As I was sitting on the back of a motor bike, with one arm holding on to the bike and with the other arm clutching the helmet, I realized something: I am relaxed, even in this situation. I have spent the last 2 days waaaaay out of my comfort zone, up to a point where this happened. What the hell does comfort zone even mean?
Let me start from the beginning. You might be thinking, travel by itself is outside of your comfort zone. Of course it is. But, I have been traveling for 3 weeks now, so certain things are not as daunting anymore than they used to be in the beginning. I can walk up to someone and start a conversation. I can use any bathroom, even if the door barely closes, and it‘s already normal for me to not throw the paper into the toilet. I can walk a strange city by myself and have conversations in Spanish without feeling overly stupid if I don‘t understand everything or don‘t know a word.
At the start of my trip, all of this was fairly strange. Now, it‘s normal. I think this is what comfort zone means - everything that feels normal, put in a pot, stir it once or twice - that‘s it. Once you reach the maximum fill line, everything above it might be slightly outside of your comfort zone - where you‘re a bit afraid that it might spill if you stir too much.
It‘s a strange pot though, because if you manage to get closer and closer to the top, the pot grows. And it keeps growing, the more you add. However, as soon as you start living a „normal“ life again, without taking risks and pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, day after day, it shrinks - rapidly. Let‘s view it as the magic pot of comfort zone, maybe.
You might think now how all of this translates to the beginning of the story, what happened that I can sit on a motorbike, almost fall off and still not even think about the fact that this may not be quite normal. I‘ll tell you.
I told you about Medellín, about it‘s history. After that, I flew to Cartagena - which is a nice city, but there‘s a lot going on and it‘s so freaking hot and humid. Initially, I wanted to spend Christmas in Cartagena, but I changed my plans - just as I was about to type in the details of my new booking for Christmas, which I still wasn‘t quite happy with, a friend I made in the previous hostel. She told me she‘s going to a secluded beach and I could join her. So, I ditched my new plans again, booked a hostel in the same area and off we went.
I ended up in a place where at 4 pm there was already a party going on. How strange, this isn‘t what I expected. My friend‘s place was a lot calmer, so we had a lovely dinner there and then went back to my accommodation for a beer. We ended up partying with a bunch of Latinos until 1 in the morning, dancing Merengue and drinking aguardiente (which is very typical for Colombia, some sort of anis rum or whatever, it‘s horrible if you ask me).
Am nächsten Tag ruhte ich mich gut aus, las mein Buch in der Hängematte am Strand, und ging früh zu Bett. Der Tag darauf würde anstrengend werden: Ich hatte was Besonderes vor.
First, I needed to get a moto taxi to the entrance of Tayrona National Park. It took about 20 minutes, cost me a bit over 3€. The driver even brought a second helmet - that was so big I needed to hold it. The visor was missing, so I had to hope that nothing would get in my eyes and just do my best to breathe in the strong wind.
I had breakfast at the entrance and by chance, more or less, met my friend again. We started walking through the jungle, almost immediately saw some monkeys and a few things that looked like big rats, marvelled at all the plants that we killed as house plants, and tried to get past the lines of tourists. You should know that I am highly terrified of anything that moves fast and not in a straight line - lizzards, moths, whatever - basically everything there is in the jungle. And snakes, of course, I can‘t even watch snakes on TV. Guess where they like to be?
We walked along beaches that were filled with people, and others that weren‘t - because over 100 people have been killed in the strong currents and you really shouldn‘t swim there. We found a somewhat quiet spot in a nice lagoon away from the strong currents, and in we went - after somehow wiggling our bodies out of our drenched clothes and into swimwear without flashing half of South America. If you know me, you know that swimming in the ocean is not within my comfort zone.
Some time during the day I saw that one of my mosquito bites had something like a blister on it. I showed it to my friend, popped the blister, grossed out that it wouldn‘t stop watering, and we laughed about the thought of something perhaps growing in there. We don‘t know what this was, exactly, I don‘t personally think something‘s growing there - but it surely is strange. I used to be, by the way, really afraid of the mosquitoes here.
