Tuesday, August 22nd 2006
We bid our farwell to our AMAZING hosts at our halfway house in Panama and we were on the road again!
Ahh... South America! Upon arrival to Colombia, our bags were promptly torn apart - my shoe soles, cigars, back pack frame, and chapstick were inspected quite closely. They seem to take customs quite seriously here. Lots of guns too, which we hadn´t seen many of in Panama and Costa Rica. The shotgun, which was ubiquitos in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, didn´t seem to be popular though. Just handguns.
We arrived in Barranquilla and decided to quickly check out what had been labeled as a more industrial Colombian city. We took the bus from the airport (which, for the first time in more than a month was not a school bus) and started strolling around. With our large bags and gringo skin, pretty much everyone was looking at us like we were animals in a musem. The heat, the sketchiness, and our gringo bags, all made the prospects of completing an afternoon stroll a little hard. (Note: since we are now carrying all of Jose´s extra payload that he has picked up along the way our bags are quite a bit heavier) Thus, after several blocks (and a very nice woman who advised Jose to take off his gold chain and hide it) we decided to resume the tour in a cab.
Our first glimpse of this mysterious country where over 43 MILLION people live (second most populous spanish speaking country after mexico) was spectacular! The majority of population is mixto; a mix of african, indian, and european decent. The city planning of Barranquilla was quite different from any city we had seen in central america thus far. Large wide streets, grid city planning, and no buildings over two stories were some of the charactaristics of this city of over one million inhabitabitants. There were also many new and shinny cars - one of which was our taxi. Our driver gave us the history of the city and his perspectives as he took us on a leasurely drive-tour on the way to the long distance bus termanial. We arrived and after a quick meal were off to Cartagena!
The bus to Cartagena was luxurious; could get used to this! The Colombian rural landscape was spectactular and I was glued with my nose to the window, and managed to avoid watching any of fast and furious 2. The sun was setting as we arrived in the long distance bus terminal and we needed to make tracks since, as in Barranquilla, the terminal was far from the city. After a 40 minute ride, and some nice pointers from some locals, we arrived to the old town. Our first few attempts at hotels didn´t pan out but we finally landed a spot right near the old town.
Our first glimpses of Cartagena proved that this could be the most beautiful city that we have seen yet on this voyage. The old colonial city was beautrifully preserved but was integrated into modern life and had become the epicenter of greater Cartagena. Not too many tourists either.
Jose was coming down with a cold so we had a nice meal of fish and juice, bypassed the beautiful outdoor cafes and squares, and headed home for an early bed. As a final highlight, I managed to give myself a hell of an electric shock when grabbing for the light in the bathroom after my shower. My arm was still tingling a bit in the morning.
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