Barranquilla Part One: The FARC March and Missed Connections

The reason I make as few plans as possible while on the road is so that when a worthwhile opportunity arises I am able to pursue it. On the road north from Villa de Leyva in transit to the forgotten city of Mompos, I met Andrea, a beautiful and charming young woman from Barranquilla, Colombia's largest port city and home to South America's second largest Carnaval celebration. I hadn't realized Carnaval was so early this year, the first week of February, and that I'd be near the Caribbean coast by that time. Logistics are usually a nightmare for events as big as Carnaval, but with an invitation in hand, how could I say no to Colombia's most raucous four day throw down?

And Carnaval wasn't the only draw to Barranquilla. On Monday, February 4, millions of Colombians in 193 cities around the world were set to hit the streets to demonstrate against the FARC. In a way, Barranquilla was the epicenter of these demonstrations. Just one month before the planned demonstrations, Oscar Morales, a 33-year old engineer from Barranquilla, was watching along with the rest of the country the soap opera like story line of Emmanuel and the hostage releases as orchestrated by Hugo Chavez. The people of Colombia seemed united like never before in the belief that the time had come for an unconditional release of the hostages and to the FARC. Morales decided to start a on-line campaign against the FARC on the social networking site Facebook. Within weeks his application "A Million voices against the FARC" had over 250,000 supporters, and a handful of dedicated organizers who worked with Morales to coordinate an international demonstration. Morales and a half dozen students and young people organized the Colombian demonstrations on a shoestring budget, though he claims their cellphone bills went to the moon. It turns out the most critical corporate sponsorship for the movement was the rebates the cell phone companies gave back to Morales and his colleagues.

Serendipity was leading me to a weekend of politics and partying Colombian style. Then serendipity is a most fickle goddess.

I had arranged to meet Andrea Sunday evening in Barranquilla. That evening we would attend La Gran Parada, the major parade on the second day of Carnaval where tens of thousands of locals don costumes and march along with the salsa, merengue, and various coastal musical groups that play on the floats drifting down the parade route. The next morning we'd join several hundred thousand Barranquillans and other Carnaval attendees on break from the festivities to exorcise their hangovers with political demonstration before getting back to the business side of bacchanal.

The minivan I took from Cartagena dumped me into the swirl of revelers, vendors and hundreds of competing musical acts on the sidewalks of the old town. I had nothing to do but wait, holding on to both front pockets where I had my passport and both wallets. A traveler in Cartagena had held court at the breakfast table earlier that morning with tales of his loss of all his valuables to the pickpockets and other thieves at last year's Carnaval in Salvador, Brazil. I hoped my system would stand the crowds. I find it convenient to travel with two wallets, one with large currency and credit cards that is hidden underneath a larger wallet with my day to day cash-- enough local currency to satisfy hurried mugger without a second thought to the loss. In the event of a thorough shakedown, a friend of mine who stumbled into a dark alley in Havana had his jeans ripped off of him, I keep a hundred dollar bill wrapped in a local banknote folded under the foot pad in each shoe.

A half hour passed and still no Andrea. I rechecked the address, a lively corner just a block from the parade route. I call a couple of times--straight to voicemail. It would have been difficult to find a hotel room in Barranquilla for this weekend if I had started looking three months ago, the night of, well, I could forget about it. Not that I needed a place to sleep so much as a place to keep my stuff. And any new friends made on a street corner, though everyone is friendly, are not to be trusted.

So three hours later, my face covered in flour, I headed back to the bus terminal and traveled north to Santa Marta, Colombia's oldest city and at the base of the Sierra Nevadas de Santa Marta. With a peak at over 5700 meters, the mountains that frame the town are the highest in the world as measured rising up from sea level. Since I figured I'd pass back through Barranquilla to catch the march the next morning, I headed directly from Santa Marta to the highly recommended tiny fishing village of Taganga a few kilometers and a dramatic ridgeline away from the city.

I was in time to watch the sun set into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, and only then did I realize that it was Super Bowl Sunday. The cable was not working on the hostel's television, and the only other American was passed out in a hammock-- turns out he had been to Carnaval last night, and lost his wallet and passport to a pickpocket.

