Colombia here I is!

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Barranquilla

Tis time to write my blog so here I go.

First comes the interrigation session as always when going through the lovely US of A. This time he wasn´t trying to convince me that I am a criminal. This time the moron was testing my patience. He was asking me why I went to Houston a year ago....to which I replied that I didn´t. Then I thought about it for a bit and realized that I was going to Rio through Houston...even though he already knew that because he had to have it in his computer. The he asked me why I was going to the United States. I said I wasn´t, and then he gave me a suspicious look and asked. "Why you don´t want to go to the US?" I couldn´t tell him what I felt at the time because beginning your trip with a cavity search is not the best start. So I just replied..."It´s not that but I am going to Colombia." I mean come on....who wouldn´t want to go the USA eh? God bless amierica and no one else! ANYWAY!

When I arrived at the Barranquilla airport, the first impression I got was chaos. I met a lady on the plane who was from there but that didn´t really help any. As the luggage started to arrive, I was feeling a little better. Some of the luggage was thrown off the belt, some was put off to the side and some was circulating on the belt. Tai waited and waited, and my hope started to proportionally fade with each 15 minute interval. Finally, me and about 10 other people discovered that Santa was not going to deliver the goods today. By that I mean the luggage was not exactly there. So I filled out a report explaining what was missing and what my backpack looked like. After that, I realized that I will never travel lighter than this so I might as well enjoy it.

Now everything was nice and cute until I got to my hotel and started thinking that after basically 2 days, I wouldn´t mind having a new shirt, maybe even a change of underwear would be amazing. And that it would be except for the fact that I had no idea where I was. So I was waiting for my partner in crime Hassan to arrive. I fell asleep in my room....more like passed out until about 6pm. then Hassan shows up at the door with the bell boy and guess whaaaaaat. He was traveling rather lightly as well for a 3 week vacationing tourist. That´s right folks, his stuff didn´t come as well. So now I was a little more relieved because partly I am a bastard but the other part is that he wouldn´t miss out on all the fun of buying absolutely everything from scratch. It´s amazing how you take everything for granted...like a toothbrush...it is simply always there. Until of course it isn´t. I wasn´t exactly feeling fresh and I knew that sooner or later (definitely sooner in this case) my breath would begin to convince me that an investment into a toothbrush would be an amazing idea. So the next day we woke up and started looking for necessities only, since we were still full of hope that our luggage would show up tomorrow or in two days max.

Then at night, we tried to go out even though it was a monday cause I thought that for a city of that size (3 million) there simply has to be something to do. So we asked at the front desk what´s going on....they didn´t have a clue...we asked the cab driver as those guys usually know everything. Still nothing. So I think the cab driver gave us a pathetic attempt to show us the ladies clubs...so I think we ended at some small unknown place that only has ladies of the night. All the brother wants at this point is some beer and maybe to dance a bit. That didn´t exactly happen as the ladies were trying to entice me with their best "offers" but at least I got to practice some spanish...lol.

Lost luggage - Take two

So as the second day arrived and they told me to call back at around 3pm I did and still nothing. So once again, I was to take it day by day. The next day after that Hassan´s luggage has arrived but mine didn´t. One last try the next day but nobody was picking up. American Airlines suck and they better reimburse me otherwise.....otherwise probably absolutely nothing but it´s always good to make a big deal out of things.

For some reason Barranquilla didn´t have much appeal to us and frankly it was boring...maybe because we never ended up going out cause as far as we knew....everything was closed until the weekend. On the fourth day I said forget about it and we headed for Santa Marta, El Rodadero to be precise. Later on when we were in Santa Marta someone told us that there are places you can go and things to do in Barranquilla but you need to know where to go. At that point it was useless information but it did serve it´s purpose to make me bitter. We also decided to mostly eat sea food since we can´t get those kinds of fish back home and definitely for those prices. We ate Pargo Rojo, Robalo, Sierra (all fish) arepas, arroz and almost always fries. The food tasted really good. I ended up buying a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans. That´s about it for Barranquilla. I will be posting pictures later. I don´t even have that many of this city. And everyone, do me one favour. Please call this country COLOMBIA...not Columbia. Gracias. (Grassy Ass)

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Comments

[Colin]

Luggage
HAHA thats awesome. Maybe they thought you were Americans so someone conveniently lost your luggage!

[daRuss]

Good to know
So where would you recommend going? I wanted to go to Medellin, Cali and Bogota...but I didn't have time. Have you been there? I heard that people are friendlier there.