Carnaval de Barranquilla

Another year, another wild Carnival; I attended Carnival of last year, and I am back for this years Carnival. The Barranquilla Carnival might be less famous than the Rio Carnival, but it is still very impressive, and it is huge; Four days of street marches, and numerous live concerts. In the marches groups of people of different ages participate, I seen kids as I young as three or four, and old people probably in their sixties and seventies. Each group has its own costume, most of them very elaborate ones. Each group also has it is own dance or performance, a band accompanies each group, providing the music for the act.

I stopped by Barranquilla a week earlier to make a hotel reservation for the carnival. Then I went to chill out for a few days Taganga and Tayrona, and I headed back to Barranquilla on Thursday night. My friends Troy and Shane, had already arrived earlier, apparently the hotel owner was giving them a hard time with the reservation. I made a reservation for a room with 3 beds for 70000 pesos a night, and I put 50000 down payment to make sure they keep the room for us. But the owner was trying to charge them 150000 for the three bed room, or put them with a room with two beds for 100000; basically trying every trick in the book to charge them more, even though he had the reservation written in clear Spanish on his desk, saying a room with 3 beds for 70000. The owner turned out to be a real jerk, he was doing the same with the other reservations as well; trying to charge people more and charging each room differently. That made some people very unhappy, when they found out later they were paying more than the others. And I got involved with a dispute, because some people from other room went to complain to the owner that he was charging them too much, saying that we paid much less than them (which was true). The owner was upset because we told them how much we paid. In the end they left the hotel the next day. It is a shame the owner was such a jerk, because the hotel is such a lovely place. It has a nice patio with swimming pool, and the staff are just great; always helpful and friendly.

Basically all the travelers that arrived to the hotel were thanks to me, I stayed in this hotel during last year’s carnival as well. The known cheap hotels were all booked, so I took a motor taxi (A motorcycle where one sits behind the driver, a quick and cheap way to travel in the city for one person), and went looking for hotels, and I found this hotel Skal. When I came back to Barranquilla earlier this week, I did not have the hotel address or phone, so I had to look for it again. But after wandering a bit in the center, I managed to recognize some streets, and found my way back to the hotel. I made a reservation and send the information to Troy and Shane, they passed it off to many other travelers at the Platyups in Bogotá, as many of them could not find a hotel in Barranquilla for the carnival. I also passed the information to an Israeli guy in Taganga, who also brought some friends to stay at the hotel. I ended up bringing the owner a lot of business; never the less he still kept acting like a jerk, trying to raise the price of the room. So I don’t know whether I should recommend this hotel to other travelers any more.

It is possible to buy seating tickets to see the marches. Some open seating tickets costs 40000 for three days, and a ticket in the closed stands cost 140000 pesos for three days. We just decided to go for the march without tickets the first day; we just went to where the locals go. There one can stand or sit on the side of the road. It can be inconvenient considering the intense sun, but as the afternoon went on, and the sun became cooler, it was quit nice. Sitting at the side of the road provides a perfect view point for taking photos of the march. I could even just walk into the middle of the street and take pictures of the marchers, which was really cool.

The next day though we bought some seating tickets in the stands. We got them for 40000 for the remaining two days, instead of the original price of 140000, a good deal. The stands were fun, as we were a big group and we also met a lot of locals. Foam fights are a tradition of the carnival. Foam is sold in spray bottles, and everybody has one. One can either buy one or risk of being defenseless against the continuous foam attacks. The view in the stands was not the best though; the fence obstructed the line of sight to the march. I could take better pictures just standing on the streets the day earlier. I took some good pictures by raising the camera up high over the fence, not the most convenient way. We were joined by a couple of Colombian who my friends met the night before at some party: Carlos and Angela. Carlos is from Barranquilla, although he lived in Miami for a while, and he was our guide for the rest of Carnival; he knew the best party to go to every night. Angela is also living abroad in London, and she is here just for the carnival.

Later that night, we went to the Busy Club, at the recommendation of Carlos. They were hosting a special carnival electronic music party, with a pricey entry fee of 40000 pesos. Anyway decided to pay and get in. I never have seen so many gorgeous looking women in one club before, all wearing very revealing dresses. One should keep in mind though that not all is really in there, Colombia is the capital of plastic surgeries, and there were a few fake tits and behinds there.

