Barranquilla Hotels
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Where the hell are Gilli and Claudia?
Entry 2 of 168 | show all | print this entry |
I took off this morning from Costa Rica, had a connection in Panama and flew into Barranquilla, Colombia. Claudia and Darin were also flying into Barranquilla and were supposed to get in 2 hours before me and meet me at the baggage claim exit.
I arrived in Bar. on time, got my stamps, got my bag and walked out of the airport. There was no warm hug or hello from Gilli (aka Darin) and Claudia because THEY WEREN´T THERE! It was strange but I wasn´t too freaked out. I figured they were just wandering around the airport. I waited around for a bit... nothing. Checked to make sure their flight came in, yup it came in. Its pretty small airport, so I started walking around to find them... nothing. Went back out where they were supposed to meet me, waited for about 30 minutes..... nothing. I figured something was up after I had been waiting around for an hour. I tried calling Claudia´s parents in Bogota... no answer. I left a message on the house phone that if they weren´t there in a bit, that I would take off to Santa Marta on my own. The place that I had called from had internet, but the lady said it was broken. Scratched my head, and thought of the different possibilities. Went to ask the airline if they could tell me if Gilli and Claudia were on the plane.... security guidelines restrict that. This is a pain in the ass.
It was just kind the 'oh crap, what now?' kind of feeling because the only plans we had made where to meet at the airport. I didn't expect that to fail in anyway, we didn't have a contingency plan. It didn't help that I left in Costa Rica in such a rush that I didn't write down any flight info of theirs or that I had any clue what the hell we were going to be doing (that was Claudia's department). Since the communication had been lacking between our departments, it definitely left me wishing I actually had my head up my ass.
I walked past the place I had made the phone call from and saw two people on the internet.... she told me it was broken, WTF? I walked in, asked if it was working, she grinned and said yes (she grinned in the way that someone does when the blatantly lied to you, got caught, and still didn´t care). The internet had been working all along, I´m gonna go out on a limb here and call her a biatch.
An email from Claudia shed some light on the situation. Turns out they had missed their flight and would be flying in at 4:20, which was about 3 hours from then. I entertained myself on the internet for a couple of hours and checked the status of their flight... delayed an hour. This is getting ridiculous.... I´m hungry..... I´m gonna eat a burger. Glad the internet worked, because I was pretty close to taking off by myself to the wrong city, and that would have sucked.
As time got close for their flight to get in, I went to the baggage claim exit to meet up with them. After a bit of waiting, I could see the two of them burst out of the exit looking around. As soon as they spotted me, they were relieved. Claudia was freaking out because they hadn´t heard from me other than the message that I was going to go to Santa Marta and thats not what they wanted to hear because that was in the opposite direction of where we were going. We were going to Cartagena.
Big hugs and hellos all around. It was great to see them, it had been quite some time. We hopped into a cab pretty quick since we were running about 4 hours behind. The cab driver offered to take us all the way to Cartagena for only a bit more than an express bus. So we took him up on the 1.5 hour journey to save time and hassle.
By the way Gilli has a backpack that I think is bigger than me weighs almost as much as I do. He is already a pretty tall guy at 6ft 4in, but with that tall as pack on, he stands out like a sign that says 'yes I am not from your country, kidnap me.' To his defense he brought all kinds of snorkeling gear, a tent and some other crap. Gilli, we got to teach you to leave that crap at home bro, not needed.
During the cab trip we talked and did lots of the catching up that we needed to get done. It was getting dark, but I got my first look at Colombia. On the streets were lots of cars, trucks, buses, buggies pulled by donkeys or mules, bicycles, and people. The streets were packed and congested with movement. The weather outside was kind of gloomy but it made everything feel a bit dirtier than it was. Lots of shacks lining the streets. The country side was quite arid looking, with shrubs and very dry soil.
We got stopped at a Police check point, they glanced in, talked to the cab driver for a while and gave him a hard time. Turns out the police were just trying to hassle him and get some money out of him by saying his license wasn´t valid. It was valid and he ended up getting out of it by offering to bring them some food on the way back through.
Pulling into Cartagena at night was really pretty. Cartagena´s signature is its large fort wall that surrounds the entire old town of the city. At night the walls are lit up and it gives a great view.
The streets in Cartagena are really confusing, because every block the street name changes. So its a huge pain in the ass to figure out where you are and its even worse if your cab driver is from a city 1.5 hours away. So it was a fun little adventure around the old town of Cartagena, asking every block where our street was. Eventually we found it and it was pretty nice getting the scenic tour of the old town at night.
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