An enounter of the nasty kind

I woke up in the morning to find out that the blockades have finally been lifted. The governor and the peasants had reached a partial accord that allowed life to go back to normal, for the time being. I had spent three days here in Tarija, not doing much, but I was not bored, I had a good book to read, and I had my laptop with me. The book I am reading is the Da Vinci code, I had listened to the audio version in the past, but it was a shortened version of the novel, now I am reading the full book. Besides using my laptop for writing, I also stored some movies to watch (one of them is the Da Vince Code), and last week I also bought a new game from the market in Cochabamba, Oblivion, pirated of course, and it proved to be quite an addictive one. So the three days passed rather quickly.

I went immediately to the bus station, and booked the first bus to Salta. There are no direct buses to Salta; one has to take a transport to the border town of Bermejo, cross the border then pick up another transport to Salta, actually it proved to be more complicated than this. I arrived to Bermejo’s bus terminal, I should have in fact gotten off earlier at the international bridge, but I did not know that. Anyway I took a taxi back there, got my stamp at the Bolivia immigration office, and crossed the bridge. There at the other side the Argentinean customs awaited me, and they thoroughly checked my luggage, taken out every item in my bags, but I was given passage in the end. Now to get to the immigration office, I needed to cross a couple of kilometers, which I preferred not to walk with 30Kg of weight in my backpacks, so I took a Taxi to the migration office. Then I realized my first mistake, I did not have Argentinean pesos with, people at this side of the border seemed reluctant to accept Bolivian money, and neither was there any money exchange anywhere to be seen on the border crossing. Anyway the driver reluctantly agreed to take 10 Bolivianos. I passed migration only to realize that the busses to Salta don’t leave from there, but rather from the town of Oran, 40Km away. The taxi wanted about 12$ to take me there, after a lot of hesitation I decided not take the Taxi and look for something cheaper, I had to pay the Taxi driver for the ride to the little town of Aguas Blancas, but I only had 20 Bolivianos, he gave me back only 2 pesos, too little change, but I was in mood to haggle, and in no position to either; I had no Argentinean money. At Aguas Blancas I found a few people and shared a Taxi with them, for 3$ each.

A few kilometers from the border we were stopped by a policeman at a check point, where everybody apparently had to go through a second customs check. As in the border custom check point, it is generally done outside on a large wooden table. I stood in the line like everybody else, but at some point a police officer spotted me, asked me to leave the line, and to accompany him inside to an empty room in the office building. No please come was me sir, just a dry order to follow him. There I was surrounded by two mean looking guys, who bossed me around. Apparently I did not seem pleased with this, who would, and the officer who brought me in asked me if I was angry. Angry? Maybe, but I was more intimidated and worried. I told him that it seems a bit grave; being taken by two officers to an empty room, but that I was not angry, tranquilo I said. He did not seem pleased with my answer, and went and called his boss, now I was surrounded by three unpleasant officers. The boss was particularly unpleasant; he stared at me and sized me up all the time, in a demeaning and intrusive way. He asked me to hand over my camera, and asked me for a tax declaration for it, and also for my laptop, ipod and ipod speakers. I told them that customs checked everything and that they did not require me to declare anything. That answer did not resonate well with them, the bus asked me to stand against the wall, and he raised my shirt again in a very rude and intrusive way, and checked my stomach, for drug bags I guess. Then took off my waist money pouch, and asked me what it is, haven’t you seen any backpackers before, I thought. I did not like where this was going, I was clearly being intimidated there, but for what reason? Are they trying to get me to pay them a bribe? Well I am not going to play ball.

