After the Children of Camarones camp we worked our way deeper into the Guijira Desert in northeastern Colombia near the border with Venezuela, an isolated region rife with gasoline and cocaine trafficking, known as a Smugglers Paradise. None of the roads are marked with signs, there are no highways or paved roads, only a collection of dirt tracks leading in every direction. The word "maze" best describes the road system out in these parts.
Travel is slow because of rough roads and stopping to ask directions so many times I lost count. The oddest things would happen when we'd stop to ask directions in this landscape of sand, wind, abandonment and one house settlements -slurring drunk men would come stumbling out of the houses or from nearby bushes offering help.
The drunks would rush headlong into tireless monologues and quickly weren't talking about directions anymore. They always asked for a handout and demand to be let into the truck to show the way. In Latin America the cheap alcohol of choice is aguardiente, a locally made white lightening derived from sugar, corn or rice depending on local crops.
We began to see so many drunks in the seemingly empty desert that I changed the name from Peninsula de la Guijira to Peninsula de la Aguardiente because of the surprising number of booze fueled inhabitants we met out in the bush.
After a sandstorm we could see again once the wind let up and the sheets of sand that filled the sky came back to earth. Two drunks appeared on the horizon of the empty desert like a mirage, smashed out of their heads on aguardiente babbling the way drunks do: breathless monologues delivered in machine gun bursts.
Feeling lost when I saw them I thought, I'll ask for directions. You never know they are drunk until the conversation starts.
They were an odd couple, one young the other old and leathery with a bottle of aguardiente tucked in his waistband. Indian skin turned black from a life working in the desert. Burning merciless sun. Their appearance in this landscape was surreal. The wrathlike trees gave no shade. It was Charles Bukowski who chronicled the American drunk so well meets Albert Camus in the Algerian deserts of North Africa.
They babble and plead for drink money saying, We'll show you the way, while pulling at the door handles of my nervous passengers.
The stream of consciousness may be clearly represented in the mind of the drunkard, but to the unwilling audience it is babble that almost sounds human. I tire of drunks quickly, they are like super glue when it gets on your fingers, they are very hard to get rid of. It has to be done delicately or your skin tears.
This pair slurs so badly Juan-Pablo the Colombian traveling with us can't understand them. Excited about something, they monologue like mad under merciless afternoon sun. Burning. Burning.
Just let us in! they holler.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Dispatch Number 61 -Desert Rats
This is a series of a one month journey in the northeastern region of Colombia on the Atlantic coast near Venezuela. Travel was a mixture of group and solo.
After our special stay with the Children of Camarones we regained our emotional balance and as a group of five continued the journey into the desert. We left the sea side town Manaure to head up coast to Cabo de la Vela along sandy hard to follow dirt roads without signs of any kind; it made for continuous confusion and doubt in the truck. I was reduced to following roads that felt right. The Sage's tales of difficult navigation in the region were coming true on the first day.
The question was music to my ears, she was an adventurer, not someone being overly careful. It was certainly one of the reasons why I liked her company so much.
Windows down. Sand swirled everywhere and thick dust covered everything inside the truck. I discovered owning an old truck is complete freedom; windows down in sand storms, rainstorms, nasty mud roads and river crossings where water comes in the doors. Or in this case, people on the roof. Three of them were on top riding the sandstorm; Juan-Pablo and I smiled inside as I drove in lazy circles trying to throw them off. They all screamed and my smile widened.
I didn't stop until I heard Kathrine tell the others, I almost fell off!
Both attractive women, Katherine and Sandra looked sexy and free in the bright sun and blowing sand wearing big black Jackie-O sunglasses, fucking sexy. They looked liberated and free covered in desert dust. I was not traveling with the dry sock crowd. These were the kind of fantasies I had when I dreamed about this driving journey into The Americas.
On this coastal dirt track where land met sea we saw a family of goats among tall cactus. We ran into the desert like lost neo-hippies chasing them to get pictures. Everyone had a digital camera and they put everything they saw into frame.
