Breaking Bad

Cartagena, Colombia

I have never seen the show because it sounds too dark for me. But I don’t mind borrowing a phrase now and then if the shoe fits.

This is not show and tell or a book report. Nor did the teacher give us an assignment: Tell us about your Christmas vacation. So you’re not going to get a play-by-play. 

Still, there is maybe a story or two worth telling. And if you want to survey our pictures you’ll pick up a few things about our family time – which we thoroughly enjoyed. 

Remember the Fixx. We’ve talked about the song before: One Thing Leads to Another. Maybe it’s just the way we function or something about the way I think – but that song keeps coming up . . .

It really started the first time we all went to the beach. A crazy experience. About a gazillion people. And an equal number of people trying to sell us things. First, an umbrella and chairs. Then anything you want. Water. Beer. Hot dogs. A massage. A pedicure. Tattoos. Dresses. Jewelry. You get the idea . . . At the end of the day it really wasn’t that pleasant of an experience. It’s kind of hard to relax when people are constantly trying to sell you something. 

And even the water was crowded. 

The upshot is that we decided that it would be a good idea to go to a more remote beach, where there might not be as many people. 

We found Playa Blanca – a beach out on this peninsula that juts into the Caribbean Sea – a little south of Cartagena.  Or, at least, we found it on a map. 

”Maybe we should try to go there . . .”

And then, us being us, we suggested that maybe we should bike out there and see if we could get a boat back. We would need to rent bikes for the kids (not really kids any more, but they’ll always be kids to us I guess) and then it looked like about a 25 mile ride. 

“I’ve never ridden that far before,” Ellie’s boyfriend, Jacob, said. 

In retrospect, what Jacob meant was: “That sounds like too much to me.” 

But you hear what you want to hear . . . And Jacob’s real meaning went unheard by Diana and I.

Later, Jacob tried a different tact.

”Do you think it might be kind of industrial to get out there? It looks like you might have to ride through the boat docks and refineries and stuff.”

What Jacob meant here was something like this: “25 miles seems a long ways to go, and if we’re biking through crazy industrial areas with lots of traffic I really won’t enjoy it.” 

But, again, we didn’t hear that. 

“Oh, I think it will be fine,” I responded . . . based on what I’m not sure . . .

Skip forward a bit. 

We’re walking to some tennis courts; we ended up playing a lot of tennis this week. Fun family activity that everyone enjoys . . .

Our path to the courts takes us past a beach area with a whole bunch of boats pulled up on shore. 

More hawkers . . .

”Where are you heading? We can get you there.”

“Playa Blanca, con bicicletas. Cuanta cuesta (how much)?” I ask. 

Yes, they can bring us there. And, if you trust the Spanish communication, they can bring the bikes. 

File that info away . . . It comes into play again later . . .

That evening we’re talking about biking to Playa Blanca mañana (tomorrow). Lauren and Diana find a ferry that returns to Cartagena from the beach at 3. We end up buying tickets. Pretty cheap. I think 30,000 pesos – or about $7.50 – for all five of us. 

New plan: get up early, rent some bikes, and cycle out to Playa Blanca. Of course, this was never a particularly good plan. We didn’t even know if you could take bikes on the ferry – because it was pretty much impossible to find additional info on the ferry. 

But that was our plan.

Next day we go to rent some bikes.

First place – doesn’t exist.

Second place – horrible bikes. 

I know that sounds kind of bike-snooty. And it is. But they truly were terrible. Single speed beach bikes with super rusted chains, big fat wheels with old tires, and big seats – all set as low as possible. 

Jacob: “Do you think these bikes can make it 25 miles?” 

This time even we heard Jacob’s real message: “I’ve never biked this far before, I’m not at all sure about the route, and these bikes look horrible – can we not do this?”

Bike plan – nixed!

But we still want to go to Playa Blanca and we already purchased the ferry tickets. 

“Let’s head back to the little beach by the tennis courts and get a lanche (boat) to bring us there,” I suggest. 

And so we head back to the hotel and get ready for our Plan B. 

As we walk up to the lanche beach we are surrounded by a whole phalanx of guys trying to get our American money by giving us a boat ride. 

They don’t want to go to Playa Blanca. They want to go to some island that is a lot closer. But, of course, we already purchased our ferry tickets . . . don’t want them to go to waste . . .

“950 mil” (to bring five people to Playa Blanca). This is about $240. 

Not doing that . . .

Eventually several of them agree on 600 mil. But that’s still way more than I want to pay . . .

Much bickering. They’re telling me that anything less won’t cover the gas. A kid is telling me that this is a great deal. 

I start to walk away.

“400 mil,” one of them offers . . .

