under the sea

PADI Discover SCUBA Diving Certification
2 dives at 11 and 14 meters
Taganga, Colombia
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Or, meandian´s first time diving! :) Here are the highlights:

At 830 a.m. we met our instructor, who was a dark skinned, built, stocky friendly guy who spoke a passable amount of English. We suited up over our swim suits in the lock black wetsuits, water shoes, and sampled the fins and masks.

We sat down next to the pool and our instructor explained the equipment. The tank, vest, pressure gauges, regulator, emergency regulator, and vest inflator button. I can´t be sure if I got all the names right, as our instructor´s English was somewhat difficult to understand, but between his accented English, questions, and body language, we got the hang of it. We jumped in the pool and practiced all the exercises he explained. Clearing the mask from water, recovering a lost regulator, equalizing pressure in our ears, and signaling. I had to surface because I actually felt short of breath, mostly because it´s tough breathing through my mouth when I wasn´t used to it, but the pressure from the water actually makes it easier to inhale through the regulator, if that makes any sense. It´s a matter of believing that one (with the diving gear of course) can breathe under the water. Once submerged again, I got comfortable enough to laugh while Ian kept floating to the top.

After we finished up the exercises in the pool, it was only a few minutes until we moved down to the beach where the boat met us. No turning back. Once we had all our gear on, we fell off the boat backwards. I peaked through my mask. Fish, shiny and colorful, rocks and coral - all I had never seen before! We deflate the vest, and down we go, and it´s amazing that we could breathe, and rather comfortably once we allowed ourselves, while being surrounded by water. Between adjusting for my underwater homeostasis by paddling, kicking, equalizing pressure through my ears, and the occasional feeling of a blood vessel in my head about to burst, I enjoy my first sights of red, orange, blue, white, black, fat, skinny, and patterned fish. Coral in fewer colors, as the overcast sky didn´t let in much light, but all shapes and sizes. Our instructor points out a snake slithering through the coral.

Toward the last half of the dive, things start to get complicated. My head starts to hurt more as we go along. Finally I lose my bearings so that next thing I know, the surface is right above my head. I feel a sudden piercing, burning pain on my right wrist. And my head surfaces, it feels like its about to explode with one of the worst headaches of my life, so painful I could almost hear it. At this point, between my head and my wrist, there was no chance of a second dive any time soon.

We get on the boat, and with the rest of the group on, we head to a beach for a break. Once we eat a meager lunch, my headache has mostly subsided, but my wrist is flared in several small sites with a rash. The instructor says it´s from coral, and another diver says it could have been a shed jellyfish tentacle. The swelling doesn´t spread so I figure there´s no need to panic. The instructor pours vinegar over the area. Ian, in the meantime, felt fine, as his only concern was the air left in his tank. I had 100 p.s.i. left, he had 50 (big lungs?) by the time we finished the first time, and we weren´t sure how long the instructor planned on staying down.

This is what my first marine toxin injury looked like a few hours after coming back. It is still fading slowly, but in the meantime, it practically blends in with all the mosquito bites....

Anyway, by the time we set out for the second dive, I was physically fine, but otherwise relatively hurt and daunted by my first dive. I was nervous about the second one, but I wanted a better memory of my diving experience, and refusing a second dive would work against the grain of this interest and everyone else´s, for better or worse. It worked out for the better.

The second dive made the difference for the day. That I was shivering for a lot of the time, and getting a milder sting on my upper lip were eclipsed by this significantly better experience. Staying horizontal, primarily using my fins and not my hands to move, swallowing to equalize the pressure all made for a more relaxed excursion in the underwater zoo. Finally, returning to the surface gradually with the instructor´s help warded off any headache. Now I could crown the excursion a success.

To be honest, I think most of our time was occupied with getting comfortable with the gear and the breathing. While we enjoyed the scenery, hopefully next time we will be able to get a closer look.

We are back at our second home now, reading, writing, eating, and recuperating. We decided to cap our trip with a short run back to Tayrona, coming back here on Monday night, and get on the plane home Tuesday. If you don´t hear from us til then, again that is why. We´ll try to do some last minute shopping on Tuesday morning, so any final requests write here or email. Will check in tomorrow in the a.m. before we head off.

