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.
When we’re firstly picked up by the van, it is already filled with Waiuu-indians on the trunk and an immense pile of luggage on the rooftop. There are absolutely no seats available for the 5 of us (the french Morgan aka “el capitan” has now joined the group). But somehow the 15 indians and the baby in the back, manage to make room. We cramp ourselves tightly in together with the indiginous and the engines gets us going. But not for long. A few hundred meters down the road, the lorry stops. And two women comes towards the trunk! “Impossible”, I think. But possible it is. The two women squeezes miraculously in with the rest of us… And this procedure continues. A kilometer furthermore, an old man with smelly pants and a can of beer “rolls” in. And so it continues another TWO rounds…
But even with a hundred or so arms and legs squeezed over, under, underneath, around and in between eachother in one single car, these legs and arms does not manage to keep us warm in the dusty desert night. We cover ourselves in what we’ve got that are not in the bags on the roof. And one man, one bad-karma-man, even takes off his daughter’s dress and wraps it around himself, leaving her freezing in a tiny singlet. We share our sleepingbag with the poor child.
During this pumby ride through night, sunsrise, day, sunset, another night and sunset, I listen to my soundbook about the refugee from Nigeria, “Little Bee”. The description of her fleeing vessel resembles our van. But after all, my trip in this freezing van is, oppose to her trip, voluntarily. So I try to forget that I feel weak (as of foodpoisoning in Cabo) and that my twisted ancle hurts. And so our journey continues for the next 25 hours… With a few stops and changes of folks and vessles in between. These stops are mostly dirty, smelly, loud and dense. Full of people hastling us with all kinds of goods and services they want to sell; from empanadas and fake watches to US dollars on the open blackmarket. And everywhere we are, we hear horrified babyscreams- not being babyscreams. But dead goats, that are not yet dead. But look dead there they lay tied tightly together on top of eachother in the back of the trucks. The sights and the sounds of this grotesque animalcruelness turns me into an instant “goat-arian”. No way no more goat for me in Latin America! Some “toilet”-experiences, on this trip are of the same shitty caliber. Grotesque and worst of It’s kind. And the immigration-process on the crossing between Colombia and Venezuela, is not pleasant either. Moody military men and women does everything they can to make us feel unwelcome. In contrary to my experience in Colombia. But with the longest painful ride behind us, our destination in Venezuela is finally in reach. Adicora, here we come!
These are photos from the small windsurf- and kite-village Adicora.
