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Brazil South America

Way Down Among Brazilians – Rio Day 1

Brazil, Finally

I don’t know why, but I had been resisting going to Brazil. Every year for about the past four years I’ve made myself a Brazil itinerary. Not every itinerary was the same but all of them involved me flying to Rio and visiting Salvador, which were the two places that I most wanted to visit. But I just couldn’t get excited about it; probably because most of the things that I know about Brazil involve beaches and parties and I just couldn’t care less about either of those things. But then again, I do like Bossa Nova music, cigars, and coffee, and Frank Sinatra sang two songs about Brazil, so I knew there must be something to it. The real reason that I finally booked the trip to Brazil, honestly, is that I think I really wanted to fill in a big hole in my South American map. I hadn’t been to South America since I went to Peru in 2014 and it just seemed like it was time.

So I made an itinerary that involved me flying to Rio, spending a couple of days there, flying to Salvador for a couple of days, then flying to Asunción, Paraguay for a couple of days, before returning to Brazil for a day. You can’t see all of Brazil in a week, but I thought I would pick some highlights and decide that if I wanted to go back to see more at a later date.

And so I flew to Rio.

Bom Dia, Rio!

The flight to Rio was long. Flying to Rio from Vancouver is not like flying to Europe or flying to Asia where the flight might be long, but you sort of make up the time when you fly back due to the time zone changes. Flying to South America is just really far and there’s not much of a time zone change, so it took me roughly a day and a half to get there and a day and a half to go back. I was determined to make the most of it.

I landed in Rio without any issue (Canadians don’t need visas) and went to my I accommodations: The OK Hotel. The OK Hotel was…OK. It was in the Centro District, right on the edge of the Lapa area, which is where I wanted to stay; very close to the subway and trolleys, it was walkable so many places that I wanted to see, and it was cheap. Beach people would probably want to stay closer to Copacabana or Ipanema, but I liked this neighbourhood better.

Rio Centro

*buildings and quiet streets in Centro Rio*

I hit the ground running in Rio. I started out by visiting Centro (the historic district). it was a Sunday, which was maybe not the best day to start out, as most things were closed.

The streets were pretty empty and it just seemed kind of dull. However, the architecture was beautiful and I did go to the excellent Museo de Arte do Rio (gallery of modern art) and popped in into some churches. But I wasn’t excited. It just didn’t feel lively.

*excellent pieces* *at the Museo de Arte do Rio*

*more great art* *at the Museo de Arte do Rio*

more sights of Centro

I did visit the excellent Cathedral of Rio, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian. It was designed by Edgar de Oliveira da Fonseca to resemble a Mayan pyramid and was built in the 1960s/70s. It is excellent. Very unique and modern, but also beautiful inside and out. I loved the stained glass and airy interior.

Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião

I hopped on the train and decided to go check out some of Rio’s beach areas.

At the Copa. Copacabana.

Let me be clear: I am not a beach person. I like swimming well enough, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to swim at the beach when I’m traveling by myself. (Just leave my wallet and my phone and all my personal items unguarded on the beach while I swim in the ocean? That doesn’t make sense.) So I tend not to swim when I travel, and the idea of laying in the sun on the beach just sounds like a nightmare. I don’t want to sit in the sun, I get bored sitting around, I don’t care for sand or children, or any of the things that come along with a day at the beach. But in this case, I was in Rio; of course I was going to go to see Copacabana and Ipanema just to get the vibe.

I started in Copacabana. I took the train from Centro. The metro is not super expansive in Rio, but it’s extremely convenient for covering long distances it’s very cheap and easy to navigate.

Metro Scenes and Machines

I walked a few blocks from the subway station to the beach. On the way there was a pretty good food market and I stopped off and had some sort of fried bread cheese thing with hot sauce which was pretty decent, and I continued walking to the beach. This area was quite a bit different from Centro. It was packed. All the shops and restaurants were open and people were out; there was music; it was actually a pretty good scene.

