We spent our first three days in an island resort just off the coast. In addition to hammocks and card games, we had a sunset booze cruise. I also went scuba diving for the first time (before the cruise). Apparently in Colombia you don't need to take a class and can learn everything you need to go down 75 feet on the boat ride out. After finally figuring out how to make my ears stop hurting, it was awesome. Lots of colorful fish, a really cool coral reef, jelly fish, a lobster, and I did not die (despite the lackluster guide).
Back in Cartagena we stayed in the center of the gorgeous old town in a massive house (rarely seen in the ATL real estate market, this was a '12/11.5') with 4 live-in staff.
Some highlights in addition to chilling out at the pool and drinking with new friends:
-A rowdy night out at Mr. Alligator's, a distant cousin of Senor Frogs
-Befriending a guy with a pet sloth (picture a strange looking monkey-like creature with the temperament of a koala). You could just hold him at a party and he would chill while all the girls would come up and pet him. My best bar prop ever
-Going 8 and 1 at beer pong with my new partner from Bain LA
-Tango lessons with 36 new friends. Let's just say that I don't expect to be asked to dance by classmates anytime soon.
-A ride around town in an open-air 'chiva' (loosely translates to booze bus in english)
-After the president was re-elected last week, the government imposed a 4 day 'dry weekend' to ensure people stayed calm. We were not slowed down by the heavy military presence and frequent flyovers by attack helicopters, however, and our staff kept making runs to black market liquor stores and returning to the house with cases of beer and handles of rum hidden in trash bags.
-A surprise 13 hour layover in Bogota on my way to Peru due to a cancelled flight. Struggling to stay awake on 3 hours sleep, it turned out Bogota is a great city. I walked all around downtown, into a few really nice churches, a bunch of free interconnected art museums downtown, up a cable car (ala Quito) overlooking the city, and to the 'best science museum in South America'.
-Learning that our hosts (the Colombian girl who is going to Stanford who organized the trip) no longer actually lives in Colombia. To make a long story very short, her Dad narrowly escaped a kidnapping incident that actually took the life of the current president's brother. So their family made a very quick move to the US.
-Colombia's contrasts. Cartagena and Bogota were both very modern with nice, US-quality infrastructure (with the exception of the occasional llama in the streets and the stray dog sleeping in the airport terminal). The old walled area of Cartagena is one of the prettiest downtowns in the whole world. There is a large upper middle class, and both cities were as nice as any place I've been in South America. Street crime seemed almost none existent, and walking in the streets even late at night was safe (or least incident-free for us). Instead of the minor problems though, there are the occasional giant problems - like kidnappings and fears of missile attacks and bombings from drug lords. But I guess that's what keeps things interesting.
Well that's the really long update from me. Today is day 1 of 2 weeks in Peru, followed by a week in Buenos Aires. I'm off for a dune buggy ride in the desert.
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