I walked through village looking for a television and came across a kindly looking old lady on her front porch watching Mr. Bean with her stunning late-teens granddaughter. I introduced myself and explained my predicament, how the future of the free world hung in the balance of this American sporting event that may or may not be included in their cable package. It was, and Eva, the grandmother, invited me onto the porch, where I caught the second half of the game. Ada, the granddaughter, watched me watch the game, and I explained to her the rules-- that every time the team in blue, called the Patriots, scored points, a crate of puppies was thrown into Boston Harbor.

It was the perfect impromptu Super Bowl party. Eva reappeared with a plate delicious coconut fritters I crunched on while watching what may have been the greatest touchdown drive in Super Bowl history. The 1972 Dolphins finally popped their champagne while Ada changed into her costume. She invited me to join her at the village's Carnaval festivities, what may have been the smallest in Colombia. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in spirit. Everyone danced to the Caribbean rhythms under the stars as a cool breeze swept down from the mountains towering above.

Later, Ada and I lay on the beach and watched a red sliver of moon rise out of the Caribbean just ahead of the sun.

I had planned to get up early and head back to Barranquilla for the march, but I slept through my alarm. At a late breakfast I spoke with two French Canadians, Silvain and Steve, both traveling solo. Silvain had spent the first night of Carnaval in Barranquilla and miraculously produced a phone number of a guy who was taking guests in his home for the weekend. Steve and I were both interested, so we called and secured beds for the night, or at least a place for our luggage. By the time we reached the bus terminal in Santa Marta the demonstrations were in full swing. The television in the waiting room showed the millions of Colombians who had turned up in Barranquilla, Bogota, and around the world with their slogan "No more kidnapping, no more lies, no more deaths, no more FARC," visible on the giant banners in the pattern of the Colombian flag unfurled above the marchers. This is as close I got to the march, the tv at the bus station in Santa Marta. I thanked Serendipity all the same.

We arrived at Carlos' place late for the march but in time for the chaos at the third day of Carnaval. Carlos was a gaunt, bug-eyed man in his mid thirties with a hint of flamboyance in his expression and an enthusiasm that I attributed to his role of dedicated host (rather than say, a massive drug binge). Carlos spoke English. He claimed to have lived in Miami for 17 years, though I found his heavily accent and lisp English equally difficult to comprehend as his rapid fire Spanish. He had his one room apartment set up like a business with a desk near the front door and on it an official looking passport, though the revelers passed out on the mattresses lining the back walls would later fill us in on the rest of Carlos’ enterprises.

"Oh, yes, you gimme your passports, your credit cards, and any money you don't need for tonight and I put them in the safe. You must be very careful with your cameras, there are robbers in the streets. You can't trust nobody here. You know they get 15 thousand U S for American passports?" I handed over my passport and credit card wallet and then saw that what Carlos meant by safe was actually a cashbox that he pulled out of a cloth purse hung on the back of his chair. Still, it had to be better than carrying my valuables into the crowds, and from Silvain's account there were too many other guests to leave anything worth stealing in my bag.

Maybe his first experiences as an immigrant in the states had given Carlos an idea for the set up. He had converted his apartment and the one above it into a temporary flophouse. The floors were wall to wall with mattresses and the strips of space between them were lined with beer cans, rum bottles, and mate cups. In all he was housing 20 guests, four in his office and 16 in a three room apartment above. At 13 bucks a night per person, he cleared enough during Carnaval week to pay his rent for the year. Steve and I were just happy to have a place to put our backpacks for the night, so we didn’t really mind the muddy puddles in the bathroom or the dirty sheets on the beds.

We went to watch the parades, the endless processions of barely clothed dancers in between groups of musicians. Disappointingly, a barrage of advertisements from the corporate sponsors, plastered the parade route, the floats, even the banners of the various dance troops were selling beer and ice cream.

On our way back to meet up to go out with others to the concerts that evening, we ran into Carlos on the street with his cloth bag slung over his shoulder with what was clearly the outline of the cashbox inside.

Surely, those aren’t our passports and credit cards he’s carrying around in the streets?