We got super hungry and sunset was approaching fast, so we walked to our accommodation. I showered, put on the exact same clothes as I wore before my shower, including the socks, and walked to the restaurant. You know what they had on the vegetarian menu? Cesar Salad with chicken. I decided to go with the fried vegetable rice since I wasn‘t sure that Colombian‘s really manage to grow chicken‘s on trees. For desert I ordered something that was translated to „cheese with hot caramel“. I thought it would be some sort of cheese cake. Well, it was a few pieces of Gouda cheese, half melted, with caramel in between and a cherry on top. I will not order this again.
Exhausted as we were, we decided to go to bed - well, to the hammock. I slept in a hammock, with a roof over my head and nothing but nature (and a mosquito net) around me. At first I loved it, I fell asleep really fast listening to the noises of the jungle and the waves crashing against the shore. I woke up around 1, freezing, not knowing what I could do to get warm because I didn‘t bring any layers and my towel was wet. I stretched out in my hammock and tried to close myself in like a cocoon, but it didn‘t do much. I woke up again and again, not being able to sleep anymore, really. At 5.30 am, I could hear people get up, and so did my friend and I. We walked through the jungle in the dark for a few minutes to get to the closest beach, and watch a (not very spectacular) sunrise. There was barely anybody else on that beach. It was awesome.
After breakfast we walked back to the main hub, saw that the beach that was so crowded yesterday afternoon was almost empty, and hopped straight into the water. Then, we parted ways. I would need to go back while my friend would stay another night. I didn‘t really fancy walking all the way back to the entrance, the same way as I came, so I took a horse. It was around time to get back on horseback, anyways.
It was me, another girl, and a guide. We started walking, and soon trotted and gallopped through the jungle. Until we no longer could. I thought the horses must surely have their own paths, because some of the parts were hard even on foot: There were slippery rocks that you would have to maneuver around or over, and some parts were so narrow a horse would never fit. Well, I thought wrong. We went exactly the same way.
Honestly, I was terrified. I kept thinking about all the people that ride horses here for the first time ever. No fucking way. The horses were really sure footed and secure, but still. The kept slipping and sliding, tripping and almost-falling. The guide seemed pretty stressed and constantly told them to go faster. There was some suuuuper steep bits, up and down, I had no idea a horse could do that, especially not with me on their backs. Well, they can. I was shocked, I still am. There were many situations where I couldn‘t help but let out a little scream, thinking that was it, or simply not knowing what to do. I trusted the horse, it seemed to know perfectly well what it was doing, and tried to be as little burden as possible, to move as one with the horse.
Once we finally made it, the girl and I looked at each other, both obviously shocked. She asked me if I wanted to walk back to the entrance with her or if I would rather take a shuttle. I said I‘d be fine to walk, so we did. She only spoke Spanish. So, I had to reactivate my brain and try my best to understand and give some sort of answer. As we kept walking, I noticed that the conversation took a turn and was pretty even now - I found myself speaking almost as much as she did. I asked her questions, agreed with her opinion, and told her about what I like about Colombia and what makes it different to Austria or Europe in general. She was a geographer, so we had plenty to talk about, and she told me a lot about colombian geography, indigenous tribes and history.
I was wet to the bone, with sweat. 30 degrees and 85% humidity or more make you feel like you‘re melting. I didn‘t care - I got on the bus, which was filled to the brim so I got back off, asked the lady at the closest shop about where I could catch a moto taxi, waited patiently as the guy outside the shop started screaming something in rapid Colombian slang I had no idea what it went, thanked the lady as she told me that the guy just called me a taxi, and got on the motorbike behind a guy I have never seen before and that I didn‘t even know was an actual taxi driver. Again, I needed one hand to hold on the the helmet, as we drove 120 km/h along the main road. As we turned onto the dirt road to my hostel, I needed both hands to hold on to the bike. I answered the security guy at the entrance who I was - in Spanish, of course - then got off the bike and walked into my new hostel like I‘ve never done anything else. Like a queen. No, you know what? Like a bichota - my new favourite Colombian word. It means something like „girl boss“, with the most famous example probably being Karol G.
I will now go and enjoy the last few hourse here on the beach, by myself, perhaps have a cocktail or two by the pool - and I will catch up to you probably in a week or so, I have something else, something even bigger, coming up. Stay tuned!
