us to use up a good chunk of our remaining pesos. The Hilton’s breakfast buffet is elaborate, with a wide variety of options including breakfast pastries, eggs, French toast, and Colombian specialties. The arepas con huevos here were crispy and flavorful; they put the ones at Hotel Bantu to shame. We enjoyed our meal amidst tables full of tan and happy-looking people wearing clothing adorned with sea turtles. This was apparently the uniform of the sea turtle scientist. It turned out that the sea turtle convention was in town. I don’t think I have ever seen a happier looking group of professionals – and I work in a field where we get the whole summer off.

After breakfast, we packed and then puttered around the room until it was time to check out. While we were waiting, I made a last dish effort to fix our flight itinerary. Several weeks prior, JetBlue had kicked us off our connecting flight because – in their view – changes to the flight schedule had made the connection too tight. We now had a 12-hour overnight layover at JFK, a change for which we had not received any compensation. My plan was to ask customer service if we could be moved back to our original connecting flight if we agreed not to complain or ask for a new flight if we missed the connection. This plan was summarily rejected; the customer service representative told me that the connection was simply too tight and that it was not a permitted booking. This stuck in my mind because we met several people in the Cartagena airport who were booked on this “unpermitted” connection; those folks had not been bumped to a later flight.

(Photos: the pool area at the Hilton)

We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our flight as suggested by JetBlue. Our first decision was whether to grab lunch before security or after. Choices are limited in both places and there are really no great options. We ultimately decided to take our chances at the gate. The next hurdle was to clear passport control. At the entrance to the passport control line, a staff member is stationed to confirm that everyone has completed their Check MIG form. This form is required to both enter and exit the country. It appeared that the form check was on the honor system. If you say yes, the staff member will take your word for it and let you leave the country. We hadn’t completed our form and had plenty of time, so we stepped out of line to do our paperwork. Fortunately, the airport offers 15-minutes of free wi-fi for all visitors – a service that we took advantage of to get the Check MIG done.

With our paperwork out of the way, we got back in line and waited for passport control. It moved much more quickly than passport control on arrival. After about 20 minutes, we had our exit stamp and found a seat to wait for our flight. The international departures area in Cartagena has limited seating and few shopping and dining options. There is a convenience store, a deli-type restaurant, a duty-free store, and a Colombian souvenir shop. We used our last remaining pesos to buy cheese sandwiches for lunch and then bought some small items at the souvenir shop. The prices there were obscene, so I recommend doing your shopping before coming to the airport.

It turned out that our flight was delayed, so a 2-hour wait stretched into 3. Finally, our flight began boarding. We found our seats and settled in. As I sat down, the cushion on my seat slipped forward; apparently it wasn’t attached. I shoved it back in to place and buckled up. Then we booted up the entertainment system. It quickly became apparent that something was wrong with that too. The only child-friendly selections were a few short videos of preschool songs – and even those would not play. As it turned out, the entertainment system on the plane was not working. As an added bonus, I discovered that I had left my book at the Hilton. I was in for a lot of hours of admiring my own fingernails.

After an unpleasant flight, during which I had to repeatedly assure P that there was no connection between malfunctioning entertainment systems and plane crashes, we arrived in New York. I really enjoyed waiting in the passport control line surrounded by wisecracking New Yorkers complaining about our flight. (It turns out that I wasn’t the only one whose seat fell off). I’m originally from New Jersey, so both the accent and the humor sounded like home to me. After a 20 to 30 minute wait, the passport control agent welcomed us home and told that our son’s hair was too long. We did not comment on the passport control agent’s bald head.

At this point, I checked my watch and confirmed that it was about 30 minutes until our original connecting flight would have departed. Could we have made it? I don’t know. But since JetBlue had given us the boot, we instead took the airport train to the car rental counters and picked up a rental car. Then we drove the 3.5 hours to Boston. I am proud to say that we managed to stay awake the whole time and we thus lived long enough for me to complete this trip report.

On the way, I called JetBlue to let them know that we wouldn’t be on our connecting flight the next morning. They agreed to issue a credit of several hundred dollars, which made me feel a little better about the situation. However, I do think that the way JetBlue handled the situation was unethical at best. (As you may recall, I had previously asked for a refund for the New York/Boston leg of our flight and I was told that was not possible because the fare was not apportioned by leg. Accepting the 12-hour layover was presented as a take it or leave it proposition. That other travelers were not bumped from the same connection only added to the perceived unfairness of the situation).

Despite the stress of the trip home, it had been another excellent family vacation.

Colombia Trip Report: Day 8

Friday, March 17, 2023 – El Dorado Reserve (Author: J)

(photo: the last remnants of the sunrise over San Lorenzo ridge)

Our plans for our full day at El Dorado Reserve were to do some hiking and birding along the San Lorenzo Ridge. This mountain ridge, even higher in the mountains than El Dorado, is a birdwatching mecca because of the number of endemic (i.e., found nowhere else) species. As I told Wild About Colombia when we booked the trip, we didn’t need anyone to work hard to find us rare birds. Any pretty bird was going to impress us.

(photo: a slightly out of focus parrot, possibly endemic, or possibly not; what do I know?)

Cristián suggested that we get up early enough to see the sunrise from the ridge. To my surprise, D agreed to this. (His agreement did not stop him from complaining about this aspect of the trip once we returned home). That meant that we had a 4 a.m. wakeup, a scramble to get dressed, and then a hike in the dark down to the parking area just above the reception building. We made it without falling off the side of the mountain, so our day was off to a good start.

The unfortunate thing about the San Lorenzo Ridge is that it is even further up the unpaved road we had used to get to El Dorado. After the prior day’s rough ride, D was very reluctant to get back into a vehicle. I gave everyone some children’s Benadryl, which I have found works for motion sickness without the drowsiness of Dramamine or Bonine. It helped somewhat.

The drive up to the Ridge was much the same as the prior day’s drive with the added complication of driving in the dark. P, who had been seated in the middle the day before, was now seated by the window. With a clear view of the road, he revised his assessment of driving in El Dorado from “fun” to “terrifying.”

To my surprise, there were hostels and lodges in the mountains that were even higher up than El Dorado. We passed some of these on our way.

(photo: views from San Lorenzo Ridge)

I don’t know if our timing was off or if it was intentional, but we did not reach the Ridge by sunrise. We instead stopped along the way to see the sun rising through a clearing in the trees. After that anticlimactic experience, we continued up the road until we reached our destination. We were the first group there. But we were soon joined by multiple groups of birders, including a birding group from Ontario that we recognized as fellow El Dorado guests.

On the Ridge, we had a picnic breakfast of cheese sandwiches, fruit, coffee, and cocoa. Then we hiked around a bit, looking for interesting birds and taking in the views. From our vantage point on the mountain, we could see the city below and even catch glimpses of the ocean. In that way, it reminded me of hiking in the Santa Monica mountains near Los Angeles. And much like the mountains in California, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta provides habitat for large predators like jaguar despite its proximity to a densely inhabited area.

(Photo: hiking on San Lorenzo Ridge)

After an easy hike on the Ridge, we started the drive back to El Dorado. We stopped several times along the way to watch hummingbirds (and also so that Cristián, who drinks enough coffee each day to stop the heart of an average elephant, could refill his thermos). We arrived back at the lodge just in time for lunch.