The next day we went back to the stands to see another march, after a while it starts to feel a bit repetitive; just more people in costumes marching and dancing. After the march we headed to the coliseum, where a big concert was taking place. I was still recovering from the party of the night before, and decided to head back to the hostel and take it easy. The rest of group though went to see the concert. Apparently it was a very wild party, a bit too wild, many of them last cameras, video cameras, wallets. Considering the ammounts of alcohol and pills they consumed that day, it was propably an easy job niking there valuables. During Carnival I discovered the secret to not stop partying: Drugs; sometime coke but mostly pills. It is the only way these people can go on partying none stop for several days. My friend Shane did not sleep for four straight days. At the end of Carnival though he crashed and slept for a couple of days.

Tuesday was the last day of Carnival and we went to see the final march. I could get stand at the side of the road, and I had a good view point to take photos. I also took a lot of movies, but high quality movies come at a price; they fill up the memory card very quickly. I have a 256MB card but I am going to need a 1GB card at least, if I am going to use the video feature more often. At the march we met Stephanie, a 17 years old girl, already with a 2 month old baby. A couple of my friends had met her the night before at the concert. She works as walking call center; she carries a couple mobile phones, one for each network, and charges people for the minute. It is quite common, cheap and convenient way to call other mobile phones in South America. As we left Shane gave her his number, just in case she wanted to meet us later at some street party, we did not know then how lucky that would be for her later.

When we get back to the hotel a couple of hours later, Shane received a phone call from Stephanie, his Spanish is not that good, so he handed me the phone to answer. Stpehanie was in some kind of distress, which I did not understand exactly what it was. But she was still where we left her at the march, and she had some kind of problem getting back home. Shane might have been the most drugged person during the whole of Carnival, but this guy does not think twice about offering help, and I admire him for that; always ready to lend money when someone needs it. When I explained to him the situation, he immediately told me to tell Stephanie to grab a taxi and come to our hotel, and that he would pay for the taxi. I told that to Stephanie and gave her the address of the hotel. We have a quite an easy address to remember 41 con 41, street 41 with avenue 41. The street system in Colombia is all based on numbers, all streets going in one direction (e.g. north to south) are named Calle X, and all perpendicular streets are called Avenida X. I quite like this system, as you always have an idea where you are and which way you need to go to get to your destination. Anyway half an hour later, Stephanie appeared in the taxi, apparently she was in some kind of serious pain; a kind of complication related to the birth she gave a couple of month back. We comforted her, and she managed to call someone in here family. Then Shane put her in a taxi that took her back home, where she could pick up her medical insurance card, and be taken by some family member to get medical help, apparently in Colombia they won’t attend to you unless you have the insurance car. Next morning she called back and said she was OK, excused herself for the trouble she caused us, and gave her thanks for our help. I believe that many times when I meet people it is for some purpose, a purpose that might be unknown at the time of meeting. This person might be there to offer me something I needed, but when that is not the case, then it is not the probably the other way around, that person needs something and I am the one who can help them with it. I can’t help thinking that we met Stephanie because she was going to be in trouble soon, and we were the ones capable of helping her.

After taking care of Stephanie we went to see the final concert of Carnival; an open concert taking place in one of the streets of Barranquilla. It was quite good music, but we had arrived towards the end of the concert, and after a an hour it was all over, the convert and the Carnival.

I was thinking of going to the island of Providencia to do some diving. It is expensive, but still it fits in my budget, as I have managed to keep my spending down during the last couple of weeks. But Troy suggesting visiting the desert, which lies between here and the Venezuelan border, and that got me very excited. It is supposed to be quite wild and amazing region. Riohacha is the major city there, and there are supposed to be some lovely beaches close by. Anyway I am excited and I hope we do it. Troy and Shane seem to be recovered from Carnival after a couple of days of sleeping, so I might get them to go on the move today.

Taganga and Tayrona

I have said that Taganga is my favorite place in Colombia, now a I year later, I am back to Taganga again, and the town have not lost any of its charm for me. It is a chilled out place, where one can relax, have a freshly squeezed juices and fruit salads made out of a dozen different fruits. Or have delicious sea food while setting next to the beach watching the beautiful sunset. The place is quite popular with Israelis and I think half of the tourist population was from Israel, most of them staying at Casablanca. This time I stayed at Techos Azules (blue roofs), it is still close to the beach, and the owners are quite friendly people, who will go out of their way to take care of the hostel tenants.

