Santa Fe De Antioquia Road Trip
Trip Start
Apr 25, 2006
1
73
76
Trip End
Apr 25, 2007
Santa Fe De Antioquia,
Colombia
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Colonial architecture, one of the world's first suspension bridges, and a veritable maze of cobbled stone one-way streets were awaiting us - but we first had some obstacles to navigate. The journey was supposed to be about 45mins, but we managed to balloon it out to 3hrs by the conclusion of the ordeal. Way behind schedule, rain pissing down, mist-shrouded pothole-pitted roads, and a smoke-filled car belting out tunes. It could have been worse. Our departure time of 11pm was made to look a little silly after heading in the wrong direction for an hour or so, and the multitude of cows casually strolling along the road certainly didn't help our cause either, but it was undeniably the expansive rock slides that slowed our progress the most convincingly. Engaging 4WD mode on our Mazda 121 as fresh batches of rock continued to fall around us, we hobbled and scraped our way through most of the debris. Inevitably, we came to a section where our 5cm ground clearance wasn't quite going to cut it, so being the eternal gentleman I clambered out into the downpour and started pushing boulders off the road to clear a path. We made it to Santa Fe eventually, but then we had the unenviable task of finding accommodation at 2am in the morning. I'm not quite sure how it all worked out, but we pulled into a place and found some empty, unlocked rooms so just crashed there.
The next few days were spent taking in the pleasant colonial feel of a town that had once served as a crucial trade point... but that was now resigned to admit its recent resurgence in popularity is solely due to the well-preserved colonial architecture - only possible as a direct result of the town's rapid decline into insignificance. Initially founded around gold mining in 1541, but these days more reliant on tourism, maize, coffee and beans, Santa Fe relinquished its status as the state's capital to Medellin in 1826, at which point it more or less ceased to exist. Largely neglected, it managed to avoid development until significantly being declared a conservation site in 1960. The very recent completion of the Tunnel of the West (2006) has cut travelling time from Medellin to a lazy (and mythical) 45min drive, stimulating renewed interest in it as a destination for a weekend away or a summer holiday.
Waking every morning to a balcony overlooking the surging river below, an historic bridge spanning across it, and with bonus option of a swimming pool, it was a little difficult to drag ourselves into town for the open air Film Festival screenings. Especially after the first few films left me in a drowsy state only a shade above comatose, and at one stage was literally shaken after I had lapsed into a boredom-induced deep sleep with an apparently deeper snore. One of the movies kept me slightly entertained partly thanks to the outrageous clothes taking me down 70's memory lane. It was a US-made film in English (Spanish subtitles), seemingly asking controversial questions about US involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup. What is truly interesting is that the film was made in 1983, long before the Clinton administration declassified a bunch of related CIA documents which essentially admitted a desire to overthrow Allende in 1970 after he had been democratically elected. A White House press release in November 2000 acknowledged that "actions approved by the U.S. government during this period aggravated political polarization and affected Chile's long tradition of democratic elections." Naturally the US don't officially admit involvement in the actual coup, and in 2000 just to confuse things the CIA issued a report that found they "did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency". Very vague if you ask me, and wasn't Pinochet a top bloke. While the movie was barely worth 2 stars, it possibly receives a bonus star for predicting revelations that only surfaced 20 years later. Here ends the history lesson - this WILL be in the test.
Another film was not only in French with Spanish subtitles, but some genius had elected to use white subtitles for a black & white movie. As a result I think I understood just about as much as anyone else there, and I award it the coveted Lemon of the Festival Award.
Naturally I stayed away from the after parties, until I heard there was lots of live music and plenty of crazy arts students around. You know, with funny hairstyles and just a couple more piercings than us "mainstream" citizens. It started to rain which shut down the open air stage act temporarily, but fortunately I was undercover so didn't get to cop the brunt of the sudden storm. I did, however, get to beat off the advances of 100-or-so Colombians as the sky opened and they suddenly realised how damn smart I was to be standing under cover.
After numerous bottles of Ron Medellin (it's not a bloke, it's rum) we decided to head back to base. Let me tell you that hobbling over an ancient, single-lane suspension bridge as rain belts down on the windscreen, the river rages below, and lightning cracks all around you... well, the wooden planks made enough of a racket to have me formulating my bail out escape plan should there be a collapse.
The journey back to Medellin was just as ill-fated, but featured decidedly less deadly cliff collapses. As if unable to learn from earlier mistakes, we once again departed late in the evening and made a good start. With the toll gate and accompanying Tunnel of the West within view, the trusty Mazda began suffering the sort of critical losses of torque that are not tolerated on a mountain pass. Inevitably she came limping to a halt, where my assessment of "the clutch is fucked" prompted us to call for a tow. Of course, the tow truck would have to come from Medellin to pick us up, which afforded us plenty of opportunity to crap our pants while waiting several hours on the side of a mostly-deserted stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. Cold and hungry, the truck eventually arrived to write the final chapter of an entertaining and eventful weekend away. We got to ride in the strapped-down Mazda, which bobbed and hopped unnervingly on the tray of the truck as it weaved around pot holes and leapt over speed bumps. The poor car received treatment for a few days, and while yours truly is by no way an automechanic, it did eventuate that the clutch was indeed the culprit!
Notice: you may observe a distinct lack of photos attached to this entry. Rest assured I took heaps of brilliant pics, which were later unceremoniously destroyed by my iPod for some unknown reason. For the record, it has also eaten my Parque Tayrona photos but I managed to get some of them onto this website beforehand. So, I certainly won't be as trusting of my iPod's abilities to perform simple tasks and have relegated it to secondary backups only.
So, this raises the question - why are iPods so shithouse?
1. One day they delete, randomly, some of your priceless travelling photos. I was pleased to search the internet and find I wasn't the only one. I also tried all sorts of recovery software, made sure a virus wasn't the culprit, and regularly screamed while banging my head against the nearest wall.
2. iTunes is shit, and not a viable solution to use while travelling. Granted, I am smart so have been using YamiPod (www.yamipod.com) on the road for adding fantastic new international music, and for deleting those 8 Metallica albums I hate that keep appearing in my random playlist.
3. It. Just. Plays. Music. Seriously, if my mobile phone can include radio and dictation features, then how hard is it to include in a chunky munky super expensive device that is purpose built for audio?
4. It didn't even come with a wall charger. That's right, out-of-the-box my 5th generation iPod could only be recharged using the USB port of a computer. Of course I rectified this problem by buying a charger during my stay in Tokyo (naturally towards the start of my journey), but what sort of short-sighted arseclown sells a spanky "portable music device" that would be essentially rendered useless simply after the 12hr Cartegena to Medellin bus trip? Wankers.
5. It deleted my fucking photos!
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_de_Antioquia
