Colombia... Need I Say More?

Current city: Merida. Current country: Venezuala. After 19 hours and 3 different buses stretching through some of the shadiest areas in South America, Eduardo and I made it here in one piece. Before I get to that I´ll take off from where I left off.
Last time I wrote I was deciding on whether to travel through the San Blas Islands into Colombia or not, weather permitting. Weather did permit and forced us into a plane to bigger than 20 seats. On the plane we had were 4 other guys who I travelled with up until yesterday, one of whom I met months earlier in Antigua, Guatemala. Upon arrival we walked onto the tarmac to a small airport in Cartagena, Colombia. This airport is probably the nicest I´ve seen especially for it´s size. The amazing architecture and foliage foreshadowed good things to come in this amazing city. As soon as we made it through customs we took a taxi to the old part of town which always have the most class. We landed on a road which seemed similar to that of Koson Road in Bangkok. Every shop was cheap food, riddled with travellers and lined with cheap hostels. We did a walking tour of the city and had some beers inside the old city walls. We spent two days there relaxing and taking in one of the most architecturally beautiful and romantic cities I´ve come across yet.
Our next location was the hole in the ground known as Barranquilla. Our only business here was to locate a place for Carnival in the weeks ahead. Immediately my gut instinct about this city was bad and that was conquered by the stomach aches I would get every minute I spent in that city. Our original plan was to rent an apartment and just cram it to the nines with people but every place we talked to wanted to rent it only for minimal, a month. We instead reserved an 11 bed room in a cheap hotel charging around $7 a night or $16,000 pesos.
We had no more business there after that and headed to a town I´d heard about from many, many people. Just 20 minute chicken bus around the corner from Santa Marta was Tagonga. A small fishing village with some of the cheapest diving to be found in the world. Unfortunately I never got to dive. We rented a small apartment there for 5 nights and spent day after day relaxing on the beach and by night going to La Garaje Bar or to other local spots to watch the small pre-carnival shows. I even ended up hanging out for a couple nights with the lead carnival girl in the small town. Tagonga had a feeling to it where the time was never asked for and you let yourself loose track of it mesmerized by its tranquillity. Deep in a cove surrounded by rolling hills of cactus this town doesn´t know the word rain and light cloud coverage was a major piss-off to many of the locals our second day.
After close to a week there we set out by boat to the Nationale Parque Tyrona. Beach after beach of white sand and palm trees we couldn´t pass that up. Less than 20 minutes after leaving the beach our motor started to die. However 20 minutes later we revived it back to health. Another hour and then the engine died again. This time for good and we found ourselves in head-high swells sucking us in towards the rocks. We flagged down a dive boat just in time which began towing us back to Tagonga. With our spirits killed we were all silent until we passed a local fishing boat with the day´s catch. We convinced them to take us the rest of the way for a special price and then loaded our stuff onto that boat. With lack of room the boat captain put his family in with the broken boat and left them afloat in a cove. What these people will do for $15 a head. After 2 more hours of a soaking ride we washed onto the shore of Cabo San Juan in Tyrona. The beach itself was riddled with beauty but it was not what I had expected. We were searching for a 6 hammocks and a bonfire on the beach and nothing more but we found a restaurant and major camp ground full of people. We did find hammocks outside but for a price we weren´t thrilled about. $7 for a hammock seemed like highway robbery when we were paying $5 each for our apartment in Tagonga. The next day was just as beautiful and the sun was out all day. My frisbee and snorkel were of constant use and every the English white as goats milk started to turn a shade of tan. Everything was going just fine until 9 o´clock. In a completely different climate (rain forest) the sky opened up and half asleep in our hammocks we had torrential down pore on us. This lasted well into the next day and fed up we decided it was time to leave. After 3 hours of hiking through the jungle in knee deep mud we found a road and hailed down a ride. After no more than an hour there was a drastic change in climate; we were back in Tagonga. Another couple days to soak up the sun and chat with local girls on the beach was necessary before heading back to Barranquilla for Carnival, the supposed third biggest next to Salvador and Rio in Brazil.
Upon arriving to Barranquilla my stomach hopped right back into its funk and the cramps left me on the floor of the bathroom for a couple hours. Something just didn´t agree with me there whether it was the bacteria in the food or the air I was breathing. The first night we headed to Plaza de la Paz for a pre-carnival party and this ended up being the most fun I had. Locals handing our shots of ron and putting their arms around us just eager to party. There was a four sided stage in the middle with a revolving pit of people around it. I even ran into a girl from Niagara who was with my sister and Dan and myself one of the last nights before I left on my journey. We stayed there long into the night and then headed back to our room which had 9 people in it. The next day was the day with the main parade and we headed there around noon. Unfortunately the event was so poorly designed I am still pissed off with the ignorance of man because of it. The barricade was set up one foot over a curb so there was one row of people standing at curbs height along with boxes under their feet then everyone else left to stare at their back. After no more than 2 hours we just left and said to hell with the parade. That night we headed to Zona Rosa which had 4 clubs which resembled bunkers all facing each other with their big balcony's rolling onto the street. This was fun but all in all rather disappointing as Eduardo and I were on the prowl as we heard that Colombian women were among the prettiest in South America. Tagonga proved that but Barranquilla pulled a 180 and left many people relying on their rum to find them pretty women. The following day we tried again to the parade and decided to pay the $2 to find room in the bleachers. The parade was interesting but nothing too extravagant. We befriended some locals who later drove us across town to a local party where everyone found themselves rather pissed by, ¨ohh my god guys... it´s only 7 o´clock... ahh when in Rome eh!¨ All in all however our Carnival experience came up short and we all left midway through the final day looking to a new city or a new country. My experiences in Colombia will remain this; Cartagena: a hooker trying to sell us drugs she stored in her vagina. Barranquilla: Jenny getting stung twice by a scorpion in our room and a man putting a gun to another mans neck at our breakfast place. Santa Marta: the bus dropping us off beside a triple homicide scene not yet cleaned up. Tagonga, La Garaje. Among others those are the main things that sum up Colombia as a whole, but don´t let that lead you too the wrong impression, Colombia was a wicked country and I can´t wait to be back there in May.
After Barranquilla we parted ways with the Irish girls and Sam going to Bogota, Damien doing the lost city trek, and Karl going back to Tagonga. Eduardo and I read all about this amazing university town in Venezuela that we couldn´t let pass. We booked a bus to drop us off in Maracaibo but they forgot to tell us we were there and we found our an hour past it. The bus dropped us off at a spot notoriously known as one of the most dangerous pit stops in Venezuela and we were there at 3am. We hailed down another bus which was headed towards Merida but the problem was we planned on an ATM in Maracaibo and all we had was $20,000 Colombian Pesos and our US dollar backup funds. After a while of negotiating we hopped on the bus and then another one later and after 19 hours we found ourselves 6am at our hotel. It was hilarious though that the border crossing of leaving Colombia turned out to be the easiest to get through and the guard packing an Uzi Machine Gun by his side was having a blast joking around with us. He showed us the most wanted list, pulled out a random snake, and was joking around to see what kind of partying we were doing in Barranquilla. Tomorrow I think we will look into white water rafting and then maybe go to if we can find one a Hugo Chavez rally just for the experience. The anti-American leaded of Venezuela whose famous for lines such as Patria o Muerte (Country or Death!) Take care all. Next update I will be in Quito with my Mom heading to Galapagos Islands.