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Another quikie…the barbie outside is firing up and the fish are ready! And talking of quikies, I’m in fabulous, (in)famous Cartagena where the locals sell T-shirts of their local hero, Pablo Escobar, altho’ I’m not sure just what his background was here, probably a financial one!
Yes it’s the last country of sudamerica, Colombia, land of a thousand dreams, and plenty of offers everywhere of something to snort or smoke, they’re a bit disappointed when I tell them my only drugs these days are cerveza and cigarros!

WELL, BUGA ME!!

Bill Shum
2006-08-21 17:28:04

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over kilometres of mountainside, pretty cute, and most have the milkcan donkey, little burros with 4 of those big milk cans, like we used to see years ago, strapped across their backs to carry the milk up to the road. The big milk tankers roll around the curves, the farmers rush their cans up to the road and pour it in, the local cafe's milk is fresh and thick…tres rural.

Along the roadside, clinging to the narrow ledge, dozens of shanties, just sticks and plastic, I don’t know how or what these people do but the poverty is extreme..but always lines of washing hanging on fences or over bushes, and all the kids seem to be heading off to school in immaculate little uniforms.

As I get further down the mountain the river slows and spreads out…still pretty wild but some signs of boat activity.

I come into a town over a narrow steel bridge and look each way (quickly) at the usual riverside activities, people washing, laundry, sewage outlets, fishing? As I sweep into the main drag I have to brake hard and dodge a herd of violently shoving cattle, barely managed by 3 10 year old cowboys on sturdy little ponies and long whips…craaack!

Lots of serious bicylistas everywhere, pushing up the mountains, screaming down!… quite a Colombian national sport apparently. And no sign yet of the black tinted windowed bullet-proof Mercedes pulling up at the local corner cocaine candy store. Have I been watching too much TV?

And all the military, everywhere along the road, and this road is closed after 6pm in most places!!, soldiers with the familiar, well used machine guns, side arms, all the works, like strung out along the road, I’ll come around a corner and see them just hanging out, solitary, spaced out along the roadside, they say the President will be re-elected because he has provided some security, but after dark its FARQ in control of lots of the country.
And there’s lots of gardeners, thousands of workers whipper-snippering, slashing, clearing drains, all along the roads
they’re at it.

I fang around a corner and see the whites of the eyes of a bloke standing, waist-deep in a hole in the middle of the road…2 little red cones are his only protection from the traffic, is it the water supply? I don’t know, but he’s taking his life in his hands on this job. Naturally I dodge him, and the hole, as another convoy of Neanderthal juggernauts come barrelling up the roads towards us. This is another constant hazard, long lines of great big trucks, trying to pass each other up steep inclines into blind corners…often I round a bend and see 2 or 3 trucks or buses side by side coming at me…all battling for line honours.
Anyway, eventually into Cartagena, fabulous, historic, restored so many times, after so many destructive visits from pirates, including one of my distant relatives, Francis Drake…just thought I’d pop that in….400 degrees of separation and all that….i’ll try and get some pix up but the postcards probably do this place more justice.
It’s hot here, damned hot, and sweaty, fantastic, maybe this is the end of the cold, except that I’m heading back into the hills on Sunday, going Cartagena, Colombiato Bogota.
So, I’ve found a dubious but very friendly little hotel down by the beach, air con and tv and parking for the bike…and the barby is ready downstairs at the little restaurant next door…I’m dribbling, you’re tired, enough is enough…..