November 19, 2024

Cartagena -> Baranquilla -> Santa Marta

Blue lights shine on blue seats and blue floors.

Blue curtains surround us, draped over windows.

Blue bars hang from blue ceilings to create shelves for baggage.

Up front, two blue dice dangle from a rearview mirror framed in blue lace with blue tassels hanging down.

Some people, including myself, happen to be wearing blue.

Accidentally, we fit right in.

This is the second bus we’ve boarded in the past 6 hours, and we still have one more to go. We began this journey at noon and, now, with night setting in, we’re still on the road. Soft conversations surround us and a baby cries in the row in front of me. Every thirty minutes or so, we stop, and more people board our blue bus, settling quickly into empty seats. Whenever we reach a standstill due to traffic or a bus-stop, vendors, always men, board and walk the aisle offering cold water, Coca-Cola, arepas, to those still awake. Bus passengers pay them no mind, hardly even acknowledging their presence.

When we started this journey around noon, our first bus took us from Cartagena to Barranquilla and everyone in the rows around us wore the same yellow jersey. We would come to find out soon that there was an important futbol match tonight, Colombia v. Ecuador, a World Cup Qualifier. Upon our arrival in Barranquilla, we drove into a crowd of tens of thousands of yellow jerseys, worn, sold – a sea of yellow in support of Colombia. It was here, in Barranquilla, that the futbol match was to be held, and we happened to drive right by the stadium. The streets hummed with energy and anticipation, and when we came to the Barranquilla bus stop, everyone on our bus disembarked to attend the game, leaving only me and Jamie on board.

This having been our first bus ride in Colombia, we weren’t sure whether to stay on or disembark. We remained in our seats as the bus continued moving after the stop at the stadium. We kept our wits about us and stayed on high alert as we suddenly realized it was only us and the driver on board. Soon after passing the stadium, our driver instructed us to disembark. We gathered our things, and made our way out of the bus onto the side of the road in Barranquilla. After exiting, a man in a logo-ed shirt who worked for the bus company told us to board another bus parked beside ours. I asked him about our large backpacks that had been stored in the luggage compartment of our first bus. He opened the luggage compartment in the second bus to show us that they had already been moved over.

We were a little hesitant, navigating public transportation in a foreign country for the first time is always a challenge, especially with a language barrier. We weren’t completely certain why we were changing buses, but we boarded the new bus anyways. Upon entering the second bus, we noticed that all the curtains were drawn over the windows and the lights were off. It was dark inside, and the only other people on board were four older women sitting near the front. Jamie and I chose our seats thoughtfully – the exit row. In a country where male presence dominates in the public sphere, it was odd to us that suddenly we were on a bus of only women.

We opened the curtains around us to let light in and get a bearing of our surroundings. Between Jamie and I, our Spanish is good enough to get by, but there are always some gaps we can’t fill. Feeling slightly nervous about having just switched buses without total clarity of what was going on, I approached the women in the front of the bus and asked where they were going. They smiled warmly at my questions and said they were headed to Santa Marta – same as us. Our nerves at ease, we settled in.

Before long, our blue bus filled with families, the elderly, the young. Soon, everyone had settled in for the journey ahead, each of our lives leading us to this shared moment in time. Jamie and I were the only foreigners on board, a circumstance not unusual for us. You tend to stand out a bit when you’re the only foreigners. And people stare. I mean really stare, unashamedly looking into your face, taking you all in. Most of the time, they don’t care if you look back at them, it’s not like in the U.S where a returned look would cause them to avert their gaze. Their faces typically say: what are you doing here? We just smile back at them, and almost every time, looks of confusion and bewilderment become ones of warmth and welcoming.

About an hour and a half into the journey, we hit traffic, and for the next two hours, we sat still on the causeway that connected Santa Marta to everything behind us. Something must have happened up ahead because we were at a complete standstill and I didn’t see any cars in the other lane. Inside the bus, we all practiced patience. I used this time to write a list of everything I noticed:

1. Someone from our bus gives a man a spare tire. He rolls it down the road until I can’t see him anymore.
2. A man two rows ahead of me gets a call from his wife, Mi Espoza, his two young children sleep beside him, in the row all three of them share.
3. Across the street, a father and his son stand on the side of the road with their luggage, two suitcases and a backpack, they stick their thumbs out hoping for a ride. Within minutes, a gray SUV picks them up.
4. A vendor in a yellow jersey with a styrofoam cooler tied around his neck boards our bus and walks the aisle. “Cervezas! Agua! Agua Frescas!” he repeats as he makes his way down the aisle. No one buys anything.

After an hour, traffic began to move in the other direction, but not ours. Most passengers passed the time by scrolling through their phones, creating a symphony of TikTok videos and Instagram reels around me – no one noise lasting longer than a few seconds. Those not on their phones poked their heads into the aisle, craning their necks to stare through the front window, hoping to see some sign of movement in the endless line of cars. Hopefully soon, we thought in unison in different languages. I joined the various other heads in the aisle to peer out the front window when I noticed something odd: a babydoll taped in the center of the front window, facing the passengers. What a strange blue bus we’ve found ourselves on.

Finally, after two hours of standstill traffic, we started moving again – everyone was grateful for the forward motion. But, our progress didn’t last long. Within ten minutes, the luggage compartment opened as we were driving. Someone on the bus noticed and started yelling for the driver to stop. Soon, the entire bus erupted into a clamor of chaos. People pressed their faces against windows and watched in horror as their bags tumbled out of the bus and onto the road. As quickly as he could, the driver came to a stop near a gas station. Everyone rushed out of the bus and ran along the side of the road to retrieve their run-away bags. Jamie and I got lucky, ours were the only two bags that didn’t fall out.

