San Gil and Environs

The security situation here is quite odd. Colombia is no doubt in civil war/ its quite apparent from the newspaper headlines every day and from the soldiers walking around with AK47s slung over their shoulders. And yet, I have never yet felt worried or in danger, and this trip almost feels like its been fewer adventures than almost any other. ELN is almost over, and FARC has had aterrible year of operational setbacks, and a massive turning of public support away from the guerillas as they continue to hold innocent hostages.
And, it does feel as if the vibe of the country is that the war is ending, peace is very nearly here. Rebel groups like ELN is in practically final negotiations, and the infamous FARC has had aterrible year of operational setbacks, and a massive turning of public support away from the guerillas as they continue to hold innocent hostages and move farther from their original ideology and compromise themselves with terrorism and narcotrafficking to pay the gun bills. What was once a movement to liberate the peasant class, fueled for years by cold war politics like the rest of South America, then had the fuel of cocaine money keep the conflict burning. But now, after forty or sixty years of war, the people are ready for peace. Still, strange signs abound of Colombia's brutal history and continuing brutal present. We drove past a minefield yesterday, and Ive noticed that cars and buses all have signs advertising that they have GPS. I never saw any GPS units, and thus took me a few days to realzie that that is a kidnapping deterrant, that a GPS was hidden somewhere on the vehicle. Boarding the bus we were frisked up and down, but no one ever asked to look in our carryon bags, and while the bus had a separate locked compartment for the driver, as I wrote before, the airplane cockpit was wide open...
Anyway, so we left little occupied Minca a few days ago and headed into the mountains near San Gil, where we are now. The drive was beautiful up winding roads and into the mountains. Unfortunately the 9 hour drive became more like 11. I sat staring out the window into the dark half asleep and felt the white noise of the bus change abruptly, only to realize we were breaking down. Now, I just explained how peace is coming to Colombia, but I'm still not exactly thrilled with the idea of spending a night in the Colombian jungle on a sitting-duck prize of a bus, even if Colombia had a better reputation for safety. Some guys got out and stood aroudn, a few tried to fix it and we were off and running within a half an hour, although three more breakdowns only added to my anxiety. Had a layover night in Bucaramanga, and arrived to San Gil at a reasonable time the day before yesterday.
San Gil is a lovely colonial town tucked into in the mountains with a rushing river running through the center. The streets become incredibley steep, and some have the old sidewalk-for-stairs thing, and with flowers bursting in bloom the whole thing has a bit of a San Francisco like feel architecturally. Spent yesterday morning hanging out at our excellent hostel chatting with the other travellers, a few know-it-all Americans and some other nationalities represented, and had a hilarious talk with the Aussie owner who explained in depth how the guidebooks worked. One brand that will remain nameless simply emailed him to ask his to write a description of his place and a little about the town, another never bothered coming to San Gil at all, despite being only six hours away, and wrote incorrect information (though did receive and apology when he emailed undiclosed backpacker guidebook company), and another visited the town but never came to the hostel, and was quite open about this fact when he got in touch. Come afternoon we took a great rafting trip, having opted for the easy float trip rather than the hardcore rapids trip. The fonce river was still bumpy enough to be fun, and the views up the canyon onto local farms, through mossy banyan like trees and jungle vines, was a lot of fun, in spite of the worlds grumpiest river guide.

Santa Marta, Minca, Taganga

Bill had -negative 1 days of getting a stomach bug, having gotten food posioning in Florida delaying his arrival by a day. We agreed to meet in Santa Marta, a smallish beach town on the way to Venezuela, next to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains. I took the most hellish and overpriced collectivo ride, rather than the bus, resulting in a six and a half hour voyage that should have only been four. It was certainly a pretty if long voyage, past ocean on one side, banana haciendas and mountains on the other. Got to Santa Marta finally, but found no rooms at the inn we had been hoping for, so I got us a room elsewhere and left a note behind for Bill who was coming later in the evening. I immediately changed into my bathing suit and headed straight for the beach, only to discover that although I had been excited by how genuinely Colombian Sta Marta felt, that genuineness extended to the way they treated their beach, the hordes of Colombian tourists left garbage all over the beach, and the swimming looked none too appealing with the sight of a massive oil tanker loading up from the pipeline on the edge of town, (apparently unbombed by los FARC today), and another massive boat loading bananas onto pallets into containers. Didnt exactly seem all that clean. Wandered the city as darkness approached, and wondered if Bill had made it into the country without a return ticket out, apparently a real headache for getting through migracion. But finally I wandered back into the hotel to find him checking in, apparently having received no note from the hotel we had agreed on, and only finding it after checking his email. It was great to catch up over dinner and wandering the boardwalk, past giant 30ft light filled Santas sleigh and a Feliz Navidad sign. Ive not seen Bill since my 5 year Wesleyan reunion, which is a long time as my ten year is coming up in a few months! But its a been great travelling with him, reminsicing about the past, and talking about our various lives and futures.
Wanting to leave Santa Marta we decided to head to the fishing/backpacker town of Tanganga, next to the national park. No longer so backpackery, it was now mostly Colombians who occupied nearly every hotel. With no hotel again, we ended up sleeping at an elementary school that had been converted to a hotel for the holidays, and slept soundly amidst desks and chalkboards, beneath a row of enciclopedia de ninos. Hit the beach, where we enjoyed some fresh fried fish and did some swimming and lounging about. It was New Years Eve, and we barely made it past midnight, having a generally pretty mellow evening wandering the town. The people in town were revelling by draggin massive speakers out onto their patios and eating and drinking with friends, inviting people to stop in and chat. It was a nice low-key new years scene. People also tended to have some sort of new years scarecrows out, what they represented I'm not quite sure. We retired shortly after midnight, which we only realized had come when the firework-lighting kids started lighting their firecrackers in greater force than before. We also managed to miss the first death of 2009 (according to the local paper) when a drunk driver killed someone in Sta Marta shortly after midnight.


Onward the next day, we'd decided to head to San Gil in the mountains on the way up toward Bogota. Unfortunately, New Years Day meant nothing was open, not even buslines. Probably safer that way to avoid a driver still drunk from the night before trying to navigate mountain roads. So we took a taxi up to Minca, a small partly Indian town a few thousand meters into the foothills of the mountains,. Minca looks down over the beach towns and the ocean in one direction, and with views into the mountains in the other. We took some walks to waterfalls, watched coffee being dried out on the side of the road, and chatted for a while with an absolutely batshit crazy German guy. Bill had it right when he described this fellow as Herzog-esque, the man had been living above Minca for nearly ten years. Old Klaus Kinski claimed to be an intermediary between the rebel groups and the government and people like journalists and anthropologists. He also tried to scare us with stories about posionous snakes killing people, scorpions attacking tourists in their sleep, and other horror stories of the jungle. It was hard to tell how much he was bullshitting, though on the other hand hed been living in the jungle for the last ten years. Not to mention, our little cabin we'd rented not only had massive spiders, but Bill killed a scorpion and I chased a few bats around before giving up. And the bug bites I'm still itching three days later.
It was a gorgeous town and a pleasure to explore., though did feel like an army occupied town. Apparently it was only pacified a few years ago, and this was clear with the fact that army troops wandered around town chatting casually with their mistresses by cell phone in one hand, AK47s in the other. I have my doubts that the safety was on. From there on to San Gil in the moutnains, the next entry coming soon...