The boss asked me what I did for working, and when I told him I was a software engineer, he sized me up again, from head to toe with a derisory look, as if telling me yes sure you are. Then he told they would confiscate all the items I did not declare, my laptop, my ipod, my ipod speakers and my camera, more intimidation. I did not budge I told them to go ahead and confiscate it, and that I would be immediately on my way to the police to report this. “What police is that you are going to?” the boss replied. I told him that I would keep looking until I found one that would listen to my complaint. That did not go down well with them, neither did my finger pointing. But never the less they dropped the threat to confiscate my stuff, now I was told I had to go back to customs at the border and declare my stuff, I told them I would do it, I just wanted to get out of that room, even if it meant going back tot the border. We went back to the office, and the buss radioed someone asking him for advice, “I have a guy here with a digital camera who did not declare it, should I let him pass, or send him back to the border” he said on the com device. What was the hell all that about back in the room? Now he is considering letting me pass, and the word confiscation was not mentioned at all now on the radio, clearly all what happened inside was just for the purpose of intimidation, I thought. Anyway the voice on the other side told him to send me back to the border, but not after I heard a little lecture about how I should do things, and when I tried to argue that I did not do anything wrong, I was told to keep quite. Well I let him say what he wanted to say, and as soon as I stepped out of the office I shouted what I wanted to day, “I traveled two years in South America, and I was never treated like this”. “Go now” the young officer who brought me replied in a rude way. “Oh I will go, I will go back to the border, but I am not coming back here ever again, I am staying in Bolivia. This is no way to treat people” I said while walking towards a bus that had just arrived at the check point. Beside the bus stood another officer, and I saw him look back towards the office, I looked back and I saw the boss waving at him, You did it Wael, you got your self in big trouble, You had to say something on the way out, I thought. But the captain apparently waved to him to let me through, what a relief. As I was going to get in the bus the taxi driver followed me he demanded his fee, and the bus driver the bus driver told me the fee was 2.25 pesos, I only had two pesos. I handed the taxi driver a bill of 20 Bolivianos, and told him I had no pesos. He wasn’t satisfied and wanted more, and when the bus driver heard I had no pesos he started to drive away. I am getting on that bus, I am not staying one minute longer here. I told the taxi driver that that is what he is getting, and I told the bus driver I had two pesos on me, and he let me get on the bus.

Back at Aguas Blancas, I had no pesos to pay for a Taxi to the border. An old man with white here, who apparently witnessed me storming off the office at the check point, asked me what had happened. I told him. Hhe was very sympathetic, and offered me advice on what to do; he pointed me to a tax office in the town, so that I don’t need to go back to the border. I told him I was not planning to go back to that check point again, that I decided to head back to Bolivia, and that given up on visiting Salta, I asked him if there was any money exchange around here, he told that they don’t take Bolivianos around here. I walked back to the border, a twenty minute walk. I got to the immigration office, where the boss there asked me what happened, I told him I was mistreated and I decided to go back to Bolivia, I got my exist stamp, and headed for the customs. I remembered that I had a couple of one dollar bills. Maybe that would get me a taxi. I was feeling dizzy, the only thing ate the whole day, was a small bag of Yogurt, and it was almost 6 in the afternoon now. I would rather not walk those two kilometers back to the custom office at the bridge. I found a Taxi, he asked me for 1 peso, I offered him 1 dollar, I was not going to rest until I was back in Tarija that night, what ever it takes.

