Run With The Wolfies

On a narrow street of the old town, a man skips down the sidewalk singing while dodging carts, pedestrians, and gaggles of students. Another man, making his way to join friends in a plaza, whistles a festive melody, passing lovers on a park bench, lost in their own world. The outwardly blithe nature of costanas, people of the coast, surprises me given the painful decades Colombia has endured.

Following the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948, a revered leader of the Liberal Party, a period called "the Violencia" brought 20 years of conflict between Colombia’s liberals and conservatives, resulting in countless casualties. In class our teacher talks about further conflict initiated by FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group that initially took on a Robin Hood-like role, fighting on behalf of the peasants. Over time the FARC became embroiled in the drug trade and bombings that terrorized people especially in Bogota, the nation’s capitol. I wonder how people in a country that has seen so much strife, can remain so sanguine. Could it be the music?

I step into the mirrored room of Crazy Salsa — the humble school where I take a Spanish class by day morphs into a salsa school by evening. Mauricio, a dark man with the build of a soccer player, introduces himself with a warm smile. I expect a group, but it is just me and Mauricio. Mauricio puts on a romantic salsa tune: Abeja al Panal by Juan Luis Guerra. We start with a basic salsa step then Mauricio teaches me the Cuban salsa step. Before I know it, we are moving all around the room turning as though painting the floor with strokes and swirls. I count my steps carefully but, with the rhythmic swinging salsa music, I almost forget myself and sail into the sensual, dreamy Latin world. Mauricio moves gracefully, instinctively, without thinking — the music is not coming from the stereo, it is in his body, in his soul. He guides me from counting 1-2-3-4 to feeling like I can truly salsa! Okay, I am not like Milady Teran, a Columbian salsa world champion, but I feel maravillosa! This is the most fun I’ve had in Colombia!

I ask Mauricio for salsa music suggestions and he scratches a short list of musicians on a slip of paper for me:

* Joe Arollo

* Grupe Niche

* Franki Ruiz

* Hector Lavoe

Maybe this list is a of ingredients for happiness!

Each morning a glass pitcher of fresh, mysterious juice entices me at breakfast. The ladies who serve the desayuno bring fruit from the kitchen to show me what I am drinking. The other day the bended orange beverage was made from a pulpy fruit called tomate de árbol; today a lady shows me cerezas, a sort of tropical cherry with the zip of a current, used for this morning’s crisp drink.

Arepas cooked at fire

An Arepa (a fried patty made from corn flour) accompanies my eggs. The peace of my hotel, tucked in a hushed alley of San Diego with palm-filled courtyards, contrasts with the commotion on the streets and squares of the old town.

Dodging traffic and sales people on the streets is like a game of Pacman and requires some skill! Before you cross the street, you need to check where the cars are , gauge their distance, and decide whether to make a dash for it. They may or may not stop, so it is best to err on the safe side. Once you are happily on the sidewalk, you need to watch for vendors and promoters. It seems that every store has someone positioned outside whose job it is to lure you in. (This is how I met Jose outside his neighborhood restaurant.) Most of these savvy fellows work for emerald shops — Cartagena has as many emerald shops as Seattle has coffee houses Your task is to say "no gracias" and keep moving. If you break down and go inside, you might anticipate pressure akin to facing a firing squad;instead the sales people are so polite and easy going that if you decide not to buy anything, they will happily engage in a conversation then cheerfully wish you un buen dia.

Emerging from my hotel room is like entering a steam bath: my sun glasses glaze with mist. After breakfast with fresh mango, pineapple, papaya and juices that I can’t identify, I stroll around the corner for my lesson with Victoria. As we practice the preterito indefintivo, a carretillero passes by our window pushing a cart of fruits and calling out as though he were leading a parade. The carretilleros, named for the carts they use, are on each street and square selling everything from pastries to socks. Some pour sweetened Colombian coffee from thermoses while others deep fry dough filled with cheese right next to the sidewalk. After my classes I go to see Jose for a lunch of fried fish, rice, beans, and cabbage salad.

Jose see me wince when he brings a hot soup to go with my meal. The heat is smothering and they cheerfully eat soup here with the menu del dia! When I finish my fish, I see Jose run to an ice cream carretillero and dash back with a cup of icy vanilla soft serve. He gives it to me with a smile as wide as the Caribbean! We chat for a while and I learn that he is from a family with 5 children and that his mother is very ill. I search my limited vocabulary for the right words, and all I manage to say is lo siento. It is times like this that I wish I had the Spanish of Gabriel García Márquez. Jose is just one of my favorite people in my neighborhood in San Diego.