After a couple of days relaxing in Taganga, I went for some more relaxing at the Tayrona national park. I visited the park during my previous trip, but I was short on time, and I only spent one day there, which is not enough to really appreciate the place. So this time I made sure I had more time to spend there. The park consists of sand beaches, lined with palm trees, very beautiful, but then I had quite high expectation of the place. I expected crystal clear water, like in those photos of perfect Caribbean beaches often advertised. But the water was not crystal clear, there is a bit too turbulent for that; constant currents and surf stir up things too much. Any expectations I had of a wild place with hardly any sole around were also quickly dissipated; there were probably a 150 people staying at El Cabo, the best beach to stay at in Tayrona.

So it was not the perfect desolate Caribbean beach I imagined, but once I settled into the rhythm of the place and allowed my self to be absorbed by the relaxing atmosphere, I started to enjoy the place. I met a few interesting people, some of them I had met earlier during my traveling in Colombia, others I did not know before. Felix is a student from Austria, who studies translation and speaks five languages. He used to belong to a fanatic Christian group for five years. But then he started to question his faith, went on to read all the holly books of the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism), and became skeptical of religions. He told me stories about religious fanatism that before, I could not believe existed in a modern country like Austria. Iljits is a young Dutch guy, who traveled around the Middle East, and now he is traveling around Colombia. In Cali he was approached by a woman in the modeling business and offered him to start a modeling career in Colombia, she said they could use a guy with a different looks around here, as there are not much blond people around.

There is not much to do in such a desolate place; go to the beach for swim, lie on the beach and read a book, and take many pictures; the scenery is amazing, and I took quite a few pictures. Once the beach becomes boring, then it is just time to go to the next beach, and repeat the same activities. After a few days though, I started to miss civilization. There is a generator at the camp site, but it is only used to light up the place at night; there is no plug to connect my laptop, I anticipated and did not bring my laptop with me anyway. It was a shame because I had a lot of time to right, and what would be a perfect place to do it than a lovely relaxed beach. I am trying to finish my short story which I started in Bogotá. I am almost done with the second revision. There are still a few more things that need tightening, but a few days of work should wrap it up. I guess I could have printed out the latest revision, and used my time there to edit it, something to consider for the next time.

At El Cabo, there are two types of beds: hammocks or tents. Since I did not have a tent, I stayed in a hammock. The place was so full, that they had no more space to tie hammocks anymore, and had to send back people to the first beach. Later I realized it was Valentine day; a lot of young couples were there to spend a couple of romantic days on the beach. I can’t think of many places that would be better than Tayrona, for a romantic Valentine day vacation.

After three days, I felt I was running out of things to do in Tayrona, and I started to miss civilization. Anyway my friends, Troy and Shane were arriving to Barranquilla for the Carnival, and I decided to join them one day earlier than I planned.

Medellin & Guatapé

Just before leaving Cali, Troy and Shayne, a couple of friends I travelled with earlier joined up with me. They had been staying at a town at the pacific cost, el Valle, for 10 days. There they saw no other tourist during that time, and in order to come back they had to take a ride on a cargo boat loaded with timber, because there were no more speed boats ferrying people. The trip back to Buena Ventura on the boat took them more than a day. I guess I missed on that adventure.


We had only one night in Cali, before I went on to Medellin and they went back to Bogota, and we decided to go out in Cali. I have wanted to visit a cafe called Nargila for a while, and I convinced Troy and Shane to join me; they liked the idea of smoking shisha (Nargila). The cafe appears to be owned by a Jewish Israeli, who is try8ing to create an authentic Middle Eastern atmosphere in his cafe: Narigilas (Shishas), Arabic music, Belly dancing and Middle Eastern food. We smoked a couple of shisha, and enjoyed the dancing show. It was a fun experience all together.


My next stop was Medellin, on my way to the coast. I decided that I am going to buy a new camera to replace my old one, which no longer worked. I checked a few camera shops, and did some Internet research. In the end it came down to a choice between two cameras: the Sony Cyber Shot 6MPixel, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ3 5MPixel. In the end I chose the Lumix; it had a 6x zoom(7.5 at 3MPixel) compared with the Sony normal 3x zoom, and it was 140$ cheaper. 5.0 or 6.0MPixels doesn´t make a difference for me. This Camera has all the features that I always wanted in my old camera, mainly the higher zoom and high quality video (640x480 at 30fps). And few more other features I didn’t know I needed, and that I am trying to learn now by reading the manual. It is slightly bigger than my older camera, but it still fits in the same camera case, which is good enough for me. All the pictures published in this post were taken by my new camera.

