Semana Santa

Re-adjusting to the smells, the sights and most of all the SOUNDS of being back in civilization, I think I'll try to jot down a little scetch of this past week before inertia and vallenato take over.

I just spent 4 nights and 5 days at Parque Tayrona. This little park, one of the highlights of the coast, is only a few hours east of Barranquilla, and you can catch a bus right by my house on the heaving, smoky, bus infested Simone Bolivar. It's practically door to door service. And such an incredible difference. Just two nights before we left Barranquilla, I was stuck on Simone Bolivar in the furthest corner of a Sobusa, the exhaust pipe expeling its deisel smoke back into the bus as the driver tried to inch around full-stop traffic by putting on the 4x4 (yeah right) and scaling mounds of road construction sand and gravel. It was slow scaling, and as my knees banged against the metal seat ahead of me, I watched a group of kids appear from behind another mound to take advantage of the sitting ducks in traffic, relieving some some guy in his car of his valuables.

So imagine, from this street, being dropped two hours later at the bottom of a trail leading straight into the jungle. I should be honest: it is a trail straight into the jungle, but this week was Semana Santa, one of Colombia's longest national holidays, and whoever can afford it heads to the coast. Tayrona wasn't exactly deserted, but we had the hour-long hike in pretty much to ourselves. The park has various campgrounds, and my friends and I stayed in a hut where 50 white hammoks swung side by side, each encased within its own mosquio net. It's a very romantic looking accomodation, and I've been told that hammoks are even designed to be used for...romance...but for me they are just a little uncomfortable. And cold. I survived, though, and so did my 49 roomates. The only noises I heard in the dead of night were from the people singing in the campground and the little boy next to me who woke up scared by a bug.

Surrounding us, tents and more tents. Full of families and couples and groups of couples. And these were Colombian campers, meaning that most tents, big and small, were stuffed with one or more inflatable mattress, the exact same mattress that we just bought at Éxito for all of you wonderful friends who will come to visit!

Outside of this beachside campground, past the juice bar and down a hill of green dune vines, even more marvellous scenery: first the trecherous Arreciefes beach, where 200 people have drowned and where we saw an alligator, bracing the waves with his mouth wide open. Then, through a pass full of fresh orange juice sellers and the most delicious arepas con pollo, another tiny golden beach, a bay with torquise water and course sand and peaceful lapping waves. Beyond that is La Picina, a bigger and equally tranquil place to swim and snorkle. And on and on. The beaches continue to get longer and more deserted the further you walk, as you might imagine. Supposedly, there's even a nude beach más alla.

As my friends were accosted by this one guy Jorge who is incredibly slick and fickle, I met more unsuitable men: well, there was the Tayrona cafetero, who showed up outside of my hammok every morning at 6:00 with a little radio playing...guess what...vallanato!....and whispering sweet words about organic coffee in my ear. He must have been charmed by my rolling out of my hamock with sleep in my eyes to ask for a cup, because by the fourth day he wanted to visit me in Barranquilla. After all, his son is 20 years old, all grown up, and he lost his mujer, so why not have a fling? I prefered the little guy I met in the shower line one day (4 showers for everyone to share), seven-year-old Alejandro. He was mesmerized by Elena and my conversation in English, and he had that adorable attitude that some kids get: whenever he thought of a question to ask me, he'd get really close, put his hands on his hips and one foot to the side and ask me very seriously. "What's you're name? Do you swim in the ocean or the swimming pool?" (the "swimming pool" being the bay). "You are very tall!" (and now he started jumping) "I can't even reach your head! Where's your mother? Where is your tent? You don't have a tent? Why not? Well, I know a store where you can buy one, just go to my house, take a little right, and there it is. You know, German is the easiest language to learn. I have a friend at school who speaks German, and his parents can't even speak Spanish, because Spanish is very difficult!" The whole line of women was listening to our very serious conversation, nodding and giggling. And I continued to bump into Alejandro throughout the weekend, once right outide of my hammock as I sipped my coffee. He ordered a few cocoa teas for his parents, then a hot chocolate for himself, and sat down on the ledge next to me. "How did you sleep, Eliza? Goodness, we seem to run into each other often!" What a cutie-pie!

Every day was at the beach, every night sitting around on the ground somewhere, laughing and joking with some new friends. Jorge was pesado for the others, but for me just ridiculous. They called him "Jorge de la selva", because he ate everything off of the trees: mangos and coconuts (one of which left him lying on a dirty mattress with an IV stuck in his arm in the little park clinic one morning). I brought carrots with me to eat, and one day shared them with the group for lunch. He didn't know where they came from, and we told him that they were beach carrots. There was a little weed sticking out of the sand where the waves reached, and when we told him it was the carrot stalk, he started digging, and practically dug to China before we couldn't hold in the laughter any more. Funny!

Junior es tu papá! Yoooo soy de Junior...!

I don't know if Junior, Barranquilla's football team, just won a game or what, but the bar is playing non-stop Junior fan songs at top volume, again and again. I'm missing the vallanato. Despite my current exasperation, I do want to be a Junior fan, but I haven't had time yet to really dedicate myself to the task. At I know all of the songs now!

Here's what else I know about the team: their colors are red and white, and maybe blue, too. My students always wear Junior gear, and sometimes one of my Friday guys, Freddy, comes in wearing a red and white top hat with Pippy Longstocking-red braids sticking out the bottom. Junior is such an institution that I'm often told by the other teachers that I have to end class early so the students can go watch the game at the fruit stand across the street.

Junior's mascot is a shark. Willy the shark. Like Willy the whale, but a shark.

They also have some unofficial mascots, owls who live in the stadium, and they bring good luck. However, a few months ago one of the owls flew onto the field during the game, and a player for the Panamanian team Junior was playing against kicked the owl and killed it. That was a pretty big deal! Poor little owl.

I don't know anything else about Junior, but I did read the other day about this football fan in another city who was brought in his coffin to a game a week after his death. Big fans here!

Parque de Músicos

Last night, in the taxi at 2:00 am, I saw something romantic in Barranquilla, something right out of a García Márquez digression. In fact, I noticed the “phenomenom” hours beforehand, but I didn’t recognize it as romantic until 2:00 am, when I asked the driver what was going on.

My roommate Elena and I were hoofing it to (where else) La Troja, where we were impatiently being waited for by some friends. Our lateness was on account of having stopped by a little wooden bar crammed in-between some cement on Calle 72. Just the fact that the bar is constructed from wood makes it notable, but this establishment is irresistable because it is painted yellow, blue and red. Flag colors, Caribbean colors. We ended up being courted there by a trio of gentlemen: a refined paisa from Medellín here on business, the old German speaking sailor-type who owns the bar, and a mess of a Barrinqillero whose eyes pointed different ways and who was uninteligable in any language.

When we finally removed ourselves from the company of these characters, we had to walk several blocks through prostitutes to reach La Troja. The prostitutes thinned out as the street lighting became more reliable, and they were replaced on Carrera 46 with old and young men wearing white and sombreros, sitting in plastic chairs lined up along the curb, as though they were waiting for a parade. Dozens, maybe hundreds of men, watching the street. Some of them were playing instruments, most were just watching, and they applauded our passing. Were we the parade they were waiting for?

No. Because four hours later, most of them were still there. I asked the driver why, and learned that here, in the Parque de Músicos, musicians come and wait for work on weekend nights. At the end of the night, it’s a cement plaza surrounded by prostitutes and full of musicians. Que romantico!