Along with everyone else, we carried our larger bags inside the blue bus with us. Fool me once. It seemed as though everyone found their belongings except for one woman. She was devastated. As we filed back into the bus, she remained outside stomping and screaming at the driver. Her whole livelihood must have been in that bag – now nowhere to be found. From inside the bus, we watched traffic pass us by as the woman outside worked through her anger and frustration. Again, we practiced patience, and compassion.

As we sat there, Jamie noticed something odd. A man across the street stood on the shoulder of the road facing traffic. He wore long, jean shorts and a t-shirt and there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about him, except for the fact that at the end of his fully extended right arm was a raw fish. He he held it by its head and waved its body and tail back and forth, back and forth, its scales catching light from passing cars. We were in the fisherman’s villages just outside of Santa Marta, and this man had fish to sell. He didn’t have anything with him – no cooler, no stand, nothing to store his fish in. We wondered where all his fish were and laughed at the strangeness of it all. We drove off before he had any customers.

Jamie and I watched on our map as we quickly approached Santa Marta. Once we reached the outskirts of the city, our bus came to a stop. All other passengers disembarked, and Jamie and I, not knowing what was going on, were the last two people on the bus yet again. I made my way to the front to ask the driver if we should disembark. Somewhat surprised we were still on the bus, he told us hurriedly to get off, and pointed to a much smaller bus parked just in front of us. I watched as passengers from our bus boarded the smaller one. I rushed back to our seats, told Jamie what the driver had told me, and together we gathered our things as quickly as we could. Bags draped off of our bodies like pack mules, we popped out of the bus and onto the road. A man standing near the smaller bus yelled to us “Corre! Corre!” Run! Run! and run we did! Bags bounced around us like crazy as we sprinted towards the smaller bus. As we ran, the bus began moving forward – it was departing without us. We ran faster. The man who yelled “Corre!” yelled at the bus driver to stop. We kept running. The driver did not stop, but he did slow down. The bus was moving when I boarded with Jamie right behind me. A frantic mess of girls and bags, we had boarded our final bus. Almost there!

This bus was much smaller than the prior two we had been on, and there wasn’t enough room for our larger bags in the back, where the last two open seats were. A man near the door kindly offered to watch our bags for us and we thanked him before squeezing down the aisle into our seats. In the chaos of switching buses and running, Jamie’s shoelace came untied. An older woman noticed and leaned into the aisle to tie Jamie’s shoelace for her. We both smiled at her simple act of kindness and Jamie said thank you. As the bus chugged along, we continued making small talk with those sitting around us. They all laughed at our crazy, half-Spanish, half-charades, way of communicating. We laughed with them.

We stayed on the smaller bus for about ten minutes before it was time to disembark. This time, we followed suite with everyone. and prepared for the stop ahead of time – we’re learning. This bus doesn’t stop for long, we certainly know that. As soon as we approached the bus stop, people started jumping out onto the road before the bus stopped. We got our large bags from the front of the bus, said thank you to the man that watched them, said thank you to the driver, and again, found ourselves draped in baggage on the side of the road in Colombia.

We carried our baggage to the waiting area along with other passengers. Here, a man with a food cart stood made food and sold snacks. Several men on motorbikes hovered around, some eating food, others making conversation amongst each other. The woman who tied Jamie’s shoe accompanied us to this waiting area. Apart from me, Jamie, and the woman that tied Jamie’s shoe, there are only two other women at the bus stop. They must be family members of the food cart man as they sit comfortably in chairs behind the vendor, totally engrossed in their phones.

As two young, female, Western travelers, Jamie and I attract a lot of attention, especially in moments like these when we find ourselves far off the beaten path. Some people approach us wanting to practice English, some are curious about where we’re from, where we’re going, and what we think of their country, some see our foreign faces and large backpacks and immediately try to sell us things at high prices – and I’m sure that even when we bargain, we pay more than we should. Most of the time, all of this is harmless. And thanks to an abundance of experience across eleven countries together, Jamie and I know how to navigate these interactions.

But tonight, I am grateful, because the woman who tied Jamie’s shoe stays with us and we don’t have to deal with any unwanted attention. With a local woman standing at our side, a grandmother no less, the men from the bus-stop pay us no mind.

We hold simple conversation, talking about how fruits in Colombia are much better than fruits in the United States. She tells us about her family and that she has two daughters that live in New York now with families of their own. This will be her youngest grandchild’s first Christmas. She tells us that she visits when she can, but traveling to the United States is expensive and its hard to see her family often.

She stands there on the side of the road with us, and for fifteen minutes we learn about each other. Amongst a pile of our own baggage, under a bridge, just outside of Santa Marta, we talk and laugh together. She speaks slow so we can understand, and we speak ten times slower. Neither Jamie nor I have studied Spanish since high school and most of what we say comes out funny, but we manage to get the message across. The woman who tied Jamie’s shoe is kind, and the conversation remains lively until our ride arrives.

When it’s time to go, we load our bags onto our backs and part ways with smiles and waves. “Con amor!” Jamie and I shout as we walk to our car. We load our bags into our car and drive off. As we make our way into Santa Marta, I poke my head out of the window searching for the lady who tied Jamie’s shoe, I want to wave one last time as we drive away, but she’s already gone.