Goodbye Cartagena Hello Santa Marta

Our last day in Cartagena, we spent walking about the old part of the city. The city is beautiful, all the houses have adorable little balconies with flowers growing on them. We saw some beautiful Churches and historical sights. 

Walking towards the main square

Pigeons all over the place! Doesn't she look lovely in her hat?

The Clocktower

Awesome tree! That's Dominic hiding from the sun

Hanging flower baskets made from tires!

Church tower

Beautiful balcony

This was the church where St. Peter Claver is buried. They had his body on display and lets just say he wasn't one of the incorruptibles.

The Cathedral

Another beautiful church

 There were several monasteries that had been turned into the most beautiful hotels ever. In one of the monastery hotels there was a toucan  It was so cute.

Monastery Garden

Beautiful orchids in the monastery

Pretty toucan! I named it Philip, he was such a Philip type.

We found a place to eat dinner and had some pretty good food. After mom and I finished eating we walked to a store a few blocks away while the rest of the family finished eating. As we were checking out we saw a little boy in a blue shirt streak by the shop door. My mom though it looked a little like Javier and Dominic looked out to see if it was him. He said he thought it was him. We were a little worried cause we he wasn't with anyone but assumed that dad would be following. Well he was following but from a long way behind. Dad had left the kids to go wash his hands and when he returned Javier was gone. The girls didn't seem to know where he had gone (afterwords they told us though). They walked to the store where we were hoping that he had come there. We were all a little freaked out Cartagena was a big city. Dad, Sofia and I went looking for him. Dad went back to the restaurant while Sofia and I went to the main square. We looked and looked but didn't find him. We returned to the little park where we had left everyone else and found a group of people who were helping find him. One of them told me that they had seen us looking very worried and so had come to see if she could help. Most of them spoke English and translated for the ones who didn't. Mostly they just stayed with us so that mom and dad could go look for Javier. My mom decided to ask the police if they had seen him. She found one and he called someone on his radio and said that they had a little boy. Mom took Dominic (she wasn't taking anymore chances with losing children) and followed him, Javier was sitting with a group of policemen drinking pop. He only looked a little scared. She brought him back to us and when I first saw him I wasn't sure whether I should hug him or shake him. We walked back to our hotel with a firm grip on Javier's hands. When we got back we used Google Translate (our worst, best friend) to get him to tell us why he had left dad. He said that he had gone to the park to look for more fruit (earlier we had been picking little fruits of a tree) and then he had gone to find me and mom (dad showed him where wee were on the map because he was asking). As he was trying to find us he got lost and scared. After a while he stopped and asked a policemen where his family was. They kept him until my mom went and got him. We were all relieved that we had found him but resolved never ever to let him out of our sight again (I thought we should get a leash for him).

Monday morning a bus arrived at our hotel to drive us to Santa Marta. We were hoping to not have many people on the bus with us but instead it was full. Behind my mom and I were three young men who would not stop talking the whole 4 hour trip. They sounded so uneducated it was pathetic. Crass language and talking about women in ways that made me want to slap them. We were also driving through the "third world" part of Colombia. I don't really find looking at that very fun. It just makes me feel sad. Ugg, not the most pleasant drive. 

A whole family on one motercycle

The countryside we were driving through

After arriving at our hotel we ate dinner went swimming in the pool  and went to bed. The next morning we all got up early to say goodbye to dad. He left for the funeral Tuesday morning and will be back Friday night. We are all very sad that we couldn't go to the funeral. The kids still don't seem to understand why we are sad. They've never had anyone to love so they just seem a little annoyed with me when I cry. They've asked mom how long I'll be sad for. It's a little hard not having them understand. Yesterday was one of the hardest days we've had. It takes both mom and dad to watch the kids so without dad it was a little scary. All the kids seem to want to do is watch spanish TV. They don't understand that if they watch spanish TV all the time they won't learn English. So as you can imagine there have been a few battles with that. Today has been much better though.

The sunsets here are beautiful. The first night was better then the second but I didn't have a camera so here are a few pictures from the second night. None of these pictures do it justice though. It was so much more vibrant in person.

Such a beautiful pink sun 

People canoeing under the setting sun

Fishing boat 

Bye-bye sun!

During the day here it is hot and sunny. I of course very stupidly got a bad sunburn on my shoulders. I'm just stupid that way (mom agrees). Sofia got burned too. So we've both been very tired. I am enjoying the sun very much. That is the only thing that I am not looking forward to about going home. No sun there... I guess I will just have to soak up enough here to last me a few months.

<3