Mantra is becoming ship-shape

With no abatement in the heat and humidity--and none expected--we continue to get Mantra ready to sail again. On Saturday morning, we hanked on the genoa to the forestay and then went back to our usual work--me cleaning and Peter repairing. I decided to start provisioning in the afternoon. Next to us, on our starboard side, was one of the many boats that takes backpackers from here to Panama and the San Blas Islands. The two young men on board had just returned from provisioning, so I asked for their advice, and they recommended Megatiendas in Bazurto, a neighborhood not far from the one we are in, Manga. Peter needed another t-junction for plumbing, and the Homecenter was on the way, so I decided to walk there to buy that and then continue on to Megatiendas on foot. After this small purchase, I exited from the Homecenter and went up to the mega-mall above it.

I needed a restroom, so I followed signs and asked directions in this very upscale mall with my intermediate level Spanish. The restroom was clean and modern, but there were no toilet seats, to my surprise, and there was no toilet paper in the stalls. In fact, there were no toilet paper dispensers. Fortunately, I had a couple of tissues with me. After I was done and left the stall, I noticed a large toilet paper dispenser near the sinks and a woman getting some. I guess you are supposed to estimate how much you will need and take that amount with you before going to the toilet. Ah, cultural differences!

Finding my way out of the mall and into the street was a challenge, and I ended up walking through part of the parking garage to escape. From there, with the help of Google maps and street signs and the position of the sun, I was able to determine that I needed to turn right and continue along that street for about eight minutes walking. What a contrast between the modern, sleek and sanitized mall interior and the streets just beyond it. Bazurto, I realized, was the neighborhood that I had read in guidebooks was not for "the faint of heart." Unlike the mall, it is truly Colombian. Vendor stalls line both sides of the sidewalks. Storefronts enter onto small shops only a few feet deep. Alleys open up and disappear into the dark depths of the narrow openings, filled with people and goods. Everything is available from clothes to food to electronics to household goods. I did not see anyone selling or shopping for souvenirs. If there were any tourists there (besides me), I did not notice them. I tried not to seem conspicuous as a wove my way among the hundreds of pedestrians going both directions and spilling onto the streets. Some vendors touted their goods, but no one was aggressive and everyone was friendly. Bazurto is very, very different to the pretty streets of El Centro--more colorful, lively and authentic-- but it did not seem dangerous or daunting. 

Bazurto

Bazurto street vendors

Fresh produce for sale

Fish and everything else!

Eventually, I made it to the plaza filled with fish and produce vendors. Following the helpful advise of various shopkeepers along the way, I had found my way to the location I was looking for; the Megatiendas down a crowded street and on my right. It is not Costco! It is a large grocery store with basic food and supplies but not a wide variety. I filled up my cart with items and purchased four large bags of groceries for the equivalent of $20 US. I asked about a taxi, and the bagger escorted me out of the store, steered me clear of a man offering to give me a ride, and led me to the main, four-lane, divided street. He tried to hail a taxi on our side, but a motorcyclist (of which there are many) told us that we needed to cross the street. So, the bagger maneuvered the cart and we dodged traffic, surmounted the eight-inch divider, and found a taxi on the other side. 

Of course, the driver spoke no English, but we managed to carry on a conversation the whole way back to the marina. He was very nice and stopped to buy us both a frothy, cool and delicious drink made with borojó, a local fruit. How generous and thoughtful!

Sipping this refreshment as we passed the vibrant, brightly polychromatic sidewalks, I felt elated and thought to myself, "Now this is why we travel to foreign places!"

That evening we walked around near the marina and found a small restaurant with air-conditioning that had good pizza and stromboli. We ate half of our meals and the rest was our lunch the next day.