Copacabana street scenes

The wide road that separated the apartment buildings from the beach was great. It was mostly shut down to cars and was filled with pedestrians and rollerbladers and bicyclists. Along the sand was a row of outdoor restaurants and food and beverage vendors, almost every one playing music. That was pretty nice too. The beach itself wasn’t packed, it was winter in Brazil, but there were people out swimming and playing volleyball and hanging out. I took a look. I still had no idea no desire to participate in the beach activities, but it was nice to see them. I walked around that area for a while before hopping back on the subway to go to Ipanema.

Copacabana streets

This Girl in Ipanema

Ipanema was similar to Copacabana. It was busy with appealing accommodations and eateries and the beach was also nice. I guess the more interesting thing about Ipanema was that it had a really great view of the mountains in the favela in the distance which was an interesting site. I walked around there for a little while but was already kind of done with the beach concept so I walked back to the subway.

Ipanena Scenes

Leblon

I got off the subway in Leblon, which is the most affluent neighbourhood in Rio. That’s a pretty nice neighbourhood. I wouldn’t want to stay there; it’s too fancy and a little bit too expensive and it feels a little more generic than other parts of the city that I was in, but it was very nice. My reason for going there was to go and check out a cigar lounge. There is a place called Café Esch, which has inside of it a La Casa Del Habano. You can have coffee, you can have cocktails, you can have a steak dinner if you want too, and you can purchase all the best Cuban cigars in the humidor. The cigars aren’t cheap, but there was a great selection and anytime I can smoke inside I’m delighted. So I bought a couple of cigars, ordered myself a coffee and a couple of cocktails (I had my first Caipirinha – wow is that great and potentially problematic; it is so easy to drink) and sat inside watching football (soccer) with a bunch of cigar smoking men inside. Nobody really talked to me, but it was a really nice place to hang out.

Cigars at Café Esch, Leblon

When twilight dims the sky above

I wanted to make it back to my hotel before it got dark, so I walked back to the subway. In Leblon it felt absolutely fine to walk around at night. But by the time I got back to my hotel, that was not the case.

I’m not generally worried about violence, but Rio did give me pause. Even many of the savviest travelers that I know have had issues with street violence in Rio after dark. So I had decided that I really would limit my nighttime activities. This was fine, because I was already tired from walking around all day so I went back to my hotel and just decided to just read a book, but then I got hungry… and curious, so I went out. I walked around the streets around my hotel. Some of them were empty and didn’t feel particularly safe; the areas that were closer to the train and subway stations at least had people out and about, so they felt a little safer. Most things were closed, but there was a little corner pizza and hamburger spot, nothing fancy, plastic chairs, basically a fast-food joint. I sat there at one of the outdoor tables and I had a pizza. (As an aside, this was the worst pizza I’ve ever had in my entire life. The bread was soft and all it had on it was gross cheese and some sort of sickly sweet tomato sauce and it was served with ketchup and mustard. Really awful.) I sat outside and I had this pizza and a bottle of water and was just kind of watching the activity on the sidewalk. There lot of homeless and drug addicted people walking around. They approached me constantly asking for money and standing and staring at me and getting a little bit too close. I didn’t feel threatened, but it certainly didn’t feel comfortable. At one point, one of the guys picked up a bottle a beer bottle from a table next to me and broke it over the side of a chair and sort of looked at me, holding onto the neck of the bottle. He didn’t really brandish it and I didn’t think he was going to hurt me, but it certainly didn’t make for a pleasant eating experience. A bit later I did give him the rest of my pizza, so I feel like we kind of had a moment.

Anyway, that was my first day in Rio. I had a good day and I was happy to be there, I wasn’t loving it. Some places you vibe with and some you don’t. That’s ok. But I but I was excited to see more of the city the next day, which I did.

Africa Mauritania Mauritania Senegal Trip 2021

Nouakchott, Mauritania

I picked Mauritania for my travels first because of the opportunity to ride atop a train through the Sahara, and second because it is so seldom visited. That always makes me curious about a place. Also, I knew little about it, and what better way to learn about a place than to go there.

