This post is late. I have no good excuse, because all we have been doing for the last 3 days straight is traveling in public transportation, which we all know leaves endless amounts of time to possibly write a blog post since there’s not too much else to do. I did write a little, but instead of finishing up the post on time we slept. Sorry! But without further ado:
We went to Barranquilla with little hope of actually getting to watch the fútbol match in person. We had been told that tickets, which were completely sold out within two hours of being released for 40,000 pesos, were being forged and resold for 100,000 pesos. So there was a chance of getting our hands on a ticket or two, but it would be expensive and likely a fake. Being endlessly optimistic H and I trekked into town, found our friendly couch surfing hosts, and then went straight to the stadium to sort out our plans. My theory was that as we approached closer and closer to kickoff the ticket sellers would become more and more desperate to get the tickets off their hands.
After much searching our best deal was found with a couple selling their extra ticket for 60,000 and another vendor that, after intense bargaining on our part (as well as the couple’s) we got him down to 80,000. Such a deal! (or at least almost, if you don’t think of how much the tickets cost in the first place) The problem was that I had only brought with us 129,000 pesos, and no one was willing to lose 11,000 pesos on this deal. *sigh*
We did make friends with a local gang member (or at least that is how we came to understand his role in the community) who not only chatted with us while we looked for tickets, but also scared away and otherwise intimidated people who came up to us to sell fake tickets. He was very sweet, and would even get protective of us if the vendors tried to overwhelm us with information by taking their tickets himself and giving them a seriously scary look. In the end we didn’t find the deal we were looking for, so we went across the street to a bar.
I have no idea how H got us into the bar; there was a crush of people so large they were spilling onto the street while pushing up against the gate to get in and watch the match, and somehow H is on the other side of the gate, motioning towards me and saying mi hermana. I nodded and the security guard reached through the grip of people around me and pulled me through by my yellow Colombia jersey. We picked a tree in the courtyard of the bar to sit in with a good view of the television and ordered our beer. The energy of the crowd was awesome! We could hear the rumble from the stadium just across the street, and for each of the 2 (plus the one that didn’t end up counting – that brought the crowd to the edge of danger) goals everyone erupted into an excited frenzy of raining beer, flying food particles, and dancing with whomever happened to be nearest, including us in the trees. More intense than the Panama v Canada game for sure!
Colombia won the match 2 – 0, sending Paraguay home without a goal. The city was elated, and while we did stay for a bit at the bar to celebrate with excited dancing, singing, chanting, and watching the sea of yellow pass by on the street, eventually we decided to head back to our couch-surfer host’s house before the buses shut down for the night. Our hosts met us halfway to their home and then took us out to a bar not far from one of the largest transfer spots in Barranquilla, La Troja.
Turns out, besides being the location for all the large fútbol events in Colombia, Barranquilla is also known for their love of rumba, in particular around Carnival. This means that there are a lot of great locations to go out and drink and dance all night. Our hosts were amazing, gathered some friends and showed us how to drink aguardiente to keep the fiesta dance energy going. Our hosts were also good enough to mention how to purchase the legit aguardiente, since there have been cases of immediate blindness due to imbibing bad batches. The drink tastes of licorice, and has the peculiar ability to make one rumba all night rather than feel drunk and tired. H literally danced her shoes off and as we hadn’t had experience with this particular liquor, we may have overindulged a smidge.
This means that the next day we were not particularly hungover, but we were definitely uninspired to make the 18 hour trek to Bogota as we had originally planned. Instead we went with our new friends to an abandoned 16 floor unfinished hotel where we climbed to the top and tested our reactions to vertigo along the way. Apparently the drug kingpin who had commissioned the building was incarcerated in the middle of construction and it has been waiting for someone to come along and pick up the project ever since. This was the role H and I played to get in to see the building.
We then went to the local beach where we swam, played fútbol with the local kids, made a sand pyramid, played baseball in the ocean, H taught our host how to surf, and enjoyed the sun. Apparently now if our friends want to tell each other they need to get some sun, they will simply ask if they are just coming from Wyoming 🙂 We packed up when the afternoon storms rolled in and then one of our hosts asked ¿quieren se bañar en el lluvia? Absolutely!
We put on the dirtiest clothes we had (which also happened to be to be ones we had worn to the fútbol match, gotten beer and food spilt on them, then worn them out dancing all night while sweating out the aguardiente the night before) and went out into the deluge. It felt as if a hose of luke-warm water was turned on high all over the neighborhood, and since there is no drainage system in Barranquilla, the streets were literal rivers. We ran in through the creeks that fed into the larger flooded streets where the water was at least hip high and full of rapids. Ben, you should absolutely come and urban kayak this town in the rainy season! Just beware of the objects (tables, cars, chucks of street, or entire buses) swept away unwilling by the force of the water. This happens each time it rains in Barranquilla. Epic.
We had another night of rumba after our adventures in the rain, and now that we knew the effects of aguardiente, we were much more cautious with our drinking. FANTASTIC dancing and conversation until sunrise! Everyone we met in ‘Quilla was wonderful, and we had a difficult time leaving when the time came. But our ridiculously long trip was calling our name, and we had some much needed sleep to catch up on!
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 