We spent the early part of our afternoon relaxing in the cabins. Around 3 pm, P and I met Cristián for another hike. P was anxious for one final opportunity to view howler monkeys, so our plan was to hike down the hill towards a place where the monkeys are often spotted. We had no luck on this hike. Although we ran into other hiking groups who had seen monkeys, we did not find the monkeys themselves. Cristián did his best to save the hike for P by finding him some small frogs in the streams along the road.

(Photos: spotting frogs in the streams)

In our zeal to spot primates, we hiked a bit further than we had planned. It didn’t seem like a problem while we were headed downhill, but that changed when we had to turn around and head back up the hill. Before too long, P began complaining that he was exhausted and threatening to quit. Compounding our woes was the fact that we had left our water bottle behind at a restaurant the day before, so we were hiking without water.

To encourage P, I reminded him that he had done a much more challenging hike in Tayrona.

“Yes,” he replied. “But I was mad at Daddy then, so I was hiking fast to get away from him.”

“Is there anything you are angry about today?” I asked hopefully.

But P had forgiven D and had not developed any resentments against me that might power him up the hill, so our hike continued with many stops and starts and lots of whining. Finally, we made it back to the reception building where we poured ourselves some water and played cards until it was time for the night monkey feeding.

After enjoying our final monkey watching opportunity of the trip, we had dinner. Because it was St. Patrick’s Day, we treated ourselves to a bottle of wine so that we could celebrate the holiday in the usual way: drinking Argentinian wine in the Colombian mountains. Then, we made our final slog up the hill to our cabins to pack for our return to Cartagena the following day.

Colombia Trip Report – Day 7

Thursday, March 16, 2023 – Los Naranjos to El Dorado Reserve via Minca (Author: J)

Photo: Sunset at El Dorado

It’s pretty common for travelers to Colombia’s Caribbean Coast to add a stop in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The ecotourism hotspot of Minca seems to be the standard stop, but we chose to head further into the mountains and stay at El Dorado Reserve. El Dorado protects the habitat of 40+ species of birds, but we chose the location for a different reason: night monkeys. The reserve puts fruit on a platform each evening, a practice that all but guarantees sightings of the tiny nocturnal primates.

This was the one day of our trip where I felt like the itinerary needed work. We started our journey to the mountains quite early. Cristián arranged to pick us up at 6 am. The driving distance between Los Naranjos and El Dorado is only about 2 hours, so the early wakeup didn’t seem to make sense.

We had bid farewell to Goyo the night before because he did not have the 4 wheel drive vehicle needed to make the journey to El Dorado. Cristián and our new driver (whose name I no longer remember) arrived promptly at 6. We checked out of Casa Tayrona, paid for our meals, and started out towards Minca. Because we had departed Casa Tayrona so early, we were not able to eat breakfast. That meant that our first stop was for breakfast at a different hotel in Minca. The views of the mountains and hummingbird feeders at Hotel Minca made the simple meal of eggs, fruit, bread, and coffee something special.

Photo: Breakfast in Minca

After breakfast we continued our journey up the winding mountain road to El Dorado. Along the way, we passed small restaurants and shops, isolated homes, and a coffee plantation. We turned down the opportunity to visit the plantation because I had already made P suffer through a coffee plantation tour in Costa Rica. (The plantation stop was not something that included in our tour and Cristián didn’t discuss it with us before making the suggestion, so I don’t believe that our vetoing the idea explains the “off” timing on this day).

Not long after leaving Minca, the paved road ends. While we were prepared for an unpaved road, we were not prepared for an unpaved road like the one we encountered. The grooves in the road made by the many cars that had gone up and down the mountain gave the appearance of the tracks on an amusement park ride. That appearance was heightened by the fact that the road was so close to the edge of the mountain in many places that our driver had to hang his head out the window to make sure he was keeping the truck’s tires on solid ground. Adding to the excitement was the fact that the road was strewn with large boulders and broken bits of rock, ensuring that we were jostled and shaken thoroughly as we made our way up the mountain. All of this added an element of adventure to the journey, but it also added a risk of concussion as I smashed my head repeatedly into the window.

Photo: an interesting green bird

The drive was mercifully broken up by a stop to see more hummingbirds at another restaurant along the road. Much like Hotel Minca, the restaurant had a back patio lined with hummingbird feeders. After about 30 minutes of watching the hummers, we told Cristián we were ready to go. At that point, he told us that he had decided to stop there for lunch and had already put our order in. I was mildly annoyed and that annoyance grew as we waited another hour for the restaurant to cook us lentil soup from scratch. When our meal was finally ready, we ate and then headed back to the truck to continue our drive. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of leaving our water bottle at the restaurant, something that would come back to haunt us later in the trip.

Photo: one hummer a humming

We arrived at El Dorado well before the usual check-in time of 3 pm. Fortunately, we were able to check in early and head to our cabins for a nap. Yes, the plural is correct here. El Dorado only has double occupancy cabins. Our choice was to rent two cabins or one room in the older lodge building. (Pro Aves was unmoved by the fact that our third person was a child). We chose the cabins because of their huge windows overlooking the mountains and because we were promised that they were closer to the restaurant.

From reception, it was a 20-minute walk uphill to our cabins. During the walk, I apologized repeatedly to D, whom I correctly suspected was none too pleased with the walk. Finally, we arrived – some of us huffing and puffing – at cabins 9 and 10. We selected 9 as our sleeping cabin and 10 as our luggage storage cabin. The views from the cabins almost made up for the arduous journey to reach them.

Photo: relaxing in the cabin

We were happy to see that our cabins had hot water, something that always seems a treat when you are somewhere remote. However, the cabins did not have potable water or any toiletries other than hand soap. I hiked back down the hill to request both. The gentleman working at reception gave me a carafe of water and some cups but told me that the property does not supply toiletries. I was frustrated by this given the price we paid for our rooms (which was more than twice the cost of our cabin at Casa Tayrona). I think that El Dorado needs to give some thought to what type of property they want to be. The new cabins are marketed as a higher end eco-tourism project; travelers looking for that type of accommodation don’t expect to have to pack in their own shampoo.

Back at the cabins, we spent our afternoon relaxing and enjoying the view. It was as beautiful as promised and, from the chairs outside our cabin, we could enjoy the bonus of a periodic howler monkey serenade. At 5 pm, we made the journey down the hill for the highlight of P’s day, the night monkey feeding. As the sun sets, the staff at El Dorado place bananas on a platform in the trees near the lobby. Guests have an excellent view of the platform from the back deck of the building. Not long after the bananas were put out, the monkeys reported for eating duty. We stayed until the monkeys had eaten every last bite and then headed inside for dinner. (If you are keeping track, P had now seen 5 species of monkeys – not bad for a trip to one small section of Colombia).

Photo: grey-handed night monkey eating banana

El Dorado does not have any guides on staff, so most of the parties staying at the property had hired their own guides. (There was also a group traveling without a guide, so a guide is certainly not required). There is lodging for the guides near the temporary lobby building. That meant that Cristián joined us for both the night monkey feeding and dinner. During dinner, Cristián told us that El Dorado was temporarily using the building we were in as the restaurant and lobby. The brand new lobby and restaurant building – a mere 5 minutes from our cabins – had been hit by lightning. Although repairs were almost complete, the steady stream of bookings during the high season meant that there was no convenient time to move operations back to the new building. The gentleman who was working reception during our trip had been in the new building when it was hit. Fortunately, he was able to escape unharmed, but one of the rangers at the reserve was injured while fighting the fire.

