I read of a traveler staying at the Hotel Colón in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The writer seemed to associate the hotel's name with the English word colon (KOH luhn)--which is of course part of the large intestine (and also a mark of punctuation).She didn't know of Cristóbal Colón and that his name is pronounced koh LOHN in Spanish. Cristoforo Colombo was born in Genoa in 1451. He was a traveler: settled in Lisbon, then Porto Santo and later on the island of Madeira. He made voyages to the Canary Islands and the Azores; and possibly traveled to England, Ireland and even Iceland. While searching for an alternative route to Asia he discovered The Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti/the Dominican Republic. Eventually he settled in Spain and called himself Cristóbal Colón. In English speaking countries he is known by the Anglicized name of Christoper Columbus. Indians of the Americas don't celebrate Colón/Columbus since his discoveries led to mass genocide of indigenous people throughout the Americas.
There is a statue of Cristóbal Colón on Calle San Francisco in San Miguel de Allende (Mexico). Across the street is Café Colón--one need not be an admirer of Colón to go there; it's a good place for a comida corrida.
Incidentally, the Vikings were in North America over five hundred years before Colón/Columbus. On Poteau Mountain, near the rural town of Heavener, Oklahoma there is a slab of stone that is twelve feet tall, ten feet wide and sixteen inches thick. The writing on the stone is of Scandinavian origin and from the approximate year of 750 A.D. It's believed that the Vikings sailed the Mississippi River and then it's tributaries the Arkansas and Poteau. The runestone can be seen at the Runestone State Park. It's a nice place to visit.
