The month of February through the beginning of March were crowded and busy, my friends. So I apologize for my long delay in posting: I am embarrassed. But let's just say that I was too busy hosting newcomers to northwest Latin America's Land of Passion to get a moment for reflection. Yet I will say that the break was well-spent and well worth it. My "time off" afforded me my second and third visits to what just might just go down in history as my most nostalgia-inducing area of Colombia--the hot, sweaty and often untidy lowlands of the Caribbean. I was fortunate enough to spend February 18th through 20th in Santa Marta and along the beaches of Tayrona National Park (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelblogs/508/29063/Tayrona+National+Park+%E2%80%93+As+Pricey+As+It+Gets?destId=363312) with my dear friend since elementary school and adopted "brother," Sam Cowan. I was equally lucky to enjoy my 22nd birthday weekend, March 4th through 7th, in Barranquilla, with my number one partner in scholarship and shenanigans from college, Alec Lentz, and freelancing videographer, emerging travel addict, and friend Jaemin Yi, both arriving from Los Angeles. In the latter trip, fellow Rotary Scholar and friend Sonya Fierst, as well as about two-thirds of the Fulbright Colombia 2010 cohort, merged alongside the boys and I for a colorful weekend of Colombian Carnaval that none of us will forget... Okay, enough dry narration, it's time for some coconut juice: let's get to the photos.
Mmmm hmmmmm... Got that Caribbean Sea scent in my nostrils again! Childhood buddy visiting from Oregon, Sam Cowan, and I arriving at Santa Marta's dinky Simón Bolívar Airport
At least the view along the drive into town was right on point! I could already smell the banana trees...
A soccer cancha just in front of our hostel, The Dreamer, for the weekend. Not to exhaust the maxim, but here's another friendly reminder: "Colombia Is Passion!"
Phew! Had to change into some shorts right away! Arriving at The Dreamer... Dry soil and scruffy leaf remains covered the ground--but we were not too scruffy in the sleeping department!
Welcome to the front entrance of The Dreamer, Santa Marta's finest backpacker's hostel... Oregonians, Brazilian-Oregonian Colombianists, Coloradans, Swedes, Frenchmen, Argentines, Englishmen, and Zoomers all welcome!
Can somebody please explain what I'm doing with all of this gear on? Low and behold, upon entering The Dreamer's courtyard pool we stumbled straight into a free scuba lesson. Not bad!
I suppose you're going to find "gringos" wherever you go: Samm and I in central Santa Marta lounging over an evening beverage with a hosteler crew of Brits, Aussies, and a Dutchman
I suppose what this establishment near Taganga beach means to say is: "Feel free to get into lazy mode... Stay as long as you like!"
Hostel roommate James Desmond having a typical lunch on the Coast, plenty packed with plantain patacones.
Entering the outskirts of Tayrona Park: No beach entrance is sufficiently Colombian without its token Catholic prayer sign...
The stunning colors of the world's second most biodiverse country... This is why you come to the Coast!
As we entered Los Angeles beach, I could not help but wonder when the children from Lord of the Flies were going to pop out and start beating me with sticks... That is to say, I was awed by the picturesque quality of the scenery!
Apparently, I got confused thinking that the Caribbean seawater was coconut juice...
...And apparently Mr. Cowan, hurling dried coconuts, got confused thinking he was playing football somewhere in Indiana...
Why on earth would any tourist pay 35,000 pesos to enter the main gate of Tayrona park when she could just ride another mile up the highway and pay 3,000 to relax here? If this isn't paradise, I must be confused. Can somebody please show me the correct direction to heaven?... On second thought, scratch that: I'll stay here.
Sam and I trying our mightiest to soak it all in...
Who wants to live in this beach house just outside of Tayrona?
Apparently they didn't mean the City of... But LA was a fine beach just south of Tayrona National Park, nonetheless!
I've said it once and I'll repeat it an infinite number of times more: Colombia's Caribbean Coast (from here forward simply referred to as the Coast) is a truly different world than its Highlands. From the moment you land (or, if you're a more risk-neutral, arrive exhausted via an overnight bus on which you've descended some 6,000-plus feet in 12 hours), everything from the faint smell of banana trees, to the instant sweat covering your underwear, to the outdated and dilapidated taxis waiting curbside at the airport suggests that you've genuinely touched down in the tropics.
The Coast may appear a poor and simple place compared to the Highland capitals, Medellín and Bogotá, but it is anything but poor environmentally and culturally. It is true. The distance Colombia still must climb to become considered a Developed Country is all the more starkly apparent when on the Coast. The region's tap water is undrinkable for gringos. Taxis have no meters, and intense informality and bargaining are standard. The roads are shabbier, and in some places, only dirt. And I would be unsurprised if power outages are much more frequent in Santa Marta or Barranquilla than they are in Medellín. To get technical, United Nations and World Bank data suggests per capita GDP along Colombia's Caribbean may be only one half to two-thirds what it is in the wealthier highland capitals. And it could be even considerably less than that in the Coast's rural areas. (Meanwhile, however, the World Bank now categorizes Colombia as a whole as "Upper Middle Income;" this, presumably, explains why in the world's now 8th most unequal nation, the proportion of Colombian urban dwellers living in arguably its wealthiest city, Bogotá, keeps growing, contributing to a demographic expansion trajectory in the capital that looks something like a steady 30-degree incline.) In spite of many of these more sobering realities, I have decided I still feel more culturally at home--at least when on vacation and not working--on the Coast than I do in the Highlands. Why? I explain it first because, environmentally and structurally, I cannot help but feel a striking similarity between this place and the coast of my birth state in Brazil, Bahia. I explain this by the unending warmth of the costeños. I explain it by pointing to the comparatively enormous ease of sparking up conversations with strangers, the Caribbean population's disposition for dance that seems to vibrate through the atmosphere, and most of all, the playfulness of the dialect. That's right. If there is one feature of interacting with costeños that will always put a smile on my face, it is their quirky way of uttering the beautiful language of non-Brazilian Latin America. Speaking quickly and eating consonants becomes the norm up north, which all leads to a creative, slang-filled, and music-like take on Spanish that provides me with nonstop chuckling. (For those of you who have not visited Colombia looking for a reference point, I'd put costeño Spanish much closer to the melodic and consonant-shy brands of Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic.) Finally, there is that one regional feature that just can't be beat: the Caribbean Sea itself, the sandy soils that line it, and the dazzling array of fauna and flora these both catalyze.
