Megan, Manon, and I decided to do a bit of traveling last week since it was Semana Santa and we had some free time. After a bit of a fiasco in which we boarded a bus that would mosey its way to the transportation terminal in an hour and a half when we only had 40 minutes causing Manon to demand our money back and transfer us to a taxi who speed his way through the back streets of Cartagena, we finally arrived at the terminal in time to buy tickets to Mompox, a small little town that everyone says is just divine, and to sit down to have a juice before leaving. While gulping our juices (it is impossible to drink such satisfying juice slowly), we came to the realization that we didn't want to go to south... we wanted to go northeast. So, relying on Manon's fantastic negotiating skills, we changed our tickets and headed to Riohacha instead.
Our first bus had problems, so they let us off on the side of the road to wait for another. It arrived after a short wait. Super. But hang on a sec... with the addition of us on this bus they were short exactly three seats. Oops. So the driver motioned to have us sit up on the floor by him. What a kind gesture.
Megan in her first class luxury seat next to our new friend, the bus driver, on the way to Riohacha.
After a few more bus changes we finally ended up in Riohacha, which turns out to be a beautiful city on the main drag by the beach, but once inland, quite regular. This part of Colombia is known to be impoverished and inhabited mostly by the indigenous people called the Wayuu (More on them later). It is also mostly desert.
The next day we took a trip out into the desert with our trusty driver, and fan of reggaeton, champeta, and hiphop, Andres. The drive was quite interesting and I was fascinated by how he knew where to go when we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.
The views out the front window changed from some dry vegetation...
... to absolutely nothing...
... to my favorite: a drive right along the shoreline. Quite beautiful and exciting. (I must remember this excellent feature of owning a jeep when looking into investing in an automobile of my own, although I am still set against buying a car that uses gas...)
After a few days exploring the northeastern peninsula of Colombia, Manon and I decided on a whim and some great reviews to go to a small, super touristy town called Taganga. We hopped on another extra crowded bus and after a few minutes we started hearing some strange whimpering noises and noticing some foul smells. The smells I attributed to the cute kid sitting at my side, and I thought maybe someone had brought their whimpering puppy along but I was having trouble locating it, until I felt a nip on my butt... I turned to look behind my seat and Manon let out a yelp when we noticed someone's cargo of live chickens that they decided to leave under our seats. Thanks fellow passenger. The chickens continued to squeak, reek, and peck at my buns until we arrived at our destination. Gotta love the transportation here!
Another view... not quite as pretty (nor comfortable nor entertaining) as traveling around with Andres!
It was a great trip filled with hammock sleeping, hiking, shell hunting, floating in the ocean, and sunset watching: a wonderful relaxing time getting to know the Caribbean Coast of Colombia even better.
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