After dinner, we made the 20-minute hike back to our cabins in the dark. We were very thankful that we remembered our flashlights; although the path is fairly wide, there are places where there are sheer drop offs that are not visible in the dark. Before turning in for the night, we spent some time looking at the lights of Santa Marta below us and the light of the stars above us.

Colombia Trip Report: Day 6

Wednesday, March 15, 2023: Don Diego River/Los Naranjos (Author: J)

(Photo: Our final sunset at Casa Tayrona)

Our plan for our final day in Los Naranjos was to take a tubing trip down the Don Diego River. This is not an activity I would have selected if I had planned the trip without help. But P and I agreed that Wild About Colombia’s description (“Enjoy a morning’s tubing excursion, where you’ll float gently down a crystal-clear stream through lush forests with views of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta”) sounded appealing.

In the months leading up to the trip, D displayed his usual level of interest in trip planning. I made a few attempts to show him the itinerary, but it was always “too early to think about vacation.” That meant that our tubing plans were a surprise for D. And not necessarily the fun kind. You see, D has a fear of just about anything that floats on water from cruise ships to inner tubes. I don’t know what went on at Ohio’s Boy Scout camps in the 80s, but it has left D with a firm conviction that boating is humanity’s leading cause of death. So, on Tuesday afternoon, when Cristián mentioned the pickup time for our tubing excursion, D’s face momentarily betrayed his discomfort. Fortunately, the only thing that D’s midwestern upbringing has instilled in him more strongly than a fear of boats is a distaste for making any kind of scene. So, D smiled, nodded, and wished Cristián a goodnight. Tubing was a go and it ended up being one of our favorite activities.

Our pickup time for the tubing trip was a very humane 8:30. That meant that we had time for breakfast at Casa Tayrona before heading out. We enjoyed some crepes, waffles, and fruit. This was apparently a meager breakfast by the hotel’s standards. We were offered and declined eggs, pastries, and juices.

We ate and then hit the road for the 30-minute drive to the river. Along the way, Cristián talked to us about the local indigenous groups. He has been working to develop tourism projects with several of the indigenous communities on Colombia’s Caribbean coast and was clearly excited about that work.

Eventually, we pulled into a dirt parking area along the banks of the Don Diego. (Pro tip: If you need to use a restroom, this is the place to do it. There are no restrooms as the river’s mouth, although I did find a bush ominously adorned with toilet tissue). In the parking area, we were met by a local who would serve as our tubing guide. Cristián would head out in front of us in a motorboat so that we would have a way to get back up the river at the end of our float.

We applied sunscreen and bug spray and headed down to the river. (Pro tip 2: If you prefer not to fry little strips of your skin in oil, avoid applying bug spray after applying sunscreen. It’s been almost 2 months since our trip and the stripes of sunburn on my legs have only just healed). I was touched by the fact that Cristián had noticed that P was looking a bit pink and had brought along a floppy hat for him to wear. As an aside, P was not sunburnt; he is sensitive to sunscreen – including so-called hypoallergenic sunscreen – and so turns pink within the first day or two of all of our vacations. Finally, we took the unnecessary step of donning lifejackets and started our float down the river.

Tubing the Don Diego is exactly as Wild About Colombia described. It is a lazy float down a fairly shallow river. Once you get out of the town where the tubing trips launch, there is beautiful scenery on both sides of the river and the opportunity to view birds and howler monkeys in the trees. The river does have small caiman, but the shallowness of the water quickly assuaged my fear of becoming a caiman snack. It would be nearly impossible for a small turtle to swim under your tube, never mind a caiman.

We had an enjoyable float almost all the way out to the ocean. Just before the Don Diego joins the sea, it makes a sharp left. A small sandbar separates the river and the sea at the bend, creating a convenient place for tubers to disembark. We hopped out of our tubes at just about the most picturesque place imaginable. We had the river to our left, a small beach with a few hammocks to our right, and the ocean in front of us. And because we tubed in the morning, we had the place practically to ourselves; there was only one other family on the river with us.

After spending some more time enjoying the scenery, we hopped into a speedboat and headed back up the river to our car. Goyo then whisked us back to Casa Tayrona for our final afternoon. On the way back, we stopped at a produce stand to enjoy some more of Colombia’s excellent tropical fruits.

After lunch at Casa Tayrona, P and I headed to the pool while D went to get a massage. (At approximately $25, it was a bargain we could not pass up). P and I hopped in the pool and started to swim, but we were soon joined by a blond-haired woman with her similarly blond and very naked toddler. Perhaps there’s a judgmental American parenting book I’m not aware of that describes how Scandinavian toddlers never poop in pools. However, my own life experience did not instill confidence in the wisdom of swimming with a naked toddler. P and I quickly got out of the pool and retreated to the seaside hammock cabana. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading and relaxing. In case you were wondering, the naked toddler did not poop in the pool.

That evening, we had an early dinner and headed to bed early in anticipation of another early wakeup the next day.

Colombia Trip Report: Day 5

Tuesday, March 14, 2023: Tayrona National Natural Park (Author: J)

(photo: beach in Tayrona National Natural Park)

Day 5 of our trip started early. We had a 5:45 am meeting time so that we could get to Tayrona early for wildlife watching. P has reached an age where early wakeups are hard for him – and waking up any time before 6 a.m. is really pushing it even for the morning person in our family (me). We decided to prioritize sleep over prep time. I set an alarm for 5:30. Because I tend to sleep poorly when I know I have to be up early, I was awake before the alarm. That turned out to be a good thing because I saw the text from our guide stating that he was running a little late and I was able to push the wakeup time for the rest of the family back 15 minutes.

When our alarm went off at 5:45, D and I got ready quickly and then shook P awake. Once P was ready, we grabbed our prepacked day bag and headed to the lobby to wait for our guide. Although the hotel restaurant’s breakfast does not start until 6:30, the hotel staff was nice enough to offer us coffee while we waited. We declined. Just after 6 a.m., a man dressed in the typical wildlife guide uniform of hiking pants and a button-down safari shirt entered the lobby. We correctly identified him as Cristián Sierra, our guide for the rest of the trip. Cristián spoke briefly with the hotel staff, who scrounged up some bananas and oranges to add to our snack stash for the day.

Then, we headed for the car. I was surprised to see Goyo again. On previous wildlife watching tours, one person has been both our guide and driver. The benefit of a separate driver and guide became apparent to me later in the day when Goyo appeared with the car at the precise location where we emerged from a hiking trail.

I had watched quite a few YouTube videos about Tayrona before out trip, so I knew that the usual process for entering the park is to stand in line until the park opens. Cristián was able to arrange early access to the park that allowed us to skip that line. When we arrived at the park, he spoke to the security guard who moved a barrier for us and let us in. Because the park was not open yet, we were the only tourists on the main road into the park. This made for excellent wildlife spotting. Just a few feet into the park, we saw a tamandua cross the road and climb a tree. He was out of sight before we could get out of the car and take his photo, but we were still excited to see a new variety of animal in the wild.

We drove a little further up the road and stopped when Cristián spotted our first monkey of the day: a cotton-top tamarin. The monkeys were high in the trees, making them hard to photograph. We did get some excellent views of them using binoculars. At this point, I felt like we could call our day a success even if we didn’t see any more monkeys. But another short drive produced howler monkeys. They were also high in the trees, but they are generally less prone to move around than tamarins and so easier to watch for long stretches. While we were watching the howlers, Cristián offered us an impressive selection of snacks including cocoa, coffee, various granola bars and cookies, and a bunch of interesting fruit. (He did tell us what the fruits were, but my memory fails me at this point). After our breakfast, we walked along the road until we came to a camping area.