A bit about Mauritania

It is a huge country in West Africa, largely covered by the Sahara and is both one of the least populated (~4.6 million people in an area roughly twice the size of Spain) and least visited countries in the world. It is poor, filled with many historically nomadic groups and its capital, Nouakchott, is quite new, only having been founded in the 1960s.

There isn’t much here in terms of tourist sights. It’s primary draws are the desert and the lure of the remote and mysterious. That and the Iron Ore Train (more about that later).

It is a Muslim country. The main language is Arabic (though a specific local version) followed by local languages, like Wolof, then French. English is not common. I can speak enough to French to get by in common situations, though understanding people is often difficult. The few pleasantries in Arabic that I have in my repertoire go a long way.

Mauritania is also a bit troubled, as any visit to Wikipedia will tell you. Aside from the poverty and encroaching militant Islamist groups, primarily around the borders with Algeria and Mali, there have been some acts of violence, including one (very bad one) of which I am aware against a group of tourists in 2007.

Mauritania is (unfortunately) notable for being the last country in the world to outlaw slavery (in 1981) and they only criminalized it in 2007. Despite that, it is a country where slavery still flourishes. Estimates say 10-20% of people live as slaves. There is something of a caste system between people of different ethnic groups. I haven’t quite got a grasp on that. And there are some troubling stories of the treatment of women, including force feeding young women (or girls) to fatten them up to make them more desirable for marriage.

Of course I have not seen these bad things in my travels, unsurprisingly. I am glad for that, but I think it is important to acknowledge that they are there. In my experience so far, everyone has been kind, hospitable, and helpful. I recognize that I will never see the whole picture of a country in a short visit.

Arrival

I arrived in Nouakchott, Mauritania after almost two days of travel, including my long layover in Paris. It was late and I wanted only to get to my hostel and settle in. Mauritania has a visa on arrival process, which is great, though it means often hours at the airport standing in queues. Covid has not approved this situation. Leaving the airplane, I power walked to immigration, grabbed the paperwork and filled it out while standing in line. I was person number two. A small victory. I was soon though the process and had in my passport a new visa with the least flattering picture of myself I have seen on a government document.

I was picked up at the airport by Sebastian, the proprietor of my accommodations, who also picked up a friend of his; a woman from France who had lived in Mauritania for many years, and her dog.

We arrived at the Auberge Triskell at close to midnight and I spent the next hour or so relaxing and chatting with my hosts in the lovely garden.

The Auberge Triskell is super. It has private rooms in the former grand home of a Mauritanian pop singer and on the roof it has tents and bungalows. It was very comfortable and in a great location. Sebastian speaks English and was helpful in assisting with onward travel. And it is very inexpensive.

Also staying at the Auberge was an Italian man in town on business, a Greek fellow travelling solo, and a Math teacher from Paris also travelling solo on a break from school.

The First Day in Nouakchott

My first day in Nouakchott was busy. I saw pretty much everything the city has to offer. I spent it with the Parisian Math teacher. As it turned out, he had the same basic plan I did for sight seeing and he was keen to walk, so we ventured out together.

We started in the centre ville and went to the National Museum of Mauritania. It is a modest museum with artifacts and ethnographic displays. Worth a visit (especially for the modest entrance fee of about $1.50 CDN). We were the only visitors at the time.

From there we walked to the Grand Mosque. We were not permitted to enter, but it was indeed grand from the outside.

Nouakchott is good for walking. Surprising to me it was rather calm; not a chaotic, crowded city like others in West Africa. The traffic is not bad, crossing the street is easy and there are often sidewalks. Sidewalks are one of those things that one thoroughly takes for granted until they are gone. You can’t really go for a leisurely walk when you are dodging traffic at every step.

The streets are navigated by cars mostly, with a few yellow tuk tuks, donkey carts, and, occasionally, motorcycles.

