Or: the story so far. We left Santa Marta and Taganga to head for Cartagena again which is on the way to Tolu y Covenas. Due to the unpredictability of the bus system, the floodings and the general habit of people sending you in de wrong way we figured it’s best to stay the night in Cartagena instead of trying to push directly through to Tolu.
In Cartagena we were hosted for the night by Vahine who was also going to the meeting. It’s always good to try to travel with locals since the prices vary enormously and it takes always some negotation with the prices. We arrived about 2 hours too late because of traffic. If you speak of Colombia you speak of traffic mess. The country is absolutely packed with busses, taxi’s, bicycles, motors, horses, pedestrians and anything else you can fit on a road, which is usually broken up or damaged. In Barranquila for example our bus was cornered because about four lanes of traffic was ghost driving to avoid the jam on the side of the road where they should be. Add big hifi systems, lot’s of noise and people screaming directions over it and honking their horns and you’ll get a general impression.
In Cartagena we had a nice and small pre-party with our host and sleepy we went off to Tolu y Covenas which is a known as a beach town where lot of locals spend holiday for the national CS-meeting..
(The bus driver is calling while unpacking bags from the top of the car)
From Cartagena to Tolu was also a hellish bus ride with a zillion of jams and problems. This is mostly due to the terrible flooding which has been plaguing the country for months. Whole villages as under water, bridges and roads closed and so on. It is all pretty sad since internationally there is not much attention for the problems that are being faced here by mostly the very poor.
The meeting is very relaxed and nice. It’s good to see that CS is truly global every time and you can meet up with people and relax with them for some days.
After that we went with a small group bumping into Monteria, a city with so little sights that it is not including in most guides but it’s nice to say a city in which we are the only tourists ( and gringo’s )
And then the night bus from Monteria to Medellin, about 8 hours.