Cartagena, Colombia - They Are Putting Hot Dogs In My Food

By breakfast today I had confirmed a Cartagenian conspiracy. They were slipping hot dogs into my food. I’d eaten hot dogs at every meal. Ana and I ordered an entrada the first night we arrived. It was billed as grilled sausages and papas Francesas. What arrived was chopped up hot dogs on a pile of fries. Yesterday’s breakfast – eggs and sausages (hot dogs). For lunch, my premium Mexican tacos were slathered with delicious guacamole, topped with – you guessed it – crispy fried hot dogs...and some crunchy pork belly. I was sure my local casserole specialty last night was going to be wiener free, but the first forkful revealed…sliced hot dogs.

Even today, for breakfast, the meat option was a giant warmer full of steaming, fried hot dog bits, of which I took a generous helping. Ana couldn’t believe it. But I’m not one to battle destiny or cheat fate. Besides, I love hot dogs. If they served up a delicious long wiener in a fresh bun blanketed in condiments and crispy fried onions, I’d be the happiest little chappy in the bistro. I just don’t know why they need to be so sneaky about it.

Today we walked to the Getsamani neighbourhood which is just east of the old city. If we were to visit Cartagena in the future, this is where we would stay. It is a vibrant and artsy neighbourhood with hundreds of gorgeous murals, narrow streets shrouded overhead by umbrellas and vines and streamers of flags. There were street artists at work painting, sculptures, art pieces hung from walls and homes, boutique shops, art galleries, restaurants, cafes, and bars. It was an explosion of colour and artistry.

We enjoyed a coffee and some welcome air conditioning at a lovely café, then zeroed in on a local fish restaurant. I knew it was going to be the real deal after the hostess/server//lieutenant found two chairs for us and shoved them into a table where there was only a single man eating his lunch then pointed us to join him. I had a whole fried fish called a mojarra which was served with plantains, coconut rice, and a simple garden salad. I opened his little mouth with my fork to see if they had snuck a little hot dog slice in there, but nothing. This was my first hot dog free meal and it was delicious. Ana had the shrimp-cooked rice, which was okay, but not quite as good as the fish. While eating we saw a news report on a Colombian channel whose leading story was an attempted bag snatching from a foreign tourist in Cartagena. It was caught on video and the victim did not appear to get hurt, nor lose her purse as she was stronger and more determined than the little thief. Seeing this as the top news story spoke mountains of the security and safety situation in this lovely city.

After fully exploring Getsamani, we returned to the old city, explored what felt like a kilometer of kitsch and book vendors at the edge of Centenario Park. The park itself was closed Mondays for cleaning, but we circled the exterior, looking up into the trees for a sloth. Ana’s friend Carrie and her husband had been here recently and gave her a little map of where to find the sloth they’d visited most days. I don’t remember us ever seeing a wild sloth so this is high on our list of wants and needs for this trip. We’ll be back to track down the handsome feller when the park is open.

Our wanderings took us back to Bolivar Park where we saw a drum and dance show, led by a young chap blowing blistering clarinet solos. Next was Abaco bookstore and café where we enjoyed a serene cup of coffee (my coffee was a beer) and browsed the books, nearly all in Spanish, and a good portion of those from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the local Nobel prize winning author and the most important modern cultural figure from Colombia…after Shakira, of course.

It was a scorching hot day so we decided to Uber back to the hotel, which cost about five bucks -  less than the water we’d have to buy to replenish our sweat modules if we were to walk. We relaxed in the room for a while then headed back out to restaurant Merida. They did not have a table available but did welcome us in for a drink at the bar, with two rope swings for seats. It was a classy place, a place for rich tourists and local heavitos. Ana looked especially vibrant and beautiful tonight as she enjoyed her Club Colombia beer, swung in her chair, and was simply glowing from the day’s sunshine and the sweet wind blowing in from the sea.

We finished the day by picking up a medium Domino’s pizza and enjoying some slices in the sanctity and tranquility of our hotel room.

It had been an excellent day.

