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
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