In the camping area, we found a few interesting birds and a dog who seemed to be in search of new friends. We left the camping area with the dog trotting at our heels. She kept pace with us as we walked up the road, occasionally running into the underbrush to scare off any wildlife that might be inclined to make an appearance. As we neared the parking area before the trails to the beach, we still had not shaken our new friend. Cristián suggested that we get back in the car and drive the last stretch in an effort to lose the dog so that we would have some chance to see other animals. P was relieved. He is a dog lover. But if the choice is seeing dogs or seeing monkeys, then he will choose monkeys 100% of the time.

(Photo: cotton-top tamarin)

We pulled into the parking lot feeling quite proud of ourselves. Then, the dog trotted into the lot behind us. Additional evasive maneuvers ensued. The parking area was large enough and full of enough people – mainly vendors and overnight park guests – that we were able to make a wide circle around the dog and start up the walking trail to the beach. When last we saw our canine friend, she had joined a new family of tourists.

(Photo: making new friends in Tayrona)

If you have seen YouTube videos or Instagram photos of Tayrona, then you have seen the jungle that one must hike through to get to the beach. What social media does not show you is the horse poop. Horses are available to rent in the park. And horses are not particular about where they do number 2. The main path to the beaches is rich in the sight, scent, and unfortunate squishing sensation of horse patties. We clambered over rocks and jumped across streams, all while avoiding the poop. It adds an extra challenge to what is already a somewhat challenging hike. (It’s also a fun hike; I think that anyone who is moderately fit with good knees would enjoy it).

Our destination was La Piscina, one of the swimming beaches in the park. It was about a 90-minute hike from the trail entrance. Another 30 minutes or so would have taken us to the famous Cabo San Juan. Cristián wisely intuited that the longer hike might not be appealing to P (or D, for that matter). By the time we arrived at La Piscina, we were ready for a swim break. That meant we had to find a place to change into our swimsuits. Our only option was the bathroom facilities such as they were. And they were not much – just wooden stalls with curtains containing a seatless toilet and a bucket. P came out of one of the wooden stalls visibly upset; he had apparently slipped and fallen into the mystery liquid on the floor. (If you are going to change in Tayrona, the facilities at Arrecifes are a better choice; they are modern and fairly clean).

(photo: La Piscina beach)

We spent some time swimming at the beach and then enjoyed lunch at one of the food stands near the beach. The vegetarian plate was the standard rice, beans, plantains, and veggies. This is one of my favorite meals even when done mediocrely, and the version served at La Piscina was much better than mediocre. P and D also ordered some type of chocolate pastry, but P rejected his when it attracted the local insect life.

After lunch, we decided to get changed and start our hike back to the park entrance. This meant another chance to experience the horrors of the La Piscina bathrooms. By this time, someone was set up outside the bathroom charging $2,000 pesos per person for the privilege of using the toilet shacks. I briefly considered changing in the bushes, but decided I wasn’t willing to risk arrest just to make a point. I paid the fee, changed, and we hit the trail.

The trail to the beaches from the El Zaino entrance to the park has a looped portion, which means that you have a choice of trails to take to and from the beach. We went back via the trail closest to the beach. Among its many benefits were that it was new to us, free of horses, and full of monkeys. It did not take us long to come across a troop of capuchin monkeys, which were easy to spot thanks to the entourage of humans they had attracted. D, P, and I spent some time observing the monkeys while Cristián took the opportunity to talk to some of the other humans about why feeding cookies to monkeys is a bad idea.

(photo: capuchin mad about cookies)

Our hike took us past several beaches that were beautiful to look at, but too dangerous for swimming, as well as the Ecohab accommodations inside the park. Finally, we popped out into a parking area where Goyo was waiting for us. It was a short drive back to Casa Tayrona.

(photo: the trail along the beach)

Nothing refreshes you after a day spent relaxing on the beach like more relaxing on the beach. This time, we decided to enjoy the deck behind our cabin, which overlooks the beach. We grabbed our books and headed outside where we were greeted with the sounds of a flute-like instrument. A man was standing on the cat-shaped rock on the beach playing. Even more puzzling, he was surrounded by women with green skin and mermaid tails.

“What is going on here?” I asked. Wanting to be helpful, I’m sure, D pulled out his binoculars to get a better look. I not-so-politely opined on the optics of a middle-aged man using binoculars to look at women on a beach and he reluctantly put the binoculars away. His research did confirm that we were looking at green women with mermaid tails.

“This place has a great vibe,” said P.

We passed the rest of the afternoon reading and enjoying the company of our mer-friends. We were even able to take more hot showers, which seemed a treat after our issues in Cartagena. (Casa Tayrona has a clever system for saving energy that shuts the hot water off after a certain amount of non-use, but it can easily be turned back on the next time someone wants to shower).

For dinner, we headed back to the hotel restaurant. Our server that evening had a particular fondness for P, which made her very popular with P’s parents. P was less delighted by the fuss. Since we had a more humane wakeup time the next morning, we enjoyed some more reading and TV time after dinner. Then it was off to sleep with the thunderous sounds of the ocean as the backdrop to our slumber.

Colombia Trip Report – Day 4

Monday, March 13, 2023: Cartagena to Los Naranjos (Author: J)

(photo: Casa Tayrona Los Naranjos)

Day 4 of our trip was the start of the tour package that I had booked through Wild About Colombia. Our pickup time was 9 am, so we headed down to breakfast at about 8:25. As we were sitting down to eat, a member of the hotel staff let us know that our driver had arrived. He was able to let the driver know that we would not be ready until closer to 9. We then ate a final breakfast at Hotel Bantu and went back to the room to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything.

We were back in the lobby before 9. We did run into a slight issue at checkout. Housekeeping reported that we had taken some items from the minibar. The total cost for the missing items was just a few dollars, so I told the clerk that I would pay the bill but that I was not pleased. This led to a second inspection of our room whereupon the missing items were located. The minibar in Hotel Bantu is in the wardrobe, which is also the only place you can hang clothing. Apparently, we had knocked some items down while packing the dinner clothing from the wardrobe. We appreciated the hotel staff fixing this issue on the spot.

Once we were checked out, the hotel called our driver, Goyo. (As a note, I am not great at remembering names and I always forget to bring a journal along to jot them down. The fact that Goyo is the only driver whose name I can remember is in no way a reflection on the other drivers, who were all excellent.) Goyo pulled up out front and helped us load our suitcases in the trunk and then we were on our way to Los Naranjos.

If you are not familiar with Los Naranjos, it is a little beach town on the edge of Tayrona National Park. It’s about a 5-hour drive from Cartagena to Los Naranjos, primarily on well-paved highway. Our drive took us past the city walls of Cartagena and an area of high rises along the beach. As we left the outskirts of Cartagena, a police officer flagged us down. Goyo got out of the car and my brain went to an unhappy place. But, after a few minutes, Goyo and the officer hugged one another, and we were back on the road. I did not ask.

