-¿Español?, Like the other boy?, The one who disappeared ? Nothing has to happen, it is a quiet place if you are not looking for problems, but Spanish ... those Indians are spiteful.
Riohacha as many places in Colombia is not exactly as expected, nor a trace of decrepit peoples that await the return of the Bananera company, nor drifts or vapors going through Magdalena, much less chicken pecking the remains of endless strains. None of that is already in Riohacha, Too many novels by García Márquez I'm afraid. I sit on the boardwalk in front of a huge plasma screen and celebrate with some boys a goal by James Rodriguez. The sea snaps just a few meters, The beach is dark and silent, I barely distinguish the contour of the empty beach bars and a mountain of sun loungers among the palm trees.
Wilmar is a mulatto of almost two meters that is dedicated to selling thread bracelets, Sing some very tristian cumbias and get drunk conscientiously. Today is another night in your office, We make friends instantly, Although it does not seem very convinced with my travel itinerary.
-You will see, See if you want, But there is nothing from the other world either.
La Guajira is a rough and soulless stain
The next morning I squeeze in a shared van and go to the east. La Guajira is a rough and soulless stain that extends for hundreds of kilometers to Venezuela. Ancestral home of the Wayúu Indians is one of the most forgotten regions of the country. The landscape changes quickly and soon we left behind the greenery of the jungle of Santa Marta and we enter a brown plain and closed by chumberas and thorny matoos. The other five taxi occupants are Wayúus, They look for the window or check the mobile phones, wrapped in their squeaky and inexpressive robes as statues. On the radio a kind of local gospel sounds. The chorus is good and our feet go against the ground when repeated again and again ”.
"There is a death and pain atmosphere, In cities, Fields and populations everything smells like desolation, Everything smells to death and pain when we have forgotten the Lord?”
In Urubia amount in a discovered trailer that goes out to Cabo de la Vela. Ten passengers are piled up between large bottles of drinking water, I tell the driver that I have not seen a single tourist. It replies that they do not usually come too many at this time of year, In addition rumors have extended about what happened a few months ago. What is your opinion? That's all, Rumors. The asphalt is extinguished little by little as the colors of a freshly washed fabric. We played on UN TERRAPLÉN BOLT, that is paved until a thread of dust and sand is reduced.
A gang of soldiers, barely teenagers clinging to their submachine guns
The wind however without stopping and the monotonous landscape acts as a somniferous, A few minutes later we all sleep against the wooden boards. Women are covered with their robes to protect themselves from the sun and dust and resist the pecks of chickens who are looking for something to eat at our feet. I only open my eyes a couple of times, The first time to contemplate an eagle about the thorns, The second one gang of soldiers, barely teenagers clinging to their submachine guns. The Caribbean Sea appears behind the desert, greenish and motionless like a corpse.
Cabo de la Vela is actually a single street, a lo Far West, Wooden houses are monitored by each other in two rows faced, The Wayuus dormate at the doors and offer accommodation or Windsuf lessons at an economic price. Low of the van at the first hotel of the town, The Tracheteo continues to bounce for a while in my head like ten ping pong balls. The restaurant is outdoors, covered by a palm leaf roof and a boy offers me rates; I can sleep on the beach in hammock or chinchorro. They are the same but the Chinchorro has fringes that allow to be clothered on the icy Caribbean nights. About thirty wayúus offers at the entrance of the local craft restaurant, The children look out the railing that separates them from the clients and they contemplate a soap opera. Lunch a passion fruit juice and a grilled lobster for a ridiculous price while a villain tries to kiss a model with huge breasts unsuccessfully.
Miguel is the owner of the hotel, He was born in Barranquilla and despite the difficulties, things are not going wrong. Difficulties are the lack of electricity and current water, (Guests are entitled to a single bucket cold water for every night of accommodation), loneliness and that tireless wind. He tells me that customers increase year after year and that soon this place will have nothing to envy to the most tourist destinations in Colombia. The other boy? Of course I knew him, I used to come from time to time, It was staying at the pension at the end of the street. No idea what could happen to him, The police spent a week here and asked everyone, The family even came. He was a journalist and the day before went to visit a Wayúu cemetery for a report, Many indigenous people knew him here.
The police spent a week here and asked everyone
I wait for the burning sun to remove for the first bathroom of the day. The sea is still like a bathtub and I have almost whole beach for me. Some fishing boats return after the day and a flock of pelicans wait for dinner about one of them as in the tail of a supermarket. From time to time they cross the people rash trucks , distribute food for indigenous ranches or carry smuggling products to Venezuela.
