Colombian Regrets, Part 1

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South America to Central America. It seemed a simple part of the trip, even without airplanes. They were too expensive, too boring. When you fly, you miss the best part of the journey. It's like cheating real travel. So, we said, how about a boat?


I met Guido and Luis in Medellin, Colombia. I had spent the last 2 weeks of my life hitchhiking and busing from Quito, Ecuador, and I was happy to finally find a bed, even if it was located in a typical backpacking scene hostal, complete with bar, pool tables and pool. Asking a few people hanging around if they wanted a game of soccer, 3 replied yes! One left, and Luis and Guido were left. I found out they were both planning to head on to Cartagena the same night - I took the invitation to join.




Several bumpy bus rides later, we found ourselves outside the walled city of tourist Cartagena, searching the sweaty, crowded throngs for a cheap hotel. Dismissing the only hostal, we found a family long-stay hotel. 2 beds in a tiny room, stains and holes everywhere and one of the bathrooms where the toilet is in the shower; perfect, especially for the price.




The first time I knew this was the beginning of one of those times you have while travelling, the times when everything you are used to gets tossed on its head and you have no idea what will happen next, was when we decided we wanted to sample the local nightlife and drug scene. Walking around Cartagena at night gave you enough to keep you busy without the need of intoxication. Prostitutes on every street, calling and smiling their seductive smiles at you; big black men dressed as gangsters and following you, acting like your best friend while saying subtle things like, "cocaine? ganja amigo? yo tengo todos te quieras!" and stopping you at every opportunity to shake your hand or hug you, pressure for you to part with your colombianos that many a traveller succumbed to; the travelers themselves, not as many as in other parts of the world like Asia or central America, visiting the only part of the city they felt safe in: the walled city.




You had to brush aside all these distractions in order to get anywhere or do anything, although it grew difficult when one particularly skinny prostitute, baby in arm, aproached me. These streets never slept. You could sit and watch from the curb, smoking your cheap cigarettes, and never realize it was morning until the sun rose, and I did, many a night. It was easier to do things at night; the intense heat didn't allow any activity for longer than a few minutes at a time in the day.




The clubs in the rich walled city were like any anywhere; expensive and loud. These ones were packed with prostitutes of all kinds, naked or clothed, and the ones hanging outside were only different by way of price. Me, my Argentine and my French friend would buy beers from kiosks and walk, just walk. We would talk to the prostitutes, the drug dealers, the pimps. We watched whores get arrested and carried away in police vans, we saw police mingle with the same girls and their pimps in the square the next night.




We decided we wanted to see the real Colombia; see the best it had to offer. After several unsuccesful bargains with more or less shady characters, almost all wearing dark glasses day or night, we found one in the walled city who told us to follow him for a good price. We walked across the city to the alleys and lanes behind the mask that most travellers only get to see, past street football games and growling dogs, staring families holding babies and comotose men sprawled on the sides. For several hours we saw the side of Cartagena that was raw, that was real. After being told to wait in a dark lane for several minutes, we finally ducked into a half-decayed building, minus a roof. Garbage bags and old wood, broken bricks and a sleepy man kicked out of his slumber on a rotten mattress were not the only things inside; several young kids ran about playing as 4 more men walked in the door. Suppressing our nerves at being in such a vulnerable position, we paid the man for his tour, with the hopes of getting back to our hotel, goods intact. The man who led us in, led us out, and then told us if we wanted to find him, to look in the walled city, not to return to the alleys. Walking past several heavily armed policemen, we returned to our room and all agreed the results of our endeavors to be very pleasing. Wandering around the hazy side streets by our hotel, stumbling by drunks, addicts, dealers and generally shady characters accompanied by vacant eyed girls, we would leave and return to the hotel on our own sporadic schedules, buying beers for pittance and watching the night pass from behind a lucky strike or caribe.




We took trips to the beach several times during our stay. I say trips, because the beaches were a mile or more away, and in the hot sun, they seemed like days of walking. Relentless massagers, equipped with buckets of oil and just as greasy smiles, assailed us wherever we went. Beers in the thatched huts and following swims in the perfect water were the best cure for Colombia and all it offers, but the walk back to the city was excruciatingly hot. The cold showers at the hotel would help, but only until the humid air hit your skin minutes later and your skin broke out in even more sweat.




Across from our room, a family lived; mother, father and daughter. They lived in a smaller room than us. Once Luis left northboud for Santa Marta, I spent more and more time with the daughter, Julieth, going for lunches in the chicken restaurants where they give you a plastic glove as a utensil, walking to the beach for afternoon swims, and sharing fruit at her telephone stall she worked at. I still think of her often, as I wish I hadn't left her and the city. Yet another mistake to add to my life.




I was torn away from Cartagena and the pleasant excitement it offered, when Guido told me he was traveling by boat to Turbo, and from there to Panama. The help of a native Spanish speaker on prices and traveling ease convinced me to join. That was when the fun really began.

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