From the Magic Box!

Managed to capture a few Caribbean scenes while holidaying.

Many of these fellers were shying away among the rocks.

Local kids at the beach

Empty beer bottles on the beach

My son and his dead 'fishy.'

Casino Rio

Sailors asking for directions to 'fun.'

Broken guitar at the Hard Rock Cafe.

A local fruit seller

A Caribbean 'thulla' on a cycle.

A hawker selling his wares at the Old City.

Caribbean skylines

Pigeons at the 'Pigeon Square.'

Feeding a flock

A beautiful window grill in the Old City

Imagining a lane in the Old City

A street lamp in the old city

A busy street in the Old city

Dawn by the sea

Centuries old waters

Flying on the wave

A swimmer and a flyer

Flirting with the sea

Scouring for fish

Neat flight

Flocking in the evening

Sunset

Caribbean Delights

I have been thinking of ways to bring back the Caribbean to me. In the midst of all the paraphernalia of daily life aren’t we all looking for some time to relax? Try out these recipes during those lovely times called ‘weekends.’ Let me know if you found the Caribbean feeling in your heart.

Choco-coco

Without rum, its not Caribbean. If you can explain that to your mother, try out this recipe I discovered and named after one of the popular Caribbean drinks I tried in Cartagena, called Coco-loco (a concoction of coconut water and rum).

Ingredients:

Chocolate milk

(I made this with one of those kiddy milk shakes you get. You could use Tiger or Amul. Also, you could make it yourself. Just remember, the darker your chocolate, the yummier your drink.

Coconut milk

Sugar (preferably powder)

Rum (of course!)

Mix the sugar and the coconut milk in a bowl and set aside.

Fill your glass half way with the chocolate milk. Add the rum and then the sweetened coconut milk and go nuts!

Happy Caribbean

If your mother still didn’t agree to the first recipe, impress her with this one. A dear friend of mine gave me this simple recipe and I love it. The recipe is so easy that you’ve probably figured it by now. Its nutritious, and very Caribbean!

Ingredients:

One musk melon

Powdered jaggery (bhura)

Peel and chop the melon. Mince it in the mixer with the jaggery. Add as much as you want. If it comes out too thick add some water. Serve it chilled!

The Dann Cartagena: Mixed Impressions

The white building in the middle is the Dann

Its quite a puzzle to choose a hotel in a place you have never been. You just have pictures of models lazing about the place and the price range. After being totally confused by many such pictures, we chose Dann, Cartagena, situated in Boca Grande. And after we reached there, we were pleased and peeved in different ways.

View from our balcony

As we arrived amidst a downpour, I noted that

View from our balcony

there was no roof over the porch where our taxi parked. But as soon as the automatic glass doors opened, we entered a well lit and grand reception area. The staff was well dressed, smart and alert, 

but there was a sense of city slickness, loss of  personal touch. Our room was on the 17^th floor, and we loved it immediately. It was spacious, with a king size bed (important for us because of the kid), very good closet space, and a big balcony. We got a sideways view of the sea and the beach, flanked by the new and old city buildings, making for a brilliant skyline. Also, our room faced east, so that the morning sun flooded the room cheerfully.

The restaurant, though classily done up, was a little disappointing. Breakfast, which was complimentary, as is in most hotels, was mundane. 

The bar

 The same thing was there every day. And the dinner menu had more chicken dishes than fish! We tried the Catfish Medallion on our first night, which was delicious, but couldn’t find anything else worth ordering. However, the hotel is minutes away from the market and thus has access to several cafes and restaurants. Maybe that’s why they haven’t done anything about the restaurant.

They do have access to the beach but they don’t have a private beach. The photographs suggest otherwise. This means that you meet the entire city on the beach. It was quite crowded. And you have to pay for the chairs and tables that you use. However, their pool is unforgettable. It looms up as soon as you enter from the beach, sweaty, sandy and tired of taking care of your stuff. And you just abandon everything on one of the deck chairs, take a quick shower and plunge. The toddler pool is the safest I have seen and the Jacuzzi is a part of the pool too. And the pool bathroom showers are equipped with both shampoo and liquid bath soap. Very convenient.

