The streets of beautiful Cartagena, Columbia. I am in love with this city.
Ta da!!!!!
We have triumphantly arrived on the continent of South America and
fallen under it´s most magical spell. Honestly right out of the
airport, where a crazed Columbian customs officer made hilariously
bizzare faces and sounds at me while he stamped my passport, we were
taken in by the fabulousness that is Columbia. So far the two
countries that I was warned against by the collective worries of the
¨West¨ (Nicaragua and Columbia) have prooved the be the countries I
have most enjoyed/ am enjoying. Perhaps it is only Cartagena, because
Cartagena is quite possibly the most blissfully perfect and beautiful
city I have ever visited. You see, I love cities with narrow winding
roads that have tightly packed buildings with balconies overlooking
the street... and Cartagena has these in abundance and with gorgeous
flowers hanging over the balconies to boot! It also sports carribean
weather, delicious food, refreshing beer, great people, entrancing
street performances, beautiful colours, the Carribean Sea, an ethereal
but powerful sense of literary history, a very fine bookstore and cafe
(I love these) and low cost of living. I think I´m in love. There is
also a very grand sailing vessel at harbor here which is all lit up at
night.
The passage from Bocas del Toro was relatively uneventful apart from a
very long bus ride from the Carribean coast to the Pacific (Panama
City) only to fly, the next morning, back to the Carribean coast. The
bus ride was quite beautiful, during which I remarked to my moleskin
notebok that the mountains were getting larger, and also that I
appreciate the beauty of Mountains no less for living in a mountainous
state. I also nearly went crazy from listening to the piped in 6 hours
of overly enthusiastic Mariachi music which would annoy even the
greatest admirers of the genre.
We have been wandering the endlessly diverting streets during the
days, relaxing in the relative cool of coffee shops or shady parks
during the hotter hours, snacking on delicious fruits and treats from
the many street vendors, diligently ignoring the hissing come-on´s of
machismo men, learning new divinations and writing stories in our
infant spanish (this has actually prooved perfect for producing
spanish childrens stories.) We wrote an absolutely adorable story
about a sloth that really wants to fly and who eventually learns to do
so by dancing with the butterflies to the music of the jungle because
a magic tree tells him to. I´m going to illustrate it.
I have since coming down here actually painted 5, albeit small,
watercolours and written many pages. In fact I filled my moleskin and
had to embark on what prooved to be a very difficult quest to find a
suitable new notebook. What I have now is no molesking but well it has
paper in it and that´s the most important part.
We head shortly to another beach until we have to regretfully part
with Tatianna. For those of you familiar with the Rider Tarot, the
three of us are like the three of cups incarnate, a fatefully happy
trio.
My birthday is in a week as well and I´m trying to ascertain where I
will be. Aviv and I are both determined to have cake and sangria for
our birthdays (hers is March 6, mine January 20, and Tatiana´s is
actually March 6 as well... I am swimming with the fish!) no matter
how difficult this prooved to be. I can bake a pretty damn good cake
from scratch and we can, though it wouldn´t actually be good at all,
put some fruit in a bottle of cheap wine for a while to make
¨sangria¨.
I am trying to download some of my pictures and put them on my blog
(livingmorganism.blogspot.com) but it isn´t easy. My pictures are
really large because I´m a snob for quality so it takes an absurb
amount of time to upload them. You can check but there may be very few
if any at all... I´ll try.
Next country, Ecuador and some digging in the dirt and not spending
money (We´re running perilously low.) or else we´ll have to find jobs.
I dearly hope that everyone is well and happy. I noticed in a Panama
newspaper recently that the weather in Toronto was 6 degrees or
something godawfully cold. I am sorry dear family and friends in the
north! I think warm thoughts for you (and cool ones for me).
Love to all,
Morgan
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