Pamplona, Girón, Mompós

We are moving north, really we are! There is doubt abroad that we will ever get back but we are heading that way.

From Cocuy we landed in Pamplona, a pleasant little colonial town with a university and at least one good laundromat. Clean clothes make such a difference, though a fleeting one. Our hostal was on the main plaza and next door to the Museo de Arte Moderno, founded on a donation of 40 works by native son Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar (of the pieces photographed below, all but the dog by Margarita Lozano are Villamizar's).













From Pamplona we got a bus to Bucaramanga, a major city in mid-Colombia. From there we signed on for an overnight bus to El Banco, and then caught a city bus to Girón, another colonial town of white walls and red tile roofs. In Girón I had strawberry juice and roast goat for lunch and we wandered the cobblestone streets.






In Bucaramanga we hit our first tropical heat and that night we jounced in a severely air-conditioned bus up to El Banco. We arrived at 5am and spent an hour drinking tiny cups of tinto, sweet black coffee, sitting on the curb in the midst of a swarm of hopeful cab drivers. Eventually a bistro across the street opened and we got outside some eggs and more coffee before consigning ourselves to a vehicle for the drive to Mompós. We naturally selected the camioneta that would require a push-start by its riders every 20 minutes and got on with a couple more hours of jouncing.

In Mompós we stayed at the Casa Amarilla, on the lazy Magdalena River. The town is reported by some to have been the setting of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a book I recently translated in hopes of learning more Spanish vocabulary. I couldn't quite work out the book's geography on the ground but can confirm there were no murderous twins lurking in the plazas.

At our hostel we met the lovely Patricia and Daniel from Barcelona, starting in reverse much the same route we are just finishing. We also met Brian and Sky, two norteamericanos working on a travel article about the river, and went out with them on a boat tour. The profusion of birds was breathtaking (I especially enjoyed the kingfishers) and we saw many iguanas lounging on the banks and ruddy monkeys in far-off treetops.




















From Mompós we decided to head to Cartagena and the Caribbean coast. We are heartwrenchingly close to leaving South America altogether.