The rest of the drive passed uneventfully. We made a restroom break at a rest stop, where I was intrigued to see a group of people gathered to watch a soccer game. We ate snacks that we had purchased at our beloved Exito. We drove past fancy condo buildings and cute little beach towns and groups of shacks. Sometime after 1, we arrived at the gates of Tayrona. “Why are we stopped?” D whispered. “I am not getting out here.” It turned out that Goyo was not familiar with our hotel, so D used Google Maps to pull up directions and we finished the last stretch of our trip.

We said goodbye to Goyo at the reception area for Casa Tayrona. In just a few minutes, we were checked in and seated in the upstairs area of the hotel restaurant, which has views of the ocean on 3 sides. I believe that we all got sandwiches for lunch. (I am quite sure that P did because he ate nothing but cheese sandwiches for the duration of our stay at Casa Tayrona.)

After lunch, we found our room. We were excited to find that our room was actually a cabin overlooking the beach. The excitement continued to build as we discovered that — even though it was well into the afternoon — the cabin had hot water. We made the decision to swim first and shower second. This was to be the most difficult decision we would make all day. “I think this will be my favorite hotel of the trip,” D announced.

(Photo: view from our cabin)

The pool at Casa Tayrona is on a deck overlooking the beach. There is a selection of beach chairs, some overlooking the ocean and some facing the pool. There is also a cabana with two hammocks. P and I swiftly occupied them. We spent some time reading in the hammocks and then decided to try the pool. P hopped in and I was about to join him when I noticed unidentified white stuff floating in the water. I am somewhat squeamish, and I was not willing to swim, but I let P stay in as long as he promised to keep his head above the water. While P was swimming, the hotel staff came over to examine the pool water and then made a call. By the time we woke up the following morning, a maintenance person was fixing the pool filter. After that, the pool water remained clean and clear for the duration of our stay.

(photo: pool deck)

After our swim, there were hot showers, more reading, time spent relaxing on the deck of our cabin, and another meal at the hotel restaurant. We went to bed early in anticipation of an early start the following morning. It had been a very relaxing day.

Colombia Trip Report – Day 3

Sunday, March 12, 2023: Cartagena (Author: J)

Our second full day in Cartagena began much like the first. Once we were dressed and ready for our day, we headed downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast buffet was largely unchanged, although there were some different desserts offered. Yes, Hotel Bantu offers dessert for breakfast. This was a highlight for P. He often claims he is not hungry at breakfast, but the availability of chocolate options ensured that he found room for a little something each day in Cartagena.

After breakfast, we headed for our favorite destination in Cartagena, the Exito supermarket. Wild About Colombia had suggested that we bring enough cash to pay for our meals at our next two hotels, which meant we needed to make multiple trips to the ATM. Pro tip: before going to an ATM in a foreign country, explain to your child that he should not loudly ask how much money you have taken out – at least not until you make it back to your hotel. Fortunately, if there were muggers or pickpockets at Exito, they were inattentive. We made it safely back to Hotel Bantu to stash our funds.

I then used the Cabify app to call a taxi. Cabify works much like Uber or Lyft in the US. You tell the app where you want to go, and it finds you a ride and gives you the information for the driver. Unlike Uber or Lyft, Cabify only calls taxis and it gives you the option to pay cash or card. It would have been easy enough to hail a taxi on the street, but I liked the security of knowing the price of our ride in advance. (The most consistent scam we have encountered while traveling, including in the US, is a taxi driver who overcharges either by intentionally taking the long way or tacking on extra charges once you reach your destination). Taxi apps also eliminate any concerns that might arise from a language barrier.

It wasn’t long before our driver arrived, and we were on our way to Castillo San Felipe. Castillo San Felipe is a colonial era fort built on a hill outside the walls of the old city. Although we did not plan it intentionally, seeing the fort after visiting the Naval Museum turned out to be a good choice. The museum had exhibits about the fort and its role in the defense of the city that provided great context for our trip to the fort.

(Photo: making our way up Castillo San Felipe)

In fewer than fifteen minutes, we were at the entrance to the fort. We found the ticket booth and I successfully ordered our tickets in Spanish. Then, the clerk asked me for “su nombre.” I stared at her blankly, not because I didn’t understand, but because I could not fathom any reason why she would need to know my name. “Your name?” she repeated in careful and what seemed like slightly irritated English. This time, I responded. It turns out that the ticketing system uses names rather than paper tickets. The names are entered at the ticket booth and pop up on a tablet at the turnstile. If I were trying to turn this into a lesson for my students, I suppose it would be to have confidence in your own knowledge and preparation. But the odds of me taking my own advice are slim; you are much more likely to find me staring slack-jawed at a ticket clerk than you are to find me confidently responding in Spanish to the question I thought I heard.

(Photo: views from the fort)

(Photo: canon recovered from the ocean)

All visits to Castillo San Felipe start with a steep uphill walk. We were there on a beautiful, sunny day, which meant that our walk was hot. Some of us may have whined. But we made it and spent an enjoyable hour or so exploring the fort. P’s favorite part was poking around in the tunnels. At one time, the tunnel system under the fort allowed soldiers to travel all the way down to the harbor – a handy trick if you need to plant explosives under an advancing enemy. Portions of the tunnels are still open, allowing visitors to enter a door in one area of the fort and pop out elsewhere. We ended our time at the fort with an obligatory photo near the Colombian flag.

(Photo: the shot that everyone on instagram takes)

We exited the fort to find a line of waiting taxis. This made Cabify impractical, so we settled for confirming the trip price up front. Our next destination was Plaza San Pedro Claver, where we took some photos before visiting the Modern Art Museum. The Modern Art Museum is a small museum located in a historic customs house. As the name suggests, the museum features modern art. Note that the museum is cash only and it is not air conditioned — although it is as airy as a non-climate-controlled building can be.

There were a large number of pieces from the 50s and 60s, along with some more recent art. A significant percentage of the paintings and installations involved pigeons. I was very excited because pigeon is one of approximately 3 Spanish words that I learned through a dedicated regimen of watching Jorge el Curioso on Hulu in the weeks leading up to our trip. (I started watching the show after watching a YouTube video that suggested watching Spanish language TV without subtitles to help improve pronunciation).

(Photo: inside the art museum)

After spending time with the arty pigeons, we headed back into the plaza where we walked past many living, breathing pigeons on our way to Crepes & Waffles. Our taxi driver had been very excited about this restaurant, so we decided to put his recommendation to the test. Crepes & Waffles serves crepes and waffles. We were there for Sunday brunch, so there wasn’t much else on the menu. D and I ordered crepes. P ordered waffles. Then we waited a long, long time. Finally, the crepes came out, but there was still no sign of the waffles. There was also no sign of any of the waitstaff, complicating our ability to track down the missing waffles. I decided to set out in search of my son’s meal. I finally located the waffles sitting alone on a counter. They had become separated from the crepes and subsequently abandoned by the waitstaff. I flagged down a server and had the now cold waffles delivered. Then I went back to the table to eat my cold crepe.

All in all, this was an unsatisfying dining experience. We decided that the remedy was more ice cream. Because of the poor service at Crepes & Waffles, we walked past their ice cream case and headed back to Amore Mio. The staff there recognized us and welcomed us back for our second and final afternoon gelato.

We then walked the short distance back to Hotel Bantu for our customary afternoon swim. After spending some time in the rooftop pool, P and I decided to check out the pool on the first floor in the hopes that it had a hot tub filled with hot water. There weren’t any clean towels at the rooftop pool. This meant that we had to walk through the lobby dripping wet. We were almost to the pool when a hotel employee intercepted us to point out that there was a staircase closer to our room. I tried to explain that we weren’t coming from our room, but rather heading from one pool to the other. And the upstairs pool had no towels.