Still way more than I was thinking – but we’re on vacation, the other guys set a high cost so that 400 sounds like a bargain, and we don’t want the ferry tickets to go to waste now, do we?

Soon we’re all in the boat. There are a few other passengers heading to another beach. The way these boats work a few guys push them out from the beach and then the “captain” tries to get the motor going and you jet out into the deeper water – hopefully avoiding the worst of the crashing waves in the process. 

Let’s just say that we didn’t avoid the worst of the crashing waves. 

And now it’s time to backtrack again . . .

When we were in Guatemala we took a volcano tour. We met a nice guy from Georgia named Chase and Chase had these really cool glasses that can take pictures and videos. They can play music, or a book on tape – or even give you Spanish lessons as you ride your bike. Or you can make a phone call, or ask about the animals they have in El Salvador. Pretty cool.

Backtracking even further . . . I have long fantasized about a device that would do all these things. I even bought a helmet that had all these features. It was pretty cool. A little remote control on my handlebars and I could take a picture or video while biking along . . . So I wouldn’t miss that scarlet macaw that flew right in front of me . . . 

Sadly, the helmet, while an improvement on last year’s model – which looked like a hollowed out bowling ball – still weighed about four times what a normal helmet weighs. My neck couldn’t take it any more, and in Arkansas I traded it in for a lighter, more mundane, model . . . I mean it still has a blinking light on back – but otherwise it’s completely analog. Boring!

The upshot is that my awesome wife ordered me a pair of these glasses for Christmas and had the kids bring them down when they came. 

Alright, now with that background in mind, where were we again? Oh yes, I remember now. We’re on the little boat, I have my new fancy glasses on, with my cool re-charging case in my pocket, they’ve just pushed the boat into the water, and . . .

Oh my God! 

There is a HUGE wave – like HUGE HUGE wave – about to crash down on us. 

Everyone on the boat gasps. 

Holy S__t!

Wow. 

Quite a crash. 

The boat is tossed. 

But the tiny ship is not lost. 

Yes, the front seat was destroyed by the wave. Yes, we are all sopping wet – like we just took a swim in the ocean. 

But miraculously we are otherwise intact . . .

Sadly, while I was wearing the super cool new glasses, I wasn’t filming at the time. So, once again, you’ll have to make do with my 100% accurate drawing . . .

I’ll skip the rest of the ride. But let’s just say that after that we found the life vests and put them on. And maybe, just maybe, these boats might not be rated for the ocean if they were in the USA. 

We finally make it to Playa Blanca. And it is beautiful. Caribbean blue water. Not as crowded. Nice little beachside restaurants. 

But there’s no dock. There’s no pier. So it’s not obvious where we will catch the ferry. 

There’s a lot more drama – but we’ll skip over all of that. 

We never did find the ferry. We ended up hitching a ride back on some nice tour boat – which cost us another 250 mil. 

Oh, and, now that we’re on our way to Argentina, Diana and I just biked most of the road that we would have taken to Playa Blanca. Horrible. Tons of traffic. So many motorcycles that it felt like we were at Sturgis. Terrible road. Good thing we didn’t rent the bikes . . .

Also, it turns out that the fancy glasses are water resistant – but the re-charging case is not. 

One thing led to another . . . 

In the end we went on a wild goose chase around Cartagena looking for bicycles, we took a little boat for 400 mil, and had a tidal wave nearly knock us into the sea, and then we ended up paying 250 mil more to take another boat home – all because we spent 30 mil on tickets for a ferry that apparently doesn’t exist . . . and almost certainly wouldn’t be able to bring bikes even if it did . . .

Sounds miserable, doesn’t it? 

Not even close. 

Just one of the many great days we spent with the kids. 

It turns out that the main thing on a vacation like this is just to be together. We accomplished that in spades. The water? We aren’t witches; we didn’t melt. And the glasses case? I’m hoping to get a new one under the warranty. 

As for the bike trip . . . We started again this afternoon. Super sad to see the kids go. But it was great to hit the road again. 20 miles of South America down. Maybe another 6,000 or so to go . . .

Quite the jarring day. Started out at the beach in a nice airbnb with fancy coffee shops in the morning – and finished at a $15/night hotel next to a simple restaurant with a wood fire grill, run by a nice Colombian family. Amazing patacones and sopa de pollo. 

I guess the fairy tale world of Cartagena can’t last forever. And that’s okay. It was nice, but what made it truly fantastic was the time we spent with Lauren, Ellie, and Jacob. 

We’ll be working our way toward Medellin this week. Supposed to be some wicked climbing . . . 

We’ll see. 

Looking forward to it . . .