I stopped at the custom point to complain about what happened; I talked to the guys who checked my luggage earlier, and reproached them for not having me declare my electronic gear. But they were puzzled, they told me that as a foreigner, I was allowed to carry items for personal use, like a camera and a laptop, and that I did not need to declare them, and that they would not even know how to do it; they did not have any such declaration forms for foreigners. That eliminated one possible reason for the earlier ordeal, that correct protocol was not followed at the border, anyway I entered Argentina three times before, and I was never asked to declare my camera at the customs. I asked him if tourists never pass through there, but he told that the day before a couple of Swiss backpackers passed went through. One of the guys asked me if I wanted help, and that maybe they can make me some kind of special declaration, I declined, I told him I had made up my mind not to go back to that check point. I crossed the bridge, and got and entrance stamp at the Bolivian side. I took a Taxi back to Bermejo, the taxi driver was a chatty and friendly guy, who wanted to practice the little English he knew. When I told him I was from Israel, he told me that many Israelis pass by Bermejo, since there is nothing to do in Bermejo, the only reason that Israelis would go there, was to cross the border to Argentina, the driver confirmed that. That eliminated a second possible explanation for the or detainment earlier; that they are not used to dealing with tourists there, just Bolivian workers and Argentinean shoppers, but not only there were tourists recently passing there, many of them were Israelis. The taxi driver told me that there are no more buses to Tarija at this time, but I might be lucky to find a small car. I was lucky and there was a car at the terminal with two passengers already inside, and they were looking for a third. Apparently buses and cars are not allowed to leave to Tarija after five in the afternoon, but a little 10 Boliviano bribe from the Taxi driver, resolved the matter at the immigration office, we were let through at 6:30 in the evening.

At around 9:30 I was back in Tarija, right were I started 10 hours back. I checked into the same hotel, and went to get something to eat, I had not eaten all day, traveling in bus usually kills my appetite. After eliminating a couple of explanations, I was left with only two possible explanations for my mistreatment at the check point. The first is that they were trying to intimidate me, so that I would give them a bribe to let me go through. The other is that they are a bunch of mean and twisted minded persons who take pleasure in molesting people. Anyway I had no more desire anymore to visit Salta, in fact think I should have just taken that flight back to Cochabamba on Friday. The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho talks about the signals. The signals were telling me to forget about Salta and head back to Cochabamba, first was the blockades around Tarija, which prevented me from leaving Tarija for three days. I had decided to get on the plane to Cochabamba on Friday afternoon, only to change my mind when they announced that a key meeting was being held to resolve the matter. But the ordeal at the check point, finally convinced me to give up on visiting Salta; I was not going to keep ignoring the signals.

Stuck in Tarija

It seemed that I have Landed in Tarija, right into the middle of a nasty dispute between the governor of the province and the peasants (Campisinos). I could not have picked up a worst time to fly to Tarija, this is my third day here, and all transport into and out of the city is still paralyzed by road blocks.


I have to say that when I saw the marchers yesterday, blockading the main road in front of the bus station with rocks, I felt little sympathy. You can´t have road blockades every time somebody is dissatisfied with the governor, I thought. But then I learned the reason for the marches: they are protesting the continuous delays in the plans to develop the roads in the Tarija province. As someone who traveled quite a lot around Bolivia, I can tell you that the roads here need immediate attention and investment, they are probably the worst in South America, and they are particularly bad here in the south of Bolivia, as there is no paved road connecting Tarija with the rest of the major cities in Bolivia, a situation that would be considered unacceptable for the 21th century. Now that I get the reasons behind the marches, I feel more sympathy for the marchers, and I might even join them in their protests (just kidding).
After waking up today, I asked the hotel manager about the latest in the crisis, and he told that something was going on at the main plaza, so I decided to check it out. I took a Taxi to the main Plaza, and my timing could not have been more perfect, to witness the action. As the Taxi stopped at the plaza to drop me off, I noticed that we were behind a convoy of three trucks. The last truck was loaded with people, brought to join the protests. The first two on the other hand were full of tomatoes, packed in boxes.

The trucks parked in front of the municipality building, and then the tomatoes were distributed to the protesters. A worker who was standing at the porch of the municipality building (or was it the governor?), took cover inside as the protesters pelted the building with tomatoes. I could hear the sound of shattering glass, as one of the windows was smashed by the tomatoes, it was then that the police decided to intervene, and threw a tear gas shell into the crowd. The protesters scurried away, repelled by the eye and throat burning tear gas. I managed to take a couple of pictures of the action, and a few videos as well. I had to retreat my self, after the gas burned my eyes. I have to say that in this case the police had no option but to respond to disperse the protest, and only did so after the protesters actions turned violent.

