Latin America 2018 - Day 39. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

Today I drove, as far as prudence would have it, deep into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. This range is short, but very high, and is a continuation of the magmatic arc. I expected to find a lot of volcanic rocks (and they may be very abundant at higher elevations), but instead found a foundation of deeply weathered intrusive rocks (DG, or decomposed granite in the parlance of geotechnical engineers). I am pretty sure that this are Mesozoic intrusions, not unlike the ones of the Sierra Nevada of California.

The call to fame of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is that, starting at sea level, within a few kilometers of the coast rises to 5,775 m (18,950 ft), in the form of the Nevados Cristobal Colón and Simón Bolivar. I did not get to see them because of the cloud cover, but here is a phot from the internet to show you how pretty they are.

There are very few mountains that rise so abruptly from sea level. Let me see, we have Mauna Loa in Hawaii (4,169 m), Mount Kinabalu in Borneo (4,095 m), Mount Fuji in Japan (3,766 m), Pico del Teide in Tenerife (3,718), Mount Etna in Sicily (3,350 m), and the San Gabriel Mountains in California (3,068 m), so you can see that the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta proudly occupies the first place among this distinguished mountainhood. Incidentally, with Santa Marta I complete my personal acquaintance with huge coastal mountains!

Once I got down I started on my way to Bogotá. I have two and a half days to get there, so I should be able to do it without any heartburn. Of course I still have to face the slow mountain roads, and probably between 10 and 20 toll stations. The toll one pays at each station is not too high (2 to 4 US dollars), but the darn things pop up every 30 to 50 km. I should have kept count of the total number of stations I passed. In total I am pretty sure it is going to be close to 40 stations.

Latin America 2018 - Day 38. The estuary of the Rio Magdalena

Today I took a leisurely drive between Cartagena and Santa Marta. One of the reasons I came all this way is because I wanted to see, first hand, the estuary of the Rio Magdalena. You might want to google a map of the rivers of Colombia to follow this discussion. Starting with just the two main rivers, Cueca and Magdalena, their approach to the ocean looks like a lower case “h”. The Cueca would be the left leg, and the Magdalena the right leg. If you follow the right leg north, it bends to the west and “captures” the Cueca before continuing on its way north, to eventually empty into the Caribbean at Barranquilla (Cartagena would be to the left of the “h” maybe were the dot of the “i” would be in the pair “ih”, and it was joined to the Magdalena through a canal dug in the 1600’s –a feat of engineering!).

Two more rivers join the Cueca and Magdalena very close to their intersection, the Sinú and the San Jorge (are you beginning to see some similarities between the Sacramento and San Joaquin joining just after the Cosumnes and the Mokelumne have joined the San Joaquin?). Like in California, the joining of four major rivers was a recipe for extensive flooding during the rainy season. Instead of foolishly calling this flooded area a “delta”, the clever Muiscas saw in the yearly flooding a way of banking this water.

Between 200 BC and 1000 AD, the inhabitants of the upper estuary dug hundreds of kilometers of canals, from 1 to 4 km in length, to “absorb” the floodwaters and store them as soil moisture for the growing of their crops during the dry season. Between the canals, which looked like the indentations of several fork pressing on a peanut butter cookie, the dirt being excavated was piled on intervening ridges, which is where the farmers lived and planted their crops. I think the following photograph is a perfect explanation of the collection of flood water by the so-called Zinú canals:

The estuary is clearly subsiding, because one can see many standing dead trees along the shoreline. As we all know trees don’t grow in water, so the fact that you see a standing dead tree tells you that the area was once above sea level.

I had lunch out there in the manglar shore: A delicious, huge, deep-fried red snapper!

An interesting featurette of the estuary is the presence of two or three active mud and silt volcanoes. The one I visited must have been a good 10 m high (about 35 ft), steep, and had a crater of about 4 m in diameter. The mud was bubbling very gently, but I was told that when the bubbling rate increases the level of the mud in the crater rises and spills over the sides, just like a lava flow. My hypothesis is that the organic-rich mud is undergoing bacterial decomposition that releases CO₂ (oh, no, CO₂!) in what those my students will recognize as the first stage of formation of petroleum, and that it is the release of this gas that has given birth to these cold mud volcanoes.

I reached Santa Marta about 2:30 pm, in perfect time for me to find a very cute and relaxed boutique hotel, bathe my toes in the Caribbean, and go for a long walk along the beach. My hotel overlooks the main Santa Marta bay, a portion of which is devoted to a commercial port. Apparently there are other adjacent bays that are a lot more quiet, but the level of night life here is just perfect as I jot down these notes.