We wandered over to the Moroccan Mosque, which is very pretty. We were not only allowed to enter but were given a personal tour by some guy who seemed to be in charge. He really seemed more interested in promoting Morocco than Mauritania, but it was a good conversation.

Our religious visits done, we headed to the market; a sprawling outdoor grid of covered stalls, mobile fruit carts, butchers preparing goat and camel meat, date salesmen, textile vendors and tailors, and women selling peanuts and freshly fried balls of dough, often with meaty centres (I didn’t have the meaty ones but the plain ones were delicious). I love markets so this was a treat.

People for the most part here do not want their picture taken. Art one point a man was unhappy when i took a photo of his donkey. So I kept my market photos few and broad. Sometimes though people were keen for it, like this one vegetable vendor who requested a photo. I thought she looked like a queen on a throne of vegetables.

The textile vendors were very visually appealing as they were mostly blue. Most people here have stayed with the traditional Mauritanian dress of long robes and a long scarf, worn around the neck, around the head as a kind of turban, or wrapped around the entire face, with the exception of the eyes as a protection from the sane, which is everywhere. (Only the main streets are paved.) When the fully face covered men add a pair of sunglasses they look just like the Invisible Man trying to blend in.

We ran a few errands. A SIM card for the Math teacher, some fruits to take back to the rooms, and finding a bank machine that would accept our foreign cards – a feat that, when accomplished, resulted in me doing a lively dance, much to the amusement of onlookers.

We walked back to the Auberge for a 20 minute rest, then walked out to the high street to catch a taxi to take us to the sea. On the way we got a bit turned around and asked a family where we needed to go. They were seated on the side of the sandy street, under an awning, cooking up some meat over a fire and cutting up onions to have with the meat and baguettes (as far as I can tell, the only form of bread widely consumed in the country). They gave us directions, but also immediately invited us to join them for their meal. We declined, as we were on a mission, but this is the sort of hospitality that seems to be common here. That sort of thing never ceases to amaze me.

Nouakchott has a busy fishing port with colourful wooden fishing boats similar to those I saw in Ghana. We were there in the afternoon, just in time to watch the hauls and boats being brought in.

It was beautiful and the breeze from the sea felt incredible after the heat of the city centre. We watched the action and the waves and then walked down to the actual beach that people used for recreation – not swimming as the sea is too strong, but exercise and sitting in groups, hanging out. There were also a couple of camels and horses.

On the way back I saw a ghastly form on the sand and immediately yelled out twice “What the fuck is that?!” What is was was the grossest and most interesting sea creature I have ever seen in real life outside of an aquarium. About four feet long, with a beak like face, beady, evil eyes, and a flat, angular body. I learned later that it was a snub-nosed guitar fish, in the ray family. Like something out of a nightmare.

We popped into the building where the fish were weighed and sold, and to the outdoor place where they were cut up and gutted, the floor covered with a thick carpet of scales.

We managed to find a car (I am using this term in its loosest sense, as the vehicle barely had the structure of a car, with its rear end dragging on the ground and its doors only partially operational) to take us to the vicinity of the Auberge.

We had a bite to eat at an indoor, air conditioned restaurant near a cluster of embassies. I was delighted to see ashtrays on the tables.

I spent the rest of the evening, chatting in the garden with Sebasitan and the other guests, making plans, swapping travel tales, and discussing how after living in Mauritania, returning to France seems unappealing.

I slept well, happy with the day, and with plans to head west in the morning for Atar and adventures in the desert.

Asia Jordan

A few hours in Aqaba

I left Wadi Rum in the morning after saying goodbye to the friends made over the past two days, never to be seen again. My taxi driver was awesome – actually, all the taxi drivers I had in Jordan were awesome. They all went out of their way to be hospitable and helpful, from going shopping with me, to sending follow up WhatsApp messages to see how I was doing, to helping me buy bus tickets.

He drove me to Aqaba, where I was going for the sole purpose of catching the bus to Amman. (There is no bus from Wadi Rum.) I could have just taken a taxi back to Aqaba, but that seemed unnecessary, plus, I thought it was a good opportunity to see something of Aqaba.