Because of some bite or wound, I had developed an infection in my right thigh. After a few days of the infection getting worst, (it looked like a huge dimple on my right thigh). I decided to see a doctor. The doctor gave me a salt solution to apply to the infection, and some antibiotics. It is getting better, should be gone in a couple of days. But no alcohol for me for a while.


Medellin is indeed the city of eternal spring, great weather all around the year; generally dry, sunny and with temperate temperatures, no wonder all the rich people of Colombia come to live here. I went up a cable cart, which took me to a good view point over the city. The cable cart is part of the metro system. Before that ride, I could have been forgiven to think that only rich people live in Medellin; the area around the Black Sheep hostel is a rich neighborhood; upscale houses and apartment buildings, modern shopping centers and fancy café and restaurant parks. The cable cart on the other hand goes over what seems to be the poor neighborhoods of Cali, a large expanse of shoddy houses, all with tin or aspest roofs.


After the cable cart ride I headed to Guatapé, an amazing natural landscape, which looks like a combination of fiords and an archipeligio, set in a lake a couple of hours from Medellin. In the middle of the lake, there is a rock that rises up high, providing a view over the whole surroundings. The bus dropped me at the entrance to the rock, where I was offered to ride a mule up to the base of the rock, for 4000 pesos, which sounded pretty cheap, I agreed. Then I found out why it was so cheap, he only took me about a third of the way up, like three minutes on the mule; I had to go up the rest of the way walking, what a crook. Probably I was not the only one who fell for this. After reaching the base of the rock, and taking a few pictures, I climbed to the top of the rock, using a long stairway, where I had a magnificent view of the area.

My next stop is Barranquilla at the Caribbean coast, I made a short stop there, booked a hotel for the carnaval, this went on to Taganga, probably my favourite place in Colombia.

San Cipiriano

San Cipiriano is tiny village in the middle of the rain forest, on the way between Cali and Buena Ventura. The village is cut off from the rest of the world except for a rail road track, trains no longer run on those tracks, so locals improvised their own vehicles. It used to be hand driven rail carts, but now they are using motorcycle powered carts. The cart consists of a flat wooden floor, with 4 small wheels designed to run on rail tracks. On top of the wooden floor a wooden bench is placed, where the passengers to sit. A motorcycle is attached to one side of the cart, the back wheel of motorcycle runs on the rail, providing the drive and braking. It was fantastic traveling in the open air, on a railroad track, though sometimes the driver was going too fast for my taste; that made me wonder how often these things get derailed.

There is only one track, so when two carts going in opposite direction meets, one of them has to move out of the way to let the other pass. They told us that people coming from San Cipiriano to Cordova, have the right of way, so we had to get down from our cart, carry it off the rails, wait for the other cart to pass, and then put it back on the rails. The carts are not heavy, so that was not too difficult.

Walking down the streets of San Cipiriano, it felt like the most remote place I ever been to. It seemed me and my friend Tom (Thomas), were the only tourists there at the time, in the middle of a population that was mostly black. Later though we met another group of Swiss travelers in the village, and anyway during the weekend this place gets very crowded with local tourists from Cali, so maybe it is not as remote as it seemed in the beginning. As soon as we arrived, it started to rain; they don’t call these places rain forest for nothing. Every afternoon, after everybody comes back from work, a football tournament takes place on the local field, a dirt field that didn’t look too shabby. They played for money, each player places 1000 pesos (30 Euro cents) into the pot. Tom decided to join the game. After some considering, I decided to pass, my rib was still hurting, and I did not bring my shoes with me.

It continued to rain for the whole evening, and we got quite bored, we did not bring any provisions for avoiding boredom, no cards or other game. I did have a book for me, a Spanish book, but I don’t always like to read from it, as I find its language still difficult for my level Spanish. Luckily I had my ipod with me, and I could watch a couple of episodes of Scrubs, and CSI. After a good night sleep, and a good breakfast, we headed for the river. The river water was crystal clear, but a bit cold. We had a good swim, then we went and rented a couple of rubber tires, walked about half an hour up the river. Then we went down the river, floating on the tires. There were some small rapids, nothing too strong, still exciting though. Other stretches were very calm, where one could relax, enjoy the nature around and listen to the sounds of the forest.

After the tire ride, we went to get some lunch. I ordered the local shrimp dish, actually I am still not sure what it was exactly: river lobster? Some kind of river shrimp? Or a combination of both? Anyway it was quite good. Then we went again to the swimming area, where a few families and some of the local kids were hanging out. The kids were climbing the cliff or the trees, and jumping into the river, sometime from a height of 6 or 7 meters. I had my ipod and speakers with me, and put some music on, that attracted the local kids, who surrounded me, and started making musical request.

