Last week I went to one of the most remote places in Colombia. The name of this place is almost as remote as its location. Chichiman is a very small village in the Atlantic coast of Colombia. The folklore, the culture and the richness of the country seem to multiply exponentially. However you have to know what you are looking for. How to spot the magnificence of this place, because if not for a sharp eye, looking might seem like a Unicef documentary searching for donations.
This is a place you can reach by car after about an hour of unpaved road while passing houses made out of twigs and clay, that in my head there is no physical way they are still standing. In each of those houses you see an elder man and woman, with middle-aged sons and daughters, each with no less than five babies. Malnutrition is obviously an issue. No doubt that this amount of people in a single household living in misery can be well. However you see all of them smiling. Poorness in this part of the world is different. Things are solved somehow, and answers to everything come simply. Food? Fish, coconuts, bananas. Roof? Palm trees. Bed? Hammock. Clothes? Its hot out, you don’t need to wear a shirt. It doesn’t necessarily bring misery, depression and struggle. Everyone smiles; people are the nicest and most helpful. Talking to them, asking them questions only leads to them asking about your life in a beautiful curiosity born out of the biggest naivety. Most aren’t looking for anything more than their clay houses, their large families and the beauty of having all needs right there.
Chichiman starts where another remote village ends: next to Rincon. Literally in Spanish, corner. In the corner of Colombia is this very small spot with the greatest beach you can imagine. Lonely with no one passing but carrier donkeys and chalupas or rowboats with fishermen who spend hours on end under the sun. It’s a place where the simple pleasures of life are a constant. Taking the time to read a book, looking up and seeing a yellow butterfly pass by, see how the sun sinks into the horizon meeting the ocean, understanding the way the colors of the sunset change daily, as do the waves. Start hearing the crickets at about 6 in the afternoon, feel the warmth of the sand during the day, waking up when your body naturally wakes up, the lack of need to put on shoes, cold shower without being torture, and best of all… no cellphone reception.
It’s a you’re likely never to get to in your life, even if you come to Colombia most people will have never heard of this place. Nonetheless, I thought it would be a contribution to your vagabond knowledge that is indulged only by a true traveller, who knows of certain places, imagines them and yet knows (s)he will never truly see it. That shouldn’t have to be restriction of reading this post, of closing your eyes and imagine living in this place so behind the XXI century way of hotel chains and McDonalds environment. It’s where boredom leads to creation. It’s where civilization seems nonexistent. Where Garcia Marquez’s words come to life and you can picture all of the Aurelios and the One Hundred Years of Solitude no longer seem like a magic realism novel, but a historical novel based on real life.
Wanderlust 