I feel I know Barranquilla reasonably well: I’m finding my way around the city, making friends and—at last—working out how to use the bus network, without needing to get off the bus because I misread where it was going. But for all I think I know Barranquilla, there’s another side that I’ve not seen and probably won’t as I’m leaving in April: summertime.
The Colombian coast is famous in other parts of Colombia for being swelteringly hot, but ever since I arrived in January, I’ve yet to feel really very hot. Sure, a twenty minute walk to visit a client in a barrio in the south of the city is going to have me sweating, but at 28°C and sunny it’s just about fine as long as you aren’t carrying anything too heavy. But this is all because I’m here in the dry season, or winter, which runs from around November to April. The wet season is a whole different story and last week was just a foretaste.
For a few days, the rumour had been going round that it had rained in Soledad, Malambo, Sabanagrande or another town to the south of Barranquilla and the leaden skies seemed to confirm that it was going to rain sometime. Then colleagues started telling stories about when it rains in Barranquilla you’re going nowhere and the streets become rivers: something that a friend from another part of Colombia had already told me—and I’d been warned by street signs saying Arroyo peligroso (Dangerous stream) with a picture of a car being washed away. When the rain finally came, I was at work and by the time I wandered outside, the streets were a lot more puddle-like than riverine. And the main response when I tweeted the photo above was “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” I had expected things to be a bit like my previous home of Hong Kong in a typhoon: according to this video, an Asian typhoon doesn’t even come close.
I’ve lived in London and Hong Kong, two cities which alternate between what can only be described as beautiful days and days which are depressing beyond belief: if you are lucky enough to be in either city on a run of good weather days, you’d think these amazing cities were perfect. What it does go to show, is that no matter how much you think you know a place, until you’ve seen it in all types of weather, you really haven’t.
Latest posts by robpacker
- Asking the Right Questions - April 6th, 2010
- You, You and You - April 1st, 2010
- Working in the Barrios - March 17th, 2010
- Amigos - March 2nd, 2010
- Day in the Life: Barranquilla Carnival - ¡Quien lo vive, es quien lo goza! - February 16th, 2010
- Weird Words and How to Learn Them - February 9th, 2010
- Living in Two Worlds at Once - February 2nd, 2010
- ¡Por Fin, Me Quejo! - January 26th, 2010
