Flip back 7 days. To the rip-off lying ''Santa Marta'' coach that actually dropped me off on a busy Barranquilla roadside as if this was what I paid for. 15 minutes into the trip, Cartagena city limits. A police stop. My passport handed over, a nervous couple of minutes, passport return. Breathe.
Wonder what the Colombian stamp looks like. Flick through. Continue to wonder. The passport is not stamped. Flip back a couple of days more.
Saturday morning, just off the boat. Hand my passport to Michel, the ship captain. Arrange a 3pm dock return to pick up the stamped document. Then it's 3pm, we're at the dock, our passports are not. Michel says he'll return direct to our hostels once stamped. I shrug, okay, par for the course, carry on.
It gets dark. Half a bottle of balcony rum into the evening. Evelien hands back my passport that she was handed in reception. A cursory glance at the front cover, throw into the top of my rucksack. Think no more.
Forward again. To Taganga. E-mail Michel, in a ''fuck, what do I do'' type way. He responds quickly. There's a guy in Cartagena who does this for him. David. I need to get back. But first the nightlife, the Lost City trek, the forgetting.
Shuttle back to Cartagena first thing next chance. Taxi to DAS office, immigration, a shambles in organisation. Sit in the waiting lounge, with no ticket and no identifiable queue. On occasion a man enters from a room, picks whoever has been waiting the longest, or his version of this. The Cartagena hostel assured me everyone speaks English here. Nobody speaks English. A French scuba dive instructor explains the system, and so I move chairs and this helps.
Finally into the room. The decision room, or whatever it is. Explain the above as best I can. Hand over the passport. This prompts giggles, laughter, an incredulous attitude towards me. I am returned to the waiting room without passport.
Half an hour passes, then someone who looks official beckons me over and says I have to wait an hour for David to turn up with the stamp. Find street food to kill time, small fried things, I haven't eaten all day. Sit on a step outside to gorge. A gigantic Colombian appears. ''Stephen!''. ''si'' ''David''. Shakes me hand. ''No stamp?''. I agree to this. He flicks through my passport. He confirms there is no stamp. He has not brought the stamp.
We get into his car. It is tiny and thus clown-like. A homeless guy seems to jump in too. I'm pretty sure this is something warned about in the guidebook. I try not to panic. We drive into the Cartagena slums, nearly sideswiping a motorcyclist into onrushing traffic on the way. This causes genuine laughter throughout the car.
Off the main road, onto some deserted backstreet. Wait.
A large and expensive German car swings onto the street from the other direction, pulls up next to us, rolls the window down. ''Passport?'', I hand it over. ''What date?''. ''The 27th''. The driver then wheels out the stamp, whack!, then signs the stamp. It's over. I am legal again.
The next 24 hours:
I get an overnight bus to Medellin. It's a warm night, so I get on only wearing a t-shirt, the rest of my clothes in my backpack stored in the luggage hold. The AC starts up. Frostbite inducing. I end up having to put my hands in my shoulder bag to keep them from falling off. A thin, half-crazed Colombian woman starts singing gospel songs acapella. Somehow I manage to sleep in spite of these distractions.
Smash! Sleep interrupted by the shattering of glass. Startled. 3 back windows out. It's 4 in the morning. The driver gets out, looks at the carnage, as shards of glass hang loosely around the window frames. He decides this is okay and carries on. A baby starts crying. The woman returns to her gospel singing. Every bump brings with it the sound of more falling glass. The broken windows at least curtail the AC chill, but sleep is unlikely.
A service station breakfast. I survey the damage, whilst standing in exhaust fumes for warmth. It looks horrendous, glass everywhere, the toilet exposed, the first window only two rows down from the crying baby. We apparently hit an overhanging tree branch. It gives the morning a surreal quality. I get back on the bus. We continue.
0 comments:
Post a Comment