We booked passable cement cells for $8000 Colombian Pesos per night, scarfed nature’s multicolor bounty -- fibers catching between our teeth as sticky nectar stained our chins – while sifting sand between our toes, and wasted the remainder of the day soaking sun in nearby Taganga, reminding ourselves that, no, we weren’t melting like the Wicked Witch of the West, just sweating. At nightfall we wasted a wise-spender’s day’s worth of meal money on a beachfront tourist trap that sucked the flavor from our fish as successfully as the bejeweling of Kelly Tripuka and Kurt Rambis would have the Cash Money or No Limit Records rosters.
We split for the pristine Parque Tayrona the next morning, hiking through jungle to boulder-bounded white sand beaches, shading ourselves and tempting “Guess what kills more people than sharks each year!” statistics beneath overhanging palms. The water was refreshing, perfect except for the tendency of salt-water to give sweating hikers crotch rash. A night in a hammock near the beach sounded more satisfyingly poetic than it proved in practice, but neither animal nor hippie raided my humidity-dampened stock of pre-prepared peanut butter & banana sandwiches.
Two full days of sweating and trudging through that nationally protected paradise later, we returned to Santa Marta, where I finally encountered worthy seafood, devouring a delicious Cazuela de Mariscos – a meaty shellfish stew simmering in a creamy milky sauce. Word had it Cartagena is for admirers of womanly perfection what, um, The Gold Club is for admirers of womanly perfection – which is to say well-primped and probably prosthetically enhanced -- and as we were a few beers deep and plans for the next day hadn’t developed past sweating, we made some frat-boy toasts – grunts and such -- and decided to dip.
The next morning, four hours of cushioned-seated, air-conditioned freedom from humidity southward, we descended into Cartagena, admiring the various shades of brown and ample vastness of booty bouncing betwixt all that colonial architecture all those misprioritizing gawkers were ooohhing and aaahhhing about. Misguided as they are, Cartagena is beautiful, understandably the crown of Colombian tourism, rife with shady parks and ornate churches, fortresses, the defensively walled-in old-town lined with attention-arresting colonial masterpieces – all thick columns, street-overhanging porches and wood-slatted windows -- single city blocks splashed with a rainbow’s worth of color.
It’s hard to be anything but low-key in Cartagena, where I’ve spent as much time in as out of the shower, sweating through clean clothes as if beer marathons were physically grueling. Sandwich-artistry is a new hobby, stuffing thick fresh-baked baguettes with market-fresh tomatoes and avocados, sautéed onions and fatty chorizitos, rectangular slabs of queso blanco hacked from the block, a pinch of salt and drizzles of hot sauce for spice.
After expressing an irrationality-inflated affinity for frijoles to the cleaning staff, passions propelled by the virtual absence of beans from my oft-ordered Colombian platters, I was christened El Gringo Frijolito and instructed to stock specific supplies from the corner store: “Compremos una cebolla, unos tomates, frijoles rojos y un Maggi.” The produce attendant was quite amused when I inquired, after long scanning the crates of vegetables, “Cual es el Maggi.” The bean-scooper was quite impressed I wanted “un medio kilo de frijoles rojos.” And my janitorial staff, cooking-aid amigas laughed heartily about the digestive repercussions of my desire to “llenarme de frijoles y nada mas.” I just smiled and got my bean on, Chef Frijolito.
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