That was a long post, hope you guys didnt mind reading. :)

Hi M, P and families!!

ping pong

Cartagena was beautiful, and in 3 days I feel like I got a better tour of its historic highlights than even the last time I was there, as we spent a lot of time just wandering around the streets. We saw a good number of museums, and several street performances of Afro-Caribbean dances. Thsi is us at el Castillo San Felipe, one of the strongest fortresses of the Spanish empire, holding out against the British attacks on Colombia´s Caribbean coasts. That was the history lesson of our vacation. Below is the Plaza de Santo Domingo where we spent a couple hours each night drinking Aguilas (Colombian beer) and wine, listening to musicians playing from table to table, and turning away repetitive offers to buy trinkets. Just as Ian got a good bearing on the historic district where we stayed the whole time, it was time to go. We are getting a good sample of Colombia´s Caribbean coast in 2 weeks.

We took the 4 hour trip back from Cartagena around noon today. The scenery between here and there is relatively un-picturesque, in contrast to some of those in Valle del Cauca, where I had taken bus trips before. The landscape is dry and the beaches are gray, in tune with the that around Taganga and Santa Marta.

But these days, La Casa de Felipe in Taganga is like home away from home. We´re on our 3rd set of reserved nights here, and because there was nothing else available tonight, we got a suite with about 7 people´s worth of beds and a private kitchen.

After devouring dinner, as we survived the day on arepas (sort of like corn-flour pancakes) and guava bread, we´re just hanging out in the hostel here in our hammocks, reading and listening to the hippie music they play on the stereos. The question of the day is what to do with ourselves in the next four. We aim to take the mini-diving course tomorrow, which should only take the day. From there we´ll decide if we A) continue diving for another 3 days to get the open water certification, B) go back to Tayrona on Sunday and come back early on Tuesday before we leave, or C) go back to Cartagena early Sunday and take a direct bus to the Santa Marta airport on Tuesday.

M le consegui un paquete de varios cocos en Cartagena, y la revista que pidio. Ahora no puedo contar nada del buceo porque, como dije, lo vamos a hacer mañana, ojala. Todavia tengo que buscar los otros mecatos que pidio, como los tengo que recordar que son (cucas y cocadas).....

P I got your keychain.

For G & J Sabatino, Ian is doing well :) We are both a shade darker and lighter haired, I think. And Ian is maybe 5 lbs lighter. Any requests just email us to let us know. Mine is rosasparami@yahoo.com.
<-- another Taganga sunset.

Cartagena day 2

This is where we spent our weekend, el Parque Nacional Tayrona, home to the most beautiful beach we have ever seen, with Miami, New Jersey, Fort Lauderdale, Costa Rica, and the Virgin Islands between us. Sure, Costa Rica´s had the forest attached, but did it have these awesome rocks??

And was there gold in the sand, as Ian believes these shiny specs are?

We camped out for 3 nights, thus making it the longest time I have ever spent outside in fresh air. The trees from the forest made things only slightly cooler. On the second day we took about a 3 hour hike through the forest, with our lives threatened by holes between the rocks, rivaling our hike in Hawk Mountain, where if you fell off the rocks there, at least they would find your body. Here there was no chance, as underneath us were effectively caves.

Parting was hard, but we wanted to get to Cartagena. We spent Monday night back in Taganga, where a dance troupe of local knee-highs danced some afro-Colombian beats (I think it was mapale) at our hostel. Yes Ian was dancing with them!! :-) Tuesday we headed 4 hours west along the coast the next day via bus arranged through our hostel, to get to where I report from now. Cartagena is much more charming and picturesque than Santa Marta, and some prices to match, that is, in Colombian pesos. We are mostly exploring el Centro Historico (downtown historic center, see photo), where our hotel is also located. Not doing much beach time, as it´s hard to live up to what we saw over the weekend, so we´re spending most of the time checking out the museums and the sights and outside architecture, as well as not trying to spend too much on all the trinkets on the street.

So M si hay algo cartegenero que usted quiere, dile a P que me lo esriba aqui or en email antes de que salimos aqui el viernes. Y dime tambien que quiere de Santa Marta. Al menos la llamare antes de volver a USA.

btw, mi Spanish is no very good-lookeen.

