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Tag Archives: Colombia

Cartagena: No Comparisons Necessary

15 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by lexklein in Colombia

≈ 48 Comments

Tags

CARIBBEAN, Cartagena, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

A cross between New Orleans and the Caribbean, decreed my daughter. What I imagine Cuba would be like, noted my son. Streets and doors like San Miguel de Allende, opined my husband, but maybe more like San Juan. As for me, I was thinking sort of like Dubrovnik with Afro-Latino overtones.

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These were our shallow observations in our first few hours in Cartagena, Colombia. I always find it kind of obnoxious when people (including us) blather on about what a place reminds them of, as if they (we) are so well traveled that they have to compare and contrast each new place with somewhere they’ve already been rather than just appreciating it for what it is itself. Yet we all found ourselves exclaiming time and again how Cartagena reminded us of so many other places, and perhaps this makes sense at first glance.

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Cartagena de Indias was founded on the Amerindian north coast of what is now Colombia by Spanish conquistadors in the early 1500s. With its well-protected location on a Caribbean bay, Cartagena became a critical port for all the riches the Spanish were carting out of South America; ships from Peru and Ecuador stopped here to receive additional goods from Colombia, then continued on to Cuba and Puerto Rico before sailing to Spain with all their seized treasure. These ships full of gold and silver and the prosperous young city attracted a long string of pirate attacks, leading to the building of one of the largest fortifications and walled cities in the Americas.

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Cartagena’s development was aided greatly by the dubious honor of becoming one of the busiest slave ports in Central and South America. The slave trade further enriched the Spanish conquerors, and stately mansions with deeply colorful stucco and stone walls, tall windows and doors, and flowery balconies sprang up in a series of cobblestone streets and small parks in the Old City.

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Cartagena eventually became one of the first sanctuaries for freed African slaves, who lived alongside the indigenous residents and European conquerors, creating a delicious stew of ethnicities and cultures. Indians, Hispanics, and Africans mix here in a steamy Caribbean setting, and the buildings, food, music, and culture in general reflect centuries of cross pollination.

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Today, dozens of indigenous ethnic groups remain, along with several million Afro-Colombians and some 30 million mestizo (European-Amerindian) inhabitants. Getsemaní, the city’s oldest area, where we stayed, was the original home of Africans brought as slaves and later the home of a large Cuban population. The colonial Old City looks more European, but is also home to a fusion of people, homes, and businesses.

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In the end, we appreciated this walled city of cobblestone streets, artfully crumbling colonial architecture, and masses of trailing bougainvillea for its own charms. It is simultaneously seedy and enchanting, suffocating and breezy, old world and trendy.

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Typical Caribbean foods – coconut milk, lime, rice, plantains, and fish – are served alongside Colombia’s signature dish, arepas – little cornmeal patties stuffed with cheese, eggs, and other fillings. Street corner cumbia music mixes with Latin salsas, and a gleaming row of high-rise hotels and condos lines the beachy Bocagrande strip, Miami style, within sight of the 16th century Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, a dominating fortress built by the Spanish.

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Is it any wonder we all likened the city to so many different kinds of places? Cartagena does look and feel like other Latin American colonial cities like San Miguel de Allende and San Juan, and it has the balconies, decadence, and Afro-European fusion of New Orleans. Its Cuban population adds both Latino and island flavor, and the city walls certainly evoke other fortified cities like Dubrovnik. By the end of our time there, however, we concluded that all the comparisons were unnecessary and unfair; Cartagena is a unique little place of its own and well worth a visit.

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Street Art of Bogotá

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by lexklein in Colombia

≈ 43 Comments

Tags

Bogota, Colombia, graffiti, La Candelaria, street art

Drugs, guerilla warfare, paramilitary presence, civil discontent (and, OK, Sofia Vergara) – these are a few of the stereotypes that pop into people’s minds when Colombia is mentioned. These days, however, visitors are more likely to encounter these themes on the walls of the country’s capital, Bogotá, where the acceptance of street art has made this vibrant city a mecca for grafiteros and painters from here and abroad.

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In recent years, the city has adopted a remarkably permissive attitude toward street art and even “lesser” graffiti forms like tagging. Removing the threat of arrest has meant, among other things, more and better art. Being able to work during the day instead of under the cover of night has allowed artists better conditions in which to create, and some building owners have even commissioned murals to protect their property from tagging and more mundane scrawling.