Latin America 2018 - Day 37. Cartagena

Today I honestly earned my tourist badge, starting at 7 am. After all, I was in the famed Cartagena de Indias, one of the main ports of the flow of gold from Nueva Espaňa to Spain, and the focus of pillage and plunder by corsairs and pirates from all over the Caribbean (starting with Francis Drake in the 1580’s). There should be so much to see!

Early during my morning walk I learned that they have the Hop on – Hop off tourist bus, which I of course booked on the spot, ready to take the first bus, starting at 9 am. The first few stops covered some of the outer fortifications of the old town, and of a nearby island that has now been attached to the mainland by bridges.

From there we went to the Castillo de San Felipe, where I got down to spend an hour and a half touring one of thee best preserved, and most sophisticated, forts of Nueva Espaňa. It was the time of brute force protection, and it was very successful during the 17^th and 18^th centuries to repel the attacks of the English and the French. Unfortunately it didn’t work against the throne of Spain after Cartagena declared its independence on 11/11/1811 (the independence date of Colombia is normally attributed to 1810, but the Cartagenos choose to celebrate their own declaration of independence in 1811). The Spanish Pacificador knew all to well that the Castillo de San Felipe was impregnable, so instead he set siege to the city, which only capitulated four months later, after half of the inhabitants had died of starvation. The city was left a wreck, and was further inflicted a blow with a cholera epidemic in the 1850’s. From there on they seem to have been afflicted by bad luck, while the nearby city of Barranquilla won every contract for development money. It is really not until the 1970’s that Colombians discovered the touristic value of the city, and for the last 30 years the city has gained on value to become the jewel that it is today.

Cartagena’s history has its dark side: From the late 16^th century to the early 19^th century it was the prime market for the slave trade. It is here that the slave ships first touched the Spanish territories in the New World, and a large proportion of the African slaves were torn apart from their families here to go work for the Spanish landlords. As a result of the high influx of Africans modern Colombia has a large population of African-Americans, mulattoes, and ladinos. The good news is that, given that most Columbians have at least of African blood in their veins they all get along pretty well.

An unexpected event associated to the slave trade was the arrival to Cartagena of an African black bird, which had traveled as a stowaway in the slaver ships. This bird flourished in coastal Colombia, and is today known as Negra María Lucía.

My next stage in the tourist bus was a drive through New Miami, an incredible touristic development on Boca Grande bay-mouth sand bar attached to the old town. Not my scene, but I can see that this conglomerate of new, high-rise hotels is meant to challenge touristic meccas such as Rio or the Riviera Maya. Cartagena used to be a bay with an islet smack in the middle of its mouth. Beach sand drift eventually created bay-mouth sand bars on both sides of the islet, which were respectively called Boca Grande and Boca Chica. For defense purposes the Spaniards blocked the tidal inlet of Boca Grande, so access to the bay was reduced to the narrow inlet of Boca Chica, which was easier to defend. The sea eventually opened Boca Grande, but a clever military engineer constructed a submerged dam across the opening, so only shallow draft boats could go in an out, but not the deeper draft Man-o-War frigates.

Once back in the old part of town I spent three glorious hours visiting the Maritime Museum. A lot of the museum was devoted to the many fleets that attacked the city, some with success and some others repelled by the defenders of the city. It gave me much admiration for the grit that the Cartagenos have displayed over four centuries of history. The modern history centers on the unique fact that Colombia is the only South American nation that has both Pacific and Atlantic (Caribbean) coasts, and as such has realized that it has to develop its maritime industry. I have long argued that Mexico has squandered its own two-oceans uniqueness, and I hope that one of these days we will also realized that we need to develop our maritime industry.

My Hop on – Hop off tour included a walking tour through the old town, which I enjoyed enormously. We heard about the legends associated to many of the lovely plazas, streets, and parks of the city. We also visited the Gold Museum (not as rich as the one in Bogotá, but very fine indeed), and an Emerald Museum sponsored by a jewelry store. I finished by having a very nice dinner of sancocho de mondongo. Not as good as the Mexican menudo, or the Spanish callos, but pretty good nonetheless.

One of the highlights of the walking tour was a stop in the Plaza de Santo Domingo, where a statue of La Voluptuosa (aka as la Gorda de Botero) is on display. According to the guide, Botero has explained that he doesn’t paint or sculpt fat people, but rather that he uses the volume he needs to convey the form of his subjects. I happen to think it is an attractive Venus, so I have bought a small replica, in the hope that it will survive the long trip back home.

