If you know the statue is a representation of a singer called Shakira, a native of Barranquilla and Colombia’s most famous export, you know more than I did when we accidentally drove by on the bank of the Rio Magdalena. Then we took the Sunshine Skyway bridge on steroids (!) over the river:
It was a day of driving and it was exactly what we needed, to be on the road, the three of us with our home. Layne had got it into her head she wanted to see some pink salt flats on the north coast she had heard about. Supposedly the water in the lagoon is bright pink this time of year, and it may very well be true.
We had read on Google maps that the road to the pink water is not that great but it’s dry season we figured we had a good shot at getting there. Indeed we found the sign to the red water:
What stopped us wasn’t the road surface but the low hanging trees were impassable to our 9 foot tall roof. I wasn’t ready to wreck the a/c now we had it back in place.
It was great to be on the road exploring random back roads together. Rusty had fun and Webb Chiles wrote to remind me about today, wishing Rusty a happy birthday. We got him in February 2016 and here he is running free:
He’s loving life on the road. He doesn’t know Webb admires him and thinks of him even though I tell him.
I’m doing all right too thanks for asking.
We drove the coast to Barranquilla where we had our other goal and here we were more successful. Layne even found big plump blueberries in the concrete jungle that is PriceSmart, the local version of Costco which it closely resembles as it used to be part of that chain.
Barranquilla is a fishing port on the mouth of the Magdalena River, it’s a tourist center and an industrial port.
This stretch of coast with its mangroves and refineries, ocean going freighters docked up river all reminded me of the Texas or Louisiana Gulf Coast. It was hot enough, between 90 and 95 degrees.
We came this way in rental car while we waited for our container bound van to arrive. It was much more relaxed sitting up high aboard GANNET2 holding our own with the trucks and buses. Colombian drivers aren’t particularly aggressive but they drive, pardon me, like they’ve lost their minds. They stop in the roadway, they make sudden turns, they pass like they have a suicide wish, it’s bizarre. The fishing villages we passed didn’t look particularly homey…
Our plan was to turn inland, and drive south along the highway that runs between the river on the right and the foothills of the Andes to our left.
Our goal was a truck stop near the town of Aracataca which is the place where the novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born and they have a museum in his honor which is on our list, no surprise. We made it around sunset and not a minute too soon. At dark it was still around 90 degrees as we had gained no altitude, that will come later. But the air conditioning did its job!
Here are some pictures from the road:
City of confusion, Barranquilla, above. I love navigating this stuff!
No tourist sugar coating on this page.
Don’t you wish you’d paid for a seat on the bus (below) which was hustling to pass on a double yellow line uphill on a hump in the road? It got worse the further we drive, nudging and shoving and nearly missing. It freaked me out.
No idea what this monument is but thank you Layne for the road pictures.
I love road food especially here in Colombia where every damned thing is fried. A 75 cent disc of thin, fried dough sprinkled with sugar crystals. Heaven!
Oh and coffee, hot and sweet, no milk, no decaffeinated, no flavor choices: just coffee served at your window roadside. I miss this service in the States.
