Sometimes a journey can be so eventful that it is hard to piece together chronologically. The road to El Salado is a reasonably long and arduous one; not so much in distance, more in effort and conditions. Indeed the last 25km took over an hour and were, quite honestly, the worst roads I have ever been on. That’s not to belittle the poor conditions of the other roads that we travelled on, but the last leg was certainly memorable.
The trip started out easily enough, we were collected from our sea-front hotel by Hector in his rickety old green Jeep. The trip out of Cartagena took us through a different side of the colonial city from the tourist trap that is the historic centre. On the way out we passed through the bustling popular market aside the bird filled waterway, with pelicans and vultures competing for flotsam and jetsam flung from the dirty market stalls that litter the roadsides.
Out of town the monotony of the journey was broken only by the frequent jolts that shuddered through the ancient vehicle every time we hit a pothole or when Hector swerved out of the way of an oncoming juggernaut. After a couple of hours we made a pit-stop in a village called ‘Villa Alegre’ (Happy Town), never a more inappropriate name has there been, to buy some cigars off a 94 year old woman who needed some money. Apparently the locals call the village ‘Barrio tristeza’ (neighbourhood of unhappiness) and it is easy to see why. The community consists of two opposing lines of tiny houses stretching up the hill into the distance, in between is possibly the poorest excuse for a street that ever there was. The town is inhabited by an exiled community, displaced due to the war that has ravaged the country for decades, and housed by the authorities in the their current dwellings. Unfortunately they have now been forgotten and are so poor that they don’t have the means to return home.
Richy , our guide on this venture, and the charity CIREC are working with this community and are searching for ways to repatriate them to their land and end the painful existence that has been forced upon them. As the kids played happily in the rueful street it was a stark reminder of the human cost of the wars that blight Colombia.
Onward from this brief pit-stop we were taken to a small town called ‘San Jacinto’, which is at the heart of the music of ‘la Gaita’, an indigenous type of flute, that includes the famous Cumbia music. We visited Fran and his family house where he continues to make traditional instruments and promotes the music that has been handed down to him over generations. Fran told us about the intricacies of the music and it became clear how important this tradition is to the local people and the maintenance of their culture. Hopefully we can help Fran out in the preservation of this amazing form of music.
We then went to visit Carmelo Torres, a famous accordion player in Colombia. We sat in his house and listened discs of him and his band. Apparently the accordion arrived in Colombia after a ship laden with the instruments sank off its shores and they were all washed up on the land. The resulting sound that developed among the local musicians is a far cry from the folk playing that we hear back home. Carmelo is a proponent of his local culture that is, unfortunately, dying out with his generation.The kids are now saturated with pop music and are no longer interested in their own heritage, well most of them at least.
After a change of jeep and an additional driver we were onward bound and we found ourselves in Carmen de Bolivar, the region's second city.There we bought some equipment and materials to take up to El Salado whilst our drivers hit the bar in quite spectacular fashion. It was now dark before we head off again up the at times unbelievable muddy track. Credit where it's due the driver did his job well. However, it can be a little unnerving in such occasions when the driver is swigging as much whiskey as you are and is handling it a little less well. Still we arrived safe and sound and are now safely in El Salado and building the studio. I will write more on El Salado but for now, if anyone wants to, you should google the town and find out about the massacre that happened here 10 years ago. Its pretty horrifying.
For now I'll leave with the thought that maybe we can help some of the people that we met on our journey with their mission to preserve their music and culture for future generations.
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