Cartagena Through A Disney Prism

"And that's the cursed Temple of the Forbidden Eye, where famed archaeologist Indiana Jones searches for the greatest treasure on earth," deadpanned Marlo, our Jungle Boat guide.  "Little does he know that I'm right here."



It's a Small World After All for Emma and Aunt Amy

For those of us raised in the shadow of Disneyland, this type of patter is familiar.  We enjoy floating through jungles where animatronic wildlife makes regularly scheduled appearances, but it is our guide's improv patter that makes the ride truly top notch. 

Despite knowing by heart where hippos and crocodiles would surface and that a headhunter would inevitably have a special sale, "Two of his for one of yours," Jay, Amy and I all laughed regularly on our Adventureland ride, thanks to our world-class entertainer who doubled as skipper for a miniscule fraction of what her CEO makes to flip coins deciding multi-million dollar deals.

A few weeks earlier, in Cartagena, Columbia, Julie and I had embarked on a real-life version of the same trip, the Canoe Tour Through Mangroves. The long bus ride through ugly urban streets in bumper-to-bumper traffic may have taken no longer than our snaking through the line for Disney's Jungle Boat, but I found chatting with my kids among fake Amazon artifacts much more pleasant. Strike one for Cartagena: heavy city traffic that, as our guide pointed out proudly, was symptomatic of a new problem of prosperity for a city that only a dozen years ago struggled to survive.




Minnie and Emma at Minnie's House

Our bus guide Ester actually did a great job with her own patter, albeit historic rather than comedic, touting the turnaround accomplishments of President Alvaro Uribe Velez, who earned unprecendented popularity through his crackdown on drug gangs and guerrillas, as well as his pro-active macroeconomic measures, including 30 year tax exemptions for certain new businesses including resort hotels and luring cruise ships to Cartagena. 

"Without peace, there is no investment. Without investment, there are no fiscal resources for the government to invest in the welfare of the people," President Uribe wisely proclaimed to the BBC.

With prosperity comes problems like the aforementioned traffic snarls and city pollution, but formerly impoverished victims of violence find these inconveniences far preferable to immediate dangers of deadly thugs and empty bellies.  To paraphrase Anthony Robbins, when you're richer, you still have problems, but you arrive at them in a nicer car. 

In Cartagena, entrepreneurs came up with an interesting way around traffic jams: a taxi service for individual fares on the back of motorcycles that cut between cars and buses along the dotted lines.  



This heron in flight was the best of the wildlife spotted

As we watched those bikers dash past our idling bus, it looked harrowing for the passengers with no control of the steering.  For a dollar to any destination in Cartagena, however, it saves lots of drive time and has become a growth industry for industrious Columbians looking to make a buck racing their Kawasakis around city streets.



When our bus finally meandered beyond the outskirts to the town of La Boquilla, we caught a glimpse of true poverty and deprivation.  La Boquilla's concrete block hovels may be a step up from grass huts or cardboard houses when storms rage, but this village makes Ensenada look like Monte Carlo.  We were definitely in the third world, and if I had to guess based on images alone, I would have thought we were in some dilapidated dream of a crooked despot in Central Africa. 

Disneyland crowds make you happy to have shoulders to sit on

This ship excursion undoubtedly feeds several families, and many locals seemed happy to see us arrive, but the undercurrent of resentment for those who could waste money so frivolously could not be missed. 

Without question the performance by dancers of African heritage, who like the rest of the residents are descendents of slaves, was the highlight.  Dressed in white and bright yellow Spanish-style costumes, they beamed smiles as they danced merrily.  They earned tips at that time and also during their show when we returned from our mangrove tour in hand-carved canoes.

Into the Mangroves

 Our gondolier, on the other hand, turned out to be literally no more than a stick in the mud, presumably because he spoke no English, which apparently was not required by the tour company.  He dutifully paddled through the muddy water, sometimes pushing off the river bottom with his oar, but beyond that he minimized efforts to embellish the experience.

Occasionally the other couple in the boat would ask a question in Spanish, eliciting a one or two word response, but mostly he just rowed.  By comparison to Disneyland's Jungle Boat, almost nothing happened, with the occasional bird wading or flying being both the wildlife spotting and the adventure.  The limited variety and quantity of fowl disappointed me as much the lackluster presentation.

