Champeta and Costeños

Club bouncers were trying to close the overhead door entrance to no avail, and the fight that began in the street spilled back into the recently closed establishment. As we backed into a corner near the door, our eyes met the light off a knife one of the guys brandished as he was held back by four others. My mind spoke for me when I yelled, “Yup, @#$& this! I’m out!” and we scuttled out underneath the half closed metal door. Parked cars blocked the street and we first turned left, only to nearly interrupt another duo yelling and spitting at each other in their frail attempts against those holding them back. Just as we spun on our heels to the right a policeman in his bright green reflective gear pulled out his gun, the chu-chik of his gun cocking and pointing at another gentleman he seemed to be at odds with. With eyes wide and probably wet pants I about faced and we jumped between the cars to cross the street. We jogged away from the scene as more bright green outfits screamed by us with their cars and motorcycles, the sound of multiple tasers serenading our escape into our last sweaty night in Cartagena.

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I had just finished up my first full year of teaching English to hordes of Colombian sixth and seventh graders. With a visit back to Collegeville already planned for Christmas, I was hoping to squeeze in a little adventure and try to see more of this wicked country I’ve called home for nigh on twenty months now. It just so happened that my friend, Tatiana – the girl who fled to Mexico to pursue an acting career – was due back in Bogota in December. I floated by her the chances of travelling to the coast together, something she hadn’t done in a while. After a few video calls we finally nailed down some dates. Then she mentions she wants to bring her family, too. Now, I love her family; Tatiana, her sister, Valentina, and her parents (adorably named) Beto and Bety, and they treat me like part of the family. But my preferred style of travel isn’t exactly familial. It’s not very well planned, usually involves lots of hiking, last minute decision-making (or lack thereof) and getting into trouble/beer. I enjoy meeting new people wherever I go, something that’s harder to do the more people you’re with. She also wanted to bring her dog, Limon. Again, I love dogs and hope to be the proud owner one day. When I’m done living abroad and travelling like I do, that is. You probably don’t think about it if you’re part of the average car camping American family, but travelling with pets requires a certain level of responsibility and travel style, neither of which do I currently claim mastery of. It’s like travelling with a baby: you can’t go certain places, you need to always be watchful of them, and you gotta clean up after a lot of shit. Plus, with pets even more so than children, there are a lot of places you can’t stay. Being a relatively independent traveller, I was apprehensive but still excited to finally be getting to the Colombian coast.

            One thing that eventually fell through the cracks of our planning was our times of arrival. Tatiana isn’t great about responding to messages, so after a few days of not getting back to me about sending me their flight information I simply bought a ticket based on “We leave Bogota around ten on Sunday.” Fast forward to me arriving at the airport on Sunday morning and waiting at my gate. I text Tatiana, telling her I’m scheduled to land on the coast around noon. Surprisingly her reply was swift, with a confused, “ehm, we get in at midnight because we don’t leave until 10pm.” As I was switching my phone to the airplane mode my mind flew back to a time travelling south in Chile with my friend, Craig. Our miscommunication about arrival time then had gotten us to our destination a half day early as well, that time requiring us to find lodging in a strange lady’s house who we met on the street outside the bus terminal.

            I arrive in the perpetual sweat of Cartagena, Colombia, with no plan whatsoever. I didn’t know where we were staying, had done no research on the city beforehand, and was without data in an airport without Wifi. Did I mention my way of travelling probably doesn’t work with a family? I sat down on the floor in baggage claim next to my backpack.  I watched other holiday travelers exit the glass doors out to the parade lines of taxi drivers waiting for an easy few thousand pesos and thought to myself, I wouldn’t even know where to tell them to go. As I watched one particularly portly fellow struggle with his wife’s ridiculously leviathonic luggage, my eyes glazed over the advertisements on the center of the lazy river of baggage floating past me. Amidst the overpriced tour packages was a poster promoting a hotel facing the beach. The ad included a map telling me I was only five blocks from the beach. I snapped a picture of the map, exited the glass doors and hustled past calls of taxi! and was looking at the Caribbean Sea in less than ten minutes. I spent the next twelve hours making significant progress in the book I was reading, La isla del tesoro – a fitting book considering my current setting, walking along the beach, sitting under palm trees, and being the only customer at a dimly lit cantina bar drinking from a bottle whose lip tasted like the ocean. I was on vacation.

           

We were able to check a lot of the tourist boxes soon enough. We took a boat tour to the Islas del Rosario, a series of islands just off the coast of Cartagena that offer beaches like playa baru and playa blanca that make travel guide authors’ mouths water. It’s one of those places where you can spend money quickly on beach chairs, massages, cocktails, snorkel gear, oysters, etc. Beto and I were satisfied with a beer. While it was good to be on the water again, something we should all have more of in our lives, I wouldn’t call myself a beach person. But I always welcome a good sunburn!

