I’ve been gone for a while, but as they say, “all good things must come to an end.”

It has been an eventful few weeks.

Tops on mother-in-law’s bucket list was a trip to the Panama Canal and points south, the furthest of which was Cartagena, Columbia. I’m a bit of a history buff, and Cartagena, linchpin of the Spanish empire in the New World, boasts the most massive fortifications in the Americas, parts of which date back to the 16th century. I was really looking forward to seeing the citadel, which I did, briefly, through the windows of the tour bus, as we sped to a stop of the tour guide’s choosing, which consisted of watching a fisherman (who I suspect was the tour guide’s cousin three times removed on his mother’s side) repairing his net, and then casting his net into the surf. For the record, he caught a crab. Of the 10-legged variety. One.

After lunch at a seaside café, most likely owned by one of the tour guide’s relatives, we were whisked away to the “old city,” where we were given a leisurely 45 minutes to explore in depth more than six centuries of habitation, and be assailed by who I assume were the balance of the tour guide’s family selling all manner of one-of-a-kind handicrafts, some of which might actually have been made in Columbia in great numbers by crafty hands.

I’d like to go back to Cartagena, but next time I will skip the ship tour and grab a taxicab. Of course, with my luck, the cabbie will be related to the tour guide.

The canal itself is impressive. We approached the initial Atlantic-side lock in the pre-dawn darkness. When its turn came, the city block masquerading as a ship that we were on inched its way into the lock with no more than a few inches to spare on either side. Once through the lock, the ship anchored in man-made Gatun Lake. There we, and several hundred fellow passengers who were able to tear themselves away from the buffet, disembarked and transferred to busses that eventually took us to a ferry that completed the canal transit to the Port of Balboa on the Pacific side.

All the while, I am taking picture after picture with my trusty Canon. See the boat at the top of the lock. See the boat at the bottom of the lock. See the ship ahead. See the ships behind. If I do say so myself, many of these were once-in-a-lifetime works of art. Which is exactly how often I got to see them. Once. In the camera’s lens. Because somewhere along the line, I lost the camera.

Happily, the missus was also taking pictures with her trusty smartphone. See the boat at the top of the lock. See the boat at the bottom of the lock. See the ship ahead. See the ships behind. Yes, she was taking pretty much the same pictures I had been taking with my trusty Canon before it went AWOL, so we really didn’t lose much at all.

After the canal, we hopscotched up the Central American coast – Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, then back to Miami.

There were a couple of things that impressed me, and have impressed me on prior forays into the Caribbean.

We sometimes disparagingly refer to these relatively small patches of sovereignty as “banana republics,” sunk in abject poverty, filled with hollow-eyed urchins seeking an American sponsor for only $1.75 a day.

The poverty is certainly there, just as there is poverty here. The gleaming white towers on the beachfront promenades are also there, just as they are in Miami or Fort Lauderdale.

From the ones I’ve met, I’d say we should never make the mistake of thinking these folks see themselves as citizens under a lesser flag. What hits me is the seemingly universal pride they take in their countries. There are certainly those who, for economic reasons, are willing try their luck north of the Rio Grande, but taking them out of their country does not take their country out of them. We should have as much pride in our own as they have in theirs.

And finally, most of these so-called “banana republics” have somehow managed to fund national health care for their citizens. Something we are told the United States cannot afford. Apparently, if there is the will, there is a way.

Of course, neither do they have private mega health insurance and pharmaceutical cartels pumping millions of dollars into funding opposition to significant change in health care delivery.

Just saying.