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Even those tags and scribbles are seen as art by some, including our tour guide. One of the highlights of our recent trip to Colombia was the Bogota Graffiti Tour in the old city neighborhood of La Candelaria, led by one of the city’s better-known street artists. (Although he divulged his identity to us at the end of the tour, we were asked not to use his name because of the sensitive political nature of some of his work.) According to him, we cannot have the “fine art” on the walls without the typical graffiti, and neither is more beautiful or worthy than the other.

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Sometimes, in fact, art springs from the tags, the first and easiest entrée to the graffiti community. Walls can morph from a sprayed name to a painting, with others joining in with stencils, stickers, more tags, and more painting. The art is alive and dynamic, and the resulting collages can be among the most colorful walls in the neighborhood.

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Bogota’s street art covers a wide range of subjects, but there is a prominent focus on the country’s social and political problems. For example, the long-running conflict between the government and left-wing guerrilla groups, as well as U.S. interventionist programs like Plan Colombia, have resulted in the internal displacement of millions of people (second only to Syria, to my surprise). Portraits of indigenous people – those most often displaced – are widespread, and country lifestyles are celebrated.

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Environmental concerns are another popular theme; colorful birds and native animal species fly and crawl across the walls while oil rigs masquerade as gallows, stranglers of Colombia’s natural resources and celebrated biodiversity, and additional agents of displacement for humans as well as animals.

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CRISP

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DJ Lu

DJ Lu

The homeless are memorialized as well, with one wall depicting the likeness of a man who sits nearby on his longtime home corner. Another homeless citizen is shown with a bag over his head, symbolizing the anonymity of this population.

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Praxis

The FARC and land mines. Pollution and GMO crops. A tour of Bogota’s street art scene provides a basic education in Colombian politics, as well as its social, art, and literary history.

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But some work is just for the fun and beauty of it; pitted walls are spruced up in bright colors and designs, and bright flora and fauna grow and live in the gritty old streets of La Candelaria.

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Prominent artists include Rodez, Pez, DJ Lu, CRISP, Guache, GHB, Praxis, Stinkfish, and APC (a collective started by Stinkfish), among many others. A few samples:

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PEZ

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STINKFISH

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DJ Lu

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DJ Lu
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CRISP

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GUACHE

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I could post hundreds of other photos, but I’ll close with just two more of my favorites:

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Version 2

 

 

 

 

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2015 Goes Out with a … Whimper

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by lexklein in Colombia, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Jordan, Mexico, Russia, Travel - General

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

Colombia, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Jordan, Lennon Wall, Mexico, Prague, Russia, travel sickness

The sun is going down on a great year of travel, but the latest trip – Colombia in this final week of the year – has ended with five sick people. Was it the eggs we ate yesterday morning? The ceviche the night before? A parasite in the tap water? No matter – we are all down for the count to various degrees, and my Colombia posts will have to wait for the New Year.

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I managed to get my feet out the door to seven other countries this year, and ranged far and wide throughout the U.S. as well. I started off in the freezing cold with Russia, Estonia, and Finland in January, warmed up in Israel, Jordan, and Mexico during the summer, and finished 2015 broiling under the Colombian sun in high-altitude Bogotá and steamy Cartagena. It was a perfect mix of trips – some solo jaunts, various two-person combos, and a few family gatherings.

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My final photo of the year shows a thrill I got this summer when son A and his friends gave a shout out to my blog on the Lennon Wall in Prague. I haven’t been able to find a way to use it, but I love the bright pink background and the five minutes of fame I got before someone no doubt painted over it.

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Happy trails, voyages, or whatever you might wish for in 2016!

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Plus ça change, …

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by lexklein in Travel - General

≈ 43 Comments

Tags

change, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Nepal, Tibet

I’ve been thinking about change a lot these days.

After decades of living in one place, many of them in the same house, we are poised to make a move in the near future. I don’t know exactly where or when at this point, but the idea of uprooting myself is both terrifying and thrilling. Change is good, and change is scary, but having lived through upheaval before, I know that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” I also know we can change our external surroundings, tipping ourselves precariously into new situations, but equilibrium always seems to right us, swinging us back to the mundane similarities of daily life, wherever we are.