Boating in Cartagena.

The next day involved changing my identity. Cartagena being an old colonial city, with the now touristic area set within the walls of what was once a walled fortress, we were at the entrance to one particular fort, El Castillo San Felipe de Barajas (1657). I was told to keep a low profile by my new Colombian family since extranjero prices were almost triple those of native Colombians. Beto and Beti’s solution? As I’m not saying a word to avoid exposing my accent, they approach one of the guys selling water out of a cart nearby (I may never get their cries of aguaguagua, es necesario! out of my head). They convince him to lend them his ID to buy my ticket to the fort, and in exchange we buy some water from him. So thank god the people selling and accepting the tickets were different, or they would have noticed that this white gringo was using the ticket of a much darker Colombian water salesman. Welcome to Colombian negotiations.

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.

          Soon, we had a rental car ready to be on our way west to Barranquilla and Santa Marta. But not before witnessing a few endearing moments outside the city proper. We met up with one of Beto’s cousins, Juan Carlos, who works as a driver for the Hilton Hotel in Cartagena. He took us up to a little known overlook of the city and was pointing sites out for us. As he drove, he and Beto recounted the trouble they would get into back in their heyday in Bogota. Tears of joy came as often as those of sadness for both men in the front seats, and it was breathtakingly adorable to witness them come together after so much time apart. 

Juan Carlos and the Alvarez family overlooking Cartagena.

Juan Carlos then took us to his house up in the hills that flank the city. His home didn’t quite have enough room for us all, so we ate rice tamales in chairs out in the street. The tamales, food typical of Colombia, were made by his neighbor across the street, who Beto eventually starting dancing with to the salsa music that had been pumping since before our arrival. Eating, drinking, and dancing there in the street with whoever was around made me think: shit, this life ain’t so bad. I also got a mini English lesson in when Juan Carlos’ daughter brought her toddler over. She was crawling on the curb playing with her animal toys. I crouched down and began naming the animals for her. “Alright kid, you have no idea what I’m saying. But that’s cool, neither does anyone else here. We’re gonna learn you some English.” I can only assume the look of panic on her face as she looked for help from her mother was the result of my improper verb usage. We’ll work on slang some other time.

Silhouetted fam at Puerta Colombia, Barranquilla.

Barranquilla will get a mention here merely for archival purposes, so that it’s known we stopped. There’s really not much to see. At some key points during the year the city plays host to carnivals and parades. But its attractions are almost limited to an admittedly impressive cathedral, El rio Magdalena and subsequent delta into the Caribbean, and being the birthplace of Shakira. We stayed with another of Beto’s cousins, this one being a wealthier bachelor living near the heart of the city. Worth noting however, was when we visited the vast river and happened upon what I can only guess was a birthday party for an elderly lady. As the live band played traditional cumbia music with drums and flutes, Beto gave his video camera to Tatiana and found the birthday girl out on the dance floor. Soon enough, he was dancing with half the old gals under the party tent cheering him on.

Cathedral of Barranquilla.

Two more hours to the west found us in Santa Marta, another beach town known for its ecotourism mostly thanks to the town’s relationship with the local Kogui and Arhuaco tribes native to the Sierra Santa Marta mountains surrounding the area. Here, the beaches are even better than those of Cartagena. The sand is whiter, making the water clearer. The city is smaller, and it carries a backpacker feel instead of the luxurious vibes of Cartagena. It would be easy to spend a month in Santa Marta and not get to do everything there is to do nearby. Adventures that would influence my return would be the 3-5 day hike to the Lost City or a hike through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, both making their way through land owned by indigenous tribes that have much better relations with the government than their Native American counterparts in the U.S.

The fam in Tayrona National Park.

But we did get to hike in Tayrona National Park, probably Santa Marta’s most popular destination. Covering nearly 60 square miles of land, Tayrona protects many endemic species from nearly 3,000 feet above sea level all the way down to the coast. The government has put in quite some work to make a well-built and maintained trail that attracts all sorts of hikers. There are a handful of small hammock and tent hostels along the path, but it’s also possible to hike into the beaches for the day and leave before the trails close after sundown. While I would have preferred the former, the consensus was reached with my current host family that we would just hike through the jungle and along the beaches.

Beto walking among the palms of Tayrona National Park.

Because the park’s popularity is no secret, there’s quite a lot of traffic on those trails. Fortunately, the government closes the park for the month of January both to give the park a breather from tourists and also so that the native tribes aren’t interrupted when they come and perform their rituals throughout their land. But what land they’ve got! Just the thought of hiking down mountain jungles to the endless beaches far from any road or building makes me want to take that month and go back to see more. Monkeys and iguanas were a regular site along the paths, and we waded through a river that we had seen an alligator in about 100 meters upstream. The reason you’re expected to be off the trails by nightfall is partly so hikers don’t get lost, partly so that you don’t cross paths with a jaguar, snake, alligator, or spider you might not see soon enough. Because sweat is a constant on the coast, water salesmen do very well at their stations within the park. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to borrow an ID this time to avoid the hefty gringo price I paid:  about 15 dollars to the Colombian 5 dollar entry.

