First WE of La Fiesta de Independencia en Cartagena de Inidas

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This week-end was a week-end of joy! My headache was (almost) completely gone and I was feeling better, so good that I could go out in the sun without the light hurting my head and eyes anymore.

So, after the relaxing day in Turbaco, my and Mi Hermana Marcela and some friends of her went to see the queens in the old town of Cartagena. Colombia is very focused on beauty (apparently cosmetical surgery is very cheap and very good here - but I do not think I will stay around to find out... ;o) and people talk about the beauty queens like if they were saints and there is a whole week here now where they do different presentations.

So, to see these wonderful creatures, we went into town to have a drink and watch. And with no doubt, some of them were absolutely gorgeous, but after some hours of the same dresses, perfect bodies and Colgate smiles with the same waving, we got tired of the game and went to Tu Candela, an excellent club in the centre that plays a mix of latino and some europop music.

Marcela is one of the very best dancers I have ever met and we always have so much fun dancing (Marcela and I go to the same dance/aerobics class).
It is very funny, when we go out, the latinos never ask me to dance in the beginning - everybody knows that gringas or europeas don't know how to dance - until my friends start to dance with me and they realize that "hey, this europea actually knows how to dance!" and then I have dance partners all night. And they all ask me if I am from South America but just happen to be blond... Hahaha.

During the day on Saturday there was a carneval train with local dance groups performing on the streets so Marcela and I went to see them. Completely crazy, on top of the carneval train, there are thousands of people walking with the train, carrying water guns and some kind of mousse spray that they spray on people in the audience. Of course I was a very interesting target and ended up completely covered in white mousse after a few minutes.
And later during the day/night there was a race called Carrera 10K, so I thought that I would run it slowly, just not to completely loose my running abilities...
I do walk a lot here, but usually it is so hot and humid that I cannot run. Even though, in the last week the temperature has gotten down from 35-40 to 30-35. Haha, so cold that sometimes I have to wear jeans and turn on the fan when I sleep because I wake up freezing...

The inscriptions were to be done in a special place before the race, but I figured that since noone never plans anything here and it is too hot to run anyway, the numbers cannot be exhausted and there must be a number for me to run... Haha, so I thought. There were no numbers left and the old beggin "I came all the way from Sweden..." did not work... But fortunately I found a woman that was forced to compete by her job that did not want to run who gave me her number, so I could participate anyway!

The race started at 6pm (hora Colombiana... which means 30-60 minutes later) and I thought it was 10K so I ran slowly and kept my forces... Until suddenly we had made a tour around the old city and was returning inside the walls again. I asked a co-competitor if we were doing two tours, but no, only one. So I told him to come with me and we sprinted for the last bit! Very refreshing.
After the race I was going to go home and change and shower, but of course you cannot go home when the party has already started, so we went out with some other co-competitors to dance, in our running clothes (which does not really matter, because when you dance you get sweaty anyways) and with our medals!
This night we went to a place called Donde Fidel, that plays pure salsa and I found an excellent dancepartner (from Cali of course, where else? (Cali is the capital if salsa)) in one of the co-competitors. So once again we danced all night and then Marcela (who lives around the corner) and I took a taxi home to be able to do our healthy Sunday walk!

Sunday morning we got up at 6am to walk all the way to the sea, chatting about last night, and have breakfast at "le café francais". At 6 in the morning the weather is nice and fresh, just below 30 degrees. Unfortunately the café was closed, so we had to eat croissants at a local café and then we had a swim in the ocean and then we walked back again. So refreshing! And that is what I call quality of life!!!
It is funny, everytime I jump into the ocean I expect it to be cold (like in Europe) and everytime I realize that no, it is warm, and I am able to stay for as long as I want without getting blue lips!

In the afternoon we went to see Real Cartagena play against Huila. Haha, extrmely crazy. I learned some of the chants and got all as excited as the locals when we won! (and just as disappointed that I did not catch the t-shirt of the hero of the game :o)
But I did get burnt in the sun! Aouch! Even though when we waited , we were sitting under a huge flag with the colors of the team to keep the sun away. The flag was rotating so that everyone could have some shade and when we did not have the flag, we used the used egg cartons to shade from the sun (instead of sitting on them!).

And now I have caught a quite bad cold and I am thinking maybe I need to stay home today to recover before my trip to Panama in the end of this week... :o(

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