{"id":2674,"date":"2011-07-05T03:15:11","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T01:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salsawalkabout.com\/?p=327"},"modified":"2016-03-12T18:34:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T17:34:15","slug":"1-month-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielebesana.com\/blog\/life\/travels\/1-month-on-the-road","title":{"rendered":"1 month on the road: Panama and Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1stI had a terrible nightmare last night.
\nIn the dream I checked the iPod (my source of date, while my source of time is the camera) and find out that it was the 1st August instead of the 1st of July.
\nI then panicked realizing that all my concept of time was wrong, and 2\/3 of my walkabout was already gone.<\/p>\n

I woke up with the confusing feeling you get when a dream happens too close to waking time, but the iPod was on my side: 1st of July was.<\/p>\n

This remembered me of 2 things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. tomorrow is my mom\u00b4s birthday<\/li>\n
  2. I’m traveling since a month<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The first adjective that comes to my mind is intense<\/em>. This is how this month was.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    <\/h3>\n

    The WalkAbout<\/h3>\n

    \"1<\/a>Adapting to the life on the road in Panama City, visiting the amazing\u00a0Panama Canal<\/a>, dancing at the Panama Salsa Congress<\/a> and then feeling a bit down and up again on the fantastic sailing trip to Cartagena<\/a>. All in little more than 2 weeks!<\/p>\n

    From Cartagena to Santa Marta and then Taganga to start another experience that I really loved: hiking 5 days in the jungle to Ciudad Perdida<\/a> wasn’t all “roses and flowers” and I came back on a horse straight to an hospital \ud83d\ude42
    \nI stayed 3 more days recovering in Taganga, and as soon as I could walk again     I headed to Barranquilla to visit Tatiana\u00b4s Ninos en Contacto project<\/a>.
    \nI stayed 3 days in this troubled barrio <\/em>with locals experiencing \u00a8the other face\u00a8of Colombia, what tourists don’t generally see (neither want<\/em> to see).
    \nBut it would have been unfair to leave Barranquilla without experience its party, proud and happy side     so I spent the rest of the weekend there<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The perfect place to rest after such a weekend was Mompos<\/a> where I chill in this great colonial, timeless, genuine town strolling around (or better saying\u00a0limping around \ud83d\ude42<\/em>) \u00a0along the river side.<\/p>\n

    An adventurous journey took me straight back to the \u00a8gringo trail\u00a8 in Medellin, place that I\u00b4m currently walkabout<\/em>-ing \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The People<\/h3>\n

    I deliberately decided not to mix the people I meet along the way with the description of places and experiences.
    \nAs my friend\u00a0Eric would say, “I don’t care to read travel blogs where X meets Y and they go to have few beers in Z”… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    Never the less, people have been the most important element of the trip itself.<\/p>\n

    I met people traveling for years,\u00a0I met people living in hostels, I met locals, I met a bunch of f@ck#rs.<\/p>\n

    In Panama I met 2 brothers from Modena, that remembered me how Italians are: little English and no Spanish, looking for the best food at the cheapest price and inevitably complaining about something.<\/p>\n

    At the Salsa congress I met a 40+ Canadian woman living in Panama, but living for good!
    \nSelf-declared hippie, with great energy and an interesting curious life and still many unanswered questions. Talking with her was so great that we ended up having dinner in an Arabic restaurant on the Causeway.<\/p>\n

    I met Geral, an Argentinian girl talking me in Spanish too fast and too much.<\/p>\n

    On the sailing boat\u00a0I found Jesus that was giving weed-driven speeches about 2012, oneness,\u00a0contentedness and Earth chackras.<\/p>\n

    On the same boat I met\u00a0Silke, a German grandmother that you would not define sportive at all. She was cycling from Alaska down to Tierra del Fuego. A 16.000 Km journey that took her already 1.5 years.<\/p>\n

    On the boat there was also Claes, a Swedish guy on his 4th long trip (the previous one lasted 2 years) that will study to become a policemen, the dream of his life.<\/p>\n

    And in Mompos I met Greg, a French guy that tired of his life decided 4.5 years ago to start traveling. Maybe is a sign from God that he also loves Salsa music and plays congas?<\/p>\n

    Sometimes you ask for e-mail and Facebook \u00a0pretending to stay in touch with someone you spoke for 10 minutes, sometimes you just say “have a safe travel” to someone you spent a whole day with…
    \nYou meet and loose people so fast on the road<\/strong>, that you get used to share whatever moment happens with them. And you can be genuine as you have nothing to loose anyway.<\/p>\n

    Hostels in Latin America are full of Israelis in a post-army trip, Americans, Brits and all the rest. Surprisingly enough, I met only 3 Italians in the whole trip!
    \nYou can find Italians living everywhere, but not traveling anywhere.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The Salsa<\/h3>\n

    Music and dance impressed me respectively positively and negatively.
    \nSalsa music is everywhere<\/em> in Panama and in Colombia, and people know artists and songs by heart.
    \nI’ve written about the Salsa scene in     Panama City<\/a> and Cartagena <\/a>and their legendary artists Ruben Blades and Joe Arroyo.<\/p>\n

    There’s even a soap opera<\/em> on TV at the moment called “El Joe” based on the life of Joe Arroyo… can you believe it?<\/p>\n

    At the same time, Colombia has the best music and the worst dancers I’ve seen.
    \nIn the Caribbean coast people dance as simple as they can. No turns, no figures, no nothing. Just a kind of side-step movement lasting the whole song.
    \nHere in Medellin,\u00a0instead,\u00a0they dare to dance Cuban instead.<\/p>\n

    Maybe Colombians don’t need any additional move to have fun and look good? \ud83d\ude42
    \nSeriously, I can’t imagine Europeans dancing like that for more than 30 seconds without people busting in laughs…<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The money<\/h3>\n

    If you\u00b4re curious to count the money in my pocket, or to have an idea of how much money a walkabout costs, here are my figures:<\/p>\n

    Panama: 570 EUR (830 USD)<\/span><\/p>\n

    Colombia: 770 EUR (1.120 USD)<\/span><\/p>\n

    Total 1.340 EUR (1.950 USD)<\/span>, including:<\/p>\n