Cock fights, Surfing and...the end? of Colombia

After getting back to Santa Marta, Denise went to a yoga retreat in Tayrona for 3 days, ZeeCee went to a little ecolodge with an Australian girl Wattle that we met in Minca and I stayed in Santa Marta to contemplate my existence. After debating for days on what to do, I finally decided to go with the girls on one last trip to a beach a little further north east of Tayrona to surf...but not before I saw a Colombian tradition; the cock fight. Jack, an Australian guy that ZeeCee met was renting an apartment in Santa Marta and taking spanish lessons from an old Colombian guy named Roberto who promised to take him to a cock fight. I have issues with these sorts of things..but not so much that I won't go to one to see what it's actually like.

Roberto, Jack, me and ZeeCee got into a cab which dropped us off at the first cockfighting ring. I say first because after staying there for an hour drinking and not seeing a single rooster enter the joint, the owner told us to follow him to another ring where there was definitely something happening. We hopped into the back of a truck with 6 colombians and a guy holding his poor rooster that was most likely headed to its doom since it had never fought before. 5 minutes after leaving, we suddenly stopped and were informed that we couldn't get by the police as we were (it's illegal to ride standing up in the back of a pickup truck thru the city center holding a rooster as it turns out) The guy with the rooster tucks it under his shirt and bolts across the street as the rest of us crouch in the bed like immigrants while the truck goes the rest of the way to the barrio where the cock ring was. When we got there, we realized how out of our environment we were. The "ring" is a decrepit building in the middle of this straight up poor Colombian barrio. Entering revealed a refrigerator for beer, cages for holding the next -up rooster gladiators and a crowd of people gathered under a TV watching what looked like cock fight highlights. Literally, they have videos of this. Luckily, there were none for purchase because I might have bought one as a souvenir. The owners gather in the middle of the ring holding their roosters up to eachother, they do a quick pecking of eachother and then go back to their corners. The bell rings and the roosters lunge at eachother. A cock fight usually consists of pecking, feathers flying around and people yelling. Out of nowhere, the first fight ended and I was told that the losing rooster got a talon thru the lung and was done for (they outfit the back toe on the roosters with a tortoise shell spike which is used for kill shots apparently) The loser was put into his cage and we watched as he slowly crumpled into the corner. It was like re-watching that scene in Bambi where his mom dies...but 1,000 times worse. Eventually, there were either no roosters left alive or people willing to bet so everyone just ended up filing out. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly relieved.

The next day we left to surf. Costeño Beach is a little plot of land on the beach that two Canadian brothers bought and turned into a surfing refuge. The Caribbean, in general, is not really known for having good waves. Luckily, I'm not known for being a good surfer so it was fine. After an hour drive on a bus out of Santa Marta Me, ZeeCee, Jack, Wattle and her boyfriend Jasper got to the beach. The next few days were lazily spent in hammocks and in the water trying to learn how to surf. It was pretty much an abysmal failure but I'll have enough bruises and salt water enemas to keep me satisfied on surfing for a bit.

After going back and forth about what options were best after surfing (we wanted to go to Punta Gallinas in the northern most part of Colombia), Denise lost her wallet with everything in it thus pretty much deciding that going BACK to Cartagena was the best and only option since it was the place we all needed to leave from. Denise for Medellin and me for Panama.

Now Panama is a tricky pickle because of the Darien Gap. The Darien Gap is essentially the bit of land between Colombia and Panama and, effectively, the border between South and Central America. It's a boggy forested area that neither government has built a road thru for several reasons, most of which being the engineering nightmare it would be and the fact that it's protected land. Because of this, you have to take a boat around this patch of land or a plane over it if you want to get to Panama. There are several boats you can charter which do tours of the San Blas islands which are apparently amazing but I don't want to pay the extra money. A flight is also too expensive directly from Cartagena so I guess I'm doing the cheaper overland route. This involves me waking up tomorrow, taking buses for 10 hours to a town called Turbo, staying there a night, taking a boat to another town called Capurgana, staying there a night, then taking a boat to Puerto Obaldia (the first actual town in Panama) and taking a short flight from there to Panama City. I know it'll be a nightmare before even leaving...which means it'll be even worse in reality. Here's to not getting kidnapped by FARC.