On the Road: Bus

Well, I’m pretty much off the grid in Palomino. Even checking a mail demands a lot of groaning and moaning from the ”modem” attached to the thatched roof of my abode - casa Chez Oliv - and a lot of patience from me. So posting images is a definite no-no. Therefore, this posting will be a short text about a very important and surprisingly entertaining part of my traveling: Bus rides.

This time the bus takes us for a two hour joyride from Santa Marta to Palomino.

We start off, a pretty full bus, from next to the market in Santa Marta. A slightly run-down neighbourhood with colourful buildings and shops and street stalls selling everything on gods green earth.

Gradually the houses grow fancier and the cars in front of them bigger - obviously we’ve come to a good part of town. But a delivery boy pulled up in front of one of the houses is using a tired looking horse and very decrepid wooden cart to transport his goods. The two realities of Colombia in one image.

The bus fills up more. A lady sitting in the seat next to me has a newborn baby and a three-year old boy asleep in her lap. The baby wakes and starts crying. I have honestly never seen any baby’s mouth attached to a nipple faster than now - even though you would think the other child sleeping in her lap would hinder the mother.

Pairs of kids in matching school uniforms are trudging along the pavement. Lunch break at the school, on their way home for some grub. The baby next to me has fallen asleep again.

A man gets in - no more room to sit down, so he is left standing in the aisles, which is not an easy thing to do as he has no free hands: He is clutching two indignant looking live roosters under his arms.

A big roundabout with a slightly leaning statue of a man in uniform in the middle. No doubt Simon Bolivar once again. Bolivar, the man who gave independence from Spain to five South American countries including Colombia, is the biggest hero in the country. He is especially revered here in Santa Marta, where he died of tuberculoses in his mid 40’s and where his body was buried for many years, before it was returned to his native country of Venezuela.

Now we’ve broken free of the city and are driving along the edge of Tayona national park for the next 80km or so. It’s hard to judge how fast we are going in this rickety old bus, but it feels like 120km/hour. Lush, green jungle hills roll by. 

Having passed Tayrona, the landscape changes. Banana plantations as far as the eye can see. Thank god for the national park status of Tayrona and the Kogi people’s love of nature above love of money, or else the whole coast would be bananas. 

The banana bunches hanging from the plants are hooded in white or blue plastic sacks. I wonder why? To ripen the fruit faster or to protect the fruit from pests and monkeys?? Blue and white like the Finnish flag - is that in honour of 100 years of Finnish independence?

One of the roosters in the bus is staring at me very intensely. I break eye contact first.

We pass another police checkpoint with its speed bumps to slow traffic down. Once again we are not stopped and once again the soldier holding an automatic rifle is resting his arm on the rifle and sticking his thumb up in the universal symbol of thumbs up. This I’ve seen innumereable times and I am mystified by it. If this a state policy to make the soldiers seem less threatening or a daring attempt at a dash for freedom by hitchiking away from the command post by the soldiers? Something else to find out.

The road is hugging the coast now - on top of rugged cliffs - a sign forbidding diving down from the cliff into the roaring sea far below. Does one really need to warn against doing that!? On this deadly coast of high waves and rip tides? Apparently one does.

Ah, we cross a final river and this is Palomino. People, livestock and luggage are unloaded. I look up the dusty road of a new town and think: ”Righ, where to next?”

*******

Spoiler: the place.I’m going next for about one week is expected to have no internet. If this is the case, sit back, take a deep breath and wait it out.