Latin America 2018 - Day 36. Yarumal to Cartagena

The early bird does get the worm! I knew I had a hard driving day ahead of me, so I started at 6:30 am. The road was empty, but I figured the trucks would start appearing any time now. A few kilometers down the road, however, I found a police barrier that was holding back the big trucks, while me and my little car were given the go ahead. It was magnificent. The drop in elevation was very substantial, and I was in one of the windiest roads ever, but I was able to make down the 150 kilometers to the lowlands in about 2 hours, because for once I did not have to deal with truck traffic. Yeah!

Once in the lowlands I made good time to the city of Montería, which has a very nice river walk along the Rio Sinú with kids playgrounds, flowers, exercise areas, boat rides, and a goodly number of iguanas and monkeys.

From Montería to Cartagena I followed the estuary of the Rios Sinú, San Jorge, and Magdalena, going over terrain that reminded me very much of the Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary. It was lovely, but again slow going because of the narrow levee roads and the large number of pesky motorcycles. I shouldn’t say this, since I enjoy motorcycling myself, but here motorcycles like to ride side by side with the cars, which eventually adds 30 to 50% to the width of your car, and you have to take that extra width when you are passing other vehicles.

Finally, at dusk, I made it to the city of Cartagena, a city loaded with history and colonial monuments. I managed to work my way to the Centro Historico fairly well (although at one point I had to run a short stretch against traffic to keep from being deflected), but once in the old town I got hopelessly lost. The old downtown is very much like being in the French Quartier in New Orleans, with millions of tourists crawling through the narrow streets to enjoy a vibrant nightlife and dozens and dozens of restaurants. Unfortunately many of the roads were closed, and others were the privilege of the horse-drawn carriages, so car traffic is impossible. Eventually I got close enough to my hotel, parked, and reached my destination on foot. The hotel does have parking, so after getting settled I went to fetch my little car and am now comfortably ensconced in my new abode.  

Latin America 2018 - Day 35. A big screw up ☹

Grrr, I am crabby. Thanks to the lack of signaling in the roads (or the cities for that matter) I was funneled into the wrong road, and ended running 150 km in, and a 150 km out, and wasted nearly 6 hours in these shenanigans.

To start at the beginning, I left Medellín at about 8 am following the Highway of the East, which started as a great four-lane road that plunged down from the highlands down to the coffee altitudes. Then, in the middle of nowhere there was a traffic circle and the four-lane road went down to two narrow lanes of a very windy mountain road (the traffic circle trick is, alas, oh so common here). The problem with these roads is that very often you get stuck behind a sloooow heavy truck, and then you have to gamble with your life to pass, over and over again. Average speed, even for a dare devil like me is no better than 50 km per hour. Incidentally, meeting long trucks in hairpin turns is very dangerous for short vehicles like mine because the long bed cuts across the curve, and if you are not carefully it can crunch you like a nut. In one instance I had to break abruptly and engage the reverse in a hurry to pullout of the nutcracker trap!

I went on for about three hours to Puerto Berrio, and it was not until I saw the bridge over the Rio Magdalena that I realized I had been going in the wrong direction. I stopped to have lunch, and with the help of the waiter evaluated my options: go back and take “the road over the mountain after Barbosa”, or keep going for another 4 hours to Bucaramanga, and from there try to reach Cartagena. I decided to go back.

It was many kilometers past Barbosa, already in the four-lane road, when I saw an inconspicuous offramp to Don Pedro.  Hmm . . . no Don Pedro in my map, but the road appeared to go in the right direction. So I took it, and in about 5 km I saw another sign for “Atlantic Coast”. OK, that would be where I would like to go, so I kept going, this time climbing and climbing another super twisty road. I felt the road was never going to end, and was a bit apprehensive on what the way down was going to look like (more about that on tomorrow’s blog). Surprisingly, on top I found a bit of Switzerland, with rolling hills covered by the greenest of grasses, and a perfect pastoral scene with herds of happy Holstein cows lowing on their way back to their barns.

I had wasted the best part of the day, but resisted the temptation to try to make up for the lost time, and at about 6 pm found myself a small hotel for the night in the mountain town of Yarumal. For the record, I had an excellent dinner of beef tongue, cooked in a tomato sauce and accompanied by soup, salad, rice, and fried plantains. 

Latin America 2018 - Day 34. Medellín

I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t stomach the idea of driving into Medellín. So after a nice breakfast in my four stars hotel I walked down a couple of blocks and took a minibus to the metro, and from there took the metro to the downtown area. A nice lady guided my steps to downtown proper, where I started by visiting the Cathedral (a monstrosity in brick if you ask me). 9 am is not the best time for tourism, but I found an open travel agent and she very kindly pointed me to the Touribus, a few blocks away. I had an hour to kill, which I used to walk through the Parque Botero. Yes, this is the same Botero as in Bogotá; the one with the fat people. True to form, throughout the park there are 14 famous statues of fat people, horses, dogs, and cats. The Medellínos love these fat statues, and appointments are often done to meet “En el Parque Botero, en la estatua de la Venus gorda”. The park merges laterally with the Paseo Carabobo, a nice pedestrian commercial street.

