El Vago en Suramerica

I’ve been fairly busy recently. Just yesterday I arrived in the interior of Colombia once again, to the city of Medellin. Medellin has a bad international reputation: it immediately conjures images of violence and drug lords, in a large part because of the once-enormous Medellin cocaine cartel and its celebrity leader, Pablo Escobar. Today, however, Medellin is a very modern city with little evidence of its troubled past. Violence remains a problem, but certainly no more than in other parts of the country. The city’s pride is its metro system, which is cheap, clean, and efficient, unique in Colombia. Among Colombians, Medellin is famous for its nightlife and its beautiful girls.

So I went to Barranquilla from Santa Marta on Wednesday, and found a cheap hotel room in the city center. The next day I headed to the Universidad del Norte and met Roger Walter, a distant family friend. He showed me around the beautiful campus and introduced me to some other faculty at the school. I then met Milena at the bus station. That night, we went out with some crazy friends of hers, and all of us ended up screaming for hours at each other.

On friday we decided to go to Puerto Colombia, the nearest “beach town.” It wasn’t really a nice beach; in fact, the water looked quite disgusting from all the shipping coming in and out of the Rio Magdalena and nearby Barranquilla. We followed the signs for a touristic seawall, and then walked out onto the wall. As we walked out over the sea, the waves grew larger and larger, and sometimes water would even spray out over the wall. As we reached the end, there were big holes in the cement, and the walk got a bit scary. As we returned the cement was wet and the wind strong… despite all odds, we made it back alive. Also on the way back, we ran into two guys I had met in Bogota with a Colombian family. As it turns out, Milena also knew one of the guys, from his time in Santa Marta. The whole world of travelers in Colombia at times feels very small.
The next day the carnaval began. We headed to the main parade route a bit late, and there were absolutely no opportunities to get close to the action. Instead, with some people we had just met, we stood atop a wooden platform at the back. Because we couldnt see much of the parade, we became very involved in an intense foam fight. These foam fights became a real classic carnaval experience, as every day there would inevitably arise an enormous battle between complete strangers of all ages, and by the end, everyone would be good friends. This first day essentially followed this model, and we left the parade in the car of several new buddies.

The highlight of the first parade was the presence of Carlos Vives, a Colombian music icon and national hero. Shakira and Juanes, at least on the coast, are sporadically popular, but Carlos Vives is universally adored.

 That night was incredible. I went with Milena to a street with a number of bars and clubs, which was packed with people. Though the clubs were often charging cover, Milena could, without fail, get us in for free. We met lots of people, and spent most of the night dancing in the street and drinking cheap beer. Some highlights of the evening: a weird swiss guy kissed both Milena and I in a club… Milena and I went around screaming, and I would ask for high-fives from every car that passed in the street… We met two goofy Argentinian guys who were ditched by their female friends… A truck passed by with a band on the back, and a bunch of crazy guys were dancing nearby. I danced with them, and then we all hopped on the back of the truck. They dropped off the truck minutes later, but Milena and I stayed on as the truck sped away, and we had to walk several blocks back to the clubs… a beer vendor tried to steal about $1.25 of ours, as we paid for beer and he just ran away. We found him one block away, with our money in his hand… Some girls were trying to get me away from Milena, and she got a bit angry at me for wanting to dance with them… Milena fell asleep in the taxi on the way back to the hotel… I left our room to buy some water downstairs, and Milena, asleep, was unable to let me back into the room. The hotel worker finally came upstairs after I had made lots of noise, and opened the door for me… It was a wild evening.
 
The following days we were able to get far closer to the parades, which were spectacular. The colors and dances were fantastic, representing the great collective creativity and imagination of the people of the colombian coast. The problem was that, at times, the parades were too long. Over four hours of nonstop parade can get very tiring. We continued to entertain ourselves with foam fights, as well as other various spectacles of the carnaval. At one point, a guy painted all black ran over and, as he put a spear in my chest, began to yell gibberish at me. He apparently wanted money, but I spent at least a minute completely perplexed. There were numerous transvestites who would parade through the streets, and during the carnaval it was unclear whether these people were idoled or hated. The most bizarre thing I saw was a man who was sticking knives up his nose, eating fire, smoking cigarettes backwards, and even crushing a florescent lamp and eating the glass. In the United States, you would obviously assume trickery; here in Colombia, these things are shocking, but somehow believable.

My impression of the people of Barranquilla was extremely positive. I have met dozens of extremely hospitable people in my trip, but the energy in Barranquilla, at least during carnaval, was a bit different. People would talk to my friends and I, invite us to join them after the parades, tell us that they would pay for us, that they wanted us to have a good time so that we would leave with a good impression of Barranquilla and its people.

 The third night of the carnaval was also interesting. We went with some new friends first to a club, then to a house, and we ended up at a club at the edge of the city, on the edge of the river. The club was full of people of all ages, all extremely energetic and fun. Milena got angry at me for dancing with some girls, and I got angry at her for trying to be to controlling. By the end of the night it was all good again.

On the last night, there was nothing really going on. We went to a club for a short time, but went to bed a bit early. The next day I headed to the university one more time, then packed up and went to the bus station.

The bus trip from Barranquilla to Medellin was horrendous. The main road between the two cities had been closed, so we took an alternate route of at least 5 more hours. Also, the entire night, the driver had the air conditioning set to ridiculous temperatures. I couldn’t sleep at all. Locals came on the bus with big sweaters and blankets, and these are people from a very hot part of the country. The impression is that people actually buy warm clothes for the bus rides. In any case, around 4 am, I went to the driver and asked him to turn down the a/c. The temperature was comfortable, more or less, until breakfast. As we had left the bus to eat, once again the a/c had been on full blast. I arrived in Medellin miserable and exhausted, and took a good long nap, taking the rest of the evening to relax.

From here, I’m not sure of my plans. I will go to Bogota next, but it could be sometime in the next few days, or maybe the following week. I like Medellin, and it would be a nice place to spend a short while. The nightlife is great. If I get bored, I’ll take off.

Love,

Dan

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 4th, 2006 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.