I go to see Elmer and Victoria at their tienda, no bigger than a walk-in closet. As we visit, Victoria explains that she is from Bogota, but she prefers the tranquil atmosphere and sunshine over the capital’s frenetic pace and gloomy clouds. We share stories about the United States and Columbia and they help me with my Spanish. In the end, I buy a mochila made from finely woven cotton with orange, turquoise, and yellow geometric shapes, mostly because it will be a nice way to remember them. I leave to head back to school to watch a Colombian movie with my classmates.

I almost dread "Maria Full of Grace" since I saw it years ago and remember its heart-ripping story. The movie is the tale of a desperate, pregnant girl who serves as a "mule" carrying ingested drugs from Columbia to the United States. Our teacher explains that the drug violence has diminished greatly in Columbia with the unrest being pushed mostly to the south, closer to the Amazon region. He talks about how Pablo Escobar, drug lord and once the second richest man in the world, committed suicide to avoid being captured. We talk about how the opportunistic drug trade is erupting in Mexico and seems to have no end as long as the demand, like a starving dog, remains insatiable.

At lunch time, we join other students at a restaurant where I order chicken in a passion fruit salsa. Then I am off to do more exploring. A the Simon Bolivar Plaza, named for the famous liberator of Columbia, a man plays a trumpet from the balcony of the government building. Beneath umbrella-like palm trees, men sit at rows of little tables concentrating intently on their chess matches. An elderly fellow seems to have a steady business going shining shoes. As the evening approaches, horse carriages line up to take tourists for a tour of the old town. As I make my way back to the hotel, I pause to talk a brother and sister who work at the jewelry shop on the corner of my street.

Of course the grand emerald I admire framed in silver filigree (Columbia is famous for its emeralds) is far to dear for my budget, but it is fun to look. The brother tells me they are from Saint Andres Island, that has "the most beautiful beaches in Columbia". He came to study in Cartagena but stayed when to marry his girlfriend after she got pregnant. It is amazing how open people when you stop to talk to them — after about 10 minutes they will share all kinds of personal stories. On their island they speak English, Spanish and Creole. He is proud to be trilingual and encourages me to keep going with my Spanish. So I return to my hotel to study the preterito indefinido.

Day 3

One of the benefits of traveling alone is that you come to appreciate your own company. I am enjoying wandering around the city, and today I decide to explore the small Modern Art Museum, a rustic building in the old town. I study the paintings and sculptures of Enrique Grau, a celebrated artist of Cartagena. In the center panel of his triptych the Virgin Mary floats in the heavens as a sky diver jumps from a biplane; in the next panel, the skydiver, guided by angels, sails down into a bull fighting ring. I’m not sure if there is bull fighting here, so I will need to ask my teacher.

Around the corner from my hotel Elmer and Victoria own a tiny shop. I stop and talk to Elmer. He wants to practice his English and I want to practice Spanish, so we switch back and forth. He is so eager to tell foreigners about his country because he is afraid that all we hear are the stories of drugs and violence. He explains to me about the different indigenous groups who make the woven bags and the molas he sells. The mochila bags, created by the Arhuco tribe of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, have brown, beige and grey geometric patterns and are made from sheep and goat wool.

Day 4

I go to mass at the Church of San Pedro Claver then visit the adjacent convento. Columbia, you may have guessed, is very Catholic. In the service, a youthful group plays songs including a tune from Godspell — all in Spanish of course. I couldn’t grasp too much of what the priest was saying, but I was able to read along in my pamphlet about the themes of equality and social justice. The grand baroque marble altar and the stained glass windows in the dome, set the stage for a spiritual moment. But the convento makes a greater impression: the furnishings and paintings tell the story of San Pedro Claver called "a slave of the slaves" because of his devotion to improving the lives of the African Caribbean slaves in the 1600s. With all the sordid events of the colonial period, including steeling gold from indigenous people and bringing slaves from Afica, Claver’s story was a bit comforting.

