Still Cartagena
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 1 Mar 2010 19:24
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Still Cartagena
We are now ready to leave Cartagena for the San
Blas Islands. Ready, in the sense that we have to move on however it would be
very easy to stay longer. We had hoped to anchor overnight at Islas Rosarios or
Islas San Bernardos, however we are delayed today waiting for a Fed Ex delivery
and Immigration to clear us out of the country. In Cartagena when you arrive by
yacht you can not clear in and out yourself and you need to hire an agent to do
the work for you. We have a German guy doing our clearance. Cartagena is also
famous for the very high standard of medical treatments and people come here to
get all kinds of specialist treatments and operations done. I think our German
agent came here to get a charisma bypass. It seems to have worked extremely
well.
It has been really interesting here and like all places in the world we
visit there is always something to learn from how they run their country. We
learned from the Maurice the Columbian guy we met the other day that the reason
Cartagena has no traffic problem is that they regulate which cars can use the
roads on which days, but basically you can only use your car six days per week
and there also days when no mopeds or motorcyles can be used. While it is a fact
that the traffic in Cartagena is excellent I am not convinced about the policy
as our friend told us that they had to keep three cars so that one of them
always had a valid licence plate for each particular day!
Last night we went out with two different
Australian couples, Phil and Christina from Songline and Al and Deb from Sunboy,
who also know John and Helen on Nika who are now far ahead of us. Its a small
world. We have noted that we have had most contact to date with Australian
cruisers, who are travelling of course in the same direction as us but generally
just as far as Oz. The Americans we have met normally seem to be just cruising
the Caribbean. I dont think we have met any who are circumnavigating and it
seems most of the British going round are on the Blue Water Rally or the World
Arc.
It is a fact however that we are meeting many
genuinely interesting and friendly people and of course everyone has their own
story to tell which never ceases to interest me.
Tonight I think we will cook aboard and we will not
have steak in order to let the supply and demand curve re - balance after our
efforts over the past week! However we couldn't resist one final purchase of
beef for the freezer best fillet steaks were about £6.50 per kg. So lucky for
those joining us in the Pacific if there is any left by the time we get
there.
Travelling like this means communications have to
be multichannel, using whatever is the best connection at any particular time.
This ranges from mobile phone, text, e-mail by satellite connection, satellite
phone, office e-mail address using wifi on lap tops, yahoo e-mail at internet
cafes with business e-mails forwarded to that address - it is mind boggling and
very easy to overlook things. I think therefor I will have to have a
rethink about communications and try to rationalise what we are doing and
though answers may take a little longer to get from me - it may be a more
managable arrangement. So if there is anyone out there who is missing an
answer from me it maybe that I have overlooked or not even received your
message. It is certainly the case that I do not get voice messages on
my mobile phone so anyone leaving a message like that is wasting their time
and money.
The other thing that is difficult to manage is
cash. Obviously you dont want to carry too much on person or on board. However
accessing machines that will take your card is not always straightforward and
there are daily limits imposed by card providers, individual machines, specific
currencies etc. Here in Columbia we have been taking out 3 -
400,000 (£100 - £130) Pesos regularly. This off course alarmed our bank
(who we had informed anyway about our travel plans) so they decided to stop our
card on our working account and also withdraw the account information from the
internet. This led to a wee bit of a stushie late Saturday afternoon in
jewelers shop where Trish had dragged me into ("just for a look" - I should have
known). Columbia is very famous for Emeralds and this is her birth stone
........... you know the rest.
For visiting the Kuna Indians in San Blas Islands
we are bringing loads of alchohol, cigarettes, Hello magazines, Hollywood
action movies and the common cold to trade with them.
Just joking!
We have dictionaries, learning books, pens and
other writing things. We also have large stocks of rice and cooking oil, plain
soaps, baby shampoo, clothes, and for some reason lots of little bits and
pieces for little girls to put in their hair and fishing stuff for the men
and boys. Mind you they'll have to trade pretty hard we're not a charity
..............................
Our plan is initially to sail to Punta Escocia in
Kuna territory ,Panama, to see if we fare any better than the 2800 Scots who
sailed there in 1698. This was Scotlands first attempt to start following the
lead of England and Spain and the other Europeans who established overseas
colonies. The mission was led by William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of
England and of the 2800 people involved 2000 died. Bloody
bankers!
See you in San Blas.
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