Aqaba was not otherwise on my itinerary as it is a beach destination and the beach is not my preferred environment. But a layover sounded perfect.

My taxi driver took me to the Jett bus station so I could buy a ticket. I expected he would drop me off, but he came in and made sure there was a bus for me to get on. The next bus was leaving right away, which I didn’t want, but there was another leaving in about 5 hours, which was perfect. The ticket was 10 dinars (~$17 can) for the 4ish hour journey. I bought the ticket and was going to go on my way, but the driver said he would show me a round a bit. So he did a little loop, so I could get the lay of the land, before dropping me off at the beach.

*First view of Aqaba*. *That’s Isreal in the background*

The beach was very busy with locals. It isn’t too much to look at. A narrow strip of sand along the gulf of Aqaba, with Eilat, Israel in the background. The diving there is known to be excellent, but I was happy to just sit and walk ad take in the views.

What I did not enjoy was the weather. It had been 40+ Celsius in Wadi Rum, but here it was hotter AND there was oppressive humidity. I realized very quickly that my idea of exploring for several hours with my backpack in town was not ideal. It’s not a big backpack, but after only 30 minutes or so I was drenched in sweat.

I sat to have breakfast at a sidewalk café (foul, pita, pickles, hot sauces, and a cigarillo) and through about how I was going to endure this layover, when I had a brilliant idea. There were a lot of dingy hotels around; how much could a room be? So I walked into and side street and went to the Amer Hotel. A room for 1 night was about $15 can. Sold.

I checked in, ditched my bag, modified my clothing, and was free to wander in comfort. Even better, before leaving for the bus, I was able to have a shower. Best. Idea. Ever.

And so I walked around Aqaba. Honestly, it’s not that exciting; unless you are going there for the diving, you could skip it. But I was still happy to look around for a few hours, taking in the street art, the beautiful main mosque, the ‘castle’, and streets. I also stopped at cafés and smoked shisha and watched everything pass me by. By the time came for me to go to the bus station, I was happy to do so.

My bus trip was delightful. A very comfortable ride on the top level of a big coach, complete with a woman offering tea and cake. Masks were meant to be worn for covid reasons, and many people did (including me), but not everyone, and one person towards the back kept smoking cigarettes until the tea and cakes lady told him off for it. even still, a relaxing ride. Not much to look at, but pleasant all the same.

When we got to Amman, I made the small mistake of getting off at the second of the two stops, which was not a formal stop, but just a place on a busy street that seemed to me to be far from everything. Fortunately, I was able to flag a taxi to take me to my hotel, just as art got dark. I had two more nights in Amman ahead of me.

Benin Togo West Africa Trip 2019

Benin border & Grand Popo

Crossing the Border from Togo to Benin

I left Lomé planning to head across the border from Togo to Benin. I wasn’t sure exactly how I would accomplish the transport, but as with everything else on this trip, it turned out to be far easier than I expected. I walked from my hotel (Hôtel Résidence Océane) down the Rue de la Gare until I reached the end (at big street with the beach on the other side). I crossed and turned left and before I had time to fully take in the cluster of people and parked cars, numerous people approached me asking if I needed a shared taxi. I did, and took my place in the front seat of a beat-up station wagon, waiting for it to fill up so we could go.

There are many reasons for traveling light. In this case, I was thankful I could fit my backpack between my feet in the front seat or I might have had to pay for a second place in the car, as the hatchback was filled with boxes and a motorcycle.

As I waited for other passengers to be secured, one of the guys outside helping to fill the car took his t-shirt off and put it on the windshield in front of me to block the sun which was hot and otherwise shining directly in my face. He didn’t make a big deal of it and didn’t ask me for anything, he just did it. Another example of the generosity and kindness of the people I encountered.