And what of Carnaval? Well, let's just say that while I will continue to insist that Colombia's version that the annual pre-Lent festival still has not reached the level of visual or musical sophistication of those in Rio or Salvador da Bahia, it still made for a grand three days. The parades were merry and filled with percussion, musical celebrities, hilarious costumes, choreography, and colorful floats. Perhaps better still, though, were the more informal festivities sprouting in every direction near our group's pad for the weekend. Residing in Hotel Eslait, a high rise of group-size apartment rentals, the Fulbrighters, my guests, and I needed walk not farther than two blocks to reach a massive crowd of party-goers dancing to live music until 6 am. I estimate that this nearby network of street rumbas, at its peak, probably involved 10,000 people. These carnavalers were in the mood for nothing more than meeting good new people, throwing the traditional maizena, or corn flour, and spraying streams of foam in every which direction, unannounced and without reservations. Other highlights? How about the revelation upon Alec and my arrival in Barranquilla of a Don Omar concert the next day? The chance to see one of the legends of Caribbean Reggaeton 18 hours after my birthday, during Carnaval!? DONE! (Video of the show will be up in the following post.) So we made a dream's weekend of it, jumped and bumped through the crowds until our feet got sore, slept 15 hours in 3.5 days, and never regretted a second... Okay, back to photo narration!
Though Alec and I boarded these airplanes, don't think it was because of sheer voluntary choice... It was by coercion of a monopolized and price-distorted Colombian air market... One day, we will find true competition and Colombian consumers will learn that they have a real voice and real power... Until then, just motivate the re-shaping of that market by screaming "Just Say No to AIRES!" (I digress... See last post for details...)
Well, in case anybody needed confirmation, I had arrived at the Coast at a time for festivities...
Promotional gear for Carnaval abounded in Barranquilla's airport.
Settling into Hotel Eslait: Alec and my first glimpse at the Fulbrighters' epic eighth-floor balcony for the weekend...
No doubt the streets of Barranquilla were densely packed throughout the weekend... We didn't have to walk much farther than 50 yards from the door of our apartment to find an overpacked fish tank of carnavalers!
Too much flying foam!
Making even gringos boogie irresistibly: it's just what Colombian Carnaval does!
Sol the ill-prepared victim of Carnaval mischief: foam stream goat beard, anyone?
And it didn't stop there... I don't even want to know how Alec and Jaemin got into this one!
Second time being attacked is always...A charm?
Colombia Fulbrighters and guests blending in with some locals--all in it to win!
Ah, how I love the ease of mingling with costeños: A great crew of friends and new friends.
Another of my greatest fascinations with the Coast: these folks don't play when it comes to their sound!..
...And whether covered in maizena or not, neither does Alec!
Headed to the big Don Omar show.
Arrgh! Look out Barranquilla, the pirate boys from Los Angeles are here...
Jaemin digging into his first plate of arroz con camarones, shrimp fried rice, one block from the Fulbrighters' launch pad
These men dressed in black--traditional ornaments of barranquillero Carnaval, somehow resemble Caribbean slaves of older Colombia... I feel somewhat inspired by their jubilation and also somewhat insulted by their mockery of a historically sensitive period of mayhem and injustice... I'll just call them costeño minstrels walk away shaking my head, wondering desperately when this country will finally achieve racial equity...
Guest carnavalers from left to right: Jaemin Yi, guest Robin Grossman of New Mexico, Alec Lentz, and yours truly
Let the games begin...
And let the confetti fly!
I'm speechless about this young parade spectator... What an incredibly strange juxtaposition at the most unexpected moment of the Colombian calendar.
Sailors covered in gold, oh my! Let the floats rise!
It appears even the Na'vi people of Avatar just had to make it down to Barranquilla for the big weekend
Up-and-coming reggaetonero Jiggy Drama, singer of hits "La Flaka," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVh9W4e17y4 and "La Fuga," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izVZ-iytxcw
Alec and Jaemin lost their donkey somewhere in the crowds... What a relief to find him again!
Color-synchronized dance patterns are always one of the centerpieces of any decent Carnaval
Great to again spend quality time in cultural discovery with my "partner in crime" from college
The sign reads, "A Master Work of Oral and Immaterial Patrimony of Humanity."
These characters are almost looking like northeast Brazilian orishas.... Close but no cigar.
Pop culture madness: one of barranquillero Carnaval's many Shakira impersonators and her FC Barcelona footballer...Boyfriend? Just bizarre.
Barranquilla's percussion was not bad... But admittedly I must be patriotic for a moment and say it will be a while before these drum troupes achieve Brazilian standards...
What on earth are these clowns up to?
Concluding the weekend in style with the Fulbrighters, plus one very important Rotary Scholar, at Barranquilla's Parmesan Pizza...
With the largest pie I've ever seen!
And with my cartagenero "cousin," Wilson Ramirez Rodriguez, in the mix, I am happy to say I could close out my birthday weekend in Colombia as one happy camper!
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