Around 8pm, I arrived at the ‘hostel’ (meaning a completely empty house) that the Bowen brothers were staying at in Barranquilla. I was relieved to learn they had organised a ‘bed’ (meaning a blow up air mattress) for me, for a very low price. All hostels / rooms had apparently been booked out ages ago & at double their normal going rate.
It meant that if I decided I couldn’t / didn’t want to pull an all-nighter – I didn’t have to. (*small sigh of relief*) It also meant I had a place to stash my daypack (infinitely more ideal than lugging it around all night, hoping all my shit wouldn’t get stolen.)
The Bowen brothers had linked up with some fun Irish & Aussie girls we had met while staying at Captain Jack’s in Portabello, Panama. As soon as I walked in the door, they gave me a big warm welcome, a shot of Aguardiente (the local firewater) & a *hero* … and that, my friends, basically set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
We caught up, talked a lot of shit, and laughed ourselves silly over several bottles of the surprisingly smooth anise-flavoured liquor. Evidently, I had missed an epic first day – stacks of colourful costumes in the multitudes of parades; oodles of live music & dancing; masses of foam / mud / flour wars; and shedloads of your ‘run-of-the-mill’ Carnaval debauchery. They had been going for days and weren’t showing any signs of slowing down.
We eventually decided to get in amongst it. Our hostel manager – a slightly effeminate, tubby Colombian, who fancied himself as an entrepreneur, hotel owner and a real ladies’ man – had taken it upon himself to play host to our lil crew (he had misguided designs on one of our girls).
He took us to the nightclub strip where of course, he knew the owner of this place and that place and could get us in for free everywhere (I suspect we could have gotten in for free, irrespective of his ‘connections’).
There were dozens of discotheques competing in a ‘my sound system is bigger than yours’ competition. In Latin America, speakers are strategically placed outside a club (as well as inside). The intention is to create what we marketers call ‘salience’. There was just this ridiculous cacophony of noise: latino pop, 80s house, old school salsa, trashy techno, and of course the omnipresent J-Lo vs Pitball: “Nyah, nyha, nyah, nyah, nyah … Hot on the floor.”
People were spilling their drinks out on the streets, local musos were crowd gathering with impromptu jam sessions in between randomly ‘parked’ cars … and everywhere raucous street vendors were pushing all manner of Carnaval necessities: gum, water, beer, meat on sticks. It was absolute anarchy. We cruised up & down the calle, checking out a few different scenes, and having a boogie in each. A bit of a Carnvial bar crawl, if you like.
Sometime after midnight, we escaped the bedlam & headed ‘home’… there was a massive street party underway right around the corner. Hundreds of people were dancing their arses off to the thumping sounds of an excellent salsa band with some 16 odd musos squished up on a tiny stage. And it was going OFF. We danced. And danced. And danced. Somewhere in the middle of the carnage, I got picked up by a rather gorgeous Carib boy (who am I to say no to broad shoulders, pretty dreads and a smile that goes on forever?) Around 4am I hit a wall, bid farewell to the young Jesse, got me some meat on a stick (not a euphemism) and ambled off to my airbed.
I woke up a few hours later to a blinding light lasering into the ‘living’ room and well into the recesses of my eyes. All a bit unnecessary, I thought. I assessed the damage around me. Bodies everywhere in varying degrees of decay. People were covered in mud & all manner of Carnaval debris. The place resembled a clean crack den. I was feeling extraordinarily average.
Marcus eventually woke up & took me downtown to get some brekky beers & a feed. We then went on a mission for some tacky Carnaval souvenirs. He bought some godawful fluoro Carnaval t-shirts, while I bought a pretty glittery elephant’s mask which is looking to become one of my most prized possessions.
I decided to stay one more night. We eased our way back into it with some afternoon beers and whatnot. Before you knew it, night had fallen and we were debating the merits of catching a cab across town to see a concert or schlepping our sorry butts back around the corner where another big band was giving the neighbourhood a lashing. We opted for the latter. I didn’t have another epic night in me, and crying old, told the boys I couldn’t go on. Being sometime between 1 & 2am they gave me permission to go home. They weren’t that far behind me truth be told (but to be fair, they were on Day 4).
I woke up fresh as a daisy the next morning (resplendent in my pretty sparkly elephants mask!) having had a solid night’s sleep in the middle of a 4-carriage highway that was the living room in that godforsaken crack den.
I needed a decent breakfast (as opposed to just beers) and so went to the local supermarket to get a big fat watermelon, proper unsweetened non-reconstituted orange juice (a rarity in Latin America) some veges & eggs.
A few hours later, we had made arrangements to our subsequent destinations. Barranquilla had certainly shown us a good time but it was no place to have a hangover.
I waved the boys off in a taxi… they were headed up to Tayrona National Park. And I eventually climbed into the air-conditioned comfort of a posh collectivo going back to Cartagena, where I had 24 hours to make myself nice for Scott.
indygogal 