The doorbell rang on Saturday afternoon. Five girls, ages nine to ten, clamored around my door, waving sheets of paper and talking all at once.

“Wait,” I laughed. “One person at a time.”

“We’re on a birthday party scavenger hunt,” squealed the smallest one who also seemed to command more authority than her size projected. (As the runt of the litter in my family, I loved it!)

“What do you need?” I asked.

Turned out they all were on the same team. The smallest girl held the master list of what items remained.

“Spool of thread.”  Check:  I found an orange spool from some long forgotten Halloween costume.

“A bar of hotel soap.” Nope. We used it all up.

“A packet of seed.”  Check. My husband raced to the garage and came back with herbs as seeds.

“A balloon.”  Nope. Now that the kids are older, I just didn’t have that in the toy box any more.

“A grocery store receipt.” Check.  I told the girls they would love me because few people keep grocery receipts.

Two “nopes” and three “checks”.  Not bad. The girls raced off for the missing balloon and the hotel soap.

Late that night, I thought about the scavenger hunt and resiliency. There are parallels. When life hands us “something” to deal with, the most adaptable among us look for many answers.  It requires a willingness to ask for help.  Sometimes, we must ask strangers.

When one request doesn’t work, move on. “Next” becomes a mantra.

Lastly, don’t go alone if you can help it.  Find people who care about you, who have possibly been in that situation, and who also have a sense of positive expectancy.

A scavenger is one who removes garbage from the street. In like manner, the scavenger hunt as I described above is to seek help getting rid of what might feel like garbage in your life.

If you’re in this place, start ringing some door bells.

If you missed the first post about my trip to Bogata you can view it here Part One.

At the close of the conference, we retreat to Cartagena for three days of rest and relaxation and—of course. adventure. After all, isn’t this the city where Michael Douglas chased emerald thieves and won the heart of Kathleen Turner? (Surprise! While the script kept throwing out Cartagena, the movie was shot in Mexico!)

Nevertheless, the walled fortress of the old city, named by UNESCO as a world heritage site, is immediately sweltering in humidity– a contrast to cold/wet Bogota at 10,000 feet in the Andes.  Thankfully, a heads-up from my well-traveled sister kept us out of Bocagrande (think South Beach with hundreds more beachgoers and vendors).  Bantu Hotel, a 25-unit boutique two-story, sits on a side street, within walking distance of the plaza where Gabriel Garcia Marquez perched his characters for Love in the Time of Cholera.

My readers don’t need the blow-by-blow details.  Let my pictures speak of the Caribbean colors, the bougainvillea cascading from incredibly tiny pots, the fascinating door knockers urging entrance to cool atriums, and the industrious stamina of resilient vendors who try in every way to earn pesos. Poverty abounds and yet I see only three people begging. Everyone else is trying to earn a living—including the black-painted human statues who stand in the blazing sun, hoping someone will drop money in a pot in exchange for taking a picture.

Resiliency! In my broken Spanish, I tell my painted fisherman that he has much courage to do what he does. Suddenly, a huge smile breaks across his face like a sunbeam after a thunderstorm. He reaches out so I can shake his hand. In a heartbeat, I know my words mean more than the pesos in the pot. Why do I not do this more?

Despite all the “no gracias” I  utter to vendors wanting me to buy everything from sunhats to sunglasses, from beads to watches, from Botero replicas to knock-off oil paintings, I am never harassed or bothered. “No” just means “Next”. Another lesson to remember when my proposals are turned down!

Juan Valdez coffee supplants Starbucks and ceviche becomes our daily fare. We don’t need to rely on a taxi driver and my limited English to get around. Cartagena-native Angelina Calvo, a colleague in the training & development field and now director for the undergraduate language program at the Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, becomes our  most gracious host and guide.  Fluent in English and French, she offers a glimpse into other worlds outside the ancient city. We feel her passion to teach English as a second language, thus increasing employment chances in the growing hospitality field.

From a city made famous by Spanish galleons loaded with stolen gold to a city made infamous with its  hundreds of years of a hateful slave trade, Cartagena still evokes mystery and yes—romance. Even if one has a heart of stone.