Minca

We landed in Santa Marta ready for action. Except for Lyvette – she was still off her chops from our rendezvous at the shop with the Costa Ricans the night before. 

Then we got a taxi to Minca – a lovely little village in the hills with hummingbirds, iguanas and a shop that smelled like pets. Probably because it was full of animals. I nearly shit myself when I pulled a cat off a shelf rather than a bag of crisps. Gemma found a cat that she liked to stroke because it “looked like it had just got in from a night out” (rough as fuck but in a cute way). Until it turned its head towards her and she jumped;

“Arggghhhh I didn’t look at its face!!” as it showed her its scabby eye and matted fur. “Can I have some hand sanitiser?!” Poor puss.

I hiked up to the Mirador 360 viewpoint which took a few hours and was very pretty, Lyvette (and her pink water bottle) went bird watching and we all went to Cascada Marinka waterfall and spent some time by the pool.

“Please can you suncream my shoulder holes?” I asked Gemma.

“Your what?”

“My shoulder holes.”

“What the hell is a shoulder hole?”

Shoulders holes are the bits of exposed skin around the straps of your top that you always miss when you suncream yourself. You must always lube up your shoulder holes guys.

It’s was a nice couple of days, chilling, eating avocado, iguana spotting and listening to more excessively loud music (this time coming from take away shops doubled up as pool bars). 

We liked Minca. But we were ready to stay in an apartment in Barranquilla. Mainly so we could wash our clothes in the advertised washing machine. My wet shorts from Salento were starting to make us gag.

Two days later, on Friday 13th, we hopped into a mini bus as we headed back to Santa Marta, where we were changing buses to head to the Barranquilla carnival.

Gemma screamed and jumped so high she headbutted the ceiling as the snake fell through the window.

I saw the snake out of the corner of my eye and also jumped. Lyvette panicked because we both jumped.

The snake was actually a strap from a backpack that was attached to the roof of the van. That was embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the child’s water bottle we’d been carrying around for the past week. And the stench of my shorts.

Barranquilla 

It was a big old journey from Minca to Barranquilla. Made longer by the fact that buses seem to drop you off on the side of the road at the edge of a city and then you have to make your way to an actual bus terminal to find a connecting bus.

I’d messaged our Barranquilla apartment lady before we’d left Minca on Booking.com to confirm arrival details. She didn’t reply. We called her. No answer. Eventually Lyvette whatsapped her when we were on route and she told us that she’d cancelled the booking ages ago and Booking.com should have contacted us and taken the accomodation down. Alas this information was new to us. So we had nowhere to stay and we were already on route to the second biggest carnival in the world, hence a lack of accommodation options. Dreams of washing my putrid shorts in our own washing machine soon became very distant as my new backpack was slowly disintegrating around them.

Luckily we managed to find somewhere else to stay (at three times the price) as we boarded our second bus. This bus driver did the impossible and managed to talk on FaceTime the entire 2 hours of the journey and not crash. Hats off to him. He then dropped us at an invisible bus stop at the side of the road (shock) about 30 minutes from our accommodation. 

No sooner had we stepped off the bus and the taxi driver found us;

“Come, come. I will take you.” He offered us a very good price so we followed him to his cab. Meanwhile a guy sat at the side of the road laughed, pointed and made a joke about our driver having no fingers. He did not have any fingers on one hand. The taxi driver wafted his non fingers in my face and grabbed Gemma’s backpack shoving it into the front seat. Then he yelled and fell to his knees, clutching his back;

“OOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW.” I don’t blame him, Gemma’s bag is fu$&ing heavy. Slowly he scrambled up off the floor and took the rest of our bags which were feather weight by comparison.

This was probably the moment in which we actually looked at the taxi. 

And we wished we hadn’t.

“Does it move?”

“Why does it have holes in it?”

The driver opened the door and it dangled on one of its hinges. He smiled and waved us into the back. It was so small the backpacks were piled up in the front passenger seat (leaning against the open window). One rear window didn’t shut and one didn’t open. There were no window winders left to do anything with the windows at all. The stereo was only half there with a gaping hole next to it. The air vents didn’t exist. The windscreen was cracked and there were no windscreen wipers. The wheel arches were broken and looked like someone had hacked at them with a chainsaw, what was left was covered in rust. Every time we went over a bump the bottom half of the car fell out – us with it as we were thrown around like rag dolls. It was like Del Boys car, only worse, much much worse. We then noticed that the majority of the yellow taxis in Barranquilla looked like they had come here to die. But none more so than ours. 

Suddenly we sailed through the air and the driver held onto my bag (which was on the top of the pile) to stop it jumping through the (permanently) open window as we veered off the highway and charged towards some pedestrians, narrowly avoiding them and a dog.