Cartagena, Colombia - Papaya Is Not Butt-fruit

I was up shortly after sunrise and snuck out of the room for a beach walk. The humid morning air felt tremendously fine as I sucked it greedily into my lungs. Our hotel was in the midst of a construction zone, with another hotel going up beside it and a large crane with construction materials piled up on the beach, but it was hard to tell what was going on there. I proceeded onto the beach and was stopped in my tracks by a furry carcass in my path. A rat, stretched out perfectly in the sand, pointed towards Mecca as if deep in prayer. My expired first aid training kicked in instinctually as I crouched down for a health check. Though I haven’t had a great deal of instruction in the veterinarian sciences, I did determine that the little bugger was stone dead, and from what I could tell likely expired from a sudden brain aneurism or maybe a blocked colon. There wasn’t much more to do for him, and I wasn’t familiar with Colombian last rites rituals, so I simply bowed my head for a moment, then stepped over him and carried on.

The warm and salty wind blowing in from the ocean was luxurious but the grey sand beach was not. It was a working class beach, a beach for beer and taco entrepreneurs, a beach where you might consider wearing shoes, a beach you wouldn’t want to sleep on. I slalomed around the semi-permanent and worn beach umbrellas and peeked into a few of the busted up wooden shacks with weathered and slivery boards announcing beach-fare dishes and local lagers. Within a particularly wretched one slept the owner, sound asleep on a table, covered with a blanket. I also noticed dozens of rat tracks decorated in the sand, running up and down the beach, left there by an army of rodents hoovering up the dropped tidbits from yesterday’s crowds.

I walked as far as I could before hitting another blocked off construction zone, then turned off the beach and made the return trip along the street, passing by some other hotels and more than a few locals trotting in their jogging shorts. The sun was now fully up and it was already getting hot.

Our hotel package included breakfast so we went down to the restaurant and grabbed a table. The ghostly smells of past Cuban resort breakfasts returned en force – over-perfumed holidaymakers, coffee, fryer oil, sizzling pancakes. I grabbed a plate of scrambled eggs, dark beans, and two versions of deep-fried corn treats – arepas (corn cakes) and what my internet research tells me might have been boliarepitas (corn balls). But the best was yet to come. I found a smaller side plate and filled it with fresh fruit – watermelon and pineapple – but most importantly the sweet, heavenly, glorious fruit of the papaya. Breakfast was delicious.

Last week Magnus asked me how long it would take him to learn Spanish. He and his sister are thinking of making a siblings trip to somewhere in Spain this year.

“Well,” I said, “you already speak excellent French and you understand a lot of Portuguese and your English skills are pretty solid.”

He raised his eyebrows and waited. Deciding I was not going to get a laugh I carried on.

“So how fast you learn depends on where you are. You can’t learn Spanish here, at least not to any decent level, unless you join a Toronto soccer team with a bunch of Hispanics. But you suck at soccer so that’s probably not an option.”

Still no laugh. He gave me a get on with it look.

“So basically you have to move to Spain. Or El Salvador. Or Argentina. Any of those. And I’d say if you were immersed you’d be speaking good Spanish within a year,” I explained, then added, “Within six months if you found a local girlfriend.”

“OK, that’s not too bad,” he said.

“There’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to stop calling papaya ‘butt-fruit’. Learn to love it. And the Spanish word for papaya is papaya. That will get you started.”

Our hotel was situated near the south end of a long peninsula called Bocagrande, which was a short bus ride or long walk to the old city of Cartagena. We began walking and realized we needed some local currency, so tried two different banks, but our cards worked at neither. We spoke to a security guard and he asked us what bank we used in Canada. I told him. He said oh in that case you need to use Davibank. He was right, but how he knew this was a mystery to me.

We continued walking north towards Cartagena. We walked along the busy Carrera 2 road, passing dozens of weary marathon runners (unsure of where they’d come from or how they managed to run a marathon in the same time it took us to have breakfast) then cut over to the ocean road and continued from there, snappinig photos of the impressive Bocagrande skyline. The temperature had already rocketed to near 30 degrees and it was blissful. Yes, the wintry white skin does give off a bit of smoke as the equatorial sunrays hit it, but that’s only temporary. Once you’ve fully burned off that first layer you’re fine.

