La Dorada to Puerto Serviez

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Trip Start May 2006 Previous
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  San Pablo, Colombia
Saturday, July 22, 2006

This morning, we found two guys willing to take us on their boat, for a price. They wanted 120 dollars to go to Puerto Boyaca, the next main town. Instead we agreed to go to Puerto Salgar, where I had heard there was a tourist boat, from a Colombian I met in Miami. While we were negotiating, two children followed us around begging and eventually I gave them a banana.

The fisherman get around in a wooden canoe with a motor attached to the back. This is what we did, about 25 feet long. First they took us up river a couple of hundred meters, then downriver a bit, and then dropped us off directly across the river at Picopiedras, Puerto Salgar´s port, though all that was there was some concrete steps leading to the river, no boats, no people. We paid them 8 bucks and felt kinda jipped, I told Fernando I should not speak next time we are negotiating, as during that, Fernando had asked my opinion on certain things and so I spoke and they asked where I was from and told them I was from Canada. They said they could not take us further down the river because it was a military zone, and at first I was in doubt, but then the thunderous roar of a fighter jet taking off, that Colombia received from America, broke the relative tranquility.

We walked along the river, among dilapidated and abandoned structures, cranes, etc. People sat in their houses watching TV or chatting and drinking. Barefoot children played soccer on the concrete street. There was a sign that a dock was being constructed, but no other physical evidence. We passed an abandoned canoe and considered testing its worthiness, but discovered a crack in the bottom. Even good canoes leak considerably, leak considerably, but will last years if taken care off. and eventually crossed a bridge over the river patrolled by military. They didn´t allow us to take photos (though we sneaked in one) and searched our bags, yet as far as I could did little surveillance of the passing traffic. As the Magdalena grows, bridges become rarer and hence more precious.
We arrived back in La Dorada and went down to the bank to a little outpost of huts, sand, mud, and fisherman, but they had no canoes for sale. When one of them saw me taking photos, he told that was forbidden since we were in a military zone, even though their neighborhood was across the river and resembled a village from the 19th century, save for the electricity.

Back at the bridge we tried hitching, since it seemed safer with the military and trucks were often stopped anyway waiting to cross the bridge. Hitching is rare, but it is not illegal. Nobody picked us up, usually claiming that they were just going to Salgar, so we flagged down a little bus for Puerto Boyaca. More cattle country, and after the turn off for Medellin, the run became bad, we eventually arrived to another bustling plaza. A 4 year old girl bounced a plastic ball on her lying down sister. She had an open wound on her barefoot that had probably had been their a while and was not healing, though it did not seem to bother her. Throughout Colombia, people sit on the side walkwith a few cellphones and sell minutes, about 10 cents per, because most people, though they have a phone do not have money to make calls, as receiving is free. In this manner, Fernando and I have made numerous calls, and Boyaca´s plaza is filled with such people, who often sell cigarettes and candy, though often they sit on the curb or a chair yelling out llamadas, llamadas. They dial and wait until someone answers and hand you the phone. Puerto Boyaca is in the Boyaca department, which I had seen many pictures of, but in the mountains where it rugged and gorgeous. Puerto Boyaca the the department´s only port on the steamy Magadalena, and for the first time we saw a series of boats, but they were tourist boats, bright green and yellow, for about 30 people, long canoes, and they went across the river and nothing more. We questioned the police and they assured us that the next village, Puerto Serviez, would have river transportation. We walked back among the streets, with horses pulling empty carts, and people pushing carts full of mandarine oranges.

Supposedly there were no taxis there, so we took one with a large crack on the windshield of the passenger side, and picked up a local woman from Serviez. She confirmed there was transport to Puerto Berrio from there, though we had just missed the last one of the day. No worry though as the village had one hotel. On the way we passed an army checkpoint and a truck with Montana license plate. We turned onto a dirt road and she lived on the outskirts in a hut consisting of two or three separate rooms. We arrived in the center of the charming town, a square with a few bars, which are really just a room with chairs and a cashier to sell beer, a couple of convenient stores, and the hotel Orion, a 4 story building, by far the largest and best kept in the village. We each got a room overlooking the square for 3 bucks. Lots of people lingered about and each bar competed with who could play the loudest Reggaeton.

The most notable thing was the port. A couple of dozen canoes, bright green, yellow red, were lined up a long the river, and along the banks, hundreds of pounds of fish were in wheelbarrows being loaded onto trucks with huge blocks of ice inside. The fish was bocachica, a medium sized silvery fish, that right now is very plentiful. They were strong together by the mouth with yarn and heaved into the truck. Finally, I felt like we had arrived at the river, a place where it plays an integral role in the lives of the people. Children frolicked in the water, climbing in and out of the canoes, as though they were a jungle gym.
We walked into a bar and found an infant sleeping on a blanket on the hard floor while music blasted. The music stopped and infant awoke and cried. The proprietor helped us arrange a fisherman to take us upriver a bit to La Pesca, a village with bars and restaurants on the water and where people swam.
In his large canoe, he took us past a concrete factory emitting fumes, and heavily protected and then the village, on the other bank in the department of Antioquia. We walked around the one horse town and then actually bathed in river, which for some reason did not feel so dirty this time, and was surprisingly refreshing. Children played and dusk descended turning the river grey and placid, but the current remained and it took some effort to not be pushed by it. For dinner, I ate two bocachica fish, served just as they were caught. La Pesca is in the same department as the industrial capital Medellin, but there relationship is comparable with New York City and Ovid, NY or Los Angeles and Weed, CA.

A little after 8, our guy picked us took in in complete darkness under clear bright heavens back to Puerto Seriviez. Fernando drove a boat for the first time in his life. It is very different gliding along the river at nighttime, especially with no lights. Since your visual sense is deprived, you notice the lapping of the water more, and you can feel the river heaving ineluctably down, down, taking everything with it. The inevitability if a very tranquil feeling, and these few minutes where I sat at the bow have been perhaps my most content.

We went to the local woman´s house, DorAlaba and met her husband, who had a lame left arm. Physical defects, particularly birth are all to common here, and not well accommodated. I had a sprained ankle for a few days and noticed how difficult it as getting around just one square block in Bogotá. We chatted with them for a bit, said he might have a boat for us. She seems to make a little money by serving food and drinks to whoever passes by, like us, though in no way does she have a formal restaurant. They have a few cute young kids. People here earn money in whatever way they can, drink beer, fish, and make babies, that is about it. Their lives are very disconnected with the rest of the country, though they have TV, and unfortunately they did not know anybody in the next town, Puerto Berrio.

We finished the night by playing Tejo, which consists of throwing a 3 lb. weight into a clay filled box that has 4 triangles, called manchas made from a substances that when you hit the triangle, explodes like a little mine. By hitting this you win, that is pretty much it.

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Puerto Serviez

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