For a pricey hotel, the Dann could have done better. But overall, it wasn’t all that bad. Next time if I happen to go to Cartagena again, I’ll try another hotel and let you know my opinion.

Cartagena: Bikinis and History Books

The day we arrived in Cartagena, it was raining. No wait, it was pouring! My hopes were dashed. What use was a Caribbean holiday without the sun? But thankfully, that was the last day it rained for us. The weather cleared by evening and the sun greeted us with open arms. And we set about filling our days with sea, sand, fish, coconuts and history. 

 

We had seen the old city on the way to our hotel, and were dying to go there. So next morning after a hearty breakfast, we reached the place first thing in the morning. And it was beautiful! The entire place is a Spanish settlement, reeking of history. Cartagena 
 was one of the most profitable sea ports for Spain. But after being ravaged and pillaged again and again, Spain spent a fortune on its security. Consequently, you can see tall walls, lined with cannons, solidly constructed towers and breathtaking architecture, all the works of European military engineers hired by the Spanish crown.

And the colours are breath taking! Each building looks like a huge cake done specially for some occasion. There were buildings in bright mustard, baby pink and blue, wedding cake white, butterscotch creams, you name it. And boy, did they look edible! The doors and gates too were so solid and impregnable giving an immediate sense of security.

There are a number of statues strewn all over the place. The ones I could identify with my poor historical

From the left, a statue of a pirate, India Catelina, Simon Bolivar on a horse.

knowledge were India Catelina, Pedro de Heredia and Simon Bolivar. India Catelina was an indigenous tribal woman who assisted Pedro de Heredia in the Spanish conquest of Colombia. Simon Bolivar, a Latin American freedom fighter, has his own square too. There is a quaint little park built around his statue where hundreds of pigeons flock on a daily basis. My son had a good time here.

 Now, this entire place has been transformed into a shopping centre. You have a Benetton, a Hard Rock Café and many other contemporary shops. The goods are modern, but the setting is classy colonial. All I wanted to do is get into a long fluffy gown with a bonnet and shop till I dropped.

We were pretty tired by the time we were done with this place, so after clicking a few pictures of a few old

A 'coache

fashioned galleys docked nearby, we left. But hey, we hadn’t had enough. In the evening we hired a horse carriage, locally called ‘coache,’ for a night tour of the old city. It was perfect. We rode into a cool breeze, past traffic and modern roads, yet feeling like royalty on a surprise visit. With all the lights blazing, the old city shone with an indescribable brilliance. Our carriage driver pointed out a lot of things but our poor Spanish didn’t help. Especially since Cartagena has a different dialect from Medellin. The night tour took around an hour after which we dined on fish at our hotel restaurant and called it a day.

Old City skyline at dawn

The clock tower in the Old City

A row of lights of the Old City at night

Brilliant lights of the Old City

Freddie's shack

Octopus and Cocolemonada

Next morning, we reached the beach early, around seven. After booking some chairs for us, we got busy. My son had his sand castles to build and a dead fish he found on the sand kept him company. I got a massage from Isabella whose hands I wanted to buy and take home. And my husband made friends with Freddie who owned a little shack of a restaurant on the beach. He kept us well provided with fish fry, crab in marinara sauce, octopus (which surprisingly I loved) and the various, refreshing drinks such as coco lemonada, maracuya juice etc. etc. By around mid-day when the sun started getting hotter, we thought we were done. But then we saw the pool. So we lazed around there for a while, shampooed, showered, and then fell flat on our faces in our bed and snored off. 

In the evening we shopped a bit for souvenirs, our Indian haggling skills in action. People were shrewd but jolly and sympathetic to our Spanish. And dinner was fish again. In the middle of the night, when we had to leave for the airport, it just seemed cruel. I can still close my eyes and see the Caribbean stretching in front of me, with miles of lazy sand telling me that I really need them. But alas! Drab daily routine wakes me up.