Sunday, June 1 - Monday,June 2, 2008
So after spending a week in Taganga, and Melina meeting me there for the weekend to hang out one last time before I continued north to Cabo De La Vela and she returned to Barranquilla, my decision to go to Cabo De La Vela was not the best. I had read in a magazine that Cabo De La Vela was a good place to go to, but once I took the bus to this shitty town 4 Rivas and a cab to a town called Uribia, I had to take this truck another two hours through the desert of Cabo De La Vela, and the roads were quite bumpy. I did not know that I would be jam packed with 12 adults (all indigienous females) and six kids inside the back bed of this truck. It was by far the worst experience yet, and the most uncomfortable. The back bed of the truck also had these metal bars going across the top and I was hitting my head the whole ride and unable to put my feet flat on the ground because one of the kids was underneath me. We had a lot of the luggage from all the people up on the top of the truck, but lots of other things were in the back bed with us as well. I tried to sleep for awhile, but really all I could do is rest my head down and just be patient for the final destination. As I picked my head up eventually one of the ladies was breast feeding her child which was a first time experience for me to see in public...it was a little disturbing, so I put my head right back down, and tried to keep from hitting my head as we were hitting bumps constantly on the dirt roads. After about an hour of this we finally started dropping off people along the way, so the ride started to get a little better, but it still was a rough experience.
I finally arrived Cabo De La Vela at about 6:30 pm after leaving around 9 am from Santa Marta. It was a relief to make it there, and once I found a place to rent a hammock I took some quick pictures and then situated myself before it was completely dark because I didn't have a flashlight. It was nice to fall asleep early and I was up about 5 am the next morning to catch my first sunrise photo on the trip, and then decided that I did not want to be in this little indigenous desert town on the Carribean. The water was beautiful, but it was just too damn hot out, so I wanted to leave.
I asked around to see what I needed to do to get to my next destination (Maicao)...the border town to Venezuela. They said that I needed to take the same type of vehicle that I took on the way there at 5 am in the morning. So unfortunately, I had missed it and I thought I was going to have to spend another night here, but the ladie´s hostel that I was staying at (Maria) said that she had a friend that was leaving at 1:30 pm that day. So I was eager to catch that vehicle back.
Once they arrived at 1:30, I hopped into this Blazer type vehicle and I seated myself in way back where there were some seats. At this time it was the driver, his wife, Maria and one of her ten kids, and one other guy. I thought this ride was going to be good, but then we started picking people up one after another. When it was all said and done, I was very uncomfortable in the back of the Blazer. The air-conditioning was not working well and we now had 13 adults and 6 kids in the vehicle...this was like De Ja Vu all over again. Man, it was another dreadful ride back. This time it was all ladies again and I got to experience two of them breastfeeding at the same time. One was sitting next to me, and the other one right in front of me. All I could do is just put my head down again, and wait patiently. They all speak their own dialect of Spanish too, so I could not really understand anything.
Anyways, I ended up making it to Maicao and then took a shared taxi to Maracaibo, Venezuela. I had a couch lined up there with Paola, but I arrived at about 9 pm so I borrowed someone´s phone and told her that I would just stay at her place the following day because it was so late. So my plan was to go stay at a hostel and she told me to call her at 1030 am the next morning. So when I was at the bus station where I was dropped off I tried getting money out of the atm, but had no luck...I had a security guard try to help me because it was all in Spanish, and I was not sure on the translation. He tried about six times with each card to help me get money, but could not get anything. So, to say the least I ended up sleeping at the Bus Terminal that was 24 hours and air-conditioned. I didn´t get a whole lot of sleep, but I just read my Lonely Planet to plan out some more of my trip. It was not that bad, but I had not eaten anything and I was starving. I felt like a bum and wanted to start begging for food...lol, or just something to drink. I had eggs at 6:30 am the previous morning and that was it. Anyways, come 10:30 am I borrowed someones phone to call Paola (the couchsurfer I was going to stay at), and tell her about what happened and she said she would be there in about an hour. So around 11:45 am she finally made it there and we took a taxi to this mall where I tried to get some money from a different atm that gave me an english option. It worked with both my cards, so I have plenty of local Bolivars and I ate a foot long sub. FOOD never tasted so good...not to mention some chocolate chip cookies, and a sunday from mcdonalds. I think Paola thought I was crazy because she only had a sundae and a soft drink....lol...but I hadn´t eaten for about 35 hours or so.
So here I am in Maracaibo, Venezuela and off to Merida, Venezuela next week before I work my way back down into another part of Colombia again and continue through southern Colombia to Ecuador eventually!