My Touribus arrived promptly at 10 am, and I basically spent the whole day with driver Henry and tour guide Shelly. Besides the ongoing commentary as we drove around we also made a few stops, where the bus would wait for 15 to 30 minutes, to give the tourists the chance to walk around and take photos.

Our first stop was at El Parque de Los Deseos, where the city has built a planetarium, a music center, and very cool outside acoustic shells (the type you can whisper at one of the shells and be understood 30 m away by someone in front of a second shell), a very clever and complicated sun dial, a skate park, an outdoor space with dancing fountains for the kids to play in, a giant outdoor projection screen, and all sorts of gently sloping surfaces to encourage the people to lay down, look at the stars, and dream.

Another cool stop was at El Parque de los Pies Descalzos, where visitors are invited to ditch their shoes and walk on different “textures”, like grass, sand, gravel, and water (I remember something similar in Taiwan, and can tell you that walking on gravel is painful). I later returned to this park, because it also had the Museo del Agua, which I wanted to see (but it was on the minus side of cool, so I will not torture you with its description).

Lunch was at the Cerro Nutibara, where there was a statue to Cacique Nutibara, who fought the Spanish invaders, a superb observation platform from which we had great views of the city, and the reproduction of a Pueblo Paisa. Paisa is short for Paisano, and the folks from the Department of Antioquia like to be considered Paisanos. In Mexico a paisano would be a country bumpkin, but here the Paisano is considered a tough, self-reliant, hard-working person. The Pueblo Paisa reconstructs the plaza, church, and a few homes of a pueblo that was inundated in the recent construction of a dam. Consider it mitigation of an unavoidable cultural resource.

Shelly also told us that next month they will be celebrating the Fair of the Silleteros, and that this event has been considered an intangible patrimony of humanity. Way back in time, wealthy travelers that wanted to reach Medellín were carried sitting on a chair, or silla, hefted on the back of a silletero. Eventually carriages took the people, but the silletero continued using his silla to carry merchandise from market to market. The most prominent were those who brought flowers from deep in the valleys, so to this day there is a time in August when many different community or business groups sponsor a silla de flóres to add to the color and gaiety of the fair.

Eventually I exhausted the views of the city, and to the great alarm of the people I asked walked five blocks to the metro, took a bus back to the highlands, and arrived home in good time to write this entry, have a drink, and plop in front of the TV to see an action movie. I am now reconciled with the city of Medellín.

Latin America 2018 - Day 33. Cali – Medellín

I left for Medellín at about 8 am, with the idea I could get there by 4 pm. I had an idea that there was a route connecting Cali and Medellín, but to my great disappointment found that I was going to have to go back over my own tracks back to Pereira (a  city I found difficult to navigate). The road was beautiful, but I still had the grumpy feeling that this was a movie I had already seen.

Once in Pereira I got lost, and wasted a good hour untangling myself from the rat’s nest they call daowntown here. I am not given to belly aching, but I would like to lodge a complaint with the Colombian people about the lack of road signs. There has to be a goodly number of people trying to get to Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city, and it would be to everybody’s advantage to route those people out of their precious city.

Finally, at about noon, I was on the straight and narrow (very narrow) road to Medellín. This has to be the second most important route in the country, and by following the lower reaches of the Rio Cueca it is fairly straight, but it is plagued by landslides (shales and sandstones of the forearc basin as far as I could tell), so the going was extremely slow. Then, at about 60 km from Medellín the road starts climbing and climbing, in the slowest, windingnest, and traffic-chocked road you can possibly think of. Think the carretera libre to Cuernavaca compounded with the carretera libre to Puebla, and you will get a pale idea of what I was facing. Really? This is the main access to Colombia’s second largest city? Really?

I finally reached Medellín at about 7 pm. From the vantage point of a tired tourist it looked steep, enormous, and with crazy traffic. I had downloaded a map of the hotel I was shooting for, but the reality on the ground, in the dark of the night, and with crazy traffic coming against me (and no road signs) was grim. My guardian angel worked twice as hard, and with the helpful hints of a couple of taxi drivers I finally made it to my swanky hotel, high in the hills overlooking Medellín.

I am not sure tomorrow I will have the courage to take my little car into Medellín proper.