After witnessing the clash at the main plaza, I became pessimistic about the prospects of this dispute being resolved quickly. I reserved back to Cochabamba and was ready to get on the plane, but then I heard that a key meeting was going to be held this afternoon, between the governor and the leaders of the protesters, so I decided to wait and see, for one more day at least.

It is 9:30 at night now, and the discussions are still going on. Buses are still not leaving the terminal yet, but there is a lot of activity in the terminal, and buses are preparing to leave; it seems the people are anticipating that the blockades will end tonight. Anyway I will not wait longer than tomorrow, if I can´t leave tomorrow to Salta, I will take a flight back to Cochabamba.

A great plan

Since my flight was delayed by a couple of weeks, now I have some extra time I can spend around here. I wanted to visit Argentina, but a flight to BA would cost me around 500$, and since I am going to spend more time around here, I have to make my budget last for time than I have planned.

So I came with a cheaper plan, fly to Tarija, a flight that takes 50 minutes, costs 65$ and saves me a 20+ hours bus ride, then take 10 hour bus across the border to Salta. In total it would costs me 160$ to get to Salta and then back again to Cochabamba. A much cheaper plan. It is still a 20 hour bus ride from Salta to BA, but I am not planning to get to Buenos Aires. I have been their during my previous visits to Argentina, to Salta on the other hand I have not been yet, I missed during my previous trips, and I heard it is quite nice place. Besides the hot weather there suits me well.

Any way plans don´t always work well in reality; I flew to Tarija this morning, and I am still in Tarija, stuck. Apparently the country people (the peasants), are protesting something, and they have created road blockades all around Bolivia. Tarija seem to have been hit really bad by this, I heard in the news that Tarija is completely unreachable, except by plane. The bus station is full of people waiting with their luggage, stuck , unable to go anywhere.

No body knows how long it is going to take, meanwhile I checked into a hotel by the bus station, and tomorrow morning I will check again at the bus terminal, to see if the blockades have been lifted.

Good bye Colombia, Hallo Bolivia

My two month in Colombia are over; I am now in Bolivia again. I had a mix up with my flight back, which means I am going to be staying here a couple of weeks more than I originally planned; To cut a long story short, I wanted to check if I can extend my stay longer in South America, but after giving it some though I decided not to change my flight back, only to find out that my flight back was changed anyway, to the 25th of April. I don't who its fault was the airline or the travel agency, it doesn't really matter, there was a misunderstanding somewhere and I am stuck here for a while. I did managed to bring it forward to the 15th of April, but I will have to spend two nights in Madrid.

Anyway I did not spend my time in Colombia just slacking, I took the time to write a (long) short story, and I am publishing it in a separate blog : www.travelficion.blogspot.com .

Colombia and Bolivia are both Latin America countries, but yet they feel quite different. I would say Bolivia is more traditional, in Bolivia you will hear a lot of folklore music. In Colombia you will hear a lot of Reggie tone and electronic music (They still play a lot of Salsa, Merengue and Vallenato). On Saturday I went to a Jazz festival here in Cochabamba, and one band played a blend of traditional Andean music and Jazz!! Surprisingly the combination worked quite well. On Friday I went to a Peña, a place were they play live traditional music and serve traditional dishes (usually involving a lot of meat)

Since I have some time left before going home, I plan to go to Salta in Argentina for a week or two, I missed Salta during my previous trip in Argentina, and now I have the chance to make it up.

La Guajira and El Cabo De La Vela

The idea of atrip to the Guaira desert came up suddenly and almost from nowhere. Carnival was finished, but we hanged out a bit longer in Barranquilla, as some people needed to recover before heading to their next destination. We were sitting around in our room; me, Troy and Matthias, when Troy suddenly said: “Let’s go to the desert”. I liked the idea and said I would do it if they would. Mathias was also excited, and that is how we basically decided in five seconds to go to the Guajira. We had no information what so ever about the region; the lonely planet, the most popular English guide, had nothing written about that region. We just asked the staff and the hotel, and they all pointed us towards El Cabo de La Vela.

