Luckily they recognize me from my Facebook-pictures, and scream out my name. The airport-hallway is full of Dominicans with flags and signs, and I must have looked confused as I’m coming out of the departure-exit. Or so they describe me. The two sisters Sara and Sabrina, born and bred in the Dominican Republic (DR), have invited me to stay with them and their family.
I am wearing my nicest colorful dress, a flower in the hair and my finest make-up. I am going on a date in Curacao, one of the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean.
Adicora, the quiet beachtown in Venezuela (slash Cuba), is a village filled with pastel-colored houses. Most of them are empty vacation-houses, but the few of them that are occupied, are the homes of the sweetest most hospitable Venezuelans. The next president-to-be (?) of “Europe”, the trash-guy, a lovely German couple. And the surfing twin; A german who was part of founding the surfsport back in the days.
Hugo Chavez, with his anti-globalization stand and romantically socialist vision for Latin America, speaks on the telly an hour a day. Sometimes ten, if he feels like it. Most of the locals we’ve gotten to know here are against Chavez. And the few ones who do like him and watch his hourly propaganda everyday, are still against his regime…
It is 3:30. Dead black. We’re in the Colombian desert. I count the incredible number of 22 Indians, a baby, us and a Sierra-Nevada-luggage-mountain on the roof.
The first night here I woke up beside my hammock screaming out load, freakin scared, of something. I didn’t drink of the locally-made spirits around the bonfire earlier in the evening and I’ve never done this before, so I’m wondering what has affected me.
There is a myth that the Wayuu-indians are dangerous…
Miguel remembers: A woman and a child his age fully armed amongst the masculine guerrilla. He remembers that they stole their cow and ate their food, and that the leftist rebels took away his older cousins and wondered off in the jungle to new assignments like cidnappings and killings in the name of cocain and political dissidence.
The dangerous hippos are territorial, so they were left as guards in the muddy waters surrounding the coca-fields. The rest of Escobar’s Ark was left in captivation. Including the tigers. But when the big cats later were stolen by the rivalry Magdalena-cartel, they managed to escape. Now they reproduce and live freely in this excact area. Pablo Escobar on the other hand, was captivated and died in the hail of bullets in 1993.
Convinced that Ciudad Perdida (literally ‘Lost City’) was infected with bad energy, the oldest indiginous group in Colombia, the Tyronas, decided to close the city for a few months in order to cleanse it through their ceremonial practices. Then they opened it up for visitors again this fall. We decided to take the one possible route to see the mysterious abandoned town: A week-long transcendent treck through the tropical jungle of Sierra Nevada.
Change of plans! My longing for the mountains and Siri’s lack of interest in kiting, steers us to a sudden postponing of our indigenous sleep-over in Cabo de la Vela (in reference to my last post). A dig in my budgeted wallet, some sneakers (I’ve just had flip-flops so far) and a sleeping bag later, we’re now heading for a 5 day hike, to The Lost City. Believed to be over 650 years more ancient than Machu Pichu, but only recently discovered, this is a hidden gem (apparently).