San Pedro Claver Monument

Back at my hotel,

I sit in the delightful courtyard listening to a fellow from a nearby balcony playing guitar. Some gorgeous yellow birds are roosting in a palm and singing exuberantly. I begin to write about Cartagena for our World Heritage Site app.

Mom’s Adventure

Last fall my children both took off for college and the house grew quiet as a morgue. My wildly enthusiastic standard poodle had passed away the previous spring, so not even he could break the stillness. Only our daughter’s lop rabbit stayed behind to hop around the kitchen. After years of encouraging the kids as they slogged through their AP classes; managing the household while their dad ventured to Madagascar, Mongolia, and Antarctica; and sitting in my office staring at my computer, it was time for me to have an adventure all my own.

An opportunity arose for me to assist Wolf with an assignment shooting in Columbia. I decided I would stay after our trip to study Spanish in Cartagena — remember "Romancing the Stone"? A friend had recommended it as a good place to learn the language. I had never heard much about this Caribbean city, so I was surprised when it suddenly grabbed the news before our departure with the CIA scandal. Now my trip with Wolf has ended, and my sojourn has begun.

So here I am settling in at a little hotel around the corner from my school. The Spanish language school is a sparse, two-room building, and for the moment, it seems I may be the only student! My teacher, Victoria, is a young woman, very knowledgeable about grammar and linguistics. She speaks to me only in Spanish: I wanted immersion and that is what I am getting! There are no books, so today we speak about ourselves for two hours. I leave with a long list of new parablas to use here in town.

Jose, who works at a restaurant on a square near my little hotel, greets me and encourages me to come for dinner. Jose is one of the only corpulent fellows I have seen in Cartagena, where people pride themselves on their fitness and beauty. I met this round-faced fellow with a playful smile the other day when he was recruiting customers. Now he greets me shaking my hand. In the local heat, with humidity thick like butter, I enjoy the blended lemonade made from fresh-squeezed limes and crushed ice. Thank goodness for Jose because I have just realized that I am all alone. I have been wondering if this was such a clever idea after all.

On my walk back from the grocery store, a beautiful, slender black woman says, "Lady, I think I know you." Indeed, it is Caroline, the lovely daughter of our tour guide. We chat and I tell her about my challenging Spanish class. It is so exciting and heartening to already know someone else in the city.

I am ready to go to sleep now. Maybe this will workout okay after all!

Day 2

I am learning to navigate the old city. When I set out, I pass Jose who gives me a smile and wave. I need to keep stepping onto the streets because men set up boxes on the sidewalks: they sit on coolers, crates — whatever they can find — and play cards. Vendors arrange tables on the walkways to sell all kinds of homemade sweets, fruit compotes, and preserves. I cheerfully make my way to my Spanish class to see one of the three people I know in the city. Victoria is pleased to see me. She and I are still the only people in the tiny school. Today I learn that she has a 2-year-old girl. She needed to leave university for a while to have her baby, but she returned to finish her degree. She tells me that her baby loves a movie about a modern-day Rapunzel. Many people here learn their English from watching American movies, but she says that when she was little she had no television, VCR, or radio. I am so impressed that a young woman, in her twenties, who had so little, showed such determination. When we talk about university and I tell her what it costs in the United States, she stares at me in disbelief. After class I make my first trip to the grocery store.

In the little shop I gather water, yogurt and other snacks. At the checkout a friendly looking mom in line gestures to show me where to put my groceries. I pull out my rolled bag from home as I watch all the plastic bags marching out the door.  I recall plastic bags clinging like birds to the trees along the Caribbean shore. Oddly I feel like I should tell someone, "I know we were the ones that brought you this great idea of plastic disposable bags, but now we’d like to tell you that we were wrong, and you were right with your reusable totes made from nets and natural fibers. Sorry about that. Can you please go back to what you were doing before we came along and literally messed things up?" But instead I pile my purchases into my sack and stroll out. It has taken me many years to get this habit down; I wonder how long it will take here.

On Sunday I taught the Seattle Center Composition Photography Workshop. We got a sneak preview of the new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit which will open in about three weeks. Here are a few images we were able to take from outside of the construction zone.

