Sweaty Shoe Money.

I’m sure many of you may have been surprised to learn that we decided to travel to Colombia (or perhaps not, knowing me) because of the country’s reputation as being dangerous and deep into the drug trade. Well rest assured, the negative reputation is becoming something of the past and in recent years, safety has greatly improved. In fact, Cartagena has been touted as one of the safest cities in South America. I cannot attest to that, but I can say that we have never felt that we were ever in any danger. There are in fact, hundreds of la policia that patrol the streets, particularly the many plazas throughout the city. On our second day here, there were actually two incidents that occurred in the streets outside our hotel -- I’m not sure what happened (a small theft maybe?), but there were lots of spectators, lots of talking, and soon after, more than a few policia huddled around…a much quicker turn around time than anything I’ve ever seen in the States.

Despite the safeness of the city, we have taken multiple precautions, which I’m sure you will be happy to hear. Luckily for me perhaps, Andy is much more conscientious about these things than myself, who tends to trust everyone and everything. Pretty much anything and everything of value is left at the hotel (obviously trusting the hotel staff is key) and we only carry a set amount of money with us. While this is a great method for ensuring that we are not robbed of a large amount of money (or credit cards, ID, etc. which we have not been carrying around), the downside is that you can find yourself in a situation where you might not actually have enough money. No that didn’t happen to us…But, on our last night out to dinner, we did in fact, have to pre-calculate how much our dinner would cost before ordering to make sure that we would have enough money to pay. We actually thought that Andy might have to dig around in the bottom of his shoe (his secret stash) to cover the cost of our meal. Luckily the waiter collecting our payment did not have to suffer and handle the sweaty shoe money!

kl.