Now that I’ve unpacked, checked in at home, firmly entrenched myself in the pub by a log fire with a natural yogurt (the 3 things I apparently value highest about home), repacked and finally, upped and left to Paris I’ve found the time to finish the write-up of my sprint around South America.
It felt a different continent altogether in Colombia; neither Latin nor Caribbean and certainly nowhere near Indian, the sea looked different, the air hung more humidly and the suns rays were beating hot without being piercingly white as they had in the Andean highlands. Tanganga was to be my home for the next couple of weeks and it was poised between two worlds both physically and in spirit. Physically it is separated from the slum area of Santa Marta by one (very conquerable) hill and a ten minute busride whilst to its eastern edge it gives way to desert scrub (I think the result of previous farming attempts) and then to dense, tropical green – the jungle here taking the name of Tayrona national park (after the Tayrona Indians who once settled this area whose greatest feat of engineering lay a 6 day trek down into the Jungle of Santa Marta’s Sierra Nevada; La Ciudad Perdida). It also harbours a mix of local fishermen eking out a living from meagre catches and a backpacker community with all the trimmings both obstinately continuing with their respective activities side-by-side and yet existing entirely separately. Indeed it was with great surprise that a fisherman coming in with his morning catch was caught by my suggestion that he might like to bring me his catch of the day each day for a fixed price over the fortnight. I think that he was so stunned by my apparition at his dugout was the key to my success in securing a ridiculously cheap supper for the rest of my stay – especially since the various one roomed tiendas open to the street on one/two sides sold at relatively high prices.
Raul, who worked at the hostel, took me down to the diveshop and seconds later I’d signed on for a weekend of total isolation along with a motley crew of scuba divers. 2hours later we’d managed to arrive in Bahia Gayracia to find our hammocks (a little like a Caribbean version of musical chairs as it turned out there weren’t enough) and I settled down to an afternoon of fitful sleep slung between a tree and the most comic Colombian you can imagine. If Borat were to impersonate a Colombian drug dealer you would have come up with Miguel. I should add that he wasn’t actually a drug dealer before a libel case appears! About 5ft 9in, large dark curls bordering dangerously on afro territory, the full array of facial hair (moustache, goatee, monobrow, nasal hairs flaring...), lanky frame clad in a sack of loosely hanging skin and the obligatory offensively coloured speedos.
After timeless hours spent beaching, diving or sleeping the shock of arriving back to the relatively frenetic pace of taganga village where I was to become show-and-tell, british tour guide and connoisseur of patisseries and fruit shakes. People, including the hippies running the only good coffee shop in colombia by the looks of things (ironically in the prime regions black gold is too much of a cash crop to be lavished upon the locals - 12 hour brewed nescafe in cafetieres is the norm served sickly sweet and lukewarm into plastic cups on street corners), were the nicest I had encountered and I even mangaged to bump into cousins and neighbours in the only beach bar and dancefloor one night after beachbag guarding acquaintances had insisted that I come out with them to escape the colombian men who'd been showing a little TOO much interest in my hostel. After a visit from a year-out uni friend, a free 21st birthday pizza (not that anyone was 21, or even celebrating their birthdays until the next day) and salsa and swimming by sunrise, I was all set for Cartagena.
Cartagena was ridiculously beautiful. A crumbling Carribean Carcasone in looks its dishevelled beauty, fortifications and creeper covered streets had you enchanted in an instant added to which the sandstone both catches the light amazingly and contrasts to the bright blue of the ocean. To provide the toppings, casa sweety (small but perfectly formed hostel where you're every need is catered for) let us stay in the sweet for a quarter of the normal rate. emmy, ione and i then set off for our desert island cabana nursing slightly sore heads from the chiva bus ride the night before which involved rum and some overly excited colombian tourists from barranquilla. There, aside from avoiding aforementioned overly interested Colombians who appeared in the same bar in cartagena as us and then the next day on the same near deserted island, we enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. And kicked ourselves for not venturing 200m further down the beach where a 2storey structure (!) existed so that backpackers could avoid being bedfellows with the plentiful indigenous cockroaches and crabs.
It felt a different continent altogether in Colombia; neither Latin nor Caribbean and certainly nowhere near Indian, the sea looked different, the air hung more humidly and the suns rays were beating hot without being piercingly white as they had in the Andean highlands. Tanganga was to be my home for the next couple of weeks and it was poised between two worlds both physically and in spirit. Physically it is separated from the slum area of Santa Marta by one (very conquerable) hill and a ten minute busride whilst to its eastern edge it gives way to desert scrub (I think the result of previous farming attempts) and then to dense, tropical green – the jungle here taking the name of Tayrona national park (after the Tayrona Indians who once settled this area whose greatest feat of engineering lay a 6 day trek down into the Jungle of Santa Marta’s Sierra Nevada; La Ciudad Perdida). It also harbours a mix of local fishermen eking out a living from meagre catches and a backpacker community with all the trimmings both obstinately continuing with their respective activities side-by-side and yet existing entirely separately. Indeed it was with great surprise that a fisherman coming in with his morning catch was caught by my suggestion that he might like to bring me his catch of the day each day for a fixed price over the fortnight. I think that he was so stunned by my apparition at his dugout was the key to my success in securing a ridiculously cheap supper for the rest of my stay – especially since the various one roomed tiendas open to the street on one/two sides sold at relatively high prices.
