If you’re fortunate enough to stay at the Santa Clara Hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, you’ll meet Mateo.
The Santa Clara is a Sofitel which began life in 1628 as a beautiful rose-coloured convent, with high ceilings and wide cloisters surrounding a big central patio, lush as a jungle.
Mateo is a toucan: gaudy, greedy and loud.
He spends most of his day hopping from table to table in the outdoor café under the shade of the cloisters — nicking food, drinking from his special water jar and posing for photographs with hotel guests and their children.
How cute, they exclaim in a variety of languages.
But there’s a darker side to Mateo.
“Es un malvado”, says Maria Claudia, a beautician at the hotel’s salon. (“He’s evil.”) He once bit her fiercely on the arm, and wouldn’t let go, when she moved a couple of coffee beans out of his reach. He has a “partner”, Clarita, who can’t stand him either; the two birds are never seen in the same place at the same time. (Needless to say, after eight years there are still no baby toucans.)
One of the joys of staying at the Santa Clara — and there are many — is the basket of freshly-baked bread and rolls that appears on your table at the start of each meal, along with a little dish of their tapenade. Here’s the general idea.
Tapenade after the Santa Clara
Equal quantities of green and black olives, pitted
A few anchovies
Some capers
A splash of virgin olive oil
If the olives are extremely salty, blanch them briefly in boiling water.
Whiz all the ingredients together together to a paste, not too smooth. Adjust the amount of olive oil so the paste is soft, not stiff.
Check the seasoning: the tapenade should be salty, but not mouth-puckering.
Serve with fresh bread or thin crackers like lavosh.
The Old Quarter of Cartagena is lovely. Go if you possibly can. The Santa Clara is divine. And so, by the way, are Maria Claudia’s manicures and massages.
But I’d treat Mateo with some caution.