Barranquilla

Becca ...

Carnaval

Ohhhh Barranquilla....where do I begin? As our first stop in Colombia, I think we both had high hopes for this place, especially after hearing how awesome Carnaval is here. And after Panama City I was expecting something similar - semi modern, high rises, etc....ummm not so much. We took a 1 hour flight directly from one city to the other and arrived at our shit-hole of a hotel, El Diamante. Ok fine, it could have been worse (cant it always?) atleast we had our own room, but the bathroom gave us a real hoot - the ¨shower¨ was merely a pipe that if you turned on too hard it sprayed straight across the bathroom (granted, the bathroom was like 5 ft by 2 ft) and drenched everything. Oh and no shower curtain. But I think the absolute BEST part of the bathroom was the toilet - there was no toilet seat. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to sit on a potty w-out a seat? ew. when we asked the reception lady she informed us that it wasnt just us, none of the rooms in the hotel have seats. fabulous.

Chimp

After dumping our bags we headed out to explore the streets - our hotel was in the center, so we quickly found the vast outdoor market that sprawls for blocks and blocks in multiple directions - kind of like a NYC street fair on a much larger scale. It was kind of fascinating all the crap these people sell - some of its valid (see shoe pic), alot of its super random like remote controls, dead fish, bamboo shoots....we even saw one lady selling fake piles of poop, no joke. Needless to say, quite a fun place to walk around and we got to explore it all over the next several days. Oh and I have to mention the delicious street food - everything here is fried, which clearly is not the healthiest choice but...its super cheap and yummy - we would get these eggs fried in corn dough in the AM for like 75 cents for 2. I´m personally hoping the hiking/bag hauling will negate the fried-ness.

ferocious

On our second day, we decided to take a trip to the Barranquilla Zoo, cause who doesnt love the zoo. I swear, the cages they kept the animals in were pretty small and the walls were low enough for some of them to escape....we were joking but kinda expecting to find a tiger wandering the streets. Anyway, saw lots of animals, especially enjoyed the different kind of monkies and apes, I fell in love with the chimp we took the pic of. He would just sit by the glass and stare at us, and pick at his feet. Poor lil guy, wish he could fit in my backpack.That afternoon we returned to the market and bought some gear for Carnaval so we didnt stick out too bad -- Asaf got a cowboy hat, I got a flower garland, cowboy hat earrings, and a little boys Carnaval teeshirt. Woo.

festive Colombian ladies

On Friday we were slightly dying of boredom and out of things to do, so we spent some time watching CNN (we are completely caught up on the primaries, the blizzard in China, and the situation in Iraq) annnd then decided the best cure for our boredom was to get a lil drunk so we tried the local liquor which I forget the name of but tastes like licorice kinda. And then FINALLY Saturday came and we were super pumped for Carnaval to start and started drinking early like everyone else around 11 (felt like tailgating). Finally around 3 we headed to watch the parade....the streets were PACKED with people, everyone trying to get a glimpse of the floats and then, in an instant something terrible happend which I´ll let Asaf explain. But lets just say that put a huge damper on the rest of the day for both of us. And I personally am spoiled I think from seeing Carneval in Viareggio, Italy when I was abroad - the floats in Barranquilla just didn´t compare, it was just trucks with scantily dressed girls dancing to the loud blaring music. So anyway, this is long and I need to let him write but, overall, I found this city to be quite a dissapointment - really just run down and depressing - and hence we decided to cut our time there short and move on. But the good news I suppose, is that now all the other places we visit in Colombia will seem that much better, eh? Miss everyone...xoxo

flamingos

Asaf

So that bad thing that happened to me is that my wallet was pick-pocketed during the Carnaval festivities.  The physicallity of losing my wallet was only a small peice of the loss.  From the moment I realized it was gone until a couple of days had passed my mind was completely preoccupied with ¨what ifs?¨ If I had done this, or what if I had done that, I would only have my awsome wallet that I bought in Spain back!  I felt violated, and worse even foolish for having taken it with me to the festival.  The next morning, I actually felt difficulty leaving the room but we had to eat.  It only got worse because as we went on our usual walk to get our fried empanada breakfast I found the normal molestation of street vendors, the dirtyness/poverty of the town to be unbearable.  Losing my wallet definately pales in comparison to the following examples but I can definately understand how someone can feel the need to move if their home is broken into or not being able to return to a certain place if you were mugged there.  Thank goodness that I feel that way about Barranquilla, because if not for Carnaval there wouldn´t be any reason to spend more than a couple of hours there.

kid spectators

To elaborate, the whole city (it´s a big one, fourth largest population of Colombia) has the neverending atmosphere of a small poor town.  It seems that the town did start this way and quickly expanded but instead of filling in with high rises and modern structures they just kept repeating the same pattern of small poor town.  It can be okay to hang out in an area like this for some time; you eat some home made food, have a few cheap beers with the local people but when you can´t escape it and theres thousands of people running around for the festival it becomes too much.  Even when we went to the ¨upscale,¨ part of town it looked no different with the same street vendors, exact food and poor short buildings.  The couple of positives I can draw is the sheer magnitude and endlessness of the street market which I´ve never experienced.  The local drink that Becca mentioned called aguardiente (anise flavored) is also a nice treat.   

shoes shoes shoes

Lastly, I´m equal to Becca´s feeling of dissapointment of the festival, I think going through Fallas in Valencia made it pale in comparison.  If I had never experienced the size of the crowd and party right in the streets before it might have had some magic to it but unfortunately losing my wallet quelled any hopes of having a good time.  I´m feeling better now though, and being a pragmatist I realized that besides the sentimentality of my wallet and my old Maryland Student ID everything is replaceable and all I´m really losing is about $60 dollars; it could be much worse.  I´ve also just realized I´ll be able to buy another wallet on the road and it will come to represent this trip for me, the good times and bad...mostly good though.

the market