Raul, who worked at the hostel, took me down to the diveshop and seconds later I’d signed on for a weekend of total isolation along with a motley crew of scuba divers. 2hours later we’d managed to arrive in Bahia Gayracia to find our hammocks (a little like a Caribbean version of musical chairs as it turned out there weren’t enough) and I settled down to an afternoon of fitful sleep slung between a tree and the most comic Colombian you can imagine. If Borat were to impersonate a Colombian drug dealer you would have come up with Miguel. I should add that he wasn’t actually a drug dealer before a libel case appears! About 5ft 9in, large dark curls bordering dangerously on afro territory, the full array of facial hair (moustache, goatee, monobrow, nasal hairs flaring...), lanky frame clad in a sack of loosely hanging skin and the obligatory offensively coloured speedos.
After timeless hours spent beaching, diving or sleeping the shock of arriving back to the relatively frenetic pace of taganga village where I was to become show-and-tell, british tour guide and connoisseur of patisseries and fruit shakes. People, including the hippies running the only good coffee shop in colombia by the looks of things (ironically in the prime regions black gold is too much of a cash crop to be lavished upon the locals - 12 hour brewed nescafe in cafetieres is the norm served sickly sweet and lukewarm into plastic cups on street corners), were the nicest I had encountered and I even mangaged to bump into cousins and neighbours in the only beach bar and dancefloor one night after beachbag guarding acquaintances had insisted that I come out with them to escape the colombian men who'd been showing a little TOO much interest in my hostel. After a visit from a year-out uni friend, a free 21st birthday pizza (not that anyone was 21, or even celebrating their birthdays until the next day) and salsa and swimming by sunrise, I was all set for Cartagena.
Cartagena was ridiculously beautiful. A crumbling Carribean Carcasone in looks its dishevelled beauty, fortifications and creeper covered streets had you enchanted in an instant added to which the sandstone both catches the light amazingly and contrasts to the bright blue of the ocean. To provide the toppings, casa sweety (small but perfectly formed hostel where you're every need is catered for) let us stay in the sweet for a quarter of the normal rate. emmy, ione and i then set off for our desert island cabana nursing slightly sore heads from the chiva bus ride the night before which involved rum and some overly excited colombian tourists from barranquilla. There, aside from avoiding aforementioned overly interested Colombians who appeared in the same bar in cartagena as us and then the next day on the same near deserted island, we enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. And kicked ourselves for not venturing 200m further down the beach where a 2storey structure (!) existed so that backpackers could avoid being bedfellows with the plentiful indigenous cockroaches and crabs.
Getting back in time for my flight proved a little tricky and set my previously romantic sounding adventure to a beach-side cabana for my last night to a remarkably different, if somewhat stupid, tune. Fro failed to materialise as my mototaxi to Cartagena so after a quick dash to friendly fisherman i was motoring (motoring might be too strong a verb but there was some semblance of an outboard motor) towards the general cartagena vicinity but there was a problem - with no permit he couldn't enter the bay but could get me near. This was not to prove the greatest obstacle because his cousins family lived nearby and there awaited (as fate would have it) a man with a donkey to get me to the 'main road' which was a dust track, where i was able to flag down a motorcyclist to get me to Cartagena, he vigorously encouraged me that this was the main road to Cartagena and that it would take 40mins at most. It took 1/2hr to get to a large river where i was unceremonisously unseated and told with a vague gesturing in the direction over the river (hence why Cartagena's called an island) that Cartagena was 'over there'. there were no bridges so duggout it was. I expected for the extortionate price I paid to at least get rowed over but my luck failed and the owner sat down, lit up and laughed as i splashed my way through the current to the other bank where I could find no moorings so decided to jump out and pull the boat up. Bad plan. I sank, not into water but mud and wasn't getting on much better with the boat pulling. Fortunately people on this side of the river seemed more disposed to help a hapless tourist and pulled both me and the boat ashore with embarrassing ease. The next obstacle was that I now lacked the necessary monies for the busride - no matter they knew the driver and, if I agreed, I could quite literally have my fare for a song. Done deal. the final walk across the entire old town an hour later felt like a triumphant march, especially when i found enough for an ice cream stowed away in a back pocket. 24hours later I would be home.
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