After about 20 minutes we had the people we needed and we were off. I forget the exact price, but it was trivial. Maybe about a dollar (cdn) for the hour – hour and half ride to the border. a few pics from the car window…

At the border we got out and went through the border on foot and I had to go through one check on the Togolese side and two on the Beninese side. It was not always clear where I was meant to go, but all throughout the process a woman (traveling with her baby), who had been in the car with me, waited for me to complete each step and then pointed to where I would go next.

I had gotten my visa for Benin on line. I showed the border guard my paper while I was seated at his outdoor desk. He didn’t seem too interested in it. He asked me some basic questions (address in Benin, length of stay, etc.) and stamped my passport. He gave the visa paper back to me. (***Very important: keep that paper. I nearly threw mine away, thinking I no longer needed it, but thankfully did not; I was required to show it again when leaving Benin.)

And I was in Benin.

On the other side of the border I hopped into another shared taxi and said I needed to go to Grand Popo. A short ride later I was dropped off at a fork in the road and the driver pointed to the cluster of motos nearby. I gave one of the moto drivers the name of my hotel (the Auberge de Grand Popo) and I hopped on the back and he drove me the short distance to my hotel.

And that is another reason for traveling light: the ability to hop on and off motorcycles, which are often the only means of transport.

Grand Popo, Benin

There isn’t much to Grand Popo. It is basically just a linear group of small hotels, eateries, and arty places along the beach. I decided it might be nice to spend one night along the sea in between cities. I was right.

The Auberge de Grand Popo was a wonderful oasis. Right along the ocean it had a small, main building with a welcoming outdoor restaurant and bar, a small pool, lots of places to sit and stare at the sea, and rooms both in a large, two-storey building and a few cabins. I stayed in the larger building. It was rustic, but comfortable. A fan, a bed, an ocean breeze. The water wasn’t running, but they gave me a big container of water for bathing.

I spent one night – a little less than 24 hours – there. It was very relaxing, though one night was enough. How much lying in hammocks, reading, and smoking cigars can one person take before becoming restless?

The next morning, after breakfast, I walked back to the main road, snapping a few pictures of the “town” of Grand Popo along the way.

At the main road, I held my hand out and within a couple of minutes a car pulled up, full of men listing to lively percussion music. I told them I wanted to go to Ouidah. I threw my bag in the trunk, squeezed in next to the three men in the backseat, and off we went to my next destination.

Mexico North America

Playa del Carmen: making lawyers & memories

I had never traveled for business before and didn’t have any realistic hopes to. I’m a lawyer, I live in Vancouver and so do most of my clients. But then, a couple of days before New Years Eve, an opportunity asserted itself.

Lawyers in Canada have to article for one year after law school before they actually become lawyers. On the completion of the final day, they take an oath, which is given to them by their principal (the lawyer who supervised them throughout their articles). I had such an articling law student and she had calculated her date to take the oath as being in early January, but, due to various things that I won’t get into, she burst into my office on the 27th in a panic. She had miscalculated and her call date was actually December 29th, but she was going to Mexico on the 28th.

I pointed out that there was no reason that she could not take the oath in January when she returned, but she didn’t want to delay it. “Well, I guess we could do it in Mexico,” I said, jokingly. Her eyes lit up. She loved this idea. She is from Mexico and suddenly thought that taking the oath in Mexico was the best idea ever. So that’s what we did.

I booked a flight for that night, picked a hotel, and arrived in Playa del Carmen (where she was going) the next late morning. (Going to Playa del Carmen means flying to Cancun and taking a bus or taxi to Playa del Carmen.)

I checked into my Hotel Hul-Ku which was just a couple blocks off of 5th Avenue the main pedestrian street and tourist thoroughfare. But I didn’t have a lot of time. In about an hour my articling student picked me up and drove us to a private, picturesque beach.

On the beach, inexplicably in such a short time, she had set up a table dressed with a white cloth, flower arrangements, and custom helium balloons that spelled out her name, “Canadian Lawyer”, and displayed the Canadian flag. She had hired a professional photographer and assembled a group of friends. It was so fancy; it looked like we were getting married.