One of the locals had a sloth, I don't know if he is keeping a pit, or just caught it that day. It was first time that I see a sloth from this close, I could even touch it. It has a small head, rough long fur, except for one patch of short soft colorful fur on it's back. In each hand it had three long claws. A very cute and an aggressive animal. Anyway I did not have camera to document any of this, which was a shame; there were some good pictures to take there. Neither Tom had a camera; his got stolen in Guatemala.

Cali

I met a guy named Jason from Minnesota USA, an ex math teacher that got bored with what he did, he turned to art, sculpturing, did some project in a Bogotá museum, and now is attending a circus school in Cali. Jason like me loves football, and he’ll never turn down the chance to play a game. We decided to try and find somewhere to play in Cali. We found some football fields next to the Chipi Chapi shopping center. We went and just hanged out there, in the hope that a group that is missing some players would invite us to make up the numbers. After an hour wait, we got our wish, and we got invited to play a game. I was warm and ready to go, as we practiced while waiting. I scored the first couple of goals in the game, and I think Jason scored the third, a nice chip over the goalkeeper (mine were just two poacher efforts capitalizing on defensive mistakes). The play was quite rough, and there are no fouls. Since we were playing 6 vs 6, it was a also bit crowded, and challenges were flying from all directions. At one point some guy charged into me, America football style, after I had released the ball, he hit with his shoulder straight in the ribs, knocking me back. I immediately felt the pain, and fell to the ground, grabbing my chest. I had previous experiences with rib bruises, and I immediately knew I gotten rib bruise again. Anyway no body paid attention to me, the game went on, and the idiot, who charged into me, did not even bother to ask if I was alright, or apologize for his crime (in reality I did not even know who the culprit is, who caught me by surprise, and I did not see who it was). Realizing no body cared, I just got up and went on playing, trying hard to avoid being hit again on the same spot. Halfway through the game I thought I was too tired to go on, and was thinking of retiring, or at least playing goal keeper, but when I remembered my bruise, that motivated my to go on, I was going to stay on the field, and do my best to ensure that the guy who hit me does not win the game. I got a second wind, and managed to play the whole game, I think we played for an hour and half or two hours. Every time I had played football in south America, I got myself hurt, four times out four. The first two times I sprained my big toe, the third time I broke a toe (I think I broke a toe, because it took a few month to heal), all playing on the beach barefoot. This time at least it was not my fault.

I hate rib injuries, they ache at any movement you make, getting up, sitting, turning around in bed, moving your arms, breathing, coughing (the worst). I don’t really know what to do with the injury other then rest until it heals itself. Back at the hostel I declined the temptation to go out that night, and went to bed to rest. But even though I went to bed early I had a hard time waking up in the morning. I had made an appointment with Thomas, to go see a kinder garden project. Thomas is a young guy from Switzerland, and he was interested in volunteering for the project, which is being supported by a Swiss donations. The kinder garden project is located in one of the slums of Cali, near the Cali dump, where most people there make their living from collecting stuff in the dump for recycling. We first headed to the offices which were in another neighborhood (for safety reasons they told us). Then we took a taxi with three of the women working in the garden, on the way the older woman suggested she keep hold of my camera, for safety. When we got there, the older women paid the taxi driver, and told him not stop for any reason until he left the slum. Then she worked in front of us with a stick in her hand, her daughter walking behind the rest of the group, watching our back. The population of the slum was almost totally black, at that time I could see only kids and teenagers, the parents are probably working, the teenagers did not like it when I looked at them, and responded with threatening looks. At the kinder garden, they had children between the ages of 2 and 5. The children were great, very welcoming, and always ready to play and have fun. But frankly I was feeling awful, the football game last night was tiring, and I felt I did not have the sleep I needed, so I decided to head back to the hostel and catch up on some sleep. Before I left I was given a lovely thanks card, which one of the girls working there made for me on the spot. I hanged it at the hostel, so people could see it and hopefully get interested in visiting the place. At the kinder garden, I tried to take some photos, only to realize that my camera was no longer working. I can’t really complain it served me well for three years, I guess it’s time had come. But now I am without a camera, and I trying to decide whether to get a new one. Three of the young woman working at the hostel, accompanied me, surrounding me like body guards, until we reached the main road, were I grabbed a taxi. I found it brave of them to do this project, in an area which appears to be quite dangerous.