It takes around 5 hours to get from Barranquilla to Riohacha, but it took us much longer. First our bus did not leave until it was filled up with passengers, which took about an hour and half. Midway to Santa Marta our trip was interrupted by a road block; people from a shanty town next to the highway placed some logs and branches and blocked the road. The reason was that they had no electricity for five consecutive days. A power line got broken, and no body cared to come to fix it yet; something that probably takes half an hour to fix. But somebody did not do his job, and now we all have to wait a few hours on the highway. I totally understand these peoples protest; making a road block seems to be the only way for them to be heard in this country. This reminds so much of Bolivia, where these kinds of road blocks are a common things, and just part of the daily life there.

We finally made it to Rioacha, but only at 8 in the evening. We met a couple of local chicks on the bus, who wouldn’t leave us alone, and helped us find a hotel when we arrived at the city, then it turned out they were strippers, and they tried to convince us to come to there club, or buy them food; basically just get some money of us. It would take a little more than a couple of fat strippers to get me to go a to a strip club. We stayed at hotel Mataimi, a nice secure hotel, with a very friendly owner. The city of Rioacha though is a not a very nice place, just it is an essential jumping spot to get to the interesting places in the Guajira region. Me and Troy has arrived there already, Matthias our Swedish friend, and the last member of the Guajira expedition, had to go to the border with Venezuela because of visa issues. He arrived the next morning, and we all went to get some supplies for the trip: chips, snack bars, alcohol, etc. Then we took a Taxi to Uribia, a small shanty town next to some mine. We were hungry and we checked a couple of restaurants in the town, but we just could not get our selves to eat in one of those place, they were the lowest standard of restaurants I have seen in the whole of Colombia. We decided we could wait until we go to Cabo de la Vela.

Our transport to El cabo a pickup truck, we went on the back of the pickup truck with the locals and couple of Colombian tourists. 12 people in total were packed in the back of a pickup truck, plus luggage. The road to El Cabo goes parallel to train tracks, which were built for load trains carrying materials from a mine to a port near El Cabo. We had to wait for one of these trains when we were about to cross the tracks, it must have been at least 1 Kilometer long, and it took a few minutes until it passed. The pickup truck stopped many times on the way, to unload passengers or supplies, which were mostly loaded on the roof of the pickup. It seems this was the main supply trucks for all the little tiendas (shops), scattered on the way between Uribia and El Cabo. The pace was slow because of the continuous stopping, and it took us more than 3 hours to arrive. We arrived to El Cabo at almost sunset. There we stopped about every ten meters to unload something, it seems that they run errands for all the people of El Cabo; the people give the pickup truck driver there orders and money, the drivers buys it from Uribia or border town of Maicao, and delivers it back the next day. The main settlement is composed of one main street going parallel to the coast. We could not much tourists around, but we did see a lot of basic accommodation, and restaurant, very basic. Apparently during holiday a lot of Colombians come here. First they were going to drop us in the main settlement block, but we did not like it there so much. So they drove us further up the beach, into the peninsula, and dropped us off there at some cabañas, about half an hour walk from the main settlement.

It was already getting dark and we decided to stay there for at least one night. But we ended liking the place and stayed there for the whole week we were there. The owner was a very friendly lady, and the place had a restaurant up on the second floor, with a nice view over the bay. We slept in hammocks, but the lady gave us a key to one of the cabañas to store our stuff. The place was pricier than the main town, but worth the money, and anyway we were still only spending 40000-50000 on average daily, that’s about 20 dollar. Not to mention that they have power plugs, which meant I can charge my laptop and keep writing in the middle of this remote peninsula.