Cartagena

hey everyone we are now in Cartagena. We stopped over in Taganga Monday between here and the park, which was the most beautiful we´ve ever seen. Just wanted to update. More later with pics, hopefully.

vegging

Today was relatively unconstructive. We spent most of the time giving our sunburned skin a break, and puttered around the hostel, reading newspapers, drinking beers, and devising plans on what to do with ourselves in the coming days. We decided to head up to Parque Nacional Tayrona tomorrow rather than later and hopefully stay there for the weekend.

We went into Santa Marta again to gather further provisions for our planned trip, like a pocketknife and radio. The downtown markets are a saturation of people, colors, and loudspeakers. Nothing whatsoever like Taganga, which keeps a relatively quiet pace throughout the day. This here is the town cathedral in el Centro (downtown) of Santa Marta without any name that I could find, but a nice sample of architecture.

Given that we don´t become jungle hermits in Tayrona, we are also penciling in a trip to Cartagena, another town about 4 hours away, which I have visited once and thought it would be good for both of us to see again.

So if you don´t hear from us over the weekend, it´s because we are in some otherwise unheard of beach looking out over the Caribbean for a fraction of the cost anywhere else. :-)

Here is a pic of me, since most of the ones we have are of Ian. Hi mom!! And families!!

<--- This is how we started our day. View from the hostel, eating breakfast. We didn´t care that it was raining on us, even as it was sunny on the other side of the bay.

Or when we walked over to Playa Grande, just over those hills in this picture. There was no drenching downpour, thankfully. From Playa Grande we took a boat powered by a guy delivering beer and limes to the restaurants there to the Bay of Taganga for 5000 pesos (about $2 USD). As it seems, Taganga and the beaches around it are hardly self-sustaining, and rely on shipments of inventory from Santa Marta. There isn´t even a bakery here! Where am I supposed to get breakfast if it´s not in the hotel or one of the hippy restaurants around here??

So we went into Santa Marta. Saw a tiny art museum. Toured el Centro, found ourselves an Exito (a supermarket), and got some provisions and some of the few granadillas (some exotic fruit that looks like a smooth orange on the outside and tapioca on the inside) we will ever eat in our lifetimes, because we can only get them here in Colombia.

The weather is beautiful, but after the rain this morning, the wind that gusted through the rest of the day distracted us from the sunburn we were getting. As I write it is still very windy, and I don´t know if it is supposed to let up or not.

Everything is supposed to be closed on Monday and Tuesday for the Carnaval de Barranquilla, but we are deciding to skip it in favor of diving and Parque Tayrona. We are still currently collecting information to itinerize our upcoming week. Love to everyone!!


This is how the day ends in Taganga. :-)

First glances

Our flights all ran on time, thankfully. Nyquil catered a semblance of sleep on the overnight, for me at least.

Success no. 1: dodging the taxi drivers in the airport and taking the bus into town, although we weren´t sure where to get off. A young, kind faced Colombian man on the bus who was born in Santa Marta offered some genuine help by explaining where the bus would take us and where to get off.

Success no. 2: getting to Taganga by bus isntead of taxi. Passed by a couple shanty barrios on the way. From the hill approaching it you can see huge signs for the hostels and dive shops, and between these in the town are residential houses. Other than fishing, it looks like tourism may be this town´s crutch. There are half a dozen places to dive, a litter of restaurants along the beach, and a hostel on nearly every street. There is not a single supermarket here, or a bank.

Our hostel is beautiful. A laid back but organized backpackers´ hostel. We could lounge around here all day. They serve breakfast, have high speed internet, their own kitchen. Hammocks and lounge tables are all over, and people hang out til about 11 p.m. Hardly anyone speaks English. Our room has a double bed and a single bed as well, its own bathroom and (not hot) shower, and its very own mosquito net so we didnt have to buy our own.

We spent the first day recuperating and eating, and walking around the tiny town, which it looks like you could do in about 15 minutes from one end to the other. I already have some sunburn. Today we´ll hopefully go into Santa Marta for some more provisions and hopefully get in a good walk either there or on those hills along the beach. Which, as a side note, is not as white as it looks in that pic, the sand is actually darker and grittier. We are hopefully going to make it to some of the other beaches.

Ojala, more later!