Day 2... First day in Cartagena

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Traveling from LA to Panama I sat next to a 9 year old girl named Katyr. I started talking to her and she informed me that she does not know any Tnglish, so my Spanish was put to the test. Well, I can say with 95% assurance, that she felt sorry for me... I could tell by they way she looked at me. Haha. Nonetheless we were still able to converse. She is from Guatemala visiting family in LA. It was her first trip to the US and she loved it... well she definitely loved Disneyland! The food on that flight was the best I have had on a plane! Copa Air, they know how to treat their economy passangers... or maybe it is because it is an international flight so their standards are higher.... who knows, but they even gave us metal untensils!

The airport in Panama was fantastic. So much easier to navigate than the LA airport. It was very easy to tell where you needed to go and how to get there. But I was very glad that I did not have to use the restroom. Each of the women´s restrooms that I passed had a mile long line! Oh I did need to take a shuttle to catch my airplane. While I was on the shuttle I met a man from Costa Rica. He was telling me about his family and what he was doing in Columbia. I was doing my best to understand what he was saying in Spanish, so much so that I left my water bottle on the shuttle. I had a friend tell me that people will try to distract me so they can steal from me... A small price to pay for a reminder of keeping tabs of all my belongings and staying focused, living in every moment to make sure I remember things!

I really liked the Cartagena airport, you get off the plane and are greeted by fresh air and walk down to the ground and then walk into the airport. Everything was super easy to get to and find. I was wondering how difficult it would be to find a place to exchange my money and also to find taxi´s that were official. Well right outside of custums they have an exchange booth, but no ATM so if flying into Cartagena make sure to have some cash on you, just enough to get you a taxi, bus fair, etc. Then find an ATM at one of the big markets. Exchange rate is lower there. And it is safe, there are a lot of police officers around. Anyhow, the taxi´s were all lined up outside the airport so I hopped in and they took me to my hostel. And they only charged me 10,000 COP, which lots of people said they would try and ask much more and I would have to bargin with them at least down to 12,000 COP.

I am staying at Casa de la Chicheria, located within the old city! Great place to be and very safe!! The staff here are also so very kind! And really within the old city walls it is a super safe place to be. There are a lot of officers around on foot and on bikes. Anyhow, as soon as I got settled I took a nap for about an hour, up to that point I had pretty much been up for 30 hours. I was a little tired. The heat does not help! I woke up and one of the gentleman staying here at the hostel was going out for a walk, so I joined! He had been here before so showed me where the grocery stores were and a little about the city. We went to a musuem, Meseo de las Fortificaciones, which was cool. It talked of how the old city wall came into place... also it is underground so that was pretty neat! I met some girls from Chile and they took me out in the evening. I ended up getting some shut eye around midnight and boy did I need it!!!

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Photos

Copa Air
Best airplane food I've had.

Buildings
The buildings here are absolutely amazing! And huge!!

Meseo de las Fortifcaciones
Underground museum that tells the story of why and how the wall was built.