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Published: March 14th 2010
Friday morning I woke with a better head than I deserved given the excesses of Thursday night.
I ordered breakfast in the room and packed.
The air conditioning in the room saved me from the stifling humidity outside. Barranquilla is HOT! I've not been both outside and cool since I left San Gil, I think.
The showers in the Hotel Windsor are amazing. I hadn't had a hot shower since Bucaramanga. And I hadn't actually had a hot shower with consistently hot water since I left the UK. It's not really that I've been pining for it...but when I stepped into the shower at the Hotel Windsor and felt that hot, powerful spray from the shower head....then I realised that I had missed it.
Packing my bag these days comes almost as second nature to me. Honestly, quite a lot of my things never actually make it out of my bag.
Normally, on arrival, I hand over my dirty laundry to the hostel staff, get out my shoes, clothes, books, toiletries and laptop / phone / charger. Everything else stays in the bag until it's needed - which is virtually never. Which makes packing pretty straight forward.
So packed and fed (and with a portion of the last blog post written), I checked out of the hotel and made the 20 minute taxi journey to the airport.
It occurred to me that I had never asked which terminal I needed to be at...or even if there was more than one airport in Barranquilla. But I didn't need to worry. The driver dropped me off and I wandered in and, easy as you like, checked in my luggage.
Barranquilla airport is tiny and I'd really allowed too much time. I waited for an hour and a half in the airport with nothing to distract me but my MP3 player.
Then, without warning, a young woman caled Johana sat next to me and started talking to me. I knew by the fact that I didn't understand a word that she said that she must be from around Santa Marta or Cartagena or something. Santa Marta it was.
Well, it was a pleasant distraction whilst I waited for my plane. Finally the clock ticked to 1pm and I bid Johana farewell and went through domestic departures security. It occurred to me that I'd never taken a domestic flight ANYWHERE before. Well, first time for everything, I suppose.
I figured out (by watching everybody else) that when you turn up at the gate, you go straight to the counter. They check your boarding pass and scribble something on it. Then you sit and wait.
Eventually our plane arrived, passengers disembarked, we embarked. The plane left about 20 minutes late.
As the national airline of Colombia I was expecting Avianca to be "OK". I was SOOOO wrong.
Avianca is AMAZING! The legroom is....room enough for your legs. The seat-front monitors are touch-sensitive (and you can actually see them!). The cabin crew are polite and curteous and....well, I think that it's the best airline I've travelled on. Beats BA for sure. Probably beats Virgin too. Very very highly recommended. Wish that I was flying back with them. Makes me realise just how poor Iberia are by comparison.
Grrrrr, I got this post almost finished and then lost internet connection and so half the post! Double grrrrr...
Anyway, let's try again...
The flight to Bogotá from Barranquilla is supposed to be an hour so when we'd been in the air for over that with no sign of descending, I decided to find out what was happening. Apparently congestion around Bogotá meant that we were in a holding pattern. For how long? They didn't know.
Hmmmm, I only had an hour between connecting flights and we'd left 20 minutes late. Things were looking a bit tight for making the connecting flight.
And tighter. And tighter.
I finally disembarked the plane at 1547. 13 minutes before my flight to Medellín was due to leave. I wasn't sure what to hope for. Even if I could make the connecting flight (which I didn't really believe that I could), I was pretty sure that my bag wouldn't make the flight.
I strode down to the general area where I thought that connections might be. And once again, Colombia weaved its magic to make sure that everything work out...in the end. I spoke to an Avianca employee at the connections desk (remarkably no queue), she scribbled on my boarding card and marched me down to gate 4 - one gate along from where I'd landed. I asked something along the lines of "My bag will be loaded, right?" and she told me not to worry (not exactly the same as "yes", I reflected).
But I was happy to not have to wait around for the next flight. I was already tired from the lack of sleep and the heat and the travelling.
They closed the doors behind me as I boarded and I settled into my seat for the 45 minute flight to Medellín.
The only thing that I was a bit disappointed by with Avianca was that I didn't get any food on either leg of the flight. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was approaching 5pm by the time that we landed. I was looking forward to a good meal and a cool beer.
Flying into Rio Negro airport was amazing. All around were green fields. It could easily have been the UK in springtime. Except that every now and again, the land would fall away beneath us as we passed the summit of a mountain. I regretted that I'd chosen an aisle seat for this leg of the flight.
At around 5.20 pm I finally disembarked and walked to the terminal building. The air was fresh. What a relief! All around were distant, cloud-topped mountains. And everything seemed to be covered in foliage of various shades of green.
There was no indication which carousel my bag would arrive on so I followed the tried and trusted method of standing where everybody else was standing. Unusually my bag was one of the first out (I suppose by virtue of the fact that it was the last in). I loaded up and headed out to the taxi rank.
Aware that this was going to be a 50 minute drive at least, I wanted to check the prices so I asked around a few people (security guards, shop workers etc). It seems that there's a fixed price - 52.000 COP. There is a scheme in operation whereby you can share a cab. But I just wanted to get to the hostel.