Another day we made it to the less popular but equally breathtaking Palomino beach just outside Tayrona park. This beach is where a freshwater river flows into the ocean. So standing on a peninsula of sand, you could have one foot in clear, cool fresh water churning together with cloudy salt water that your other foot stands in, all while looking at palm tree covered mountains and endless ocean. I’ve seen worse (e.g. mirrors).

River meeting the ocean at Palomino.

no doubt making a phallic joke.

Unfortunately, our days in Santa Marta passed too quickly and we drove the 5-6 hours back to Cartagena for Beto and Bety to catch their flight to Bogota. Unlike the family I grew up in, this family doesn’t travel together often. In fact, this was Tatiana’s parents’ first trip to the coast. I made sure to let the girls know that their parents were able to make this happen. Sometimes my way of travelling can be stressful; not knowing where I’ll be staying, always a bit wary of someone who might try to rob a gringo, needing to take my pack with me anytime I move. But travelling with a family, even one that’s not my own, reduces a lot of those stresses when you’re with parents who are responsible and are always thinking about the next step. It made me grateful and in awe of how my own parents were able to bring my siblings and I on so many adventures growing up. And I’ll always be grateful to Bety and Beto for their kindness, and Beto especially for his humor and inhibitions to dance with anyone at any time (along with dancing with old ladies on the riverbank in Barranquilla, he also danced to street rappers in Cartagena and a street band in Santa Marta) and for treating me as if I were his own son, often confusing relatives we visited when I was introduced as his oldest. As if there weren’t enough similarities between him and my own father, Beto also videos everything with a camcorder a la Michael Roske for our childhood (though I am aware it was also often my mother behind all our home videos).

Youngest children are the sassiest.

Tati and I in Barranquilla.

Though our parents had left, the adventure was not over for Tatiana, Valentina and myself. The day the rents flew home, we checked into a hostel within the walled city of Cartagena and made our way to a champeta club. Champeta is a genre of music with Afro-Colombian roots. Apparently, champeta was a word used to describe a machete knife. And since this knife was often used by the African slaves and workers on the coast, the social elite often derogatorily referred to them as champetudos. Then in the 1970s, those populations embraced the term to refer to a burgeoning genre of music that combined African and Caribbean sounds. Our night at the club began with dancers on stage who taught everyone a boatload of champeta dance steps before a live band got on and played for hours. Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the greatest dancer. Dancing is hard work, and I get lazy easily. But, for a gringo, I do all right. That’s also what I’m usually told by Colombians, and dammit I take it as a compliment!

The next night brought me more dance practice. We three had this tradition down of going into a club early in the evening, then leaving right away and convincing the bouncers that if we returned we wouldn’t have to pay the cover. It should be noted that I was no help in the convincing process, that was the job of the two young women I was with to convince the burly dudes at the door. And when the girls’ smiles and words melted the hearts of the behemoths, I couldn’t help but think, good god, man, you did not just fall for that! (This common phenomenon also occurred at the beach when the girls were able to convince a young man renting out beach chairs and umbrellas, who normally charges 5,000 pesos an hour for a chair and 8,000 an hour for an umbrella, to give us a chair in the shade of his mom’s fruit stand for 3,000 for over an hour). Anyways, after Tati and Vale had hypnotized a few of the club brutes, we made our way to a burger stand and found two other sisters who we spotted at the club we’d just left, and apparently they had similar club going traditions. Karen and Jennifer were actually from Bogota, but now their family lived in Cartagena. And now that pairs of sisters had found each other, I basically didn’t exist, and ate my burger in blissful silence as chatter and gossip ensued all around me. We ended up spending the evening all together in the club before fleeing down the street together when the night club turned into the fight club.

Last day in Cartagena. Wild ride of a week.

Song in my head lately: It probably wouldn’t be fit to talk about champeta music without posting a song. This is probably one of the more famous songs, though I can’t say much about the lyrics. Unless you’re rhythmically challenged or don’t like music, you’ll probably find yourself tapping your foot or bobbing your head. That’s the idea. There’re these bonus songs, too.

Spanish word of the day: a common verb expression English speakers learn in Sapnish classes is tengo que (which means I have to…) followed by a verb, so tengo que madrugar would be I have to wake up early. In Colombia, and maybe other South American countries – though I’ve only heard it here – use the verb tocar (to touch) in the same way, if a little more informally. So me toca madrugar would mean something like I gotta wake up early, which is a common phrase in a country where schools start at 6:30 or 7am.