Cartagena de Indias

Boarding the bus in Santa Marta I asked out loud in English and Spanish and to nobody in particular "Is this the bus to Cartagena?" My 'Romancing the Stone' reference fell on deaf ears. Whatever, at least the bus was air-conditioned.

There is no respite from the heat in Cartagnea. Despite it's sea-side status there are no forgiving breezes to steal. The relative humidity regularly hangs about in the 90% bracket as well. The byproduct of all this is a city with many people sitting around doing nothing. Understandably as well since clothes that cloy like second skin and sweat beaded brows are not known to be motivational forces. The upside is that you couldn't ask for a more colorful place to idle away the daylight hours. Calli is known for its beautiful women, Quindio its Arabica beans and Cartagena for the finest colonial architecture in the country. Salt air weathered facades, cobble stone streets and bougainvillea wrapped balconies lend it a fairy tale quality. Sitting on the city walls at night listening to the sonic booms of fireworks its easy to close your eyes and imagine Sirs Francis Drake and Henry Morgan have arrived to sack the city once more.

This being the Caribbean, Salsa is king. In fact the Salsatecas outnumber the churches - a bold statement in any Latin American locale. I am somehow reminded of the movie The Mambo Kings when Armand Assante traces the sign of the cross on his chest and intones "In the name of the Mambo, the Salsa, and the Cha cha cha." I think he might have actually said Rumba instead of Salsa but I digress. So yes dance, the costeños appear to be imbued with some extra dance chromosome which allow their hips to completely unhinge and move independently of everything else. Pigmentation notwithstanding it's easy to pick out the costeños as they are the patrons at the Salsatecas that know every word to every song. Lips in addition to hips are never not moving in time. Take that gringo.

There is a debate as to the geographical origins of Salsa. I have heard it was invented in New York City and took hold in Cuba and vice versa. I think it really depends on what country's passport the person speaking is holding. At any rate it is not Colombia. What is distinctly Caribbean Colombia in origin however is Vallenato music. This upbeat folk music is delivered by accordion player who usually does vocal duty as well while the beat comes from the guacharaca which is similar to the African djembe drum and the guacharaca. The guacharaca is basically a palm stalk with notches that is scraped by a fork with metal tines, producing an almost insect sound(think the intro to The Stones "Gimme Shelter.") A nice way to take in Vallenato is on a local Chiva. The chiva is the old wooden bus that was once the workhorse of rural Colombian transportation. Open-sided, wildly painted and with extra wide bench seats, the chiva is the ultimate party vehicle. For a meager sum you can jump on the bus where upon you are handed a hand percussion instrument and a bottle of dark rum. The band sits in the middle and proceeds with a seemingly bottomless repertoire. At the front the "ayudante" who stands next to the driver, is armed with a microphone and serves as the master of ceremonies. No subject is off limits to the ayudante, if you are from Venezuela the bus gets to vote "Chavez or no Chavez", if you are from the US you will be called on to state your home city and be summarily dismissed as "the rich guy over there", he will lambaste the drivers skills and call out groups of people to stand up and dance. Its a participatory activity at its finest. As the bus idles at a stop light the locals on the street dance and cheer in agreement with the chiva. If you couldn't be happy here ... well then you probably couldn't be happy anywhere. Good times Colombia style.

It doesn't take long to get your head around Cartagena. The people are friendly and forthcoming. If you can't walk to it, it's accessible via a short cab ride, the old walled city, the new city neighborhood of Bocagrande and the marina lie in close proximity. Its not all Salsa and sunsets though, Cartagena is a port down that has a high degree of poverty and the darker seedier element that usually accompanies that. For most folks its the gateway to Central America. Because of the of the risk involved crossing the Darien Gap by land (FARC guerillas, paramilitaries, narco-trafficantes etc.) a healthy cottage industry has sprung up in order to ferry people to Panama via boat. This reinforces the transient feeling of the place, you are either coming or going north or south or simply sitting around. Either way it got Michale Douglas off "The Streets of San Francisco" and on to the big screen. Bromeando por sepuesto ja ja ja.

Ciao

Clifford

There are snaps in, around and about HERE

The Blue Lagoon

Along the two hour trek from the Tayrona Park entrance to my destination, Cabo San Juan , I passed untold legions of leaf-cutter ants, a lone burro and four capuchin monkeys who were well ... monkeying around. Litteraly. The completely unpeopled trail I was on had lead to wildy-woven fantasy that when I reached Cabo I would have the place to myself. My fantasy found a still birth when I came upon two Europeans pitching a tent. Had the beach not been something just short of Eden I might have taken offence. This was a national park after all and so I quickly disposed of the false sense of entitlement my fantasy had spun.