The old city of Cartagena is ringed by a massive stone wall, running for 11 kilometres around the city. Construction first started in1 586 and took about two hundred years to complete, as it got destroyed a few times from invading pirates and colonizers. The old city is full of architectural masterpieces and reminded us much of the grand cities of Santo Domingo and San Juan, but also the medieval cities in the south of France which we visited not too long ago. We wandered the winding streets, taking photographs, popping into shops, and sticking to the shady sides as the sun rose higher into the sky, penetrating into the narrow laneways. A man commented on the Canadian bag tag I had strapped to my backpack and we struck up a conversation. Surbhi and Jitu were from Peterborough and this too was their first day in Cartagena. We found a lot in common and wandered the streets together for a while then sat down in Plaza Santo Domingo for drinks. They were a lovely couple and had travelled extensively since he retirement from dentistry seven years ago. During the morning walk with Ana I’d formed this excellent idea for my mid-life crisis, which I haven’t had yet, but am hoping for a good one that enables me to keep my wife and most of my money. Anyway, I was thinking of a gold tooth with a diamond in it, on the weakest of my incisors. It would look so cool and bad-ass. I ran the idea past Surbhi to get his professional dental recommendation. He didn’t say it was an awful idea.

We made plans to meet them for dinner one night this week then began the long, hot walk back to Bocagrande. We stopped at a Dollar store (which had a different name but was an exact replica of the Canadian Dollarama) and picked up two bottles of water and two ice creams, giving us time to enjoy a brief dose of air conditioning. We next stopped at a small café for a bite, but Ana was literally falling asleep sitting up, so we continued to the hotel where we cratered on the bed and had a lovely chill out session, watching part of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness on the amply endowed cable tv.

After regaining strength, we visited the outdoor pool on the hotel’s fifth level and lounged in loungers for an hour or two, enjoying the end of day sunshine and the rich offshore winds that whipped towels off chairs, leaves into the pool, and stood the hairs up on our arms like obedient little soldiers. Neither of us were particularly hungry yet so we returned to the room, watched another partial movie, then went back out to explore the area south of us then worked our way back to a Mexican restaurant we’d passed earlier in the day that advertised Caesar Salad (Nuevo). Sadly, they were out of salad but had plenty of tacos so Ana had those while I had a platter of something that resembled poutine, but instead had shredded potatoes, strings of cream sauce on top, then clumps of local cheese below and slices of what I would describe as hot dog. More on that later.

While we were eating, I saw two chubby rats race through the adjoining parking lot and disappear into the alley right beside the restaurant. I didn’t mention that to Ana so I’m going to have to watch her face when she reads this.

Cartagena, Colombia - A Break From Canadian Winter

I never use an alarm to wake up. It’s not necessary as I’ve always been a morning person and an “early to bed, early to rise” kind of guy (ok, in my 20’s I will admit to many late nights – most of them, in fact – but I was still up early). It’s a great system except when you spent the previous evening at a comfortably dingy and amazing craft brewery in Toronto with your son pounding premium IPAs then went to a crazy Gogol Bordello concert, locked in a swirling mosh pit for 90 minutes, leaping up and down, getting stepped on, sweated on, shoved, squashed, and thoroughly entertained by the frantic rhythms of Gypsy Punk, didn’t make it back home until 1am, then had to be on the road by 5am for your flight to Cartagena, Colombia. Then, you need an alarm.

We haven’t traveled since returning home last June from our epic sailing trip to the Bahamas and Ana and I had vowed not to do a winter trip this year, in the pursuit of financial jurisprudence and stewardship of the funds we will one day leave to our children if they remain kind to us and take us in once our bodies are spent and minds have turned to organic oatmeal. But one night, at home in mid-November, already in the midst of an authentic and unusually snowy and frigid Canadian winter, we were sitting in our living room and I looked over to see Ana scrolling through her phone, eyes alight.

“What are you looking at over there?” I asked

Through an aura of guilt she replied, “I found a good deal on a trip to Cartagena in February.”

“Book it.”