Casting his net for fish

We finally reached a clearing where we joined up with other boats to watch a native fisherman practicing his craft of net fishing.  A short time later, the master guide for the tour arrived and began to finally add some commentary about the area, but a couple of gondoliers decided at that point to become talkative, carrying on a loud conversation between canoes in some variation of Spanish.  They seemed to be having a good time, but it essentially ruined the last chance for this mangrove boat ride to measure up to any minimum standard, much less Disney.  Strike two.



Beautiful Historic Cartagena.

We returned to the third world village for another dose of dancing.  We were offered coconuts with straws in them to refresh us.  Julie and I looked at what appeared to be a recycled straw and decided not to indulge, which proved to be a wise choice when a lady on our bus who had drank hers became so ill that she had to be taken directly back to the ship by special taxi.

The rest of us didn't get the opportunity to head back early.  We were shepherded to a seedy strip mall to use the flush toilet, which turned out to be broken, and found ourselves stuck in the heat and crowds of souvenir shops for twenty minutes before we could escape back to the traffic jams of Cartagena.  Strike three.

I was ready to be out of there, but we made a stop in the historic downtown area.  This undoubtedly could have been the highlight of the trip, which I suppose is why they saved it for last, but in my mind they could have improved the experience by going there first. By the time we made it there, Cartagena had lost me.  

I really only fully came to grips with the self-fulfilling prophecy of my mindset a few weeks later, when we took our granddaughter, Emma, to Disneyland for her first time ever. 

Aunt Amy, Grandpa, Uncle Jay and Emma

Emma didn't seem to find strolling down Disney's Main Street USA or visiting Sleeping Beauty's Castle all that different than walking in New York City where she lives.  Other than Minnie Mouse's House, with a particularly exciting moment when she actually met Minnie in person, Emma really wasn't quite up to the Disneyland adventure for most of the morning.  We couldn't convince her, for example, to go on the Jungle Boat ride with us, so she waited with her Nana for us to return.

 

Only when Uncle Jay bought hot beignets in Disney's New Orleans Square did Emma perk up.  She loved them, and when they were all gone (five us shared three beignets), Emma dunked her hand in the extra powdered sugar for a little more on her fingers.  We should have thought of a sugar buzz before arriving, because she suddenly was open to the idea of "It's A Small World," which she had rejected earlier in the day.  Unfortunately, another ride we knew she'd love,  the boat trip past miniature fiarybook houses in Storybook Land, had shut down to make way for the Disney Parade.  She enjoyed watching the parade for a few minutes from a perch on Uncle Jay's shoulders, but she had missed what I'm sure she would have found to be a highlight, even if we saw most of the same little houses from the Casey Jr. Railroad, which she also relished as a wild ride.



Beautiful Balconies of Cartagena

Emma missing part of her day in Disneyland was similar to me blowing part of my precious time in Cartagena because I had checked out mentally.  However, I don't have the excuse of being only three (almost four) years old.  I should have understood that we must make the most of every opportunity.

Our guide probably filled us in on a lot of great history in this city founded by grave robbers, enriched by a slave monopoly and plundered by pirates, but I couldn't hear most of it due to the size of our group and lack of microphone/earpiece combos.  For the most part, I had tuned her out anyway.  Then again, I guess I, like many others, have been spoiled by Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean as a full sensory overload retelling of history.

Simon Bolivar

Beautiful buildings of historic Cartegena showed plenty of Spanish charm, and spending our port day there may have been as nice as our time in Cusco, if we had simply found our way there instead of taking a tour.  Julie, our cruise director who shared the name of her counterpart on "The Love Boat" TV show, happened to be on the tour with us, and she said she had indeed spent a very pleasant day doing just that on her previous visit, pointing to an inviting restaurant where she spent a couple of hours. 

I wondered if Los Angeles might have housed a similar downtown area in an alternative twist of history.

Back on the bus and into the heavy traffic again, we ran out of time to walk back to the ship through a park with a tropical bird sanctuary, which reportedly features flamingos, parrots and toucans.  Toucans seem to be everywhere as logos for the Panama Canal but in the places we visited? Not so much. 

In fact, we didn't see any toucans anywhere on our cruise, which is as disappointing as not seeing a kangaroo in Australia.  Heavy Saturday afternoon traffic took the blame for missing time at the park, but that shopping trip before the old town could have easily been eliminated to make up time.

By the end of our Disneyland day a few weeks later, Emma wasn't ready to leave.  I guess you could say I felt that way after I woke up to the loveliness of the city and the promise of the lush park with wildlife that we had to forego.  The moral of the story is to appreciate every moment.