By Sunday morning, Peter had finished his re-routing of the plumbing and other jobs requiring the floorboards to be up. With the main halyard, we hoisted the mainsail, which had been sitting in its bag in our cabin taking up almost half the floor space, through one of the large hatches in the salon.  With that out of the way and the sole of the boat intact again, I was able to start serious cleaning, and I worked non-stop, with a short break for re-heated but still good food for lunch, for hours and hours. I cleaned all the blinds and windows. Moving all the items on every horizontal surface, I meticulously cleaned every shelf and countertop, making sure not a speck of fine dust that had accumulated over three months remained in any corner. With our cabin and half of the salon done, after lunch, I moved on to the cockpit, where I scrubbed the ceiling, the seats and all the other surfaces. Then we moved the cockpit cushions, the life ring and other safety equipment out of the aft cabin, clearing it up to be used as intended. After a thorough cleaning of that cabin and finishing the cleaning in the salon, I was able to make the guest bed, which has an irregular shape with the new sheets which I had carefully altered a couple months ago at home. It was nice to see that it had turned out right.

With the living spaces in the boat finally in good shape, it was time to rest. After cold showers (We have hot water, but who would want a hot shower here???), Peter and I went out for a walk. We passed Club de Pesca, which is only a few blocks away along the waterfront and looked at their docks because we may go there later this month (and we thought that may be the place to get diesel, but it turns out it wasn't). Deciding we deserved a drink, we crossed the bridge into the old city. When we were here in April, we always walked directly on Calle 25 through the neighborhood of Getsemani to get to El Centro and San Diego, where all the tourists go. I had read that Getsemani was the new hot spot in the old city, but Calle 25, the one street we traversed, only passed a few hostels and a couple of bars and there was nothing attractive or enticing. Over the summer, however, I had read more about Cartagena, as well as other places we plan to visit over the next three to four months, and discerned that we needed to turn off this boring street to get to the interesting parts of the neighborhood. Hiding behind the uninspired edifices on that main street, just a block or so away, were bustling narrow streets and small plazas, filled on a Sunday evening with mostly local people enjoying the balmy evening weather. Small grocery and convenience stores alternated with bars and restaurants as well as private one- and two-story homes with the wide front doors and windows thrown open. The multi-generational families were either inside or sitting on chairs just outside their doors on the sidewalk. Neighborhood children were running from place to place, with the older ones minding the younger ones.

Sculpture in Plaza del Pozo

Stores, hostels and families in front of their homes

Mural on the front of a cafe

Home opened to the street

Alley in Getsemani

There were so many choices that it was hard to pick a place to sit down and relax. Before we decided, we came upon the Church of Santasima Trinidad, a large, blockish structure with a golden-hued exterior dating from the 1600s. All the doors were wide open, and the altar was ready for the seven o'clock service a bit later. The decorative tile floors are lovely. The altar and the niches have religious statues and murals mostly in pastel hues. But the most striking architectural element is the beautifully carved dark wood ceilings. I marvelled at the craftsmanship that must have gone into creating these centuries ago.

Interior, Iglesia de Santasisma Trinidad

Altar

Nave of the church opening onto a side street

We exited the church by a side door, stopping to admire more of the colorful murals which reveal the great local artistic talent. Then we emerged into the small but lively plaza in front of the church. It was a visual delight. Food vendors lined the curbs. A statue near the entrance celebrates the roots of the independence movement which germinated in this neighborhood in the early 1800s. Comfortable wooden benches were placed across the plaza from the front of the church. Numerous restaurants and bars lined the streets facing and extending from this main plaza of Getsemani. This is where it was happening.

Plaza de Santasima Trinidad

But the nearby and quieter Plaza del Pozo, which we had already walked through, appealed most to Peter, although he was tempted by the freshly cooked food from the carts as well as the made-to-order fruit concoctions in the Plaza de Santasima Trinidad. The decision was to return here for food and non-alcoholic drinks after enjoying cerveza at one of the outdoor cafe tables a few couple blocks away. As we were peacefully chatting and relaxing, street entertainment appeared in the form of a Michael Jackson impersonator (well, actually, two). With snippets of iconic songs blasting from a boom box, the first one performed the signature dance moves of the late superstar before settling into the whole track of "Thriller." At the end of Vincent Price's introductory part, the performer hid behind a car and then returned as a werewolf! Another Michael Jackson appeared beside him, and they put on a great performance, ending with the second one strolling among the tables in the plaza to the final bars of the song, attracting all the attention. Surprising us all, the werewolf snuck up behind a family beside us and jumped out at them. The effect was so startling that a boy of 8 or 10 broke into frightened tears!

