Finally I had my Colombian adventure. I set off on Tuesday around 1 pm thinking I wouldn’t get a bus until 2:30, but to my pleasant surprise, when I arrived at the bus terminal I was immediately led to the bus leaving at that exact moment. The trip was a bit uncomfortable. Initially, I thought I had the best luck – the back seat to myself. Then this entire family climbed onto the bus, and to my dismay, there were no free spaces other than the ones next to me. So the mother and father sat next to me with their three children piled on top of them. Not the most pleasant of scenarios, but it only lasted about 3 hours. Then I was told to get on a smaller bus that would take me straight to Santa Marta. Again, another cramped voyage. Imagine me, a relatively tall white woman in the last row of a roughly 25-seat mini-bus packed with Colombians of a darker complexion. I was like a sore thumb stuffed in a box of sardines.
But before I knew it, that leg of the journey was over and I was in my hostel, Solaz, in Santa Marta. I had a really neat conversation with the taxi driver who picked me up in front of the terminal about ignorance that leads to hero worship of even the most deplorable figures – in this case, Trump and Maduro. I never considered that there were Venezuelans that admired and even worshiped him with a certain fervor. My taxista, a Venezuelan, understood it just as much as I understand the fervor people in my own family have towards Trump. He left me with his number, saying if I ever needed anything in the city to let him know. A man who had been a successful detective with several houses, for the first time, reduced in a way to a solitary life working in the public sector of Colombia. Now that would make a novel – but that was his life. The whole thing struck me as quaint.
I can’t lie, I had some unrealistic expectations for this trip, particularly for seeing my friend. After all, his posturing of things was pretty ideal. We were to go out wandering around Santa Marta talking and then later drink and dance the night away. I even imagined us traveling a bit afterwards together as well.
Well, suffice it to say, it didn’t happen that way. We all ended up being to tired to properly drink and dance, so I retired early. And honestly, that’s okay. Everything was fun but not life-altering. I kept finding myself getting quiet and pensive because it didn’t feel like I felt it should. And I realize that’s the danger. Thinking too much and figuring yourself into a story that isn’t yours. All the same, I generally enjoyed the experience I had, all because a relatively new friend had the nerve to tell me “ven” – come through.
The great, and frankly unexpected, part of this adventure was the connections I gained along the way. That night I met Clari and Dani, two incredible Argentinian girls. They were both planning on going to the same destination that I had in mind from the beginning: Parque Tayrona. My friend introduced us, and we hit it off fairly well. They are both biology majors from Buenos Aires with a myriad of other skills between them: both cook, sing, dance (tango!), ride horses, among a million other little things aside from being extremely intelligent. It’s not that often that you meet truly formidable people in life, but I felt like they could definitely be described as such.
I got to know them a good deal in Santa Marta, eating out and hanging out in the hostel and going to swim and sunbathe in Rodadero (oh, did I mention they’re both great swimmers too?). But I really saw what made them tick on our trip to Tayrona.
We went into the trip with the entrance tickets to the park pre-bought – a must to avoid long lines in peak tourist season – and (supposedly) lodging already a given. That part ended up being wrong, though, as when we arrived to the camp site with extremely over-priced food, there was actually no tents available for us to rent. It got worse considering the guy that worked there wouldn’t even help us. So not long after, it was put our bags back on our backs and hoof it to the next campsite.
When we got there, we were so relieved to have made it through this jungle of hills and sandy hikes: rivers, ant-trails, and muddy clearings we had to cross by balancing ourselves on logs – so relieved that we didn’t even consider if we were getting a good deal. $35.000 a person for 2 big tents and one little one, in a seemingly less crowded campsite? We’ll take it!
Unfortunately, when we returned from hiking along the beach that afternoon we discovered that not only was the place very crowded (so crowded in fact that the kitchen ran out of meat and there were few chairs to spare for our group of 5 to sit at), but that it was also extremely unsanitary and the food sucked, was overpriced, and lacked variety! There were 2 bathrooms on the entire campsite. One had a shower. One. Fast forward later that night when I’m trying to wash myself off while another person is dying in the stall next to me of food-poison-induced diarrhea…not pleasant. Not to mention the tents were practically on top of each other, plus hammocks outside of them and all around. And this to the fact that most people were loud, intoxicated, and sick, and you get a really big headache. I think we all learned a valuable lesson: always book ahead. And book Cabo.
Backing up a bit, the hike along the beaches were to die for – almost literally – exhausting but definitely worth it. Despite some inconvenient physical circumstances, I managed to get in the ocean, hike up all of those fun jungle hills, and make some incredible memories. I just felt very…unsanitary while doing so. And crampy.
That day, we explored Las Piscinas, la Laguna de los Caimanes, and half-hiked to Cabo before realizing it would be dark on the hike back because we left way too late (we’re talking about starting an hour-long hike around 4/5 pm – not a great idea). So after discovering how fucked up our campsite was, we decided to go to a different, more family-oriented campsite to eat and enjoy some music. Colombia is not Colombia without music (especially blasting Vallenato).
We convinced the lady cooking to make us pasta which was pretty decent (and huge so almost worth the $21.000 we spent on it). We also broke out the aguardiente and beers. I discovered that night that in reality, Argentines don’t drink as heavily as Colombians. Andres and Julian, both from Bogota, were all for passing out the shots. We started during our walk to the other site (in the dark under an absolutely incredible starry sky unsullied by light pollution) and continued once we were mostly finished eating. Food was accompanied by beer, of course.