After our special stay with the Children of Camarones we regained our emotional balance and as a group of five continued the journey into the desert. We left the sea side town Manaure to head up coast to Cabo de la Vela along sandy hard to follow dirt roads without signs of any kind; it made for continuous confusion and doubt in the truck. I was reduced to following roads that felt right. The Sage's tales of difficult navigation in the region were coming true on the first day.
Like a game show, I ask at every intersection left or right? We fumble most the afternoon this way through desert scrub brush and plant less hard pan; the hard pan is like the sea, flat and never changing. The drive is further spiced up with intermittent sandstorms that reduce visibility to almost nothing. The girls were sitting on the doors hanging out of the truck as wave after wave of sand filled the sky.
It was in one of these sandstorms when I could barely follow the tire tracks that Kathrine asked, Can I get on the roof?
Yes, I replied and slowed the truck.The question was music to my ears, she was an adventurer, not someone being overly careful. It was certainly one of the reasons why I liked her company so much.
Windows down. Sand swirled everywhere and thick dust covered everything inside the truck. I discovered owning an old truck is complete freedom; windows down in sand storms, rainstorms, nasty mud roads and river crossings where water comes in the doors. Or in this case, people on the roof. Three of them were on top riding the sandstorm; Juan-Pablo and I smiled inside as I drove in lazy circles trying to throw them off. They all screamed and my smile widened.
I didn't stop until I heard Kathrine tell the others, I almost fell off!
Both attractive women, Katherine and Sandra looked sexy and free in the bright sun and blowing sand wearing big black Jackie-O sunglasses, fucking sexy. They looked liberated and free covered in desert dust. I was not traveling with the dry sock crowd. These were the kind of fantasies I had when I dreamed about this driving journey into The Americas.
On this coastal dirt track where land met sea we saw a family of goats among tall cactus. We ran into the desert like lost neo-hippies chasing them to get pictures. Everyone had a digital camera and they put everything they saw into frame.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Dispatch Number 60 -The Children of Camarones
With the Sage behind us, it was our first night on the road as a newly formed travel family with backpacks, food and water jammed into the truck. We were on our way for what promised to be an off the beaten path adventure in the dry arid region of Colombia's Atlantic coast, a region given little coverage in the guidebooks. Our group was made up of a diverse cast of characters: a drunk Swiss man prone to nightly rants when he would misplace something; a Canadian woman with a camera that never stopped and neither did her questions of the local people; a Swiss woman who was at her happiest in dry dusty countryside towns; and a Colombian film student from Cali who quietly watched everything, then would drop very funny comments.
Our first stop was in a poor fishing community outside the small pueblo of Camarones where the children outnumbered the goats and adults. Their specialty was shrimp and fish; the backdrop was a flamenco reserve and I watched them fly every morning. When they took flight by the hundreds they looked like ribbons of exploded pink paper from Chinese firecrackers.
Here at the edge of the Guijira Desert the air became hot, the land was barren, dry and hard pan. The father of the family we stayed with fetched water everyday from a local spring carting it back in buckets so his family could bathe and cook. The goats had eaten all vegetation from the ground up to three feet. Children ran about everywhere and the truck, the only vehicle in this poor community was a play set for the barefoot children. We passed much of the time sitting on the tailgate while they clamored on the roof and engine hood.
A little more on the travel family:
Kathrine was a great travel partner, active, quick, unhesitating, and with a sense of purpose. It was very supportive to have this kind of traveler in our group, as a couple of the others seemed incapable of making their own decisions. She spoke excellent Spanish. Katherine made plans within the first hour we arrived in Camarones to spend the following day with a local fisherman.
She was also prone to asking a lot of questions of the country people who are soft spoken; a continuous barrage of probing questions asked with persistence and finality that the Western mind so craves. In the end she had learned the most and had some of the best pictures.