The driver started singing, loudly and we careered towards a sign that said the road was closed due to the carnival; “Oh no,” he sighed and spun around and charged down a ONE WAY STREET into oncoming traffic. 

Gemma didn’t breathe for about 30 seconds and my bum cheeks were so clenched they had gone into spasm as we weaved through the other banged up taxis hooning towards them at the speed of light. Lyvette was being thrown against the rear passenger door which was so flimsy it barely supported her weight.

And then the banged up taxi wheel skidded to a hault, the doors flew open, the bottom collapsed and we fell out in a pile, drenched in sweat, giggling but grateful for those things we call “MOT’s” at home.

And then Lyvette cried out, with agony in her voice;

“MY BOTTLE!!! I left my bottle!!!” 

It was an emotional moment as we (she) mourned the death of the pink child’s water bottle that had started the Colombia adventure with us. We wish it the best of luck as it sits on the wall of the invisible bus stop in Barranquilla. RIP.

Our new accomodation had air con mounted over Gemma’s bed, but nowhere near mine or Lyvette’s so Gemma was freezing and we spent the night stuck to the bed bathed in sweat. I woke up to find Lyvette with her feet in the fridge to try and cool down and I’d developed a heat rash on the back of my thighs. Fabulous.

Friday 13th had not been kind to us. But at least no one had burnt their shoulder holes and the guesthouse washed our clothes for us. The poor owner, Raf, nearly vomited when I gave him the bag containing my damp shorts.

The carnival was hot, loud and fun. People came past in the parade dressed in various exciting costumes. The strangest being a man holding a sword with a sanitary towel stuck on the end.

Then we met Jose and Maria a fabulous Colombian couple who loved to party. Of course we joined them for beers and Aguardiente shots. Which was a great idea considering it was 1pm and no one had eaten. Then a character from the parade came past wearing a wig and holding a birdcage with bags of coke swinging inside it. 

The only thing that stopped me staring at this was Jose who had gone rogue and was running wild and free, spraying foam, in the centre of the parade. He sped past waving at us and videoing himself amongst the actual participants of the carnival, happy as Larry whilst Maria filmed him from the side lines, proud as punch, and security tried to grab hold of him. They finally captured and chucked him back into the spectators who cheered him on. He was quite the spectacle.

All of the excitement and beers meant Lyvette and Gemma needed the loo. So Maria escorted them to the toilet. Aka a bucket in a tarpaulin wardrobe. It was an interesting set up to say the least. Especially when I watched a guy empty their bucket of urine at the side of the road, opposite the lady selling soup.

There was a lot going on at this carnival and my gawping was interrupted by Jose as he came whooping past, in the parade, after breaching security, yet again. This time with Lyvette in tow. Sadly she wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as Jose. He was loving life with Maria (and now Gemma and I) egging him on. Lyvette dipped out as Jose weaved through the performance, thrusting and shaking, security guard hot on his tail. And then he was caught, again. So Maria did what any loving wife would do and bought him another 5 minutes of freedom by bribing the security with shots of Aguardiente. Obviously.

Because that’s the kind of friends we make. We’re here for that.

Jose and Maria left the festival, mainly because they were off their chops. This was probably for the best – we weren’t sure how much more Jose chaos Barranquilla Carnival could handle.

With them gone we had to make new friends which happened to be a very very well dressed Colombian lady and her entourage. We think she may have been part of the cartel.

I discussed how all the males in Colombia have dimples and females massive arses with one of her crew and got him to write down “dimples” in my phone in Spanish so I could remember it and Lyvette chatted up the mafia boss in her sparkly dress.

Then Gemma grew concerned:

“Guys, we have to be careful. We can’t trust people just because they’re well dressed.” She spoke sense. “If we go to a bar with them we get our own Uber with just the three of us and meet them at the chosen (legitimate) location.” Again, all totally reasonable and wise points, so I nodded in agreement. “We need to be careful. We don’t even speak the language. No getting in random taxis with strangers.” She really hammered home the point. Got it Gem.

Then the (potential but very nice) cartel queen approached us and asked if we wanted to go to dinner with them. She told us her driver would take us (seriously, who has a driver?) I opened my mouth to ask for the name of the restaurant and so we could meet them there, but Gemma jumped in:

“Food? Yes! We’ll come now! Your driver sounds great. I’m starving!” Her concern for our safety was nowhere to be seen.

Turns out we did get a taxi to meet them at the restaurant but they never arrived. We were stood up (potentially by the cartel) But dinner was great none the less.

And that was our experience of Barranquilla. It definitely didn’t help my rash but we experienced a lot of colour, met some fun people, danced (not very well) and sweated our arses off.

With the carnival done it was the perfect time to head to the beach…