Tayrona is a highlight of the North Coast of Colombia; it
boasts ample mileage of hiking trails in the tallest coastal mountain range in
the world, ancient ruins of long since conquered people, wildlife, and white
sand beaches ranging from totally packed to totally deserted, depending on how
deep you go into the park. We were originally going to get dropped off via
water by Jack’s late night drinking friend (see previous entry), but we went to
the meeting spot and Andy—if that was even his real name—was a no show. It was
too late to take the cheap shuttle over to the park, and all the public boats
had left; the only viable option was to take a dreadfully expensive cab for an
hour and a half or so. Cab drivers in this part of the world are keen
observers—they seem to instantly know where you need to go by how you are
dressed and what you are carrying. Sneyder was the first cab driver to get our
attention. After haggling the fare down below the list price to 55,000 pesos
(about 30 dollars), we set out on the road trip to Tayrona.
Sneyder ended up being perhaps the best cab driver I have
ever had; he had sweet mix tapes of old Lil Wayne and Kanye West tracks and had
an amazing story for why he spoke fluent English. In the 90s, Sneyder attempted
to cross the border twice with the aid of well-paid coyotes, and was nabbed at
a Florida port the first time, then in North Carolina on the second attempt. On
his third attempt he took matters into his own hands. He packed 2 loafs of
bread, a bag of lemons, and 5 liters of water, and with the clothes on his back
stowed away in a cargo freighter bound to America. Sneyder thought this
freighter was heading to one of the typical American states a Colombian ship
goes to: Florida or Texas, and he packed accordingly for the 2 day voyage.
After the third day he still was not on American soil, neither was he on the
fourth or the fifth. He ended up making it all the way to New York, an 8 or 10
day voyage as he remembers. When he finally reached New York, he was skinny,
dehydrated, and malnourished. He hopped into the river and swam towards the big
buildings. A Puerto Rican couple ended up helping him out of the water, and
gave him food and shelter and a job at their car wash. Sneyder then met a
slightly more legal Puerto Rican woman that he had a kid with. When attempting
to get his kids papers straight to enter school, he ended up blowing his cover,
and was sent back to Colombia. Sneyder is now, five years later, working as a
cab driver and saving up to start his own cab and shuttle company to meet the
growing demands of the Colombian tourist industry and wants to buy land for his
son to have to vacation on. He sees his son and baby’s mama twice a year in
Costa Rica as of now.
When Sneyder saw that we were ‘cool’ folks he asked us if we
minded if he picked up some pot, we said no, and he drove us through a part of
Santa Marta that very few Gringos have gone to and come out to tell the tale.
He bought it off an old guy on a bike by hanging two fingers out the window
while driving past and then meeting him a few blocks down, receiving a quick
handoff of two joints. He put some hip-hop instrumentals on and busted some
whack rhymes. Then he started telling us about Colombian culture; demonized pot
usage because of narcotraffic (he sprayed air freshener on his fingers to mask
the smell), Hugo Chavez and the impending war with Venezuela (“he’s fucking
crazy, man”), Venezuelan gas (it’s practically free there, and is widely
smuggled into Eastern Colombia), propane cars (didn’t even know that existed!),
the evils of cocaine (it’ll really narrow your views, it’s so fucked up, it
makes everything important go away), how Colombia has changed since Escobar got
Swiss-cheesed up and what Colombians did to see that change through (we were
tired of living in a war zone, so we voted, and we stopped being so corrupt),
and so on and so forth. When the conversation died down he would light his
spliff, again, and continue flowing, badly.
By the time we reached the Tayrona we had a new glimpse into
Colombia, made possible in large part due to Sneyder’s command of the English
language, he could express lofty and abstract things in a way that we could
understand, and I paid him the 60,000 (an 8 hour bus ride for 2) without
blinking, plus a tip, in hopes that one day Sneyder, Inc. will come to fruition
and his son will have a place to come in his father’s motherland.
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