Sandra looks to be in mild bliss sitting on the ground surrounded by soiled barefoot girls with black hair and dark Indian skin. They sit with her as she plays guitar. She is curious, interactive and speaks very good Spanish; the children adore her. Sandra looks at her happiest when far from the comforts of the city. Not shy, although admits to a dislike of making decisions.
Andreas is linguistically removed from much of what is happening as he learns Spanish one word at a time from the children. He laughs a lot while finishing my bottle of rum. Unable to speak Spanish he has let himself become too dependent on us. In the morning the children prod Andreas with a stick as he sleeps in the tent. Giggling children and growling Andreas...they prevail.
Juan-Pablo plays the role of soft overweight city dweller accustomed to working very little for what he wants. At times he looks stunned, but especially so, when we set up camp in the fishing village amongst the goats and children. He is Colombian and these are his people. My intuition tells me he will be the one who is affected most by this journey into the desert.
As a long term traveller I enjoy the newness of ever changing landscapes, while perpetually seeking routine. It is the travelers dichotomy: dynamic change contrasted with static routine. At this stop we are surrounded by curious and beautiful indigenous children ages two to ten. Children are special at this age, they communicate through their eyes and this provides a sense of community that my life lacks. It feels like a dose of routine.
Even though Andreas spent most of his time drunk he managed to put it best while I struggled through pages of my journal to understand what I saw. As we discussed how the West has more than Third World countries do by way of stuff, money, and opportunities we arrived at a point where we thought it may be the other way around. Beauty and friendship meant something here. Life in North America and Europe was easy but empty.
He went on to say, They have nothing, but they have more.
After two nights and days with this family who opened their home and lives up to us it was time to go. The goodbyes were slow and visibly painful for Kathrine as she confronted her attachment to the children of Camarones. We depart this fantastical camp of joyous children and welcoming parents. The children have showered us with pure love. A day earlier the children began to ask when we were leaving and they tried to persuade us to stay longer and when that didn't work they resorted to extracting promises to return another time.
We pile into the truck to go to another place and no one talks. The experience of Camarones is silently felt between us, tears flow in some and invisibly in others. We wonder why we are going, why leave this special place?
Secretly, each of us wonders, Can it be like this every stop?
Never is and never can be, I thought to myself.
Each stop and each day is different and is why it is so important to live in the present and enjoy the moment. For this traveller it is not about chasing past experiences, it is about being open to them as they present themselves. We always move on, so why pretend? How many ways to say goodbye in a nomad's life?
It was rare. It was beautiful. The children and their ever playful expressive brown eyes always spoke to me. When it became clear we were leaving the eyes turned flat and piercing in a way that conveyed betrayal. It was one of the more difficult goodbyes.
We drove on and I thought, They have nothing, but they have more.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
Our first stop was in a poor fishing community outside the small pueblo of Camarones where the children outnumbered the goats and adults. Their specialty was shrimp and fish; the backdrop was a flamenco reserve and I watched them fly every morning. When they took flight by the hundreds they looked like ribbons of exploded pink paper from Chinese firecrackers.
Here at the edge of the Guijira Desert the air became hot, the land was barren, dry and hard pan. The father of the family we stayed with fetched water everyday from a local spring carting it back in buckets so his family could bathe and cook. The goats had eaten all vegetation from the ground up to three feet. Children ran about everywhere and the truck, the only vehicle in this poor community was a play set for the barefoot children. We passed much of the time sitting on the tailgate while they clamored on the roof and engine hood.
A little more on the travel family:
Kathrine was a great travel partner, active, quick, unhesitating, and with a sense of purpose. It was very supportive to have this kind of traveler in our group, as a couple of the others seemed incapable of making their own decisions. She spoke excellent Spanish. Katherine made plans within the first hour we arrived in Camarones to spend the following day with a local fisherman.
She was also prone to asking a lot of questions of the country people who are soft spoken; a continuous barrage of probing questions asked with persistence and finality that the Western mind so craves. In the end she had learned the most and had some of the best pictures.