As a professional travel photographer, Wolf has traveled to over 160 countries around the world. We continue the countdown of his top 10 favorite destinations.

by Michelle Alten

Wolfgang rises before dawn, hops in a four-wheel drive, and rumbles through Botswana’s Okavango Delta, scanning the grassy plains for wildlife. He spots a lioness and her three cubs prowling through wispy brush, searching for prey. Discovering a cluster of foraging warthogs, the lioness begins teaching her cubs the art of hunting. She carefully places her young on one side of the swine then stealthily creeps through the tangle of tall grass to the other side of the beasts. She makes her strategy was clear: you youngsters approach our prey; when the hogs get scared, they will stampede right into my trap. But an impatient cub moves before mom is ready and the startled warthogs dash away. The next day, Wolfgang finds the same group back for lesson two. This time the cubs wait. Once mom positions herself, they chase the hogs into the lioness’s ambush: the fattest critter lands right in the mother’s jowls. It is this opportunity to witness untamed Africa that makes Botswana Wolfgang’s second favorite destination in the world.

In Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Wolf photographs wild dogs tracking lechwe, leopards dragging their bounty up trees to keep it from other predators, and baboon families as they preen and care for each other. The region’s unique environment makes it one of the world’s most spectacular wildlife havens. Here water courses through the land like blood-filled veins and the earth pulses with life. Predators thrive in the water-soaked environment finding a wealth of creatures to hunt. The abundant bio-diversity means zebras, giraffes, impalas, buffalo, hippos, elephants, cheetahs and countless other mammals, along with over 400 bird species, inhabit the region.

Wolfgang has been traveling to Botswana to photograph the wildlife since 1994 when he was first inspired by the magnificent African wilderness. While he laments that earlier, more rustic camps have been replaced with luxury safari lodges, Wolf is still crazy about Botswana and will return in 2014 to follow wild dog hunts, observe intriguing elephant behavior, and capture a Cheetah chase.

Together with professional photographer Bill Durrence, I will be teaching a photo trek for the Mentor Series in Nova Scotia, Canada. In Nova Scotia, one of my favorite destinations in North America, we will photograph small, colorful fishing villages, lighthouses such as the one at Peggy’s Cove, wildlife, and pristine scenery. This will be an action-packed workshop from which you will come away with stunning photographs. You will learn not only in the field, but also from presentations and reviews of your portfolio, which will give you more ideas and direction for your photography.

For more information please feel free to contact me (photos@wkaehlerphoto.com) or the Mentor Series at:

http://www.mentorseries.com/treks/2012/nova-scotia-2012

As a professional travel photographer, Wolf has traveled to over 160 countries around the world. We continue the countdown of his top 10 favorite destinations.

by Michelle Alten

Wolfgang’s Top 10 – #3 The Pantanal, Brazil

In Brazil’s Pantanal region Wolfgang rumbles over marshes in a four-wheel drive, scanning the watery landscape for armadillos, giant anteaters, capybaras, and other wild denizens. Dozens of black-hooded parakeets fill the sky like a dazzling chartreuse cloud, while storks wade in a quiet pool. As he travels on, he spots caimans sunning themselves next to a small pond. Wolf climbs out of the vehicle, surreptitiously drops down to his belly, and with his wide angle mounted on his camera, begins slithering through mud and grass towards one of the caimans. Trying to get close enough to capture the reptile with the sky’s billowing clouds in the background, he continues until he is within two feet and eye-to-eye with the reptile. Wolf shoots a few photos before the caiman dashes off into the pond. While he is pleased, Wolf insists, “This is one thing you don’t want to do with crocs in Africa or alligators in the Everglades!”

Wolfgang loves the Pantanal because the wildlife show’s little concern for photographers and other visitors; this makes it possible to approach animals and get that perfect shot. Also, in this unique region, wildlife coexists with ranches and cattle. Staying at working ranches gives Wolf a chance to observe the region’s pantaneros, Brazilian cowboys, on horseback as they round up their cattle. Staying at a ranch also means ending the day with home-cooked Brazilian dinners including juicy steaks.

One day, after a safari photographing giant otters frolicking in a river and hyacinth macaws lacing the sky, Wolf watches the sun swath the horizon in glowing carmine. As darkness falls he heads out to scan the landscape for creatures on a night hunt. An ocelot, prowling through a thicket of tall grass, appears in the beam of the headlights. The magnificent cat, glares at the intruders, and then continues its search for prey. Before heading back, a surprised, striped owl appears in the darkness roosting on a fence post. Its curious countenance adds to the success of the nighttime scavenger hunt.