My first sensation I had in Cabo San Juan was one of deja-vu. It took me a minute to put my finger on it but this was how I had pictured the island in The Lord of the Flies back in high school. It was not an island of course but rather the unspoilt Carribean Coast of Columbia, rain forrest jungle ends where the sandline begins. There is little transition. They bays are failry deep and well dilenated by large granite rocks. The granite looks as if it could have possibly been hurled down from the top of the mountain by some ancient Kogi Indian god in some myth creating act of violence. The water itself is warm without being bath water and there is nobody trafficking the beach trying to sell you hippy bracelets. If it weren´t for the breaking of the waves on the shore I believe you could actually hear yourself think in a place like this.

There is one restaurant on the beach that is run jointly by a couple of families. Thier operation is a primitive one as there is no power in the park. From 7-9 PM they fire up a gas powered generator that allows them enough power to light a couple of fluorescent lights and offer a dinner service. Aside from the fish the food is not much to speak of but who orders pasta when the red snapper was swimming within the last 30 minutes?

The night was arguably as enjoyable as the day light. After dinner and dominoes it was a flashlight trek back up to the Gazebo where the hammocks were strung up. Perched up on the Granite overlooking the Carribean was about as much of an accomodation as one actually needed out here. The breeze the flowed into the open-walled structure defrayed the onset of mosquitos. The only thing better than sleeping outside is sleeping outside without being slathered in nauseating scent of insect repellent containing high levels of DEET. Sleeping in a hammock for the entire night sounds like an enticing proposition until you realize that shifting positions requires waking yourself up to so. Being of the mind set that there is no worse sleep than that which comes in fits and starts I discovered another use for my small red raft the next night. The second night I realized that the raft would in fact fit into the width of my hammock. The sight of this of course was much laughter on the part of my neighbors. This laughter quickly subsided when they realized that I had in indeed created the ultimate hanging luxury bed. Ha, my MacGyver moment!

When the heat stroke and 1st degree burns began to set in I turned my attention to the jungle and rain forrest behind me. The park is named after the Tairona Indians. The Tairona are believed to be the oldest "indigenos" on the continent. It was these folks who were first greeted by the Spanish n 1493. A two hour hike from the beach will lead you up a series of primitive rock steps to Pueblito, the ruins of thier former settlement. It´s all very Indiana Jones type stuff when you leave the beach.

There are some pics of the park HERE

Teganga, El Mar Caribe

Medellin is tops. The citys lattitude and altitude conspire together to ensure that everyday in Meddelin is beautiful. The reason it is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" is becuase it is never not 72 degrees with a slight prevailing wind. It has all the conveniences that a big city affords and I am fairly sure it would be a great place to live. At this point though outside of Caracas I have been to every major city on the continent and they just don´t do that much for me anymore. On a smog asphyxiating afternoon my thoughts turned to white sand beaches, bendy palm trees and the undulating rhythms of the Carribean. Within an hour I had collected my things and purchased an overnight bus ticket to Santa Marta.


Santa Marta is a port town with teeming streets. Its a bustle of commerce, a place perhaps to get things done. However a 10 minute collectivo ride from downtown Santa Marta will happily deposit you in the tiny fishing village of Taganga. It´s the kind of place you hesitate to tell other people about but truth be told however it is no Club Med. There are no waiters on the beach serving elaborate cocktails with little umbrellas. Santa Marta is rough charm, blue collar paradise. There are no resorts, the hotels are modest places with pastel painted and sun baked facades. Everything is dusty as there is little paved road and the best beach is not the main beach but rather a 10 minute hike around the promonitory to the neighboring bay. The restaurant scene is largely the row of weathered sea food shacks that dot the beach selling the daily catch. The Santa Marta/Taganga area is distinct geologicaly as it is a place where the mountains meet the sea. Where the beach stops the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta begin. At well over 15K feet it is one of the highest coastal ranges on the planet. With its snow capped peaks it certainly makes for a bit of high contrast curiosity. Every night just after the sun sinks to the bottom of the ocean the trade winds begin to blow and take the temperture down a cool five degrees at least. At about this same time the locals fire up their sound systems. Nearly every house in Taganga seems to posses a large bass bin and two gigantic midrange speaker enclosures on their porches. The music booms and bounces everywhere and curiosly it is always good. Sean Kigston´s "Beautiful Girls" has become the leitmotiv of lazy afternoons. Lastly I feel that one can not speak of Taganga without mentioning its people. As in all of Colombia the people are truly some of the nicest. To pass someone on the street or a trail and not say hello is considered rude. The locals are a spirited bunch who seem generaly pleased that you have paid their funky little hamlet a visit.

I am off to Parque Tayrona now which is a remote stretch of jungle and postcard perfect beaches. It is a well protected national reserve where you can rent a hammock for the night and sleep on the beach. It sounds like the ideal place for a part time castaway. I will let you know how it is.

Some pictures of Santa Marta and Taganga can be found HERE