Sandra looks to be in mild bliss sitting on the ground surrounded by soiled barefoot girls with black hair and dark Indian skin. They sit with her as she plays guitar. She is curious, interactive and speaks very good Spanish; the children adore her. Sandra looks at her happiest when far from the comforts of the city. Not shy, although admits to a dislike of making decisions.
Andreas is linguistically removed from much of what is happening as he learns Spanish one word at a time from the children. He laughs a lot while finishing my bottle of rum. Unable to speak Spanish he has let himself become too dependent on us. In the morning the children prod Andreas with a stick as he sleeps in the tent. Giggling children and growling Andreas...they prevail.
Juan-Pablo plays the role of soft overweight city dweller accustomed to working very little for what he wants. At times he looks stunned, but especially so, when we set up camp in the fishing village amongst the goats and children. He is Colombian and these are his people. My intuition tells me he will be the one who is affected most by this journey into the desert.
As a long term traveller I enjoy the newness of ever changing landscapes, while perpetually seeking routine. It is the travelers dichotomy: dynamic change contrasted with static routine. At this stop we are surrounded by curious and beautiful indigenous children ages two to ten. Children are special at this age, they communicate through their eyes and this provides a sense of community that my life lacks. It feels like a dose of routine.
Even though Andreas spent most of his time drunk he managed to put it best while I struggled through pages of my journal to understand what I saw. As we discussed how the West has more than Third World countries do by way of stuff, money, and opportunities we arrived at a point where we thought it may be the other way around. Beauty and friendship meant something here. Life in North America and Europe was easy but empty.
He went on to say, They have nothing, but they have more.
After two nights and days with this family who opened their home and lives up to us it was time to go. The goodbyes were slow and visibly painful for Kathrine as she confronted her attachment to the children of Camarones. We depart this fantastical camp of joyous children and welcoming parents. The children have showered us with pure love. A day earlier the children began to ask when we were leaving and they tried to persuade us to stay longer and when that didn't work they resorted to extracting promises to return another time.
We pile into the truck to go to another place and no one talks. The experience of Camarones is silently felt between us, tears flow in some and invisibly in others. We wonder why we are going, why leave this special place?
Secretly, each of us wonders, Can it be like this every stop?
Never is and never can be, I thought to myself.
Each stop and each day is different and is why it is so important to live in the present and enjoy the moment. For this traveller it is not about chasing past experiences, it is about being open to them as they present themselves. We always move on, so why pretend? How many ways to say goodbye in a nomad's life?
It was rare. It was beautiful. The children and their ever playful expressive brown eyes always spoke to me. When it became clear we were leaving the eyes turned flat and piercing in a way that conveyed betrayal. It was one of the more difficult goodbyes.
We drove on and I thought, They have nothing, but they have more.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
Monday, March 8, 2010
Dispatch Number 59 -Sage
This is the first in a series of a one month journey in the northeastern region of Colombia on the Atlantic coast near Venezuela that I just competed. I am in Cartagena for a couple weeks to study Spanish and have time to write. Travel was a mixture of group and solo.
No matter how poorly planned the journey into the desert was it began to take on good omens the night before our departure. Over dinner Andreas and I decided to leave in the morning; by midnight the truck was full with a newly formed travel family: two very attractive women, a drunk Swiss man, and a Colombian from Cali who was mute most the time. Warm with friendship and red wine I went to bed happy reflecting on this mix of characters.
The night before our journey into the Guijira Desert we met an old man who spoke with a mystical air of the place and things we would find there. He proclaimed we had the right truck for such a difficult overland journey where there are no paved roads, only a maze of dirt tracks that lead in all directions. A compass would be mandatory; I own one and do not know how to use it. In places like this, I have learned the gas gauge is the one to watch.
When he spoke of my truck is such good light and told my friends who were assembled that I was a good leader, I thought to myself, flattery will get you most everywhere.
