Our Peace Corps Response group had a last breakfast on Saturday morning and one by one piled into taxis with our bags and our counterparts. I got a small,rattly little taxi, but it all fit. The driver had me completely confused as he ducked and weaved around toll booths. At one point we went through a dirt parking lot and a small gate and back onto the highway. I thought something had gone terribly wrong, but my counterpart was unphased. The bus station is well out of the center of town and operated very efficiently with orderly lines for ticket sales, buses backing into number docks and the better buses leavng as scheduled.

Our bus route traveled east, with a long a slow exit from the ever sprawling metropolis of Barranquilla. Arriving at the bridge over Rio Magdalena the road opened up in to a modern two laned highway with wide shoulders. Continuing east the highway travels close to the shore with sandy beaches and moderate surf. At times the beach has eroded and the ocean begining to undermine the highway embankments. Most of the trip east there were no houses, but Atlantic ocean on the left (north) and variations of swamps and vacant land on the right. This area is known as the Cienega Grande de Santa Marta (or Great Swamp). A few towns have emerged along the highway, some of them appear to be thown together, impoverished and hovering over the swamp. The road divides in the town of Cienega, with an east bound highway to Santa Marta, the Department of La Guajira and on to Venezuela.

The bus was airconditioned and comfortable. They showed two incredibly violent American movies dubbed in Spanish. What strange impressions people must have of our country seeing movies like that. I looked out the window a great deal at the giant swamp and plantations. My bus is included below along with a picture of the automatic tire inflation system they use. I've never seent that before.

Our branch turned south to Arataca with onward connections to bigger cities like Bucaramanga and Bogota. This is also a generally good highway, passing through large planations of bananas and oil-palm. Unlike the straight shot through the Cienega, this highway has more development and thus more delays. Even though we were heading away from the ocean, there isn't much gain in elevation. One hour got us to Aracata, elevation 130 feet above sea level.

I had a lot of bags, so Alvarro grabbed a bicitaxi, or bicycle rickshaw. It was a short pedal to my host families home in the barrio Loma Fresca (Cool Hill) (not). It's very flat, but a very nice upper-middle class kind of neighborhood. The houses are attractive and the roads are cleana and well organized.

My family owns a big, long-lived Chevy jeep. We went about town meeting leaders, elected officials, program heads and so on, though it is all a blur. I need to get it all in writing, though some positions will change in January when the new mayor's council takes office.

The house is all one-floor with four bedrooms. I'm in what may have been a, 8' * 16' storage room, but some modifications were made to make it comfortable. A large and a small fan hang on the wall to keep air moving. There's a barred window that opens onto a semi-enclosed car port/patio/utility area. A carpenter is in the room at this moment installing a new door. They also had him make a desk where I could write. It's not the Ritz, but provided I get used to the heat it sould be fine.

In the evening we attended a birthday party at a neighbors house. Most of the party was one in the street which was filled with chairs and tables. There was food, loud music, dancing and lots of toasts. I met many more friends, neighbors and family. The party continued until 3:00 AM, though I called it an evening at midnight.

Colombians come in many shades representing a mix of at least three races, caucasion, indigenous abd black/african. The persons attending the party appeared to be drawn from all three races, but with some visibly more aligned with one race. At least within this group race was not an obstacle.