The original plan was to head to Barranquilla today for Carnaval. Kirby’s friend has a brother in Barranquilla who was going to let us stay there. The town fills up and it is impossible to find a place to stay during Colombia’s biggest annual party. It starts today with a large float parade, Sunday is La Gran Parada with costumed dancers instead of floats, Monday is for music, and Tuesday is a ceremonial burial of Joselito Carnaval. Kirby had been trying for the last few days to connect with our contact in Barranquilla but without success. So we decided to spend another day in Santa Marta. If we didn’t hear back from our contact we would try to spend a few hours in Barranquilla tomorrow enjoying the party before heading on to Cartagena that evening.
Today was one of the first days we slept in. We went to our usual breakfast place by the beach and had our usual breakfast (eggs, arepa, fruit juice, coffee/hot chocolate). After breakfast we watched a large group of people work together with a super huge net to fish on the beach (video). I’m not sure if they all knew each other or if random people joined in. A bunch of guys would be on each end of the net hauling it in from the beach. One boat was out in the water directing. Once they got the whole thing hauled in everyone ran towards the catch and started throwing the small fish back. A few kids ran off with their reward. It didn’t appear to be a big catch considering the size of the net.
We spent our second day on the beach. Being that today was the official start of Carnaval there were chivas (old school buses heavily decorated) circling on occasion with people having a good time. A significant number of the locals were wearing cheesy Carnaval ’09 t-shirts. We enjoyed the water, got some more sun, and read in our artificial shade we rented for 5,000 ($2.12). A small bag of mango and a few Aguilas (local macro-beer) made for a lovely afternoon on the beach.
After the beach we were cruising around town and happened to run in to the parade route for Santa Marta’s carnaval. A few thousand people lined one of the main streets in town. Some people were in costumes or had wigs on. People were throwing a white talcum powder and spraying shaving cream at each other. Street vendors were everywhere selling the stuff. After a few minutes the parade started. Trucks would pass by all decorated with a band. The band attempted to play while covered in powder and shaving cream, often yelling at the spectators to spare them. The windows of the parade vehicles were covered in shaving cream and the windshield wipers were often used. Being the only gringo in attendance I found myself a favorite target by the kids. The parade route was on a big street with a median in the middle. The parade and spectators were on one side and traffic was attempting to use the other. Some cars were frustrated, others joined in on the fun by spraying the spectators and then rolling up their windows in defense. The people in the mini-buses were trying hard to keep their windows closed to prevent all the parade spectators from spraying in the bus.
Walking back through town we came across a cemetery. I saw one or two from the bus coming back from Cabo de la Vela and they had above-ground tombs. This one in the middle of Santa Marta was no different. Families had plots with tombs taller than me. Some of these memorials had spaces big enough for a coffin to slide into and others were sized for urns. There was row after row of marble. Many had flowers. The sky was purple as we walked through the memorials because of the setting sun.
We ate dinner at a very nice restaurant next to the place we called “Lover’s Park”. Couples were always on the benches. Kids played in the fountains until they turned them off in the evening. I think it was an Italian restaurant and they said they specialized in seafood. I had octopus, calamari, and shrimp with rice and an excellent sauce. Kirby had some linguini with a white sauce and some fish or seafood that I forgot. Definitely the best meal we had so far in Santa Marta.
Before calling it a night we walked along the beach and Kirby noticed the hill outside of town was on fire. It was difficult to see from a distance. You had to be out on the rocks on the beach to see it so no one else really noticed. We watched it for a bit; saw some brush flare up on occasion.
We passed out relatively early that night so we could wake and travel to Barranquilla for some Carnaval fun the next day.
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