Mompox

I laid up in lovely Taganga for another couple of days. Walking was kept to an absolute minimum, eating and drinking to a maximum. So after a day's decent diving it was with a vague limp and a heavy heart that I left Taganga, destination Mompox.

Mompox was described as being beautiful, but off the beaten track. Little did I realise that this was a slight understatement. Taganga to Santa Martha bus station was fairly easy, but took longer than expected. 10 minutes to spare before next bus, so I shovelled in a coffee and a bunuelo (Colombia doughnut) for brekkie.

My bus to Bosconia became delayed by a "couple" of hours, so by the time I arrived in sensational Bosconia my connecting bus to Mompox had departed. But this being South America it proved to be no problem as no sooner than I had left the bus some chap was shouting "El Banco" at me, I had read somewhere that this was close(ish) to Mompox. So I give him a quick nod and follow him down a road to a people carrier that was already packed with 8 people. My seat was back left, right over the rear wheel. Fantastic. I took my seat beside a nice man with a rooster in his lap. I petted the rooster and off we set, the driver switching on the radio and turning it up to 11.

2 hours later we arrived in El Banco, a sweltering town on the banks of the Magdalena River. Mompox was still 80kms away and it was already 4pm. I found a boat captain and asked him if he would take me. He didn't look too pushed and said he'd [unwillingly] take me for 20 dollars. Twilight robbery. But as luck would have it, a motorbike taxi driver (common enough in parts of Colombia) dawdles by and says he'll do it for 10 bucks. Deal.

On I jump with backpack strapped tight and we head off into the impending sunset. The road is nice, the view beautiful, the wind in my hair refreshing. I hum "born to be wild". Life is great.

But then 5km outside of El Banco, 75km to go, the lovely paved road turns into a dirt track the likes of which I haven't seen since backcountry Cambodia. Holes, bumps, rocks, streams, trees, pigs and the finest dust I have ever seen. You name it the road threw it at us. I bounced on the back of the bike like a jack in the box. After about an hour when I thought I could feel no longer we arrived at a river. I thought it was all over, but no, the driver rides onto a canoe ferry (a novel invention) and we are paddled across the river for 50 cents.

On the other side the road got worse, impossible I thought, but true. We ride on for another hour. At this stage I am so numb that I don't even notice when we enter Mompox. So after just over two hours we ride up to the only hostel in town (the lovely Casa Amarilla) and I clamber off the bike. I feel like I have been raped by an elephant. I walk into the hostel and the owner (a nice English chap) greets me incredously with "Gosh, you obviously had to take a motorbike???". He shows me a room, gives me a beer and I finally get a look in a mirror. I look like a schnitzel. I am literally caked in dust.

The trip in the end was worth it, as Mompox is lovely. Full of history (Simón Bolívar, liberator of much of Spanish South America, said "If to Caracas I owe my life, then to Mompox I owe my glory.") and people that are still shocked to see foreigners (great to have schoolkids giggle and point when they see you). It is a small town and one of the hottest places I have been to (4 showers a day), so after a day and a half it was time to head up to the highlands and get away from the heat for some weeks.