Rio Negro is actually only about 20km from Medellín and it's all twisty mountain roads. Ah yes, I remember these. My sumo wrestler sized driver was suitably nuts and happily chatted on his mobile whilst steering with his leg whilst travelling about 3 feet away from the car in front. Hey, he was sumo wrestler sized...I wasn't going to argue. At least I had a seatbelt for once!
I mentioned that the greenness of the area makes you feel that you could easily be in the UK. And it's true. Imagine the beauty of the British countryside with stunning mountain views. That was my drive into Medellín. Occasionally the greenery would be broken as we passed a field covered in plastic sheeting - flower farming, my driver explained.
Then, suddenly, the road fell away, and in the valley below me (and sprawling up the other side) was Medellín. It's buildings bathed in the golden glow of a dying sun. A liberal sprinkling of super-size apartments stood proud from their neighbours, admiring the view below them. We wound our way down the steep streets into the Zona Rosa in the south of the city...
And so finally, at around 6pm, I arrived at
Global Hostel.
The receptionist wasn't all beaming smiles as I arrived (as I've come to expect from hostelliers), but she was friendly enough I suppose. I was too tired to care. In the end, my journey would have been almost as quick if I'd taken the bus, I think. But anyway, I was here now.
My room contains a double and a single bed. There is no air conditioning but an upright fan keeps the place cool enough. A large TV sits at the foot of the bed (I'm watching the F1 on it as I write this). Pictures and discreet ornaments adorn the walls. It's not Hotel Windsor but it's perfectly comfortable enough. The bathroom is odd in that the area above the shower cubicle has no roof - it looks directly out into the sky. I actually kinda like it. There is no wardrobe so I quickly unpacked my bag onto the bed and headed out to satisfy my ever grumbling stomach.
I found a place just along the road which seemed busy (always a good sign). It turned out that it was a sandwich place. But these were no ordinary sandwiches...they were huge, accompanied by chips and salad. I ordered a steak, chicken and salad monster on ciabatta bread and a beer. "What do you mean I can't have beer?? I'm over 18! Do you want to see my ID??".
You know by now that I love this country, surely. There are some crazy things and there are some frustrating moments but there is nothing that I could point at and say "that's just plain rubbish".
Except this: as of 6pm Friday evening, Colombia officially became a dry country until 6am Monday morning. Three nights. THREE NIGHTS. THREE
WEEKEND NIGHTS where it is illegal to buy or sell alcohol in any form in the WHOLE of Colombia! And the reason? Oh, you won't believe this! It's because on Sunday (today), the Colombians are going to the polls to elect their Congressmen and women. Apparently the powers that be consider that the Colombian people are entirely capable of buying a house or raising a family or driving a bus full of people on mountain roads having had a bit of a tipple the night before. But for something as
important as electing a bunch of fatcats to office, they need to be absolutely utterly 100%!s(MISSING)tone cold sober.
Ley Seca (Dry Law) is what they call it. Apparently it happens every time that there is an election. And an election is always on Sunday. And everywhere you go there are signs that say "Ley Seca" all over the alcohol cabinets in bars and shops and restaurants.
Now, before you go thinking that I'm upset about this because I've become a raging alcoholic, I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I'm upset about it because the effect on the hospitality trade is devastating. I wandered around Zona Rosa on Friday night at about 11pm - when the restaurants and the bars and the discos (as they still call them over here) should be full of people, full of life. And instead the few places that are open are largely empty. I've spoken to restaurant owners and bar men and hotel owners and everybody agrees - it's just a crazy law. I was speaking to one guy who said that Monday is wages day in Colombia and they were relying on the takings from the weekend to pay the staff.
I mean, if you HAVE to impose a dry law for three nights, at least make the elections on a Wednesday or something!
I can't begin to imagine the impact on the economy of the country...whatever it is, this country really can't afford it. Even worse - they have presidential elections in May and they'll do it all over again. And we complain about
our politicians being out of touch. OK, I'll stop banging on about it, but the final point that I want to make is that it's really REALLY rare to see anybody really drunk in this country. When you do it's homeless people. This country just doesn't seem to suffer from it at all. And it makes going out a really much more pleasant experience than it can be sometimes in the UK. And it makes Ley Seca all the more ridiculous.
So, that was my Friday. I ate. I went back to the hostel. rested a bit. I wandered around the immediate area a bit. And, exhausted, I fell into bed at about 11.30.
I seem to be perpetually a day behind on these postings. Perhaps the lack of opportunity to go out in the evenings will help me get back up to speed.
Hasta luego!
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anita
non-member comment
riots
So, it felt like England flying into Rio Negro? You must have seen nothing working then and everyone on strike ;-) 3 nights ban on drinking. Damn! That's crazy. There would have ben a riot over here and the amount of people having sex would go down by 99% .. Hasta Luego