No wonder Marquez left
In an unprecendented burst of energy, we actually did something last week. We did a few somethings. First, we went diving again, this time on fun dives, our first ones not being in a course, and it’s true, we had way more fun being able to just look around and see what there was to see.
Next, we managed to head to the town called Aracataca, about three hours from Taganga. This is the birthplace of the Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquéz, and many claim it is the town he used as the basis for most of his writing, calling it Macondo. Supposedly, one can see his grandparents house, the one he uses as Aureliano’s house in his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hmmmmmm… well, we did technically see the house, though it is in complete ruins, as it went through a fire some time ago. It is being reconstructed according to descriptions of it in the novel, and the gentleman who is in charge of the wood foundation was kind enough to explain to us the project and then walk us to the museum. He was a super chill guy, down from Bogotá for three months to work on this project. He had spent time in the States and spoke great English, and he was full of the charm and extreme graciousness that first made us fall in love with Colombian people. He, of course, is from the mountains. This, we have learned, is a key difference, in terms of culture, accent, and niceness. He spoke of how much he hates the coast, having been warned by his wife, ‘When you go to the coast, you go to a different place…’ He longed to get back to Bogotá to take a proper shower as he put it. Also, he had little to no interest in Marquéz, he had just won the bidding for the project. We thought there was some kind of poetry in that. In the states, a project like that would have probably been a donation and people would be clamoring to do it, with all the Marquéz historians willing to work on it for free. Anyway, he walked us to the museum, a very rundown one room place with photos and newspaper articles on tables. Oh, we forgot to mention, apparently, the entirety of Colombia was in a blackout the day we travelled, even Bogotá, so the museum had no lights or airconditioning. This is equivilent in size (if not greater) than the U.S. Blackout (notice the caps?), but did you hear of it? Alas, we looked at some pictures of Marquéz with Graham Greene and Fidel Castro, learned that he was the oldest of 11 children, and wished our friend goodluck as we headed out. We wondered if we shouldn’t have just taken the bus to the ridiculously modern Ocean Mall and had a pizza instead. But as we left town, we noticed a sculpture of a large book, open to a page, and on that page we read from One Hundred Years of Solitude about Aureliano’s obsession for the beautiful Remedios (thanks Taryn for the copy of the book, it was cool to read it here in the land it is about) and sitting on the book was the second Remedios, nude, depicted in Colette’s favorite scene of the book, ‘trembling with love amid the scorpions and yellow butterflies.’ That made it all worth it.
And finally, we went to Venezuela. We thought we’d celebrate May Day with our socialist brothers and sisters, and as we walked the streets of Maracaibo, we were happy to know that the citizens of Venezuela would be benefiting from the seizure of all foreign oil fields that was taking place on May Day… we were especially happy as we passed the Hooters, McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway in search of a place to dine (good times foreign interests) and as we thought of the long trip through some of the poorest neighborhoods we have ever seen to get here, to the country’s largest oil producing city, claiming over 70% of Venezuela’s oil - Go Chávez, really, keep on keepin’ on for the peeps. But maybe I should start from the beginning…
We planned this trip to Venezuela because, yet again, our visas in Colombia were about to run out, and we thought it would be a more pleasant way of extending them than of visiting the D.A.S. office again and dealing with our not so favorite D.A.S. agent Gonzales. So we got up at dawn, planning to arrive in Venezuela by midday and do some sightseeing. Yeah. Well. After a ‘three’ hour bus ride to the border, that actually took about five, and then an unairconditioned three hour (supposedly 1 hour) ride in an old, extremely beat up boat car with countless police stops in Venezuela, we were a bit to tired for sight seeing. You see, once you leave Colombia, there is a police stop pretty much once a kilometer. Each stop has a sign that states that the National Guard is a free service and that no citizen is required to give any member of the National Guard money. Meanwhile, one of the six people crammed in to the car did not have his passport, so at each stop, he passed up 10 bolivarianos to the driver, who in turn would say to the policeman, ‘Tenemos un amarillo…´(We have a yellow one) as he palmed him the cash. The guard would then check our passports cursorily and pass us on. This happened at least six or seven times. In between stops, the driver would go hurtling down the road, one in very poor condition with lots of potholes, and of course would try to pass big trucks around blind corners and basically drive like a maniac until the next stop. At one point, off in the mirage of the desert distance, we saw some figures walking out in to the road. As we got closer (without slowing down much of course) we saw that they were two tiny young boys, just out from school, acting as crossing guards, carrying two huge rusted metal signs that said ‘Pare’ (Stop). Imagine a kid walking out into the middle of a high speed highway to try and stop the traffic. His poor face was so sweet. Our driver did stop, suddenly and then revved his engine impatiently as the kids crossed the dusty highway on their way past sickly looking chickens and gaunt cows, goats, and donkeys. We did see a few goat roadkills nearby. Intense. This border crossing takes place on the Guajira Peninsula. We have gathered that this area is somewhat akin to the Reservations for Native Americans in the States. The poverty was really some of the worst we have seen, or maybe it seemed more stark as the peninsula is a brown, dry, hot desert. Either way, it was a haunting ride.
Once in Maracaibo, FINALLY, we went straigt to eat and then to bed. We did catch little of Chavéz giving his big May Day Socialist Viva speak. Good times. Maracaibo itself seems pretty and modern in the center, drifting out to slums. The ride back the next day was, and we could not believe it could be, WORSE. When we arrived at the bus station where the border crossing cars leave from, as no official buses do this crossing except from one at 4 in the morning, we had to wait for almost two hours until the car filled up enough to leave. Incredibly, this car was in worse condition than the last, and as we sat in the front seat, we got the added heat of the overheating engine blasting up at us all three hours. Our driver this time took it easy, as his car couldn’t seem to go much faster than the donkey carts next to us. He was super old himself, and managed to stop for coffee, a fruit salad, a newspaper, gas, and then oil (all separate stops mind you) before we even left town. Add to this the police stops and the stop as we left Venezuela where they charge an exit tax (which one woman refused to pay, turning back and losing her fare completely), and our ride took over three sweltering hours. Why did we think this was a better idea than paying Gonzalez again?
I guess the question is why is Chavez siezing oil fields and donating massive sums of money to foreign countries when his own needs so much work (of course the same could be asked of the U.S.)? Why are Mcdonalds and Hooters allowed to operate with impunity? We saw more more ads for Coca Cola in Venezula than in Colombia. So sad.
On the Colombian side, at least the bus had a/c, but the police stops were as frequent, as Maicao, the Colombian border city is notorious for importing contraband goods from Venezuela. By the time we finally did get back to Taganga, it was sunset, so we just plopped down and had our customary sunset beers at the beach. We felt so happy ‘coming home’ and we realized what a life we have been setting up here. We chat with our internet man now, and his sister is going to give Colette a tutoring session on how to make the cool indigenous bags from here, we request movies from our movie man, including a Colombian standup comic whose jokes we actually get… he makes fun of the coastal accent sometimes. We have our kittens and our kitchen and our neighbor the fisherman who gets us good seafood. And as we are realizing this, our time is drawing to a close. So we are back ‘home’ for now and taking it easy after an arduous week of travel. Phew.