And another farewell, one that hurts.
Goodbye Cartagena
Knowing that tonight a bus is waiting for me, promising another ordeal of over 10 hours, I spend the last day in Cartagena calmly, almost meditatively.
I leave the city behind, the roaring of the car and bus engines, the chatter of the numerous tourists and locals trying to buy or sell something, all the sounds of the city that I will abandon before the end of the day. It leaves me sad and wistful, as always when one has felt very much at home in a place.
The slow walk along the ocean brings my mental constitution back to balance. The beach is almost deserted, a pleasure after all the hullabaloo in the city center. Sometimes I sit down on a stone, the eyes directed at the endless horizon, and I realize what is bothering me.
My journey, my wonderful trip through all of South America, is approaching its end with big steps.
Life apart from the world
But of course the world is not without life. In fact, the view opens up to the inconspicuous events away from the noisy and aggressive city. You just have to see it.
There are two fishermen trying to pull a boat along on the troubled sea. A task that obviously requires all their concentration. Why they are pulling an empty boat behind them, however, remains hidden to me, like so much else.
Or the birds (herons?), looking for food in the garbage washed up on the shore. Their steps are graceful, their concentration directed to the ground, only occasionally a short suspicious look meets me.
But then, slowly back in the loud civilization, the noise erupts over me again, and there, like a phantom from Africa, a wonderfully colored woman with a big bowl balanced on her head, full of some sweets or whatever.
It is, so to speak, my last real meeting with Cartagena. Because then it's time to pack and say goodbye.
A strange taxi driver
It's not that the cab driver frightens me, but a certain restlessness sets in when the young man - scar-faced (in Hollywood movies, villains always have some kind of scars or strange disabilities), tight-lipped, tough - is driving me through completely different streets towards the bus terminal than I remember from the previous trip.
It's six o'clock in the evening, like every day it turns dark from one moment to the next, and the guy is driving me through some of the worst slum nightmares. When I ask him if he knows the destination (because he's constantly looking at his cell phone or alternately talking to a buddy on the other end), he reacts
At every traffic jam (normal at this time of day) he tries to find a faster way through some side alleys, only to get stuck at the same traffic jam a few minutes later. So the puzzle might fit: an elderly gentleman traveling alone, darkness, collusion with buddies, slums of the worst order all around. Who wouldn't feel a slight tingle there?
Have the constant warnings now caught up with me after all? Has the subconscious finally taken over? But no, the guy is probably as harmless as my cats, in any case he drops me off at the terminal after a good hour's drive and wishes me a good trip. Sorry, amigo!
Colombian stand-up comedians
The night bus to Medellin slowly fills up, I might once again be the only foreigner, but with a preferred seat in the back rows. While the first movie starts ("Central Intelligence" with The Rock - a horrible movie, but one that fits perfectly into the stultifying entertainment on the buses), I try to get into the pleasantly comfortable feeling of the state before falling asleep as quickly as possible.
My attempts to fall asleep are successful, but I wake up when loud laughter echoes through the bus. Some women behind and beside me hold their bellies, while I desperately search for the source of the amusement. There's a program on with an apparently famous Colombian standup comedian, and I have to admit, even if I don't understand all of it - the guy knows his stuff. He delivers a firework of sayings and jokes, punctuated by wild jumps and increasingly loud and hysterical voice.
Nevertheless, I fall asleep again, apparently waking up much later, because in the meantime the bus has become empty. The laughing women, the young man next to me, the mother with her two children on the seats behind me - all have disappeared. There are just about 6-7 people left, all sitting in the front part of the bus. So I have the whole back part to myself, providing peace and quiet. And that's really something ...
The whimsical effects of physics
The road is quite curvy, we are tossed back and forth, but that doesn't bother the driver. When the going gets tough, he accelerates even more.
Going to the toilet is then, to say the least, difficult to impossible. I spare the reader the details, but certain physical laws play a big role. Anyway, this time I just manage to close the door behind me, when the bus takes a heavy turn.
Physics, (I hate physics!) which means the centrifugal force, hurls me backwards into the door, which opens at the sudden pressure, and I fall backwards out of the toilet to the floor. So I lie with a strange face on the back, the legs half in the toilet, the rest in the hallway outside.
Although the fall has been fast and violent, miraculously nothing bad seems to have happened. My bones are still intact, but my self-confidence is a bit battered. Thank God, no one has noticed anything. I probably might have been dead, my demise would not have been discovered until a passenger's next toilet visit. My next toilet visit will definitely take place on a quiet, straight stretch ...
Sometime around morning I wake up from a deep sleep, the morning announces itself. November atmosphere. Fog lies over the rolling hills, billowing in the hollows, desperately resisting the power of the sun rising on the horizon. The gentle hills are shrouded in haze and clouds, a lifeless world, it seems.
But it looks nice, but once again I am a stranger in a strange world.
The rest of the night passes leisurely, and once again the bus driver manages to keep his schedule to the minute. It is shortly after nine when we arrive in Medellin after thirteen hours. I purchase the ticket for the last trip to Bogotà, change money and have a hearty breakfast before taking the metro instead of a cab...
Mileage: 9659
Matching Song: Sam Phillips - All Night
And here the trip continues ... again in Medellin