Beyond the home front, I’ve been thinking about change in the world as well. As an avid traveler to some unique places, I’ve occasionally found myself in a hot spot, a place where climactic forces or social and political tensions boil over before, during, or after I’ve been there. The change in Jerusalem came to mind this morning as I read about clashes on the Temple Mount between Israelis and Palestinians. I was there this summer during a period of relative peace, and I spent some quiet hours in this sacred place one morning, feeling lucky to have missed the previous summer’s violence there. But just when we think things have calmed down, they can change in a heartbeat and erupt yet again.

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Likewise, I think about Nepal, where my recent photos and memories contain scenes that no longer exist after last spring’s devastating earthquake. Or Tibet, where whole portions of the Tibetan quarter get gobbled up year after year by the Han Chinese as they take over the mountaintop city. I feel like I was just basking in sunny, relaxing Croatia, thinking about little more than a cold drink on a ledge over the Adriatic, and today it is stressed by hordes of refugees at its borders. In an opposite swing of the pendulum, there is the heartening re-blossoming of economies and tourism in places like Mexico City or Colombia – cities and countries long excised from my travel list – now back on it after years of drug-fueled violence.

Durbar Square, Bhaktapur, Nepal
Durbar Square, Bhaktapur, Nepal
Photo credit: Aljazeera.com
Photo credit: Aljazeera.com

Sometimes I feel it’s a race to see parts of the world that may change before our eyes – like Cuba, where the inevitable influx of Americans in coming years may simultaneously revive and potentially ruin the Caribbean nation. I am eager to get there soon, before the change, knowing even so that the transformation will be both good and bad, and that it is not my place to judge that as an outsider.

More painful to me as a student of the world, I know my visit and my presence itself cause change in both positive and negative ways. By visiting the Arctic before it thaws, do I accelerate the melting? By walking through Machu Picchu before the government further limits visitors to protect the ancient stones, do I wear them down myself and exacerbate the dilemma?

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For now, I jump in where I can, keeping my conscience and safety in mind as much as possible, knowing that Mother Nature will continue to rumble capriciously through regions unknown, that politics and social forces will disrupt life in places we can and can’t predict, and that these winds of change will continue to blow through the world as they have for millennia.

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I’m a restless, world-wandering, language-loving, book-devouring traveler trying to straddle the threshold between a traditional, stable family life and a free-spirited, irresistible urge to roam. I’m sure I won’t have a travel story every time I add to this blog, but I’ve got a lot! I’m a pretty happy camper (literally), but there is some angst as well as excitement in always having one foot out the door. Come along for the trip as I take the second step …

WHERE I’M GOING

ARIZONA/COLORADO – Winter 2019

SOUTHEAST ASIA – February 2020

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Little did I suspect that this summer’s warm-up hike on Bald Mountain in Sun Valley would become next summer’s main event! @jesseitzler @colinobrady @marchodulich #29029everesting #idaho #sunvalley #hiking #oopsididitagain #onlyplaceilookgoodinred
49/50! Happy to finally visit beautiful Idaho and to be back out west seeing another state on foot. #idaho #visitall50states #hiking #getoutside #sunvalley
There’s so much beauty in Bhutan, and the people are no small part of that. One of my favorites agreed to a quick snap at the doorway to the temple he guards. #sweetestmanever #bhutan #thimphu #temples #buddhist #hiking
Good news, bad news: our small trekking group was crushed to find our high-altitude trek in the Haa Valley totally cancelled due to snow and ice. 😢 The consolation prize was a few days in the verdant and lovely Punakha Valley, where we managed one full day of hiking above the valley before we were stymied by rain there as well. #punakha #bhutan #weatherwoes #hiking #trekking
Not only vacationing tourists visit the Tiger’s Nest. Here, a monk from eastern Bhutan pays his respects (iPhone in hand!). #taktsang #tigersnest #bhutan #monastery #monk #hiking
Although our major trek is yet to come - into the snowy and remote Haa Valley - today’s hike up to the Tiger’s Nest near Paro is the main reason I wanted to come to Bhutan. It did not disappoint! The photos I’d seen are not a cliche, I know now; no matter how many you’ve seen, including this “standard” shot, it’s hard to imagine actually being here and walking (bootless) into this temple and monastery after the tough climb up. Thrill of a lifetime for me. #taktsang #tigersnest #monastery #bhutan #hiking #buddhism #dreamcometrue

Recent Posts

  • Battling a Mountain
  • Two Fleet Feet Out the Door
  • A Little More Bhutan
  • The Weather and I: Bhutan Edition
  • Aloha, Unknown Beauty!

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