La Guajira is a strange place that does not feel like the rest of Colombia, more like a remote place on some undeveloped country. There are no electricity or water grids; electricity comes from generators, and water is probably delivered by container trucks. The main source of income for the little settlement seems to be tourism, but there does not seem to be much of them around here at the moment. They get waves of tourism during the Colombian holidays, but seem to have little to do between those holidays. There is some fishing going on, but I think it is only to provide for the settlement of El Cabo. The only vesicles around are tourist SUVs (those of rich Colombias, coming here for a few days vacation), the pickup truck that leaves once a day to Uribia, transporting people and bringing supplies, and the occasional tourists bus that takes people up to the light house. It is not uncommon to see people drunk in the night and acting strange. Mostly though in the night, the settlement turns into a ghost town, there are only a few places with electricity and hardly anybody on the streets. The moon though is bright; when during our stay it was between half to full moon, and it made it possible to walk around the peninsula during the night, even without the help of a flashlight.

El Cabo is were desert meets sea. We stayed on the peninsula, which is connected to the main land by a strip of flat land about 1 Km wide. The peninsula itself is between 2-3 Km wide, and 6-7 Km long. The beach on our side is very calm, flat surface with no waves; it looks more like a lake than the sea. The wind blows very strong though, the gusts sometimes get so strong they would blow up sand and lash our skin with it, which can be quite painful.

Troy is a talented guitarist, and he plays music that he comes up with himself; it is always good to have a good guitarist on a remote place like. I also played the few guitar songs I still remember, and managed to sit down and do some writing as well, not as much as I wanted it to though. Matthias on the other hand had no diversion, not even a book. Matthias was also disappointed with the place; he was expecting some kind of beach resort with chicks running around in Bikinis. So it was no surprise he was the first to leave, me and Troy stayed a couple of days longer.

I wanted to go try fishing as an extra diversion, we had no fishing gear though, and I decided to walk up to one of the fishermen on the beach, and try to get him to take us on a fishing trip on his little dinghy. But communicating with him, and the rest of the locals for that matter, was quite a challenge. Generally the coast is a difficult place to speak Spanish for a gringo, they have a different dialect in which they don’t pronounce all the litters and swallow the words. They don’t seem to be very talkative either, they would often just sit there and say nothing back, or just mumble short sentences of one or two words. We would often have to repeat our order several times before they understand it, even for very simple things like Agua (water). The people there are mostly descendents of indigenous Indians, and some of them speak their own language besides Spanish, which they use to communicate between them selves, it kind of sounds like Chinese. Anyway the fisherman did not seem excited about taking me with him on the boat, so I changed my strategy and asked him if he could sell us fishing gear. That seemed to work, he told me to wait for him, he went back to his home, and brought a couple of hooks and fishing lines. We agreed to pay 10000 for each. Then me and Troy tried fishing, during the night at our beach, and during the day at some rocks on the other side of the island, but without any luck though. We tried every possible bait, crab, lobster, shell fish, fish strips and sausage. I even caught a couple of live crabs once and just hanged them on the hook. I think we have to go on a boat a little deeper to catch something; there did not seem to be big fish at the shore.

Walking around the island was our main diversion though. On our first excursion we reached the light house, which is at the tip of peninsula. Strong gusts of wind blow up at the top of the hills. Our next excursion was to beach which we spotted on our walk to the light house the day earlier; very beautiful beach, lying in a bay protected by a mini peninsula branching of the main peninsula. We were the only people on the beach when we arrived, but later a few SUV tourists arrived. Besides us there only a few tourists in El Cabo, mostly Colombians driving around with their SUVs, and some french travelers; apparently the French guide to Colombia, unlike the Lonely Planet, does have some information on El Cabo. Our third expedition was the most ambitious though, we decided to walk along the coast of the peninsula, and to go as far as we can until we ran out of water to drink. We stopped at the close by tienda to have a cold Coca Cola before starting, and stock up on water and snacks, and then we headed out on our adventure. We tried walking on the beach whenever it was possible. We reached the lighthouse at the tip of the peninsula, then went down to the nice little beach we visited the day before. After that we walked to the tip of the mini peninsula, and then continued down the coast. Unlike our side of the Peninsula, this side was rocky, with steep cliffs at the edge, with waves smashing against it. Whenever we saw a nice beach we would try to find a way down there, to relax there for a while and throw a fishing line. At the distance we could see a mountain, the highest top on the beach, and the last one before the peninsula ends. We made it our goal to reach the top of that mountain and we managed it; we made it to the top, which provided a great view of that side of the island, then we headed back to our hotel. It was about a 45 minute walk, but this time we had to walk against the sun, so far we had timed our hike to perfection, we walking westward in the morning, then heading back eastward in the afternoon, but we went further east than our hotel, and on the way back we had to walk towards south west, straight into the sun.