Sitting on the seawall in the sleepy fishing village of Taganga we were growing more excited about this adventure into the desert. He was tall and thin, carried a small satchel and wore faded white pants. With gray hair and leathery skin the old man exuded an air of special knowledge or at least possessed talented theatrics with the spoken word. He had little and was hungry, we shared our food. In a gravely voice, verging on dramatic he spoke of the pleasures of the desert, its beauty and simplicity. A Smugglers Paradise where cheap Venezuelan gas and beer enter and cocaine leaves via illegal dirt airstrips, boats, and now submarines.
He went on to explain the intricacies of Colombian culture in this remote desolate region. A place known to be dangerous in parts with friendly people if you minded local customs. Dangerous and friendly, was one of those dichotomies Colombians use to describe their country; this only heightened my interest in the area. Guides are recommended and I hired none, choosing instead
to rely on intuition and people for directions and places to sleep.
The old man had an air about him; the next day we tried to characterize him to each other and all arrived at the same word, Sage.
The Sage made me feel good and gave me confidence to travel this remote and harsh region. As the driver and group lead I felt a sense of responsibility for my friends no matter how poorly I planned for it.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
No matter how poorly planned the journey into the desert was it began to take on good omens the night before our departure. Over dinner Andreas and I decided to leave in the morning; by midnight the truck was full with a newly formed travel family: two very attractive women, a drunk Swiss man, and a Colombian from Cali who was mute most the time. Warm with friendship and red wine I went to bed happy reflecting on this mix of characters.
The night before our journey into the Guijira Desert we met an old man who spoke with a mystical air of the place and things we would find there. He proclaimed we had the right truck for such a difficult overland journey where there are no paved roads, only a maze of dirt tracks that lead in all directions. A compass would be mandatory; I own one and do not know how to use it. In places like this, I have learned the gas gauge is the one to watch.
When he spoke of my truck is such good light and told my friends who were assembled that I was a good leader, I thought to myself, flattery will get you most everywhere.
Sitting on the seawall in the sleepy fishing village of Taganga we were growing more excited about this adventure into the desert. He was tall and thin, carried a small satchel and wore faded white pants. With gray hair and leathery skin the old man exuded an air of special knowledge or at least possessed talented theatrics with the spoken word. He had little and was hungry, we shared our food. In a gravely voice, verging on dramatic he spoke of the pleasures of the desert, its beauty and simplicity. A Smugglers Paradise where cheap Venezuelan gas and beer enter and cocaine leaves via illegal dirt airstrips, boats, and now submarines.
He went on to explain the intricacies of Colombian culture in this remote desolate region. A place known to be dangerous in parts with friendly people if you minded local customs. Dangerous and friendly, was one of those dichotomies Colombians use to describe their country; this only heightened my interest in the area. Guides are recommended and I hired none, choosing instead
to rely on intuition and people for directions and places to sleep.
The old man had an air about him; the next day we tried to characterize him to each other and all arrived at the same word, Sage.
The Sage made me feel good and gave me confidence to travel this remote and harsh region. As the driver and group lead I felt a sense of responsibility for my friends no matter how poorly I planned for it.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Dispatch Number 58 -The Psychiatrist
I met Francis a retired psychiatrist from Kansas when I was in Panama City, he told fortunes with a deck of playing cards that he spread out over a big piece of purple felt. It had an astrology wheel and other crudely painted symbology on it. People at our cheap hotel loved to circle around him in the evenings and have their fortunes told. The reception guy and I were compatriots in our non belief and poked fun at it all. We were ignorant for we made fun of what we did not understand. Inventions of the mind , I say.
Francis was harsh and judgemental about most things, including a man neither of us knew performing construction work below the balcony of our dumpy hotel.
"Stupid idiot! He's not wearing ear protection. He'll be deaf in a year.", as the high pitched power tool roared through floor tiles.
Francis loved the words fuck and shit and used them in typically uncreative ways making it difficult to believe he was the science fiction writer he claimed to be. I never saw him read. I was careful not to ask for one of the manuscripts I saw him passing around to unsuspecting backpackers. When I saw one returned it was done without much comment and I didn't want to be in that position, I may not have been as delicate.
