{"id":39,"date":"2008-06-08T11:10:36","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T18:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=39"},"modified":"2008-06-08T11:31:02","modified_gmt":"2008-06-08T18:31:02","slug":"cartagena-dancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Cartagena: Dancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cartagena
\n A wedding of two friends in Cartagena last week was a good excuse to end the vacation drought my wife and I have been in. We’d been working non-stop for about 18 months <\/strong>and whenever a getaway window opened we’d manage to slam it shut for one reason or another. So, when the couldn’t-say-no-because-we’d-help-bring-them-together invite to the boda <\/em>in Colombia came, we jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t leave work behind completely, though, so I pitched a travel story to local magazine<\/strong>, packed a camera bag and booked a room in a luscious hotel <\/a>fronting the Caribbean at a wedding rate that was 60 percent of rack.<\/p>\n

Cartagena<\/a> has hit the travel-writing radar lately. The New York Times just did a 36-hours-in-Cartagena piece<\/a>, as did Travel & Leisure<\/a>, which called it:<\/p>\n

” … one of the prettiest cities anywhere: Imagine Havana with a fraction of the population, or San Juan or New Orleans without the sophomores on spring break. It\u2019s both crumbling and majestic.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree with all that, and would add that Cartagena is also home to some of the most beautiful human beings — women and men — I’ve ever seen. Skin colors range from the deep cocoas of the Afro-Caribbeans, to the mochas of the native South Americans, to the near ivory blanco<\/em> of descendants the European pirates who pillaged the Colombian coast for centuries.<\/p>\n

The dancer above was one of a troupe who accompanied the wedding party on its short walk back from the (blessedly air-conditioned) Iglesia Santo Toribio<\/em><\/a> to the Sofitel Santa Clara Hotel<\/a>. (The photo was shot with an SB800 on camera, using balanced TTL and rear-curtain shutter.)<\/p>\n

The old-walled city of Cartagena was beautiful and a delight to photograph<\/strong>. The newer sections of town (where most people live) was a standard Latin America mix — flourishes of prosperity set amid wider pockets of poverty. The beaches were wide, the sand heavily tramped down (except on the outlying Islas del Rosario<\/a>), and the water 80 degrees.<\/p>\n

Fish fresh from the sea dominated menus — robalo<\/em>, mero<\/em> and, especially, pargo<\/em> (red snapper). Street vendors fried up crunchy corn fritters <\/strong>called arepas<\/a>, <\/em>some filled with eggs, cheese and meat. Eating one was not an option.<\/p>\n

Nothing, though, beat colder-than-cold limonadas, <\/em>especially those made in a blender with lime juice, sugar, ice and club soda. Add in some leche de coco<\/em> (coconut milk) and you get a concoction we gringos dubbed a Key Lime Pie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wedding of two friends in Cartagena last week was a good excuse to end the vacation drought my wife and I have been in. 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