I gave a speech, posed for some photos, and gave the oath. Just like that, she became a lawyer, and I was free to enjoy the rest of my weekend in Playa del Carmen.

Selfie in front of some colorful graffiti

It was unusual for me. I usually love to do weeks or months of planning and studying for my trips, but that wasn’t possible here. I had no time to prepare, so I just wandered. That proved to be fine.

Playa del Carmen is super touristy. The touristy areas are great to walk and grab a bite to eat on a patio, drink a frosty drink (or, if you’re me, a hot coffee). It is a great way to spend a leisurely day.

I enjoyed the color and festive atmosphere.

And, if you poke around, there is some excellent street art.

But it is also kind of expensive and it is full of the worst kind of tourists. Drunk, inconsiderate, annoying. On the plus side, it was easy to get away from the tourists and just walk around eating and drinking cheaply.

That is basically what I did for the rest of that day and most of the rest. (I still had some work to do, but I got to do it on my laptop on a patio whilst smoking cigars. Not bad.)

On December the 31st I decided to do something more adventurous. I visited some cenotes. The area on the Yucatan Peninsula is riddled with cenotes. Basically, they are a bunch of underground caves (sometimes open at the top and sometimes completely subterranean) connected by a vast underground river in the jungle. I couldn’t take my camera with me, so I have no pictures, but take a minute and google image search “cenotes”. Go ahead, i’ll wait.
…
Amazing, right? Some are magical lagoons and others spooky underwater lairs. All are incredible.

To enter the system we went two by two on harnesses, rappelling down into a cenote, then finally dropping into the water at the bottom. Yes, it was a bit scary before I actually started the descent (and I was the first to go) but once i was on my way it was amazing. And at the bottom…stalactites and stalagmites so weird and wonderful that it didn’t even seem real, but it was. I loved swimming around and peering down the dark pathways where the river went farther than we were allowed.

In others it was pitch black and we snorkelled with the aid of a small torch. That was great. So spooky to be in water where you could see absolutely nothing save where you shone your light. Below, in places, the ground gave way to a deep crevasse that our lights would not penetrate. Occasionally a scuba diver or a corpse-grey fish would swim by, but otherwise it was just us in this alien underwater world.

We also went zip-lining to connect us with other cenotes. That experience was ok, but highly overrated.

It was a wonderful experience and a new one for me.

By the time I returned to my hotel I was exhausted.

I went for a walk on the pedestrian street, which was extra busy as it was only a few hours to midnight. I settled in at a touristy but inviting bar that had swings instead of stools at the bar, and had a cigar and a virgin piña colada, chatting with various folks.

I was asleep by 11:30pm and flew home the following day. Playa del Carmen is not a place I would have chosen to go for a holiday, but I really enjoyed myself. And it was a great way to finish 2018 and start 2019.

And that is how I travelled to Playa del Carmen just before New Year’s Eve at the last minute, on someone else’s dime – to make someone a lawyer. I think all my years in law school finally paid off.

Colombia South America

Playa Blanca

Cartagena is on the Caribbean, so it is not surprising that it is surrounded by beautiful beaches. The ones right here in Caragena are fine, but the farther out you go, the more pristine and beautiful they become. About an hour away by speed boat is a beach called Playa Blanca: a stretch of powdery white sand along turquoise sea with palm trees and various places renting hammocks and grass huts for the night. I am not much of a beach person, but this sounded quite idyllic, so i decided to go.

There are 3 ways to get to Playa Blanca: take a tour (which involves also going to an aquaraium and has less than favorable reviews and costs about $50,000 pesos or more), take a 3 hour bus ride and then convince someone to take you to the beach the last half an hour by motorbike, or convince someone to take you in a private boat.