Thinking that we had reached an understanding, P and I proceeded to the downstairs pool. It did not have a hot tub, but it did have plenty of towels. Minutes later, a different hotel employee arrived at the downstairs pool with a pile of towels. This led to a conversation in broken Spanish (me) and broken English (hotel employee) in which I tried to explain that it was the upstairs pool that needed towels and the employee tried to confirm that I understood what a towel was. After all, from his perspective, I had asked for more towels while apparently surrounded by them. We ultimately reached agreement on what a towel was; the employee left with the same towels he had arrived with and a newfound concern for my sanity. P and I then took all the towels from the downstairs pool and carried them upstairs.

After our swim, we got cleaned up and ready for our final dinner in Cartagena. Because we were ready early, we decided to take a walk around the historic center and do some shopping. Our hope was to find an extra shirt for P (because I had counted incorrectly and told him to pack the wrong number of shirts) and a souvenir or two. Our shopping expedition was a partial success. We found a woven ball in one of the higher end shops that will make a serviceable Christmas ornament. But we did not find any open shops selling children’s clothing. Even after making yet another stop at Exito, which has clothing on the 2^nd floor, P did not find anything he was happy with. (The problem with the clothing at Exito was that it all said “New York” or “California” and P was not about to buy a shirt in Colombia that had a logo for a US city).

That evening’s reservation was at Montmartre, a French restaurant conveniently located just around the corner from our hotel. What an adorable place! The small, second floor dining room is decorated to look like a rustic, French farmhouse complete with a little cat sculpture in the rafters. On the night that we ate at Montmartre, the server had called out so the owner was single-handedly filling all of the front-of-the-house roles. Other than a slight delay in taking our dessert order, the impact of this short staffing was not noticeable.

(Photo: croquettes)

We had the portabella croquettes, the C’est Cheese (a pastry wrapped Camembert) as appetizers, the squash tortelli and the salmon wellington as mains, and the crème brulee and all choco (a chocolate brownie sundae) for dessert. The only bad thing about dining with D and P is that I never get to pick my top choice dessert as I am always outvoted 2 to 1 in favor of some variation on chocolate cake and ice cream. Still, this was a very pleasant meal. After dinner, we made the short walk back to our hotel where we handled the unpleasant task of packing. While I could have happily spent more time in Cartagena, the beach was calling.

Colombia Trip Report – Day 2

March 11, 2023: Cartagena (Author: J)

(Photo: buildings in the historic center)

We decided not to preplan our time in Cartagena other than to make dinner reservations. That meant that we were able to forego alarms for the first few days of the trip. On our first full day in the city, I woke up first, as I usually do, and made use of the shower without an audience. Privacy is not easy to come by in a room with no doors or walls around the shower and only a glass partition around the toilet. The lack of doors on bathrooms in our hotels in Colombia became a running joke for us.

By the time I was ready, the rest of the family was starting to stir. When everyone was dressed, we slathered ourselves in sunscreen and headed downstairs for breakfast, which was included in our room rate. The breakfast at Hotel Bantu consists of a small buffet of fruit, breads, meats and cheeses, and a few hot items. There are also eggs cooked to order. Our server explained all of this to us in Spanish but switched to English when I merely nodded in response instead of ordering eggs. We found that almost everyone working in the tourist areas of Cartagena spoke at least some English. Their willingness to listen to my mangled Spanish seemed to be inversely proportional to their comfort level speaking English.

After breakfast, we walked to the Exito supermarket just a few blocks from our hotel to use the ATM and purchase some bottled water. Then we walked to our first destination of the day: Parque del Centenario. The sidewalks of the historic center were much less crowded than they had been the prior evening, which gave us a chance to look around and soak in the ambiance — the colorful buildings; the tiny, sculpted animals on every door; the smell of urine rising from the cobblestone streets. I was charmed. I say this with no sarcasm. I loved Cartagena. Not the pee smell, of course. But no place is perfect.

(Photo: squirrel in Parque del Centenario)

Parque del Centenario is a small park just outside the city walls. It was at the top of our Cartagena agenda because it has the one thing P most appreciates about a destination: monkeys. My understanding is that the monkeys who live in the park were rescued from the illegal pet trade and released into the park. They are a mixed family of cotton top and white handed tamarins who live a semi-wild lifestyle in the city. They are free to roam, but it seems like they are fed to encourage them to stay in the park. I inferred the bit about feeding based upon the big pile of fruit on the ground in the center of the park.

Even though the park is not large, spotting a few tiny monkeys still posed a challenge. Fortunately, a park employee who saw us scanning the trees approached us. “Sloth?” he asked. “Sloth. Si! Sloth!” we replied. The park worker led us to a tree containing a three-toed sloth. We took some photos. “Mono?” he then proposed. Finding the monos required climbing up onto the landscaped areas of the park, something that the park employee assured us was okay. He then pointed out a tree that contained an entire family of monkeys. P happily watched and photographed the monkeys for quite a while. I don’t know what the proper etiquette is in this situation, but D did tip the park employee; he had made our son’s day, after all.

(Photo: monkey in Parque del Centenario)

(Photo: a boy who really likes monkeys)

After the monkeys scampered out of sight, we made the short walk back through the city gates and continued our stroll. At the gates, we bought a limonada from one of the vendors. It was refreshingly cold, but too sweet for our taste. We wound up discarding most of it. We walked aimlessly for a bit, stopping to peek into buildings that interested us. But P soon began to complain that he was hot. We rejected his suggestion to return to the hotel but did agree to find some air conditioning. The Palace of the Inquisition appealed to D, so we headed in that direction. We found the building easily enough but could not figure out where the entrance was. After being turned away by a security guard at one of the doors, we decided to visit the Naval Museum instead. It was a short walk from the Palace of the Inquisition and featured a clearly marked entrance.

(Photo: Cartagena Cathedral)

The Naval Museum is split between the colonial maritime history of Cartagena and a history of the Colombian Navy. It’s a great choice if you are traveling with kids because many of the exhibits are interactive. The woman selling tickets warned us that the exhibits were entirely in Spanish, but we did not find that to be a problem. First, there are English descriptions on some of the exhibits. Second, Google translate makes it easy to convert Spanish descriptions into English. We spent an enjoyable and refreshingly cool hour or so in the museum. Then, we ventured back into the humidity and started off in the direction of our hotel.

(Photo: fun in the Naval Museum)

We planned to break up the less than ten-minute walk by stopping for lunch along the way. That proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated. The route we took did not bring us past any food carts and many of the restaurants were either closed or too fancy for a quick lunch. We eventually found a pizza place with outdoor seating. The restaurant seemed to cater to cruise ship passengers, which meant that it drew vendors and street performers by the dozens. Because we were eating, we could not escape their sales pitches, but we still found that a firm “No, gracias” did the trick. Only the sunglass seller persisted after “no.” An “adios, senor” in a decidedly impolite tone encouraged him to move along.

