South America,  Colombia,  Travel

santa marta

November 25, 2019 /

When I came to Santa Marta, I met (or should I say "I didn't meet"?) a sofa owner who was the most willing to help and trust the sofa guest since I used the sofa guest software last year. I originally planned to live in a youth hostel, but the sofa owner took the initiative to contact me on the day I came to this city, saying that the apartment where he lived with his wife and daughter could accommodate me. Although they went to the seaside for vacation, his neighbor can give me the key to their house and let me live in it. The only thing that needs my help is to help them feed the cats and clean up the cat litter, and I will be the shit shoveling officer again. Before I came, the owner of the sofa sent me super detailed information on how to get from the long-distance station to his home, how to tell the community guards to let me in, and recommended the hiking routes and specific prices for me to go to the surrounding national parks. Last night he also contacted his neighbor who drove a taxi to take me to the bus station this morning for free to the surrounding national parks. I wanted to give money to his neighbor and he said nothing. He was quite interested in China along the way, but I had to clarify with him that not all Chinese people eat dog meat.

As soon as I entered his house and put down my luggage, his three kittens rubbed against my bag, not afraid of strangers at all. The community where his family is located is very friendly. All the houses basically open the doors and windows to ventilate at night, otherwise it will be too hot. It reminds me of the community in summer in Beijing when I was a child. The owner of the sofa also told me that the tap water in this city cannot be used directly, and I have to buy bags to fill the water. A 5-liter bag of water costs only 30 cents. In the big cities, a 500-milliliter bottle of water used to cost twice that.

I'm not the first couch-surfer they've "hosted" when they're not home. I'm still amazed at how he and his family built trust in strangers they'd never met. Ever since I started hosting couch-surfers at my apartment in Northern California last month, I don't think I've gotten to the point where I'd be handing over the keys to a complete stranger while I wasn't there. In any case, I hope that people in the world will have more trust in each other. Trust can only be established by giving to each other.

On the second day's Minca day trip, I met a French kid while we were waiting for the minibus to go to Minca in the city center, which once again proved the fact that the French don't bother to learn English, and English is relatively poor. He would rather communicate with me in Spanish than English, and his Spanish is indeed much better than English. This little classmate is an exchange student studying in Bogotá, and he just came here in August for almost a semester. The two of us spent a long time hiking together to a famous waterfall in Minca, and found that it was occupied by the locals as a bathhouse from a distance, so we hurried back without joining in the fun. At noon, I was tired, hungry and sleepy. After eating a big bowl of Colombian fried rice, I was even more sleepy. After taking a nap, I was still super tired. After saying goodbye to the French children, I decided to hire a motorcycle driver to take me to another place. This is a very wise decision. It takes two hours to drive a motorcycle around the mountain road, and the road is extremely slippery and difficult to walk.

The most interesting thing along the way was seeing the largest hammock in the world. This hammock is actually in an online celebrity youth hostel (Casa Elemento). It looks cool and comfortable from the photos, but it is still a painful process to climb to the middle with socks on, especially on the feet.

When the motorcycle took me to the foot of the mountain, I passed the German girl I met almost a week ago while climbing the boulder in Guatapé. I remembered her name as fast as I could and called out, but the motorcycle had already started. It was 50 meters away, but fortunately she heard it, I really don't know it will be the year of the monkey when I see you next time.

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