‘This is a story of a trip with a group of friends in the north region of Colombia, the trip started in Santa Marta and finished in el Cabo de la vela. The story is told in 7 parts, this is Part 2 of the story, you can read part 1 here.
North of Santa Marta, on the way towards the city of Rioacha is a small coastal town known as Boca de Camarones. The walk from the main road to this small town is a few kilometers long, which seems like just a small distance but the 30° heat, a couple of heavy backpacks and a near death experience while hitchhiking up there from Palomino is enough to make it feel like an eternity.
Photo by AMR
Arriving close to sundown to a place where in between rum shots and vallenatos the locals managed to direct us to a place where you can take a small boat across the cienaga, a marsh or swamp like body of water which in spite of being shallow enough to walk across, is so full crabs and other spiky crustaceans, that doing so would result on feet injuries no one wanted to have to handle in the middle of the desert.
Once the 500 pesos were paid to the man on the raft, he took us to the Natural Park and bird sanctuary known as El parque de los flamencos. The scene was to die for, the sun was setting on the water making it look all shades of orange and the birds music and the breeze made for the perfect backdrop to a Colombian adventure.
We had spoken before getting there with the head park ranger, who set up for us a place to sleep, consisting of four pillars and a makeshift roof out of plantain leaves, right at the edge of the water. There, our hamacas and mosquito nets gave us a room with a view that no 5 star hotel could’ve matched. We were given some instructions about the park, and what you could and could not do there (do take a guided hike through the area and climb up the birdwatching towers, don’t leave any trash behind, or hurt the local animals and plants) we learned that there is a Wayuu community settled and living inside the boundaries of the park and that this is very uncommon in Colombia, we learned that the park gets its name from the many flamingos that migrated there long time go and never left again. Apparently all the crustaceans in the cienaga make for very pink and very plump flamingos who are happy to stay put.
Photo by AMR
We also learned of the ongoing conflict with the inhabitants of the town across the water who, like in many other small towns in the region, want to celebrate their weekends and town festivities with loud music and parties, and how their large stereos and sound systems (some would put the sound system at a KISS concert to shame) actively damage and contaminate the ecosystem in which so many species of birds live and thrive, making it one of the main reasons why the animals are leaving. And sure enough that night we all felt like leaving when we heard and felt the bass shaking the whole place up.
Photo by AMR
Next morning we woke up very early and took the canoes to where the flamingos hang out. We got to see them from a distance, without disturbing them and watch them have crab for breakfast. Afterwards we joined the park ranger in the turtle incubator where they have several species in various stages of growth that will be released in the sea when they are big enough to fend for themselves. Once again we were saddened by hearing the stories of turtle killing for their shells and for food, even the endangered species. We even got the unpleasant surprise of a dead turtle being found at the beach, a 90 year old beautiful endangered animal, killed for no good reason.
Photo by CU
The food and the sights and the place were magical and made for a great trip, but it left me and my travel companions with a bittersweet feeling at the end of the day, thinking about everything that we have in there that is not being properly valued.
Photo by ST
End of part 4, you can read part 5 here.