August 3, Taganga

I have finally left Barranquilla. This is what happens with couchsurfing. I intend to stay only a few days but I end up staying much longer, partly because I really enjoy my hosts, partly because in the face of their kindness my will gets subsumed by theirs. I don´t think Colombians have the same sense of time as we do in the West. They aren´t always on the go, go, go, and from what I can tell they spend a lot of time doing nothing. At least this was my experience in Barranquilla. There´s not that much to do and many people don´t have enough money to do much anyway. M spent a lot of time lying on the couch or in the hammock, and so did her mother when she came to visit. Maybe they do more when guests aren´t around.

Anyway, this meant I spent a lot of time also doing nothing, well, I did a lot of talking. But when I said ´I want to go to this place´, or ´I am going to leave tomorrow´, often it didn´t happen. G liked to organise things for me, like taxis and buses, and if he didn´t get it done, I didn´t go. I´m not complaining. It is nice to have people care for your safety. It just means that I don´t have lots of stories from my time in the not beautiful city of Barranquilla.

Yesterday I watched 3 documentaries, 1 on a gay, misanthropic Colombian writer, and 2 on the problems of the monetary system and how it is going to lead to one global government ruled behind the scenes by bankers. Called Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum, the documentaries gave an utterly convincing explanation about how Jesus is just a sun god based on ancient astrology (12 disciples the zodiac, 3 kings a constellation, that kind of thing), provided evidence that 9-11 was a Bush Administration job, following a long history of US designed efforts to get us to enter wars, and talked about how the Fed Reserve Bank is the biggest evil put on the world´s people because it enslaves people and government to debt. The second documentary then discussed a utopian project to build a resource economy, where technology would make everything abundant so we wouldn´t need to pay for anything or work anymore.

Yesterday evening, G, the German couchsurfer and I finally made it to La Cueva, the bar where Marquez and other writers and artists drank and wrote. Now it is a fancy, expensive place, but it was nice to be there. On the night I left off my last blog, the three of us, plus M went to a nice bar with wood and booths that played traditional Colombian music. We shared a bottle of aguardiente. Then we went back to G´s, now joined by his brother and girlfriend, G bought another bottle of aguardiente, and we danced a bit and made merry until 5.30am. This was the first time I´ve been drunk in Colombia.

I think the highlight of my time in Barranquilla was dancing in the rain with M. I was lounging around reading, a bit bored, and it poured and poured, thundering and lightning. I was sticky and hot and decided to go out and play in the rain like I did when I was a child. A great African song was playing on the stereo, so I danced outside the door. M joined me and we danced and danced to this really long song. She then got out the shampoo and conditioner and washed my hair. It was joyous.

Must go. Tomorrow will go into Tayrona National Park for beautiful beaches and forest walks.