After our quick and adequate meal, we reoriented ourselves and realized that we could see Hotel Bantu from where we had been sitting. But, before returning to the hotel, we had an emergency to attend to. We had now been on vacation for nearly 24 hours and P had not had a single mouthful of ice cream. Thankfully, Amore Mio Gelateria was just around the corner. This is a cute little place to stop for an afternoon treat. The staff are friendly, the gelato comes in an array of flavors, and there is an upstairs seating area with big windows for people-watching. With our ice cream intake at an acceptable level, we finally returned to Hotel Bantu for more pool time. I wasn’t particularly in the mood for swimming, so I hit for the hot tub instead. To say that the hot tub was not hot is a spectacular understatement. It would take several degrees of warming to bring the hot tub to the temperature of the pool. Still, it was the hottest hot tub we experienced in Colombia.

After our swim, we relaxed in the room for a bit. P and I played cards while D read. Then, it was time to dress for our dinner reservation at Cande. I decided to book a meal at Cande after seeing it featured on several YouTubers’ travel vlogs. The ambiance, which includes live folkloric dancing, looked like fun. It was. To my surprise, P listed this as his favorite dining experience in Colombia. He says, “Dancing is cringe, but watching other people dance is nice.” The only negative thing I can say about Cande is that the portions are too big. After our stuffed eggplant and mote de queso (a cheese and yam soup) appetizers, we barely had room for our main dishes. We did manage to end our meal with a shared dessert of banana cake with kola ice cream. P was quite taken with the ice cream because it looked and tasted like a frozen Kola Roman, the red soft drink that P had sampled the evening before. After a leisurely meal, we walked back to Hotel Bantu for more relaxing.

Colombia Trip Report – Day 1

Friday, March 10, 2023 – Boston to Cartagena (Author: J)

I booked our JetBlue flight to Cartagena about a year in advance. Our trouble with the flight began almost immediately. In the months between our booking date and our departing flight, JetBlue changed our flight schedule multiple times. Each change whittled down our layover in New York. About 3 months out, I noticed that our layover in JFK was less than an hour. Fortunately, there was an earlier Boston to JFK flight available. Unfortunately, it was at 5:30 a.m.

We were less lucky with our flight home. Our layover at JFK was shortened to 90 minutes; I was leery but accepted the change because we did not have other options. JetBlue had no other flights from Cartagena and flights on other airlines had doubled in price in the months since we booked. A few weeks after accepting the change, we received a notice from JetBlue that our tickets for the connecting flight to Boston had been cancelled because the layover was too short. According to the agent with whom I spoke, our only options were to cancel and receive a credit or sleep in the airport overnight and fly home at 7 a.m. the next morning. (The rationale was that I had used travel vouchers to pay for half the cost of our flight. JetBlue had presciently applied the vouchers to the leg of the flight they had booted us from and so were – in their view – entitled to keep the cash we had paid for the second half of the flight cost).

As a result of all this flight shuffling, our travel day began at 2:15 a.m. By 2:45 a.m., we were in the back seat of an Uber headed for Logan Airport. This was my first time prebooking an Uber for a flight. It’s something I have been wary of because it often takes 20 minutes or more for an Uber driver to agree to schlep out to our suburban home. That meant that if anything went wrong with our prebooked car, we would not have a great backup option. It turned out that there was no reason to worry. Our Uber driver was on time and there was no traffic. As a result, we arrived at the airport so early that security was not even open.

Security opened sometime between 3:30 and 4 a.m. The line moved quickly and we were at our gate with plenty of time to spare. Our flight boarded on time and we were soon on our way to New York. It was an uneventful flight, punctuated by the soothing sounds of hacking children. So. Many. Sick. Children. On a plane! I guess the era of staying at home when you are sick is officially over.

Our early flight meant a long layover, so we decided to have a sit-down breakfast at JFK. We picked the first restaurant with open tables and asked to be seated. The host/server led us to a booth that was already filled with other travelers’ suitcases. I asked if we could sit elsewhere, a request that was apparently problematic. We were shown to a new table, this one surrounded by boxes of condiments. And then we waited. 25 minutes passed without anyone coming to take our order. Eventually, the bartender came over to check on us. He then found the host/server and asked him to take our order. “Not right now,” came the response.

At this point, we moseyed a few feet to another one of JFK’s fine breakfast establishments. They seated us and someone actually took our order. What we learned from these events is that every sit-down restaurant in JFK terminal 5 serves the exact same menu. You are therefore advised to make your restaurant choice based upon how well staffed each location appears to be. D and I had eggs for breakfast. P had pancakes. The total cost for 3 breakfasts was more than $100. “Don’t worry,” I assured D. “This will be the most expensive meal of our trip.” Spoiler: I was correct.

Our flight to Cartagena boarded on time. As we took off, our pilot made the usual welcome announcements and signed off by saying, “Unfortunately, I cannot promise a smooth flight.” The pilot was either terrible at predicting turbulence or amazing at avoiding it because the four hours that followed were some of the smoothest in my recent travel experience. Our pleasant flight culminated in an early arrival, putting us in Cartagena before 3 p.m. local time. We exited the plane, walked across the tarmac in sweltering heat, and entered the airport terminal.

Immigration at Rafael Núñez International Airport is one of the circles of you know where. Now, I have not actually read Dante, so I can’t tell you which circle. But it’s the one where you have to stand in a crowded and muggy room for hours on end with no access to food or restrooms and no way to tell when your punishment will end. We joined the back of the line. At this point, our guardian angel appeared in the form of woman with a thick New York accent. She informed us that she had been in line for nearly three hours without any discernable progress and suggested that we find the line for families and people with disabilities.

D decided to investigate; he took P with him to “prove” that he had a family and they set off in search of a security person. I found this to be an odd choice because the result was that the only person in our group who speaks any Spanish was left standing in line while two people who speak no Spanish went to talk to a Spanish-speaking security person. D came back to report that there was no family line. Then, the security person came to convey with hand gestures that D had it backwards. There was a line for families. It was over there. We found the line. We got in it. And then we stood in it. And then we stood in it some more. Periodically, a cheer would go up from the crowd and then people would shuffle forward a few inches. After about an hour of this, we reached the front of the family line. We presented our passports to an immigration official, received our stamps and welcome, and exited the airport. I often think of those who were not lucky enough to bring a child or a full body cast with them to Cartagena. I hope that one day they too will receive that coveted passport stamp, or at least a dispensation to use the restroom.

Our next order of business was to head into the departures area of the airport to find an ATM. We were successful at finding the bank of ATMs, but not at withdrawing money. We tried every one of the machines and obtained not one peso. This would have been a problem if we were hoping to take a taxi. Fortunately, I had arranged (and prepaid) a transfer through Intrepid Tours. It took a few minutes to locate our driver and then we were on our way. Twenty minutes later, we approached Hotel Bantu. Then we drove around for a bit while our driver asked people for directions to Hotel Bantu. Finally, we arrived at Hotel Bantu.

(Photo: hallway outside our room at Hotel Bantu)

Check-in was quick and easy. In minutes, we were in our room and on the phone with our bank trying to figure out the ATM card situation. We never did get the issue resolved. One of my work colleagues who travels to Africa frequently subsequently told me that the issue is probably our decision to change banks. She has advised that I suck it up and reopen my account at Bank of America because, while their customer service leaves something to be desired, their bank cards actually work in other countries. As a work-around, I set up a pin on one of my credit cards and we were able to use it for cash advances without incident. The downside is that we racked up $50 in cash advance fees using this method. Paying off each withdrawal as soon as it posted does seem to have avoided interest charges.