I could feel myself dozing off as the airplane wheeled over to the de-icing station. I was looking forward to the thin, episodic slumber offered by the claustrophobic and noisy environment of modern air travel. As I was falling asleep, a giant snore from a little kid behind me, startled me awake, and I immediately noticed the Entertainment section of the seatback screen in front of me had a link to Angry Birds. I ended up playing that for the entire flight, except for a mediocre zombie movie I fit in somewhere, and somehow didn’t even fall asleep during that.

Colombia, and in particular Cartagena, has been on our dream travel list for a very long time. Ana and I have spent many years exploring Latin America but had yet to visit five countries in South America - Ecuador, British Guyana, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Colombia. Venezuela’s a little tough at the moment, but other three are possibilities in the coming years. But for now, we’ve got a thousand things to do and see in Cartagena.

After getting settled in our room at the Hotel Almirante, we enjoyed a welcome drink at the beachside café adjoined to the hotel then went for a walk to find dinner. The area near the hotel is vibrant and busy – families on motorcycles, taxis, party busses, street vendors, 24-hour grocery stores, lights and music. We walked the main street and sat down at a restaurant that felt right and each ordered a local Colombian beer, which was cold and tasty – even Ana liked it and she drank her WHOLE BEER, all by herself. The meal was good, hamburger for Ana and grilled steak for me, both accompanied by the most classic and ubiquitous of Latin America vegetables – French fries.

After dinner we picked up a few things at the grocery store, struggling financially with the odd exchange rate of 2,700 Colombian peso to a single Canadian dollar. The food prices seemed reasonable, not particularly cheap nor expensive, and the standing inventory of plantains, coconuts, and yuca was formidable.

We returned to the hotel sometime after ten, exhausted after a long travel day and our first in this new to us country.

2025 Boat Trip Day 9 - An Easy Ride Home

Port Credit Yacht Club to Newport Yacht Club - 21 nautical miles sailed, 3 kilometres walked

It was time to go home. Our daughter Stella and her friend Anna had arrived late to the boat last night for a visit and sleepover and I made us all a large breakfast of pancakes and sausages, topped with the berries we picked up yesterday. The mini-bananas I had purchased turned out to be complete duds. You know the awful taste you get in you mouth if you bite into a banana peel? Well, the bananas themselves somehow produced this ill effect and my mouth was ringing with banana peel toxins for an hour after testing one out.

By 11 am the girls had left, the day was scorching, and we were on our way home. There was enough wind to deploy the headsail, but we also kept the motor running to make decent time and we were back in our home slip by 2:30 pm. The marina was hellishly hot and I lost about ten litres of fluids carting our gear out to the van. We normally have a gate access very close to our boat, but due to the construction of a brand new club pool in the adjacent park, we have to use the main entrance at the clubhouse which is a half kilometre dock walk.

The rest of our Newporter posse arrived before us and uniformly looked tired, listless, and spent, like us - unmistakable signs of a successful weekend.

And thus ends the 2025 boating trip.

2025 Boat Trip Day 8 - Partying in Port Credit

Port Credit Yacht Club - 14 kilometres walked

I started the day with a long, slow paddleboard ride around the bay then out into the lake and went for a refreshing wake-up swim. By 8am it was already hot outside and shooting upwards into the 30's.

Despite the heat, Ana and I decided on a walk into the main part of Port Credit which is a busy commercial centre loaded with shops, bars, restaurants, and linked to the marina via a waterfront trail, but it is a decent distance. We haven't been walking nearly as much since the end of our big sailing adventure so it was nice to get back to it....but bloody hot.

In Port Credit we stopped for a leisurely coffee then started the walk back along the busy Lakeshore Boulevard. The walk was halted abruptly when Ana spotted a Salvation Army and dove in. I went across the street, first to the Dry Aged gourmet butcher who sold exotic meats - kangaroo, bison, elk, moose, alligator, wild boar. Sadly, the slabs of arms and legs of these exotic creatures cost an arm and a leg so I left with all my limbs, but empty handed. I had better luck at the market next door where I picked up a nice selection of berries and fruits plus a pecan pie for this evening's pot luck supper.