The first thing we did when we arrived back was to go back to the tienda, and drink couple of cold Coca Colas, then we went to the hotel and ordered our lunch. If there is one thing to complain about in this place, it is the lack of variety in food. The menu consists of sea food only; there are two types of fish Pargo and Mujarra, and there is also Langoustines (pricey but good). They always come with arroz, patacon (fried Banana) and a small salad (consisting of most onion). The fish is good but how many days in a row can one each fish. The only variation we had was when they made some spaghetti and French fries instead of rice and patacon, I can’t tell how good it was to finally eat something different. After the sixth or seventh Pargo, I decided I will have no more fish. I can’t imagine how these people eat the same meals day after day. Back at home if my mother cooks the same dish two days in a row, there would be a lot dissent. At least couple of weeks would have to pass, before it would be alright to cook the same dish again. Middle eastern home made and fast food is one of the things I most miss while traveling in south America. After a week in El Cabo though, I was even starting to miss things like a good hamburger, pizza or Pasta.

There is some wild life around here, I found a baby snake at our shack. I and Troy played around with it and filmed it before I put it on a stick and throw it away. We are used to having snakes around, he is from Australia and I am from Israel, two hot countries. Matthias our Swedish friend, on the other hand would not come within ten meters of the sneak. Later we told the locals about the snake, and they told us it was a very poisonous snake, and they were surprised and kind of reproachful that we did not kill it. There were geckos, whom for a long times I though were birds, because they sing like birds. There were 50cm long lizards, that stay still and blend so well with the background. I had a few encountered with those during my hike; they don’t move until I almost stepped on them, then they suddenly appear from no where, and take off in a sprint, and keep running until they are out of sight. There are goats around the island, they probably belong to someone, though I did not see any Shepard’s around. At the beach there are many crabs; and they come in many varieties: There are white ones that live in holes in the sand, and mostly come out at night. Dark ones that stay on the black rocks, and I have seen some red ones as well. There are also red lobsters that live inside shells. I have also seen a sea a fist size sea snail washed out on the beach. When we came back from our long hike, we wanted to take a swim at our beach to wash out all the dust, sand and sweat. I was about to enter, when I saw that there were jelly fish in the sea. I hesitated then I decided I would go in for a quick swim, avoiding the jelly fish, Troy joined me as well. A minute later I got stung around my thighs, on both legs, just above the knee. Troy was stung exactly at the same time, around his ankles; some kind of a coordinated jelly fish attacks on the human swimmers. We scurried to get out of the water as soon as we felt the stings, but it was too late; the stings were extremely painful. I also started to develop a rash around the area of the string, and the terrible pain went on for an hour before it subsided.

The local women here are skilled with netting; they make bags and bracelets of different sizes. I ordered one especially tailored to fit my deck of cards. It only cost me 2000 pesos (less than a dollar), I would have been willing to pay twice as much. They just don’t seem to know how to take advantage of the situation, i.e. charge more for a special order. Anyway I think someday tourism will kick up in this place, and prices will go up higher; El Cabo is a perfect spot for wind or kite surfing.

To leave El Cabo we had to wake up at 4 in the morning, as that is the time the only pickup truck leaves to Uribia. From Uribia we took a taxi to Rioacha and from there the bus to Santa Marta.