While I was trying to figure out the bank situation, D and P headed up to the hotel’s rooftop pool. The pool has my vote for best feature of the hotel. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in ambiance. While swimming or sunning yourself, you can hear the sounds of music from various rooftop bars, admire the charming terracotta rooftops of the historic center, and even watch flocks of parrots fly by.

(Photo: view from rooftop of Hotel Bantu)

After a short swim, it was time to get ready for our dinner reservation at Alma. We made ourselves more presentable and then headed out on foot. The historic center was packed with people. That, coupled with the uneven sidewalks, meant that I spent most of the walk looking down at my feet. At one point on our short walk, P and I became separated from D. When we rejoined him, he was visibly upset. I assumed that he had been worried about us and started to assure him that we were fine. He cut me off and explained the issue. Apparently, the instant that D no longer had a wife and child in tow, he was surrounded by friendly prostitutes plying their trade. Because I had shared stories about men being drugged and robbed in Colombia, D viewed the ladies of the night as a threat. P and I promised that we would do better in our role as bodyguards and we continued our journey. (The entire journey was about 7 minutes; Hotel Bantu’s other best feature is that it is centrally located).

We arrived at Alma right on time and were seated immediately. We ordered fruity drinks for the adults and an Inka Cola for P and settled into vacation mode. Alma is located in the Casa San Augustin, a group of colonial era homes that were converted into a boutique hotel. Alma’s dining area is in an interior courtyard where you can dine under the stars while admiring the historic details of the building. We ordered a mozzarella and tomato salad that featured tomatoes four ways (whole, diced, chutney, and dried, I think) and lobster empanadas for starters. They were delightful. We also ordered the two vegan entrees for dinner – along with a side of fries for P. They were equally delightful. I was particularly enamored with the creative use of vegetarian ingredients in my bean dish which had lentil croquettes, chickpeas in a cheesy tasting sauce, and a variety of vegetables that complemented the flavors of the beans.

(Photo: Entryway of a building in the historic center)

About thirty minutes into our meal, a group of college-aged couples arrived and were seated next to us. The group pulled out an assortment of selfie paraphernalia and started taking photos. Thus, the rest of the meal passed with me being periodically blinded by the light that the group had brought to ensure that their shrimp photos looked professional. I did not handle the situation the mature way; instead of directly asking the group to knock it off, I mumbled rude things about them under my breath. If this had been my only experience with twenty-somethings, I think I would have been inclined to buy into the negative Gen Z stereotypes. But, since I am fortunate enough to work with an amazing group of students, I know that Gen Z has many positive traits that offset their love of making duck faces in front of plates of seafood.

After a mostly lovely meal, we walked back to Hotel Bantu. Pro tip: make sure Google maps knows that you are on foot. After walking in circles for ten minutes, I took the phone from D and realized that he had set it for driving directions. The poor phone thought we were repeatedly driving the wrong way down one-way streets. We eventually made it back to the hotel and turned in for the night. P’s plans for a relaxing bath were dashed when we discovered that the hotel does not have hot water in the evenings. (It actually does not have hot water after about noon; I have no explanation for this, and I am reluctant to recommend the hotel as a result). Instead, we read for a bit. Then we piled ourselves with blankets to counter the air conditioning that appeared to be permanently stuck at “Artic” and went to sleep. Our trip was off to an interesting start.

Trip Report – Colombia’s Caribbean Coast (March 10-19, 2023)

Trip Overview (Author: J)

(Photo: Cartagena)

This is a belated trip report for our March 10-19 trip to Colombia’s Caribbean Coast. I will do a day-by-day report of the trip. But I have learned that starting with a summary is the way to go, given how long it takes me to write up each trip.

About the Trip

We first considered a trip to Colombia in 2021 because it was one of the few South American countries open to international travel at that time. We ultimately decided to visit Ecuador instead, which turned out to be a good choice because Colombia went into a lockdown during the time we would have visited. D was really enamored with the videos of Cartagena we watched when planning our 2021 trip and selected it as our spring break destination this year. (Spring break for two forty-somethings? Why yes. I was fortunate to make a career change last year and I am now a law professor – a job with benefits that include taking spring break along with hordes of college students).

I planned an itinerary that combined Cartagena with some nearby locations that would allow ample relaxation and monkeys. I booked the Cartagena portion of the trip myself and used Wild About Colombia, a wildlife tour company, to arrange the rest of the trip. This was my first time using this type of service; I did so because I had trouble finding English language information about tour guides and drivers. Using Wild About Colombia was significantly more expensive than booking on our own, but it did result in a seamless travel experience. They did a really nice job of carrying out my vague directive to combine monkeys and relaxation.

mountains in the distance with tropical plants in the foreground

(Photo: views from San Lorenzo Ridge)

Our itinerary was:

March 10 – JetBlue flight from Boston to Cartagena with layover at JFK; stay at Hotel Bantu, Cartagena
March 11 & 12 – explore Cartagena (staying at Hotel Bantu)
March 13 – transfer to Casa Tayrona los Naranjos
March 14 – Tayrona National Park
March 15– tubing on Don Diego river
March 16 – transfer to El Dorado Lodge at Pro Aves Reserve
March 17 – birdwatching at reserve
March 18 – transfer back to Cartagena; stay at Hilton Bocagrande
March 19 – JetBlue flight to NY; drive to Boston (because JetBlue cancelled our connecting flight, as will be complained about later in report).

sunset over the beach in Los Naranjos with flowers in foreground

(Photo: Sunset Los Naranjos)

General Impressions

Overall, we enjoyed Colombia and would recommend it. My favorite location was Los Naranjos. It was as beautiful and relaxing a place as I have been. Cartagena was quite charming with some excellent food choices. El Dorado Lodge was also lovely, although I think it is of limited interest to anyone who isn’t a hardcore birder.

Food – Food was generally very good to excellent (though it requires research to find good places in Cartagena). P and I are vegetarians and we found lots of tasty meals that used produce in creative ways. I read a lot about how expensive the food in Cartagena was before our trip. While that may be true compared to other places in Colombia, the prices are a bargain when compared to US prices. For example, we paid between $70 and $80 US for fancy multicourse meals for three with cocktails for the adults. The same meal in the US would set us back more than twice that.

Safety – Every write up of a Colombia vacation must touch on safety. And every mention of safety must include the following two things. First, your risk of running into members of the FARC is now pretty low. So, take comfort in knowing that if you are mugged, it is unlikely to be by a member of an organized guerilla group. Second, you should not “dar papaya.” This is Spanish for don’t give papaya. This is good advice; papaya is delicious. If I am in a place that has good papaya, I don’t share. But why are you relying on my advice about safety in Colombia? I spent a total of 10 days in Colombia and was not mugged, pickpocketed, or otherwise bothered during that time. That is the sum total of my knowledge on this subject.

Vendors, Beggars, Rappers and Touts of all Kinds – Lots of people will try to sell you stuff in Cartagena. It did not bother us as much as I thought it might. We found that saying no and continuing to walk was effective. I will note that I have the type of face that has people constantly asking me, “What’s wrong? Are you angry about something?” Your mileage may vary.

Money – We found that credit cards were widely accepted at higher end restaurants and shops and that cash was preferred elsewhere. We did not bring Colombian pesos with us and instead used ATMs to get cash as needed. We did have problems with our ATM card as I will discuss in more detail, but I was able to use credit card cash advances as a workaround. (Note that if you pay the advances off in full when they post to your account, you will not incur interest. You will still need to pay the cash advance fee).