He believed in UFOs and life on other planets. They are an odd lot the silver disc believers, like missionaries who want to recruit or confirm you into their subculture. They can be zealots, too. Area 51 people. In Costa Rica, I met a local artisan, Freddy who had me watch a video fraught with technical problems in the camera work. He defiantly claimed this was proof of UFOs. Freddy used a portable DVD player instead of a bible.
Francis asked, just like Freddy did, "Do you believe in UFOs and extraterrestrial life?"
I am not delicate anymore, probably since I'm not trying to sell people things, and replied without hesitance, "No. Not a believer. Shall we talk about God next?"
Francis would not be deterred and pressed on in an accusatory manner that linear thinking was the cause for not believing in UFOs. He used the label and made it sound dirty or contaminated, and it warmed me to debate.
He was not a crafty debater and his attacks were obvious and clumsy. From the start it felt like a set up. His line of reasoning was rehearsed and when I began to out debate him he resorted to talking over me. After some time it was clear he had another agenda and went on with his unpolished monologue. I began to wonder how his science fiction manuscripts read.
Constructions of the mind help us cope with our world, some make them and never break them. Others adopt religions and philosophies. As for this traveller, it may take years before I reluctantly challenge the constructions I create, and revise them or completely break them down. I believed in UFOs until I was eleven.
Over lunch with a group who liked to spend time with him, fortune lackeys I called them, Francis choked on a piece of meat. A Finnish man helped him cough it up using the Heimlich Maneuver; I'm told Francis sat back down as if little had happened, while the others stared at the huge piece of meat that came out of his throat.
"Francis, you have to chew!", exclaimed one of the Spaniards who took lunch with him.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
Francis was harsh and judgemental about most things, including a man neither of us knew performing construction work below the balcony of our dumpy hotel.
"Stupid idiot! He's not wearing ear protection. He'll be deaf in a year.", as the high pitched power tool roared through floor tiles.
Francis loved the words fuck and shit and used them in typically uncreative ways making it difficult to believe he was the science fiction writer he claimed to be. I never saw him read. I was careful not to ask for one of the manuscripts I saw him passing around to unsuspecting backpackers. When I saw one returned it was done without much comment and I didn't want to be in that position, I may not have been as delicate.
He believed in UFOs and life on other planets. They are an odd lot the silver disc believers, like missionaries who want to recruit or confirm you into their subculture. They can be zealots, too. Area 51 people. In Costa Rica, I met a local artisan, Freddy who had me watch a video fraught with technical problems in the camera work. He defiantly claimed this was proof of UFOs. Freddy used a portable DVD player instead of a bible.
Francis asked, just like Freddy did, "Do you believe in UFOs and extraterrestrial life?"
I am not delicate anymore, probably since I'm not trying to sell people things, and replied without hesitance, "No. Not a believer. Shall we talk about God next?"
Francis would not be deterred and pressed on in an accusatory manner that linear thinking was the cause for not believing in UFOs. He used the label and made it sound dirty or contaminated, and it warmed me to debate.
He was not a crafty debater and his attacks were obvious and clumsy. From the start it felt like a set up. His line of reasoning was rehearsed and when I began to out debate him he resorted to talking over me. After some time it was clear he had another agenda and went on with his unpolished monologue. I began to wonder how his science fiction manuscripts read.
Constructions of the mind help us cope with our world, some make them and never break them. Others adopt religions and philosophies. As for this traveller, it may take years before I reluctantly challenge the constructions I create, and revise them or completely break them down. I believed in UFOs until I was eleven.
Over lunch with a group who liked to spend time with him, fortune lackeys I called them, Francis choked on a piece of meat. A Finnish man helped him cough it up using the Heimlich Maneuver; I'm told Francis sat back down as if little had happened, while the others stared at the huge piece of meat that came out of his throat.
"Francis, you have to chew!", exclaimed one of the Spaniards who took lunch with him.
David
Cartagena, Colombia
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