We were mostly melted by the time we reached the boat and had full intentions to visit the pool, but after lounging in the finely air conditioned boat for a while we lost all enthusiasm for the pool and instead did a couple of small boat jobs.

Happy Hour was declared, once again on Sweet Lady, and the Newport gang piled in with bottles, elaborate charcuterie boards, random snacks, and nothing to do but hang out. Happy hour melded right into the pot luck dinner and we claimed one of the covered bbq areas and set up shop. Norm took command of the grill, cooking up a huge pork tenderloin, then various other meats participants had brought to the hoo-ha. Everyone else chipped in with unwrapping salads, heating up sides, laying out plates, until everything was ready then we all dined together. It was a magnificent meal and provided the appropriate level of nutrition to fuel a long evening of drinking, laughing, cigar smoking, and dancing.

The sounds of Newport joy echoed throughout the marina long after every other boater had retired to their cabins...

2025 Boat Trip Day 7 - Newporters Unite!

Island Yacht Club to Port Credit Yacht Club - 10 nautical miles sailed, 3 miles in dinghy, 1 kilometre walked

Toronto had been fun, but it was time to move on.

After a significant breakfast of overturned eggs, fresh guacamole, American baked beans, tomatoes, toast, and banana bread, I zipped Dave and Kira back to Toronto's Harbourfront Centre in the dinghy. It was a short, but exemplary visit with our buddies and we wished they could have stayed longer.

At 11 am, Daryl helped us push SeaLight off the dock and we were on our way to Port Credit, a mere ten miles away. There was a sailable breeze, but it was directly in our face and we were not interested in hours of zig zagging so we motored straight to the club, filled up with diesel, then found our way to our assigned slip and docked without issues.

Port Credit Yacht Club is a huge marina and home to many large and luxurious motor and sailboats, more than anywhere else on Lake Ontario. It is a busy and active place with a restaurant and bar, outdoor firepit, a large swimming pool, nearby walking trails and parks, and a sheltered bay perfect for paddleboarding.

As this was the first day of our Newport club cruise, our boating buddies from home base were arriving in force. The Daryl and Lydia Collective and us took up residence in the shaded lounge of our friends' Darryl and Nathalie's luxurious SeaRay All Aboat Wine and between nibbles of fancy cheese on grainy crackers, sips of perfectly mixed Caesars, and bites of mini smoky sausages, we would help our other Newport buddy boats dock as they arrived.

Soon, the gang was all here and after a refreshing pool swim for some, all gathered in Sweet Lady, our club's largest vessel at 68 feet, owned by the Tessiers - Michael and Maria. It was an extended happy hour that went on for so long everybody abandoned their dinner plans and we moved in a pack to the restaurant for dindin (table for twenty, please...)

After the entire restaurant was cleared of everybody except for us and our hard working server, the pack migrated back to Sweet Lady for nightcaps. Ana and I attempted to find the switch to activate the propane-powered firepit in the park beside the clubhouse, but were chased off by a resident skunk whose erect tail gave us cause for concern.

We wandered back to the boat sometime near real midnight and Ana took some lovely night photos of scenes in the marina. Along the way Ana was stopped by a boater docked across from us in his 46' Beneteau sailboat.

"Looks like SeaLight found her way back to her slip," he said.

"What do you mean?" Ana asked, confused.

"That slip you are in is the same one SeaLight was in when she was owned by my friend. In fact, his new boat is normally in the slip right beside you, but he's away on a boating trip at the moment."

"That's crazy!"

"I helped him sail her back from the Caribbean after he purchased it, then sailed with him and raced her for years."

"Well, she's just returned from another trip to the Caribbean. She's been a great boat for us."

I'm hoping to spend some time with him tomorrow to learn of SeaLight's complete backstory.

2025 Boat Trip Day 6 - A Visit from the Germann-Hinds

Island Yacht Club - 9 kilometres walked, 3 miles in dinghy

I began the day with a walk around the island, Mugg's Island it's called, and spans 18 acres of mainly wildlife sancturary, including the resident peacock couple Conrad and Bella. The last time we visited here they were strutting around with a number of baby peacocks so I was hoping to find them, or at least traces of them in the form of collectible feathers.

