A week with my mother in Colombia: what a treat! We stuck to the coast, because I don’t know much about the rest of the country and I wanted to appear in control. Besides the 5-star hotels, jungle retreats and UNESCO world heritage sites that I dazzled my beloved mum with, I was most excited to introduce her to the Cooter.
Have I really omitted the Cooter from this blog all these months? That’s crazy, because the it's one of the defining features of my life here. Really, it’s just a bus. A little red bus that says “Cootransco” on its windshield. That’s why we named it the “Red Cooter”, which we affectionately shortened to “the Cooter” once we got to know the bus better. And I love riding this bus! I’m familiar enough now with the Cooter’s route that I can look out of the window and accurately calculate the time remaining in my trip by the graffiti, the level of road paved-ness or the ratio of bicitaxis to cars. In my neighborhood, the roads are less often paved and there are lots of bicitaxis and motocarros. These tell-tail traits are replaced by things like trees and street signs as the Cooter makes it’s way up North.
Sometimes the Cooter's in bad shape
On the Cooter ride my mother and I took last week we started in the North and headed downtown, since I was unable to imagine my mother sleeping here in Soledad, what with all of the Vallanato and the fact the boys outside keep on breaking my window with rocks. Instead, we slept at El Prado, a grand old hotel with black and white tiled floors and a huge courtyard shaded by palm trees around a pristine blue swimming pool with a deep end. In the morning, we waited on the corner of Calle 72 and Kra. 56 with the enormous suitcase I had forced my mother to bring (stuffed with luxurious cosmetics from the USA). Thank goodness it was Sunday morning (weekdays are bad: today I was hanging out of the door on my Cooter ride). The bus was practically empty, and all we had to do after clumsily hoisting the bag over the tiny little turnstile that five-year-olds can hardly fit through was relax for the hour-long, zig-zaggy ride that connects the North with my humble barrio at Costa Hermosa and Calle 18.
So, I’m really happy my mother got to see this part of my life, along with the other sights and sounds of mi vida costeña.
Almost as soon as my mom flew away from Cartagena, the rainy season started. Well, I suppose it might have begun here and there, but I didn’t notice until mom left. Actually, I did notice on a little side trip Marcela and I took to Mompox. Oh, there’s plenty to say about that little excursion, but here’s the shortish version: Mompox is a city on an island in the middle of two rivers: the Magdalena and the Cuaca. I don’t know the specific details of this little city’s fascinating history, but if the jeweler I bought some filigree earrings from was correct (and if I understood him), Mompox was founded as an important trade point by some Cartagenigans who wanted to get away from the heavy hand of the Spanish crown.
It’s possible that Mompox claims to be the first city in Colombia to declare independence from Spain...I might have misunderstood that part. Supposedly, Bolivar owes Mompox his glory. Anyway, way back when before the Spanish established themselves there, the Indians used an impressive system of canals to prevent flooding in the area. Since then, mining in the interior and the deterioration of this system have led to the inevitable: the areas around Mompox have been flooding, and last rainy season the waters actually started to threaten the UNESCO city itself. Now the new season is beginning and the area is still flooded from the last rains...uh-oh.
Marcela and I didn’t know any of this, and our ignorance was corrected on the day we left to go home: we learned that two of the two bridges out of town were out. One “bridge” had been out for a while and was actually just a lot of dirt piled in the river. Our bus had traversed it on the way in, and other than the tractor submerged in the surging river, everything seemed ok. But on the day we were leaving a truck had gotten stuck in the mud that should have been sinking into the water anyway, so we had to walk across. (Taxi #1 to Taxi #2). The other bridge is a real suspension bridge and part of it had just caved in, making it passable only by foot. (Taxi #2 to Taxi #3). We finally arrived at the dock where we caught a skinny little taxi boat to Magangué, and finally stepped onto our bus to Barranquilla.
Oh, but it wasn’t that easy: one hour from Barranquilla, the bus stopped. And stayed stopped. We were in good company: every car on the road had stopped, and just seemed to be sitting there. Why were we stopped? No one told us until we asked, and we had to ask quite a few people until we got the right answer. First we heard that the people in the community up ahead were stopping cars and demanding money. Then that they were protesting. And demanding money. Well, it turns out they were protesting- protesting the fact that they are still waiting for solutions from the government from last season’s floods as they watch next season’s clouds approach. And they weren’t asking for money, from us anyway. So, with the help of the serendipitous appearance of a friend’s father, we hopped on some motorcycle taxis, rode to the other side of the burning road blocks to the waiting rainbow-colored colectivos, and finally made it to Soledad.
And Soledad is not immune to flooding. It turns out Barranquilla has it’s arroyos: some streets are famous for being part-time rivers. For example, here’s what happened after a short but strong rain a few days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4eDYNt9Nyw. Meanwhile, I was down in Soledad bracing our own little arroyo in Costa Hermosa. Once again, I find myself wading through knee-deep sewer water...I guess it’s time to start enjoying it!