Peter in the Plaza del Pozo

Werewolf and Michael Jackson impersonator in Plaza del Pozo

Michael Jackson and Peter

As we finished our beers and were paying the bill, Peter wondered what language the man and woman next to us were speaking. When we couldn't figure it out, I said I would just asked them--because I had just had a bottle of beer on an empty stomach, so my inhibition level was decreased. As it turns out, they were not a couple (as we had of course presumed) but two KLM flight attendants from Amsterdam with a layover for a couple of days. They had just met on the flight from Europe. We had quite a nice chat with them, and then we followed their recommendation for food, returning to the main plaza to find a tapas bar called Demente. We were not disappointed; we had three vegetarian dishes, each of them delectable. And we sat in rocking chairs!

Wrought iron gate by our table

Waiting for our food, we noticed that the music and the general noise level from the plaza had increased. I stepped out to investigate. At first, above the heads of the throng, I could only see a dancing troupe performing to Latin music (salsa, cumbia--I don't know the subtle differences) right in front of the massive wooden doors of the church, now closed after the evening service. Then I realized that people were not just dancing in the plaza but were doing the same routine. It was like a giant, open air Zumba class! How exhilirating it all was!

Just a typical night at the Plaza de Santasima Trinidad

We probably finished our meal about an hour later, but the rhythmic, pulsating music and the lively dancing were still going strong. The effects of the beer had not worn off, so I joined the back of the crowd of dancers (who were surrounded by an even larger crowd of spectators as well as people who seemed blasé about the performance). Although there were men dancing, I could not get Peter to join me. He pointed out that there were no OLD men out there.

Sherri dancing 

We walked a bit further in the neighborhood and then returned to Calle 25 and the bridge back to Manga by a different route. The family-oriented partying did not take over all the streets, and we passed through quieter ones where, at 10 p.m., children were still playing and older people were chatting or just enjoying the evening.

Today, Monday, we did the hot and heavy work of getting the fully battened mainsail back on the mast. I simply would not know where to begin; it's a lot more complicated and labor intensive than the foresail. (Truly, I'd be stuck on a dock or in an anchorage somewhere if anything happened to Peter!) After that task was done, we were ready to cast off, go to a fuel dock for diesel and then return to Club Nautico to get a better position on the dock. Unlike the docks we are used to in the States and in the eastern Caribbean, this dock uses a Med mooring system; one end of the boat is attached with lines to the dock and the other end is attached to floating mooring balls or underwater moorings. There are no finger piers jutting out from the main dock, so you cannot tie up on the port or starboard side, and you have to get off the boat over the anchor or from the stern, usually using a gangplank. (We don't have one.) Before we re-docked (after taking on 180 gallons of diesel), we were positioned bow-in between other boats and the dockmaster and Peter managed to gerryrig a plank from a piece of spare lumber because I simply cannot jump across four to six feet of water! Now we have a great place (the same spot we had in the spring) along the inside of the T-dock, so I can step off the boat which much less trepidation.  

Peter on our gangplank

By the time we were re-docked, we were exhausted! It was siesta time. But first I had to get all the sweaty salt off my body with a cold shower before I donned my light-weight nightgown. Clothes are just too hot! With full deisel tanks, we turned on the generator for the refrigeration and the air-conditioner. The inside temperture was 90 degrees Fahrenheit! Just a bit toasty. (Earlier today, as we were resting after working, Peter wondered, "How do people reproduce here?")

I don't kid you!

We went to the restaurant/bar that is part of the marina before sunset to use the Wi-Fi and have a drink. (We've tried the food and don't recommend it.) Another beer, another slightly off-kilter Sherri! I walked the block and a half to the little grocery for some cheese for dinner--which was quesadillas. Peter, who works much harder than I do, went to bed right after dinner, but I have stayed up to finish this post. It is now 11 p.m. and time for me to quit.