I walked the island, enjoying the peaceful trails, and a sense of tranquility, which is odd considering the close proximity to the largest city in Canada. I did not find the peacocks nor any of their feathers, but I did come across two healthy and large garter snakes, one which had very recently consumed a sizeable rodent, still lumped in the snake like a blocked colon.

Our friends Dave and Kira arrived in Toronto and I took the dinghy across to collect them from a dock at the Harbourfront Centre. They had joined us in Bahamas for an incredible week exploring the islands of Eleuthera back in February and were rejoining the crew of SeaLight again, even if it was only for a day.

There were no grand plans for the day so we improvised by visiting in SeaLight's cockpit for a while, then moved down into the cabin as the outside temperature skyrocketed. I hadn't spent any time with them since returning back from the trip so there was plenty to catch up on.

After a hastily thrown together lunch we walked to the pool, enjoyed a cold drink on the shaded outdoor couches, then soaked for a very long time in the cool water. Daryl and Lydia and Zach arrived and we watched Zach swim around in his inflatable swimming device with a huge smile on his face. The Island Yacht Club pool is a rare gem as the pool area is surrounded by mature trees, lending shade to the loungers and outdoor furniture, and soaking up some of the heat. We were also lucky to be there on a weekday when it is far less busy than on the weekends.

We took the long route back to the boat, traversing the island trails, and lucked out when Dave spotted one of the magnificent peacocks hiding in the shade beneath a dry-docked sailboat. Dave and I kicked the bird back and forth between us like a soccer ball for a while, hoping it would relinquish some of its luxurious feathers, but the plumage held fast. I even did a Pele-styled bicycle kick, sending it rocketing into the side of a weathered 1972 Hughes sailboat, from which it bouced right back and the bird stabbed its sharp pecker right into my forearm in retaliation. We left it alone after that and returned to the boat featherless.

Team SeaLight cooked a remakable dinner together - a luxurious vegetable and shrimp stir fry, pink tuna steaks cooked to perfection in ginger, soy and spice marinade, fresh bread, and a lively cucumber salad, with the cucs originating from the Germann-Hind's own garden. It was a tremendously satisfying meal.

At 7 pm we boarded the ferry and took a ride into Toronto. We first stopped at the Toronto Music Garden for a free public performance from a virtuoso piano player named John Kameel Farah. The waterfront park was full of people enjoying the show and we stayed for a few songs then walked westward then up Bathurst Street to the Stackt Market.

Stackt is a groovy, relatively new urban shopping and entertainment hub built on the grounds of an icky iron smelting plant, later paved over into a bleak parking lot. On the grounds are a series of shipping containers transformed into chic boutique shops, eateries, and drinkeries plus a huge Blue Moon beer hall, a stage, and public art. With the dark skies threatening storms, it was not as busy as usual and after wandering the entire grounds we grabbed a rounds of drinks and a large bowl of Haydn's acai, fro-yo, and ice cream covered in Dave's Eclectic Assortment of caramel, chocolate, almonds, jelly bears, nougat and a bunch of other unidentifiable sugar bombs.

We did not have a long time to linger in Toronto as the last ferry back to the island left at 9:20, so from here we made a quick stop at the Loblaws to pick up a couple of food items, including a sailor-made package of Parmesan cheese rinds for three bucks that held just enough cheese on them to scrape off into budget salads and poorhouse pork ends. As I was fumbling for my credit card at the self-serve checkout, Dave deftly passed his own card over the scanner and paid for it. I abused him verbally for minutes for his uncalled for subterfuge. Now, he's probably going to expect a coating of Parmesan over all the future meals we serve.

The skies were alight with lightning strikes as we wandered back to the waterfront and laid down on the grass to watch the aerial display. I tried my best to capture one of the dazzling strikes but all I got was clouds.

It soon started to pour rain so we hurried back to the ferry pick-up location and piled into the rain shelter to wait for our ride. I again tried to get a lightning photo but missed it every time, though some of the shots were decent.

The ferry arrived right on time and took us back to the club where we hustled back to the boat, had a little snack and a chat then called it a day.