A long day with near disasters, and a new day with street dogs

In our trip from NYC to Colombia little went as planned. We left the apartment to face the 18 degree New York morning before 5 am, and as we rolled into JFK we came to an unsettling realization...Our flight left from LaGuardia not JFK. Hurriedly, we grabbed the first cab and made it to LaGuardia in time to purchase a sandwich and board the plane. Our pockets a little lighter from the mistake.

Second flight.
We thought everything was going according to plan, but as we exited our plane in Fort Lauderdale we heard the final boarding call for our flight to Cartagena. Again we rushed through the terminal and just made it. We just had to skip the lunch that we both badly needed, and Spirit Air serves no food and makes you pay for everything (but at least the tickets were cheap).

Cartagena.
When we arrived in Cartagena, there was a nice breeze as we approached our immgration agents. [f] had no problem getting the 60 day visa when she explained our plans, however I was not so lucky. The agent refused to give me a 60 visa and instead gave me the inadequate 30 day visa. Likely, it´s going to cost money and time for me to try to get this fixed. After we left immigration our ride was waiting for us, but instead of taking us to our hotel, they hurried us out of the car at our homestay, which we´re not staying at until next week. After about an hour of iced tea and awkward confused conversation, our host got us a taxi and we finally arrived at our hotel. Completely overwhelmed by our new environment we dazedly found our way to a suitable restaurant where we enjoyed our first Colombian-made meal of Vindaloo indian chicken, and housemade german sausage...We both slept soundly and trusted that tomorrow would prove more relaxing and enjoyable then the day we had just been through...

Hola- as they say here. It´s day two of our stay in Cartagena. After a thorough night´s sleep, we woke up ready to give it another go. Our hotel provided a simple but pleasing breakfast of bread and fruit so we were able to start our day off well. Our goal for today was to orient ourselves a little better to the somewhat unusual street structure, and to find our language school in prepartion of our expected 8 AM arrival on Monday morning. We were able to easily work our way to the other side of town this time, and succeeded in finding our way back just as easily, with the occasional detour for camarones (shrimp cocktails- not the tiny little U.S. shrimps), and ferral dog watching (they all seem to be at various states of pregnant and nursing, which isn´t surprising as the male dogs´ bits are huge). We haven´t seen any cats yet- I imagine the heat would make any sane cat promptly commit suicide. For lunch we headed to the Cafe Mulatta where we enjoyed a starter of fish-part soup (we each got an eyeball, a couple of fins, and a lot of bones). We lucked out with our entrees. Our language skills are pretty minimal (non-existent for me) so ordering food is still somewhat of a challenge. 

We´re spending our afternoon back at the hotel, and plan on heading to Plaza de Santo Domingo this evening to catch some of the festival happening this weekend. Tomorrow, we plan to take in the beaches for a little while in Boca Grande- and maybe find a wi-fi hotspot.