Back to the hotel I find the same impassive faces that your colored bracelets offer me. There is no electric light or television and the restaurant is empty, There is only one table occupied by Miguel who plays poker with his waiters. I join, I lose what I have and go to sleep soon, Tomorrow I wake up early . I want to go to the beach of El Pilón de Sugar and the road is long. Chinchorro is on the beach, As comfortable and hot as a comfortable kangaroo bag. I'm alone in front of heaven, stars infested. I sleep at times, revealed by the barking of the dogs and the footsteps in the sand that wad themselves around me with insistence.
The alarm sounds at 5 And I cross the town half asleep under a purple sky. The beach is about eight kilometers and the stone promontory can be seen from the end, I just have to continue in a straight line and not lose sight. I leave behind the latest rough shacks, then the desert and again the damn storm that howls until it stays Afononic. I am quick to avoid the maximum temperature hours. Soon it is clear to me that doing this excursion alone has not been a good idea, The path disappears suddenly between huge cactus and sharp stones. It is only seven in the morning already hot from hell and the sun scale the sky quickly. In all the way I only find a rickety hidden hidden after a hedge made of chumberas, I destroy my hands trying to see if there is someone inside, I only find a flock of goats that nibbles the dry grasslands.
I only find a flock of goats that nibbles the yerbajos
There is not a single tree and I have long lost sight of the sea, I follow the rock while I raffle the cactus in Zigzag and wind up a couple of times. The silence of the morning is so intense that my ears are drilling. I don't even hear the wind, He has moved to live inside my head and flutters my thoughts towards all directions as scared birds.
I climb for a dune and I got to the end when the water bottle runs out, Four hours later I have the rock in sight. Next to the cliff there is a hut made of reeds and a car. Salsa music sounds from the radiocasette and two young couples dance hugged in front of the sea, nor do they realize what happened next to them when I go down the cliff to the sea.
There is no one on the beach, And the sun still does not cover the sand at all. I give myself a fast bath and hit the shadow of the Farallón to enjoy the panorama framed by rocks that are lost in the ocean. I can't stay for a long time, I am waiting for three hours back and the maximum heat hours of the day are approaching. When I go up there is no trace of couples, I mentally dismissed the possibility of returning by car. In return, a couple of boys riding on a motorcycle arrive, They go barefoot and ask me if I have seen some young people with a red car, I inform you that they should have left a few minutes ago. Curses and despair, There is something in their expression that advises me not to ask them to approach me when they discuss what direction they have left.
For a moment I doubt if it is a doll
I see it just when they start, so fast that I don't have time to ask if they see it too. You have had to be there all that time, watching us. He is sitting on the floor lying in front of a rock and staresly looks at me. For a moment I doubt if it is a doll. Rag cover and with the skin required by the sun, It does not move, Do not blink, He only looks at me through a pair of amber slits. Step by your side rodeo, It does not seem especially old, only dirty and skeletal. He doesn't even answer when a good morning hurried.
Way about thirty meters before turning your head, Has been incorporated, Keep watching me. I squeeze the step and for the corner of the eye I see how it disappears between the dunes. I advance quickly through the thorn and seem as if the world had escaped a nuclear disaster. Nor a trace of people, Only the sun that collapses on the desert with a painful light, I try to remember the traces of the round trip. I have no idea where I am. Appears behind a chumbera and stays still, again that look of automaton. I run and I don't stop until my ribs hurt and a thorn is stuck in my foot. Nor have I heard a single bird in the morning.
Hours later I breathe in front of a beer and I decide that I will not move again in what is left of the day. At some point to face the restaurant a bus and download about twenty noisy tourists from Bogotá. At the next table a fifty -year -old man rushes a bottle of Antioquia brandy to chupitos, Do you sign the SUV to wait for it. He sits at my table and tells me his life. He is the only doctor in the area and goes from ranchería in ranchería, taking care of stomach pains, diarrhea and malaria. Distribute aspirins and vaccines, Hepatitis B is very frequent here.
Maybe he was disoriented, The Caribbean is treacherous
The woman of the beach yes ... something has heard of her although she has never seen her, I wouldn't know how to tell me. There is no reason to always believe what they tell you. The Spanish? Another story, If I want to know his opinion that night he had to drink or something else, (And here inflates the cheeks as if inhaled the smoke of a torch) Before getting into the sea. Maybe he was disoriented, The Caribbean is treacherous or ... there are times that sharks frequent the shore. Hurry up the glass of a drink and ask how much more time I have left in La Guajira, He says goodbye with a wink and wishes me a good stay.
I decide to leave that afternoon and while Miguel cancels my account, I feel out with about twenty small wayuus who have left their bracelets on the floor and watch video clips on television. Their faces of amazement stick to wood bars. Luifer sing guitar in hand a successful vallenato
«But what happened to us, Come in front of what happened, Your love is absent from my nest flew ,I have trouble understanding that until yesterday you were mine ... "
I have never been in a country where so many love songs are heard.
