Stop 34: Riohacha and Guajira tour

We sort of hitch hiked a bus to Riohacha. We were successful in sticking to the price the hostel owner mentioned, that felt quite good. The bus guy was trying to sell for 20k, but we sticked to the 15k.

Riohacha feels not touristic at all. In the streets, nobody wants to sell you anything and everybody just minds their own business. The houses were not too shabby and the streets not too messed up. Mango trees grow everywhere and occasionally, you find some mangos on the streets too. (Homeless guys pick mangos to eat as well)=

At the hostel, which used to be a very nice villa, we met Kate and Max. Kate, who is majoring in psychology, is doing her year abroad with half a year teaching English at Galapagos, and half a year volunteering in Bogota to help local women stepping out of the Gang business. Max is her boyfriend and they are travelling together. We seem to be able to have conversations easily about sort of anything and cooked dinner together as well (Wout had a recipe for some pasta with white wine). The rooftop of the terrace is particularly nice where you can enjoy the wind, play some music and have a nice cold beer. The wind in riohacha is in general very strong and staying inside did not feel too hot at all. This was also the reason why it is a good kite surfing spot.

We got lucky with our Guajira tour. The one we initially wanted to book was not able to provide us with free spots but the hostel was able to organize us another one just the day before. (Kate and Max was on that company tour actually, but in the end they were 6 in one 4×4 and the dutch people got pissed since they were not anticipating other people in their van and had a huge complaint with the company in front of Kate and Max).

Our guide, Vikor, is from Venezuela. He escaped 7 years ago and tries to maintain his life here. On the tour, we got to know more about the fucked up situation in Venezuela. Somethings worth 5 pesos 7 years ago, costs today 5 millions. This is how bad the hyper inflation is. Almost all his friends have left the country. One of them works in Siemens, and he is going to visit them later this year.

Along with us there were 2 more young guys. Alejandro is from Bogotá and is travelling with his German buddy Jan (I can’t recall his name though, that was how close we got). These 2 met each other close to Cologne, where Alejandra studied for a year. He went to a German school in Bogota and the last year is in Germany. He was staying with a host family but was not happy with it. And then he met Jan and got acquainted. To be honest, Alejandra sounded like a Turkish guy when he spoke German, that was quite funny. Both of them are quite young, who are 20 and 21. But Alejandra seemed to pursue his interests (designing backpacks) and seemed to be interested in politics as well.

The second day at Cabo de la vela, Viktor also picked up 2 chicks from Cali to travel with us. I think they worked in the real estate business and they mostly had conversations with Alejandro in Spanish, Wout was able to understand many things but I was struggling. The other night they were teaching us Salsa and puh, did I suck.

One particular interesting point was listening to Alejandro to explain things to the 2 Cali chicks. Even though I did not understand everything, it felt calm and the explanation was step by step so that they understood his point of view (I am not necessarily saying that I always agree with what he says). It is a pity that I was not able to follow step by step.

The last lunch we had, Viktor, Alejandro and Jan were messing around. I think the main starting point was that Jan wanted to prove that he is a cool guy. Then Alejandro mentioned that people call him the machine back at home. They messaged a good friend of Jan and wanted to confirm that via facetime. After seeing some pictures (which I did not want and ask to see), viktor was nodding his head.

Some pictures again to finish:

Copa de la vela