I was not going to spend hours on a bus and did not relish the idea of a tour, so i opted for the private boat. I went just outside of the old city to the market at about 7:30am and found where the boats were. They were smallish, fiberglass boats with wooden benches and were sort of rectangular in shape. They were docked next to where men were repairing fishing nets and gutting the freshly caught fish. I found a man with a boat and asked if he was going to Playa Blanca. He was not going there, but just past it, and would drop me off for 20,000 pesos (about $10-$12 dollars). This sounded good. I hopped on the boat and waited. The deal is, you have to wait for them to fill up their boats before they leave. i waited nearly 2 hours but i did not mind, as men came by selling coffee and bananas and i really enjoyed watching the fishermen and the activities as the boats were loaded with supplies. Our boat was filled with water jugs, flowers, crates of pineapples, bags of plantains and coconuts, and other less exciting items and about 10 other people got on board. Then we left.

The boat sped along, leaping off of the waves. I have never been on a boat that fast and it was very exciting. We passed by green areas of trees, the new city of Cartagena with its modern high rises, and past tiny shacks along the water, where people were clearly living in great poverty. After about an hour we arrived in Playa Blanca.

I was the only one getting off there, so i hopped off the boat and waded to the beach (there is no dock area). The boat began to pull away and then came back with the captain yelling at me that i had not paid him. I argued with him, as best i could, that i had paid in Cartagena, but after some time, i realized that i may have paid the wrong man (ie not the captain). I saw others paying in Cartagena, but perhaps they paid the correct person, or maybe they were just ripping me off, but i finally gave in and paid 20,000 pesos, again.

Obviously, this is only about $10, so it was not the money that bothered me, but my pride was injured and i was a bit embarrassed as it looked like i was trying to get away without paying, which was not the case. Anyway, as the boat pulled away and i was left on this desolate beach, i regretted coming, did not want to be there, and realized…how was i going to get back?

I had assumed that there would be a dock with boats and that it would be easy to arrange for return transport, but once the boats drop of their passengers, they leave. The beach did have one end which was clearly more touristy, as there were lots of people (but still only grass huts and hammocks), but the end i was at was fairly deserted. I sat down on a chair feeling kind of upset and pannicky. There is no road, no boats, no electricity, no telephones (no motor cars)…i was already planning to live there forever Gilligan’s Island style, when some women wandered by and sat with me. They had been at the busy end of the beach selling massages. They tried to chat with me, but the language barrier made it mostly impossible, however they could see i was unhappy. They called over a man who operated the hammock, hut, and kitchen establishment at which i found myself. (El Paraisio de Mama Ruth – i highly recommend them for sleeping & eating.)

This man did speak fairly good English and i explained my situation. He expressed regret for my being ripped off and said he would arrange for a boat to take me back at 3:00 (it was now 11:30) for 10,000 pesos. He fixed me up with a hammock, and some lunch of salad, rice, and plantains (he brought out a platter of freshly caught fish for me to select from, but i explained the vegetarian thing). I felt immediately more at ease.

And so i hung out there for more than 3 hours. i ate lunch, smoked two cigars, lay on the beach, sat in a chair looking out at the sea. Occasionally people walked by selling jewelry, shells, or coconut drinks, but other than that, it was completely quiet. Nothing but wind and waves, and a few men who emerged from the sea holding long, bright silvery fish they had caught with their hands. I have to say that i relaxed very quickly and found it quite peaceful.

At about 3:00 though I got anxious. My English speaking friend was no where to be seen and there were no boats on the horizon. I figured I was going to have to spend the night, when a boat came around the corner, loaded with people and with a man sitting on the bow, waving his arms. It was the guy! I waded out to the boat, thanked him for his help, and we sped off back to Cartagena.

The day, over all, was a great experience but i must admit to being particularly happy when i set foot back on land in Cartagena, tired, sweaty, and salty.

I spent the evening walking around, grabbed a bit of dinner and found a another cigar shop where i sat with the manager and his friend and smoked and chatted for an hour of so. (This time I learned all about prostitution in Cartagena.) I had planned to go to a salsa club, but was nodding off by 10:00, so i just went to bed.

That was my Thursday. I can’t wait to see what will happen today.
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Tag: beach