After spending a couple days in the touristic beach town of
Taranga just north of Santa Marta we decided to ride our bikes back through
Santa Marta on to Riohacha about two hundred kilometres northwest up the coast.
Taranga had at least as many local and Columbian tourists as
it did any foreigners. The gringos were mostly European but not much more than
a couple dozen. Taranga is a well known
dive center but we are not divers so did not pony up for that. The local beach
was pretty poor and there was not any snorkelling in the bay to speak of. Good
snorkelling would have taken an all-day boat ride with the divers. Taranga like
many Columbian towns had no shortage of extremely loud stereo systems blasting
from restaurants and stores. Some of the little road side markets can barely
afford plastic tables but they have these huge sound systems.
In order to start riding up the coast we had to ride through
the north end of Santa Marta which has to be the trashiest town we have ever
seen. The locals said it would be dodgy on a bike. We got up early and made it through ok but I
did not stop to pull out the camera to take a picture of all the garbage. It was like a living breathing garbage dump.
The upside was that shortly out of town to the north the
desert changes to lush vegetation and the locals are much cleaner. To be fair though, just like the green side of Oregon, the vegetation can hide a lot of trash.The traffic
turned out to be pretty minimal and there was a big shoulder on the side of
road. The touring for the next two
hundred kilometres turned out to be really good.
The climate varies a lot in the area because there is a huge
mountain nearby that is tall enough to have snow on the top. It is one of the
tallest mountains so close the ocean in the world. There are all kinds of
microclimates as you go higher up the mountain.
We camped twice on the beach in hammocks on the way to
Riohacha, once in a place called Los Angles and another in Palomino. Palomino was just a place on a map where the
road left the coast and we were tired but turned out to be a gringo destination.
The one cheap campground was full of long term resident hippies including one
plain looking woman from Sweden that had been there a month. That one cost only about three USD a night
but did not look very secure if you had any possessions. We stayed in a little more upscale one down
the beach a bit where all our hammock mates were guess what nationality? If you
guessed German you were right! Three of them were playing what sounded like
Latin American music with bongo drums and guitar. They were good at it too and
probably learned from a meticulously thorough German book on how to play Latin
American bongos in thirty days. “Wie um die lateinischen amerikanischen Bongos
in dreißig Tagen zu spielen”
In the book exchange area of the beach place we stayed I
spotted a deck of cards with some rather risqué drawings of sexual
positions. Each card was a different
position and each had six categories listed below with numeric rankings – in
German. The rankings were probably pleasure for her and him then technical
difficulty and how strenuous. The Germans are so efficient and prepared, maybe they really are a master race after all.
It is so weird to be traveling on a bike where we are the
only gringos around and then seemingly for no apparent reason there are gringos
around at some town. The poverty in these coastal towns is at a level we have
only experienced in National Geographic magazines. Not everyone is really poor
but it takes getting used to and we are not real camouflaged in those areas. No
matter how “one” you try to feel with the local culture mentally you aren’t one
and never will be one coming from middle class America. We still have not seen any bike tourists in
Columbia and the last three days have been very good touring.
The main road has very few side roads and the people who live
back in the country either walk or ride a horse. Very few can afford a car or even a motorbike
which are popular so there are quite a few local buses on the road. Still even
then the traffic was light enough to listen to birds and insects. At the campground
in Palomino there was an English girl working who had a good quality kayak that
she let me take out in the surf a bit. She had been with some other expert
kayakers trying to do first descents in Columbia. I have seen a number of
rivers with granite boulders that looked promising. The problem is there are not a lot of roads
along the rivers or anywhere else for that matter. Plus they grow coca in the
local mountains here in spite of the drug war so hiring some dudes with donkeys
to go upriver might not be such a good idea.
We have heard a number of times that Columbians are
trading coca or its derivatives with the Venezuelans for gas. {The closer you
get to Venezuela, the more people sell gasoline out of one liter plastic
bottles outside their homes.} That way the coke goes into a country that is an
enemy of the US and we are not able to operate out of unless we take it upon
ourselves to bomb them with drone planes as is our prerogative. We sure are
good at having wars and enemies.
After a ninety kilometer ride to Riohacha we are making
arrangements for a guided transport for the coastal desert town of Cabo de La
Vela. It abruptly turned back to desert about twenty kilometres from Riohacha.
Riohacha is actually a decent medium sized town. The water front beach is clean
and lined with quiet native women selling very colourful baskets under palm
trees. Plus there are not hordes of dudes hawking this and that in your
face. There are very few tourists here.
We saw and spoke to one Swiss family who like us were booking a trip out to the
end of the peninsula. It takes a four
wheel drive. They are very horn happy in
Riohacha however and honk for no apparent reason or maybe there are a million
reasons to honk a horn and I have just not deciphered the collective Morris
code. They need a horn honkers anonymous group here.
Cabo de Vela would not be recommended as a bike tour even though a good portion of it is paved. Water could be had here and there from vendors but the ride would be very hot and boring not to mention ugly with all the trash. The indigenous Wayuu people like many other indigenous folks do not have any values about littering. The Wayuu capital of Uribia you drive through is very trashy.
It is ironic that the Wayuu are famous and prodigious weaver of shoulder bags but where they live is so trashed up with plastic bags. Part of the reason may be that very few stores give you receipts and the bags show that you paid for the item. Merchants generally insist you have every little thing in a bag.
The Wayuu people other than that are incredibly calm though even in town when they are selling their handbags. The women are especially quiet which is a very nice contrast to the rather loud Colombian culture in general. If you are a big city person suffering from anxiety attacks and your doctor says it is seriously affecting your health you should come hang out with the Wayuu people on the La Guajira penninsula.
Where the road that parallels the train turns to gravel past Uribia it would be pretty rough for touring. The dirt roads into the coast from that road would be doable but it would be possible to get lost in the desert.
The beaches up in Cabo de Vela were very beautiful as mentioned in the guide books but they had trash as well so they were not the pristine end of the earth experience I would have hoped for. All that sounds kind of negative but thought I would put it out there for anyone considering touring this part of Columbia. There are quite a few places where there are military guys with machine guns standing on the side of the roads. I am not sure exactly what their function was but security did not seem to be an issue.
Cabo de Vela would not be recommended as a bike tour even though a good portion of it is paved. Water could be had here and there from vendors but the ride would be very hot and boring not to mention ugly with all the trash. The indigenous Wayuu people like many other indigenous folks do not have any values about littering. The Wayuu capital of Uribia you drive through is very trashy.
It is ironic that the Wayuu are famous and prodigious weaver of shoulder bags but where they live is so trashed up with plastic bags. Part of the reason may be that very few stores give you receipts and the bags show that you paid for the item. Merchants generally insist you have every little thing in a bag.
The Wayuu people other than that are incredibly calm though even in town when they are selling their handbags. The women are especially quiet which is a very nice contrast to the rather loud Colombian culture in general. If you are a big city person suffering from anxiety attacks and your doctor says it is seriously affecting your health you should come hang out with the Wayuu people on the La Guajira penninsula.
Where the road that parallels the train turns to gravel past Uribia it would be pretty rough for touring. The dirt roads into the coast from that road would be doable but it would be possible to get lost in the desert.
The beaches up in Cabo de Vela were very beautiful as mentioned in the guide books but they had trash as well so they were not the pristine end of the earth experience I would have hoped for. All that sounds kind of negative but thought I would put it out there for anyone considering touring this part of Columbia. There are quite a few places where there are military guys with machine guns standing on the side of the roads. I am not sure exactly what their function was but security did not seem to be an issue.
