Eating Giant Ants in Bucaramanga, Santander

Santander has been a running joke between me and a friend Jason in Arizona since we had to travel there for work a few years back. Bucaramanga is in the Santander district of Colomba.

When we arrive at the station, Carlos even goes to a store and buys me a container of fried ants and we eat them together along with a couple of guys from Holland. They taste rather like popcorn at first, then get a bit of a mineral or iron aftertaste. Also, one may wish to have a drink around as the pieces of the exoskeleton tend to linger.

I am staying in the worst part of town. Suprisingly, the hotel room is relatively clean and quiet. I need to pay the guy, so after stashing my bag, I take off in search of a cajero, and ATM. On the way, I manage to pick up a short bald guy named Bernardo and he gives me a guided tour of the city, entirely in Spanish, and then takes me to the ATM and to a good cheap restaurant for a gigantic steak and yucca. What an opener.

In the morning, now that I am actually in Bucaramanga and I have all the ants I could possible eat, I don’t really know what to do with myself. I do know that I am in desperate need of a haircut, so I wander back to where bald Bernardo’s barber, being part of the tour, is located.

I will reiterate, I love the barbers south of the border. I may never go to a salon again. The level of detail these people put in with that effing scary blade is startling. Once I am beautiful again, and covered in hair, I decide to walk around and find some food. There is a great place called something like Nutricom that has a fantastic lunch spread and an English speaking busboy for about $3. I just happened to be walking down a street and liked the placement of tomato on the sign.

Relatively unimpressed with Bucaramanga as a city, I am resigned to getting my bag and catching an all night bus to Bogota tonight. All over Colombia people stand around hooked up to cell phones on chains like some form of telcom octopus and charge people to use the telephone. A well placed call to Carlos, who works for a bus company, tells me that I can show up at the terminal every hour on the hour all night and catch a bus to Bogota.

As I am handing the phone back, and before I can pay, the young girl running the booth starts speaking to me in Spanish. “Yo quiero hablar con usted,” she says. Translated, I want to speak with you, sir.

Laura doesn’t speak any English, she understands a few lines pertaining to age, nationality, etc, but won’t speak anything other than Spanish. Lacking anything better to do, I just sit down on the curb next to her and spend roughly the next hour chatting and entertaining myself with her and her customers. Laura makes about $10 USD a day and she works four days a week, 14 hours a day, and attends college the other three days. She is 16 and she lives on her own. Knowing what little I know about the economical and social forces at work here, I am astounded and impressed by her fortitude and willingness to work so hard for what she wants.

At one point, another young girl with braces (veeeeery common in Colombia) walks up to me and begins speaking in English. She tells me it is truly dangerous for me to sit out on the street like I am. She can tell I have a camera and probably have money judging by the shoes I am wearing and that even in Broad daylight I am running the risk of being robbed every minute I just stand here. She is gracious and sincere and I can’t remember her name for the life of me. Given her warning I decide to go put away my stuff and figure out the rest of the day.

I’ve traveled around the city a good deal and through each city have kept my eyes open for a type of teas called aromaticas. They are supposed to be the real deal with herbs and plenty of local mojo. Finally, on a whim I dropped into a shop across from the Sagrada Familia and they have them! This thing smells awesome!

Visiting the Sagrada Familia in Bucaramanga takes a little less time and a good deal less money than visiting the slightly more popular partially constructed church of the same name in Barcelona. It seems to have gotten it’s name from the actual statues of the sacred family perched over the doorway.

By now I have stashed my bag at another less dodgy hotel and am mostly killing time till Igo to the bus station to head to Bogota. I wander back through the bad section of town to chill out with the phone girl and practice my Spanish. We kick around a cafe for a while and she starts asking me to translate rap and reggaeton lyrics for her. She helps me negotiate the taxi to the station and I make it about 15 minutes before the bus leaves.

This bus is effing cold.