Afro Caribbean soul, far and neglected spirit, that let seduce itself just beyond the border of the world. In the land of no one, where every man is owner of his life… the land strip that extends from Cartagena towards Playa Blanca and Islas del Rosario, is a dusty fireside of underbrushes and doggone lives, where the whole population it’s of African origin and survives of expedients in the extreme heat. The travelers who cross this border without law get transformed in victims and guilty of a cruel system, money and power. “When you left to us this desert of skeletal cows and foul ponds”. Then, the dancing girls appear from the powder, a frenetic and echoing African rhythm, a cumbia or makulele, a skillful and enchanting dance, mockingly put up in front of a cartel saying: “Don’t give money to the dancing girls who charm the tourists”.
Cartagena
Barranquilla is a chaotic industrial port, famous in Colombia as the center of the craziest carnival of the country. A short travel takes us to Cartagena de Indias, one of the most beautiful historical cities of America… actually the old town, enclosed in the Spanish walls, is an open sky museum: the characteristic wooden balconies run out on the narrow streets, richly adorned by colourful bougainvillea. But just outside the walls, it emerges the melancholic and forgotten soul of the seaport cities, especially the Caribbean ones. Lodged in the prophetically biblical quarter of Getsemani, we perceive the feeling of living an underground world, surely neglectful, but equally authentic. Here the black spirit voices its suffocated complain…
Parque nacional Tayrona
From the entrance, a short trip by bicycle leads us to the beach of Cañaveral, along a road dipped in the jungle. Finally we are in the Parque nacional Tayrona, a natural reservoir unique for beauty, pure example of uncontaminated Caribbean coast. The first contact with the Atlantic ocean is impressive indeed: a lonely sand strip, delimited by smooth rocks and coconut palms. The tropical paradise, therefore… a long walk leads us to Arrecifes, every step a surprise, until we newly hear the waves breaking up on the coast: before our eyes another wonderful inlet, designed by a turquoise and crystalline sea. We abandon ourselves to the beauty of the landscape, impressed by such a wild ecosystem. We think about the legitimate inhabitants of this region, the indigenous people of the Tayrona, the first civilization met by the Europeans in the South American continent. From them just remain the wonderful looks of some girls who work in the park and the characteristic huts made in stone and wood, with palm leaves roofs. People perfectly adapted to an impressive nature: the open and uncontrollable sea, the peaks steep and covered by the jungle, and the covered by snow summits of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Between these mountains flowered their culture of skillful gold craftsmen, whose most meaningful expression was the Ciudad Perdida, a Tayrona pueblo forgotten and rediscovered in the 70’s.