Then, we started playing some hilarious drinking games. One involved using a specific letter of the alphabet to describe your genitals. I learned a lot of new vulgarities and adjectives in this one, and I actually didn’t do so bad! Another was Pregunta, Pregunta which was literally Question Master – each person can only ask a question and respond with a question. This led to more shots then you would think, but possibly not as much as the categories game (another concept I was familiar with from King’s Cup – ohhh college). Somebody picks a category and each person has to say something within the category. The Argentine girls also taught us a game involving crossing arms and tapping the table in an unbroken chain. Way harder than you would think, especially while walking the knife’s edge of tipsy and fucked up.
We were accompanied by a French girl, Alice, who we met in the shitty campsite earlier that day. Exploring with her was fun, although she also wasn’t much of a heavy drinker. I think Colombian culture has exacerbated my own party-loving spirit. When she and Clari were ready to retire, the fun had only just begun for me. I was tipsy and dancing with Andres, and Dani and Julian had coupled up as well. I’ve noticed that this coupling off to dance thing probably has a lot to do with the hookup culture I’ve seen here. Nothing happened out of the ordinary that night, but it does tend to happen under those circumstances.
When you travel, you learn so much about other people, and from them, you also learn about yourself. I suffered a couple really major crises during the trip. I went back to the party after promising to go back with Andres to walk Julian and Dani back from the site and “take care of them,” which doesn’t work very well when you are well liquored up yourself. I unfortunately forgot that I was carrying my cellphone in my purse – while crossing the laguna de los caimanes – Alligator Lagoon. On the way out of the campsite on the hill, I made an Olympic-metal hop across a log that connected one side to another. Beaming with accomplishment, I turned to share the light with my friend coming behind me. The log was not totally level of course and my foot slipped and – bam! I slipped straight down into the lagoon. Of course, my own welfare wasn’t the real worry for me in my intoxicated state – the damage the water did to my brand new Moto g5 as I scrambled to get out and continued to fall, eventually pulling Andres with me was the real tragedy of the moment. New cellphone – dead. Pride – also dead. I cried so much that night, it was ridiculous. Andres did his best to comfort me, but I was pretty distraught, so we sat by the side of the ocean for at least an hour leaning against a log of sorts, him trying to distract me from my tech tragedy, me trying to rationalize the situation and failing and just being angry at myself.
After the wild, regrettable night, I woke up in the big tent with a pretty shitty hangover, exhausted from barely sleeping, sore all over, and just generally blah. In spite of that, we decided to carry on and hike down to Cabo. We had a breakfast at the same place we had partied the night before and hurried on our way. Hiking in sand, by the way: don’t do it. My shoes were soaked and dirty, which meant soggy feet after spending what seemed like hours in beautiful aqua blue oceans and shiny, gold-flecked rivers. Cabo was a dream, and the hike there and back really was not so bad. We passed the time by swapping stories and singing Disney songs both in Spanish and English. We unanimously decided that next time, for sure, we would have to stay there. And book in advance. Just go Cabo.
What I was not prepared for was the hike out of the park. 2 hours or more, not including the 1 hour hike back to the main campsite from Cabo. My feet were soggy and blistered. Every step slowly became more painful, and then, like fools, we decided to finish the last leg of our hike (which could have been cut shorter on bus) on foot instead. The sensation of stepping on knives stabbed through me with every painful step. At first, the trip didn’t seem so far. Just a little bit further…but after each turn that did not seem to bring us any closer to our destination, I began to bitterly lose hope.
Clari was patient with me, as was Andres, who took my bag to help lighten my burden. Clari distracted me with engaging conversations about past lives (”Muchas Vidas, Muchos Maestros” was a book she recommended me that I must remember to read). We talked about the permanence of energy in the universe and strange dreams and uncanny knowledge of things one has not directly experienced. Andres thought we sounded high, but it was just the mixture of our shared mysticism and hiking delirium. We got on to plan other potential trips, Spain being a shared interest. She assured me that I could go visit in Argentina anytime.
Finally, that little adventure was over. The other tragedy came after deciding recklessly to go out and drink cocktails and tequila shots while suffering from severe exhaustion – and eat meaty, heavy street food. The stomach virus I had the next day was so severe I was unable to even smell food without becoming nauseous and vomited pretty much everything in me that diarrhea didn’t wipe out. Andres and Dani had decided to move on to La Guajira, leaving me in the hostel with Clari and some kind German girls that had taken up residence. Clari helped me get the strength to go to the clinic to get some shots and a ton of drugs to deal with the poisoning. I lost that Saturday in Santa Marta sleeping, and the next day, it was time to go home.
So, big takeaways from the trip:
- Don’t take your cell with you on midnight treks over alligator lagoons while intoxicated. Just…don’t do it. Hindsight is a bitch.
- Don’t let shit that is over and done with affect and ruin your present.
- Don’t be afraid to open up to strangers. They might end up becoming some of your best company.
- Don’t overthink the reaction of others to that essence which is you – any negative reaction is their problem.
- Street food involving meat should be avoided at all costs. Eating in places where conditions are unsanitary, regardless of how tempting the cheapness of that place is must be avoided.
- And finally: don’t wait – buy your entradas (tickets) to the park and book your campsite or hostel in advance. Make sure you have all the facts. Don’t be like me.
In the end, I don’t regret any of it, even the misadventures and all of the callouses my feet acquired. The trip represents life in a big way. It was a microcosm of the wins, losses, and connections one experiences when they dare to live without limits and open themselves up to people. It’s not always going to be pleasant and epic, but it will teach you something if you let it. Those lessons will stay with me, buried away in my consciousness. This is the year of autonomy and letting go of fear. This trip was part of the autonomy. And it was only the beginning. Bring on the next adventure: Central America!
Diario de una Aventurera 