Colombia

Here we both are chilling out in Cartagena de India in Colombia. My week was a complete chill out - I did little more than laze around by the amazing pool or sprawl out on the enormous bed watching MTV and various american house make over shows and documentaries. It was heaven. I love seeing English or American tv now that I live in Spain.

Jose did manage a decent amount of chilling out, as you can see from the photo, but he also had to do quite a bit of work. We were actually there because he was speaking at a conference - an international summit on concrete (Hmm thrilling). I went with him on the day that he was speaking and sat at the back of the auditorium taking notes on his speaking style in order to give him constructive criticism afterwards (whcih he asked for). He did very well indeed. He was speaking for 2 hours in an auditorium that seats about 3000 people (although it wasn't half full).

The conference inolved various meals and parties at night, which we both attended. Jose seemed to be some kind of VIP for the concrete association of Colombia so we were very well looked after by the amazing friendly and sociable Colombians. Some students even asked if they could have their photo taken with Jose at one of the parties. They had attended his session and obviously felt he was some one for their geeky scrap book of all things concrete. The topic of Jose's session was the Torre Agbar - which is the bullet shaped, very modern tower in Barcelona which Jose acted as Structural Consultant on (ie he calculated how to build it).

Other than concrete related activities, we took a city tour with a guide, visited a fort, many churches, bought a linen suit (for Jose), took horse and carriage rides through the streets, took a boat ride to an island for a day, sunbathed and swam in very warm water. The Hotel was an old converted covent. The concrete association had put us in the most architecturally interesting hotel in the city - for which we were very appreciative as it was absolutely charming. Toucans flapped around in the cloisters!

The old centre of Cartagena is enchanting. Very much like Cusco in peru actually - with lots and lots of wooden balconies and coloured buidings. The people of Colombia are very mixed in terms of appearance, especially skin colour, but they seem to be amazingly polite and friendly. I'm sure this is not the case if you find yourself in the middle of the jungle facing a guerilla war bandit / drugs baron. However, the "normal folk", which probably describes 90% of the population, are lovely people.

The flight back from Colombia was probably one of the worst I have ever suffered. We were flying Cartagena - Bogota - Madrid - Barcelona. With waiting times between flights, 4 hours on a run way in the Dominican Republic for a refuel and a sudden part change, missed conections due to un planned part change ............it took us 24 hours to get home. Grr. All this with no veggie meal. Shit airline. The whole subject of planes and Colombia is a sore subject because it took me about two weeks of constant phone calls and trips to the airport to actually get the tickets in the first place. The various airlines were not communicating well between each other, or passing money between each other or God knows what but Span air were not willing to give me the tickets in BCN until the Colombian counterparts had jumped various hurdles - which were seemingly too high for them for a while. After a lot of perseverance and then a complete bomb of an email in which I slated the agency in Colombia ......we finally got some action and I got the tickets. Worth it in the end though, if only for the warm water of both the sea and the pool. Food was great too. Coconut rice is a kind of staple there and it is heavenly. Must try and make it at home actually. I will get details from Maria, my Colombian friend.

S xx