If you haven’t already, read the first installment in this ongoing journal. It will bring you up to speed on what this is about.

It has been a full week today (Saturday) since I left home on what I’m calling my voyage of rediscovery, and six full days that I’ve been in Colombia, the first country on my planned 10-country Odyssey. The first few days I was in Cartagena, and now I’m in Santa Marta, easterly along the country’s Caribbean coast, at the end of my third day here.

I came here overland from Cartagena since the airfares were stupid on the day I needed to travel and, besides, I wanted to see more of this part of the country. For about twenty gringo buckos it got me from Point A to Point B in pretty good comfort. I’m not sure what to call the vehicle I rode in. It’s wasn’t really a bus, though the company calls it that, but it was a lot bigger than, say, an airport van, which it resembled. I’ve been calling it a transport, for lack of a better word. Whatever it is, it was pretty comfortable, albeit with even less legroom than on Spirit Airlines.

All the various online guides about overland travel from Cartagena to Santa Marta make it sound like something of an ordeal and say it would take more than the predicted five and a half hours. It turned out to be one of the easier overland trips I’ve made in Latin America and we were in Santa Marta Centro in just four and a quarter hours, including two stops totaling 15 minutes, one at this huge, empty, almost surreal modern bus terminal east of Cartagena in the middle of nowhere, where a handful more passengers joined us, and a bathroom/snack stop at a Mobil station/convenience store in Barranquilla, about two-thirds of the way.

Speaking of Barranquilla, at one time I considered it for my relocation, but just couldn’t find anything there that resembled what I’m looking for. Just as well. Colombia’s fourth largest city, passing through it I saw it as a big sprawling industrial agglomeration, ugly and lacking in any discernible charm. The traffic is terrible and passing through the city probably added at least a half hour to the trip. It does have a rather visually impressive suspension bridge, of what I think of as French design with the support cables along the centerline of the bridge, which takes one across the Magdalena River and out of the city to the east.

Okay, I’ve gotten that out of me, and now on to Santa Marta.

A tale of two cities

This is what Wikipedia (I know, I know, yikes) says about Santa Marta:

“Founded on July 29, 1525, by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, it was one of the first Spanish settlements in Colombia, its oldest surviving city, and second-oldest in South America.^[3] This city is situated on a bay by the same name and as such, it is a prime tourist destination in the Caribbean region.”

It seems to be a pattern here, that cities are so sprawling that they can actually become separate urbanizations. I thought the AirBnB I’d selected was in the main part of Santa Marta called Rodadero. I found out I was wrong when we arrived in Santa Marta Centro, and was informed that it’s actually in the other Rodadero, Rodadero Sur, which we’d already passed through and disgorged a number of passengers at. So it was a cab ride back down the mountain to Rodadero Sur, also called Gaira, and who knows how many other names. In some respects I’m glad this is where I would up since it is an incredibly lively place right on the beach — at 3 in the morning, things are still going strong — and my quarters on the twelfth floor of a relatively new building are more than spiffy. So spiffy I was misled into thinking it might actually have hot water. Silly norteamericano that I am.

See the top photo? That was the scene that greeted me out of my apartment window upon arrival. Not too shoddy, is it? The second photo is a scene along the Playa Rodadero I captured yesterday. I’ve always wanted to live in a place where the mountains come down to the sea, and Santa Marta certainly fulfills that desire.

On the way from Cartagena I was thinking, as I am wont to do, that there sure are a lot of people in the world. It then evolved into thinking how many insects there are in the world, though happily I’ve encountered almost none so far in my visit. A professor in college told me it was the human population of the world to the tenth power, or 4 (at the time) with 99 zeros after it. I also wondered how many trees there might be — certainly more than the human population but less than the insect population since trees can have insects but insects can’t have trees. But then I thought how many leaves or needles there might be in the world, and at that point it just became overwhelming. If anyone knows, feel free to say.

I have that feeling walking around the streets of Rodadero Sur, there sure are a lot of people in the world. It’s possibly as touristy here as El Centro in Cartagena, but while Cartagena gets lots of foreign visitors, here it seems to be almost entirely Colombians on holiday, even in the middle of February. There sure is no shortage of people, including on the beach, which is lousy with people and lined with these annoying cabanas. But I walked way down to an area less frequented and laid out my AirBnB towel and stripped down to my Brazilian swimsuit and went in the water, taking my third dip this week in the Caribbean. The beach is less flat than at Cartagena, so one is actually able to get in the water. But drying off in the sun turned out to be a challenge with the wind, which never seems to cease anywhere along this coast, sandblasting me until I couldn’t take it any more.

Some random thises and thatses

Some things about Colombia puzzle me, even at times irk me. But of course, like people, no place is perfect. Like people, it can be perfect in its imperfection. One thing that jumps out at me is how the country seems to have adopted a kind of nanny state mentality to food. There is hardly a product in the groceries that doesn’t have some warning or other emblazoned on the wrapper or container.

Exceso en Azúcares

Exceso en Grasas Saturadas

Exceso en Sodium

And, of course, on the beer — El Exceso de Alcohol es Perjudicial para la Salud

All signed by the culprit behind the warnings, MinSalud — your local friendly Ministry of Health.

I doubt these warnings stop a single person from buying and consuming any of these products. What is more telling, there is hardly anything that doesn’t carry one or more of them, so it seems that encouraging production and consumption of healthier food products would be more productive than guilt-tripping people over what they’re eating and drinking. At the same time that MinSalud has its panties in a bunch over excesses of sugar, saturated fat, sodium, and alcohol, driving on the street is borderline psychotic, there appear to be no rules pertaining to use of helmets by motorcyclists or their passengers, nor to door locks that can trap occupants inside buildings in the event of fire or other emergency. Contradictions abound.

The other thing that strikes me is how cell phones are the ruination of society. I mean it. I confess I’ve never liked cell phones, ever since the first one was handed to me in my job in Brazil in the late 1990s, and my affection for them has not grown in the intervening 26 years. I see this in my home country, even old farts sitting in a doctor’s waiting room fixated on their phones, but it is even more ubiquitous here. I mean, does no one think any more? Everyone has to be entertained or amused or distressed at every waking hour? And what about conversation and personal interaction? People are more engaged with the device in their hand than their compañeros. I have the mixed blessing that my phone does not work here (I’m writing this on a laptop, as I always do — can’t you tell?) and I neglected to get any sort of international service before leaving home. I had hoped to count on Skype for necessary calls, but so far that has turned out to be a bust.

I do remember the days when one needed to find a call place to make international calls. An international operator set up the call and one went into a cabine and spoke across the miles, alternating speaking and listening, and then paying for the call at the end. There also were pay phones on the street to use for local calls. It was refreshing not to be tied in to the outside world all the time and one could pick and choose when one wanted to be connected. Those days seem to be over, and I don’t think this is an improvement, even given all the ways people use cell phones.

Maybe I’m a grinch, but I don’t care.

I’m off to explore the main part of Santa Marta, after consuming some of those excessive sugars and saturated fats, and tomorrow I fly to Panama City, via Bogotá, so watch for the next installment of this journal.

Featured image, arrival view in Santa Marta, photo by the author.

Playa del Rodadero Sur, photo by the author.

This piece also appears on my Substack, Issues That Matter. Comment, share, and subscribe, here, and there.