Mompox is hotter than Hades, and Rusty doesn’t like that. But we have dragged him out on the streets with us and just to prove that I have some pictures of Rusty, hotter than ever, with a beautiful city as a backdrop. While this is going on I’m hoping I shall be driving GANNET2 out of a container at the docks in Cartagena. More on that tomorrow; meanwhile Rusty in Mompox.
The waterfront:
I have a photo of Rusty staring out at the St Lawrence River when we took him to Québec City a few months after we rescued him in 2016. Now I have a picture of him strolling past Colombia’s Magdalena River. Cool.
I hope it looks as hot as it felt. I washed my shirt in the sink when we got back to the room to rinse the salt out. That’s how hot it was.
Lunch: a Mompox sausage patty with a soft fried sweet plantain on top and a corn cake-arepa-on top.
Rusty was on a water diet which he appreciated deeply.
Staying well out of the sun:
A water mark on the river front shows where severe flood level in November 2010 wrecked the city:
Be surprised: this is a famous tourist attraction in Mompox and everyone comes by. Here? Yup this is the Bolivar Rock (“Piedra de Bolivar”).
It lists the dates he visited the city starting with the visit that made him
and Mompox famous. 400 men volunteered to march with him to capture Caracas and demand freedom from Spain which took a few battles to achieve. But it started here.
Every single visit noted, which gives you some idea of how he was viewed.
He arrived May 18th 1830 before continuing downriver to die in Santa Marta months later.
These two nice women were sitting in the heat and sold Layne some earrings and a bottle of local wine made from a fruit with a tart dry flavor similar to passion fruit. We had some at lunch and I liked it.
Filigree silver, where filigree is thin strands woven into lovely designs.
The ladies said the guy panning for gold had no chance but I hoped he struck it. Mompox has a history of gold and silver art.
Rusty wanted to rest back where we had lunch. No chance…we wanted air conditioning and we are the humans here.
We shocked the kids when we addressed them in Spanish and the boys nearby laughed and the girls laughed and it was a moment we never had in Panama.
I’m dropping off a Longmire novel I brought from the Boquete campground and I’m picking up a Bourdain memoir I found in the German dominated bookshelf here.
Goodbye Mompox it was nice knowing you.
