Last week, I got my first taste of the quintessential perks of being a teacher—an extended holiday-related vacation!
Since last week was Semana Santa, or Holy Week, most public schools had no school for the entire week. (Thursday and Friday were official holidays). In the US we would call this sort of thing Spring Break…but here we don’t even pretend.
Ten weeks into school, and approximately four weeks of non Carnival related classes (see previous blog posts for the havoc that reached/description of how we spent our first six weeks of “school,” we closed out our first quarter and disbanded for vacation.
Happily, I have US teacher friends as well, who get their Spring Breaks conveniently simultaneously—and thus got my first US (or any other kind of) visitor (!!!!!!!!) With a Sunday through Thursday itinerary, we had just enough time to go to the beautiful colonial city of Cartagena, with the other volunteers Tyler and Jessica, and were joined by Cartagena-posted Abby, who took a hostel stay-cation.
I’d always known Cartagena was a tourist town, but being one of those tourists was a pretty surreal experience. We wandered aimlessly around the beautiful walled city, headed out on a launch boat to Islas del Rosario to snorkel and swim at Playa Blanca, and most interestingly, went to Volcon de Totumo, a mud volcano.
These could each be separate posts…but in the interest of time, quick rundown—Playa Blanca is Cartagena’s most notorious beach. Packed because of Semana Santa, I sort of failed to see it’s unique charm…mostly because I’m pretty spoiled here with the amazing beaches—aqua Caribbean water, long stretches of sand, sun, etc. It was gorgeous but overrun by tourists.
Snorkeling was a mixed bag of enjoying the incredible sea life—shockingly brilliant fish of all colors, types, and sizes, indigo, orange, silver, blue, white, striped, all mixtures of the above—in gorgeously clear water, while also mourning for the coral. Coral formations lay broken and dead on the sea floor, ridiculously uncared for while the fish nosed around in their remains. In a few years I can’t imagine there will be much left.
Perhaps our most unique adventure was the mud volcano—Volcano de Totumo. There’s a legend that there was a volcano and a priest blessed it, and the lava turned to mud. I’m not sure how that all should be taken, but it’s pretty weird. It’s a small hill—shaped sort of like a giant ant hill, and you climb up one side to get to the mud-filled top. Climbing in (along with about 15 other tourists) is like entering a crowded anti gravity chamber. The mud has some density that means you can’t sink, so instead you bob and turn, pushing off of people to move and, if you happen to tip, potentially thrashing wildly until someone rights you (not that it happened to me…) The mud is purported to contain 50-odd minerals and such, and two attendants give uncomfortably intimate albeit free massages to all those who enter. Enjoyed by my friends immensely, I surprised myself by not being quite okay with it…you can’t see what’s below you! There could be anything in there!
So after scurrying out (read: flailing through the mud using unsuspecting tourists as grab-handles), we inched our way down the mud-slippery stairs and were bathed in even more awkwardly intimate manners by the local people-washer-women. (After stripping us of our bathing suits they started crying out “Naked Show!” at which point we revealed we spoke Spanish…)
We returned to Barranquilla where we continued on our tour of culture at the Caribbean Culture museum, the scrappy food and “stuff”vendors of El Centro, Barranquilla’s big market, and of course rounded out our tour of fried food with some ridiculous offerings. (Nat’s love of fried food, I’m told, was completely satisfied…arepas de hevos, fried yucca cheese balls, fried cheese dough balls, fried breaded cheese sticks, cheese stuffed arepas, fried plantains, fried empanadas…I might be leaving something out but hopefully not?)
I thought my amazing week was done when I sadly bid farewell to Natalie, but the next day, I met Jaime’s amazing friend Heidi. On vacation from her marketing/advertising job in the states (a highly paid babysitter to the celebrities), she swept us off her feet with her amazing generosity and in “exchange” for our “skills” (I say exchange, because there’s no way to repay her for her generosity), we got to come along on some amazing day trips around the coast. With Jaime as the translator, Tyler as the “bodyguard,” and myself as the “haggler,” we headed to Santa Marta. Although I’d been to Parque Tayrona, I’d never seen the town. We toured the gorgeous little cathedral and historical section of downtown Santa Marta, pushed our way through the ridiculous Holy Week crowds to view a bit of the beach, and spent a day at Taganga, a mountain-rimmed fishing village. Definitely a place to return without the ridiculous crowds of Holy Week Weekend, it was an amazing break from the norm.
We came back to work to the expected chaos, which left us all increasingly grumpy. No lesson plans, no intentions to create them (although I’m putting my foot down on that this week!), no coordination, no communication…and somehow it was like re-learning tolerance all over for that, again.
But after spending yesterday teaching the English teachers about vegetarianism and fast food, in addition to making some pretty delicious veggie burgers, if I do say so myself (I’ll post a recipe soon!)…well, time to get ourselves back into a teaching routine. Exit Colombia the tourist land, and back to reality as a PCV here in Colombia!
Pictures are coming soon…the camera decided to break in Tagana and still waiting to see if it can be fixed L
