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Post by onlyMark on Mar 17, 2022 5:49:02 GMT
lugg, plenty of time, just pop in and have a look whenever is convenient.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 17, 2022 8:09:03 GMT
We left Mompox to head to Baranquilla. This time on a bus. It was supposed to take five hours but, because of some demonstration blocking the main road we and the driver didn’t know about, it ended up taking nine hours. It was a long day. Give and take though, we got to Mompox several hours before we expected and got delayed about the same number of hours on leaving. Had to start by going back over the same bridge we came in on - With the bus, as soon as we set off, the movies started playing. At a loud volume as expected. There were speakers every couple of rows to make sure you didn’t miss out on the full experience. The films were reasonably modern but mostly B and C list type of actors with the odd exception like Wonder Woman. But, to my surprise, the most recent James Bond started to show. I didn’t understand a word being said really but settled in for the spectacle. But whereas all the other films played to the end, after about twenty minutes the driver shut this one off and put something else on. No idea why. But this was my view - One thing to mention regarding transport. In essence, it’s good. No trains but good bus services, taxis, even over long distances are cheap. Internal flights are reasonably priced, regular and quite comprehensive in their destinations. It’s not that you always have to fly via Bogota to get somewhere else. Regarding the flights there were a couple of things different to flying round Europe. Recently I’ve been flying using Lufthansa and Austrian. To board they separate you into groups with the first group being at the rear of the plane. The flights in Bogota, with Avianca, were such that the usual scrum took place and a free for all to get on. The big difference was getting off. Lufthansa/Austrian was whereby as soon as the engines shut off, people got up to stand in the aisle. Avianca, no. Far from it. It was all disciplined and orderly. We had to sit there until a crew member walked to about row ten and only those on the left could get up and get off. As they cleared the right hand side did the same. Then he/she moved down to row twenty and repeated the left side and right side thing, all the way to the last row. Took actually a lot longer but definitely more relaxed. By population, Barranquilla is the fourth largest city after Bogota, Medellin and Cali, with about 2.2 million people. Barranquilla was established as a town on April 7, 1813, although it dates from at least 1629. It grew into an important port, serving as a haven for immigrants from Europe, especially during and immediately following World War I and World War II, when waves of additional immigrants from the Middle East and Asia arrived. Barranquilla became Colombia's principal port, and with its level of industrialization and modernity earned the city the nickname "Colombia's Golden Gate" (La Puerta de Oro de Colombia). Regarding the architecture - “Barranquilla's architecture was built almost entirely in the twentieth century. In the city there are buildings of the colonial period in the early decades of the independent nation, but the profusion of styles that flourished from the late nineteenth century give the city a cosmopolitan atmosphere. This architectural splendor is testament to the influence of the people arriving in the port for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, many of whom settled in Barranquilla and imported architectural styles. Among the most important styles are neoclassical and art deco and interesting examples of neo-colonial architecture, modern, contemporary, eclectic, Mudejar, Spanish late Baroque, Mozarabic and Netherlands Antilles style Caribbean architecture.” We’ll stretch our legs for a while after the long journey, call at a cafe or two as we normally do. Our wanderings tend to mean you might get a shot of the same building but from a different angle as we cut back and forth -
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Post by bjd on Mar 17, 2022 8:46:29 GMT
That painted building reminds me of Santa Marta.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 17, 2022 9:32:07 GMT
Would you believe I may have a few photos of Santa Marta to put up later.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 17, 2022 12:31:03 GMT
If the driver stopped No Time to Die before the end, you don't know that James Bond dies. Oops.
The hanging wires in almost all of the streets are a disaster.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 17, 2022 13:35:25 GMT
The power cables are difficult to avoid when taking photos for sure.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 17, 2022 16:03:13 GMT
I really appreciate all the history you include. Colombia's tourism department needs to send you some money for this thread, as it should definitely entice some visitors.
Good thing you warned us about how many different kinds of architecture there are in Barranquilla, or I'd have thought that those were pictures of several different towns!
Looking forward to photos of Santa Marta, as I have a good friend who moved here from that town.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 17, 2022 16:24:24 GMT
There's more of Barranquilla to come and eventually we'll get round to Santa Marta.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 17, 2022 16:44:21 GMT
Colombia's tourism department needs to send you some money for this thread, But Mark would have to give some of the money to Google and Wikipedia, as I often have to do.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 17, 2022 17:28:02 GMT
Yeah, but you've got plenty.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 18, 2022 7:07:01 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 18, 2022 14:51:24 GMT
Lots of tropical appeal there!
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 18, 2022 17:14:08 GMT
The city is definitely looking more like a (relaxed) holiday destination. Maybe not a whole lot of things to do, but that's the whole point.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 18, 2022 18:21:04 GMT
A couple of photos have an unfinished concrete building in them. This is the local white elephant that was never finished as a museum. There is a long mustard coloured building that is the Customs Office that does have a museum, which we had a look round. There are other things to do but many were closed still.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 19, 2022 12:03:54 GMT
There are churches galore but we only really went into one. The rest we popped our heads in when we passed. Actually classed as a cathedral rather than a church. It was the Catedral Metropolitana María Reina y Auxiliadora de Barranquilla. It is located at the ‘zero point’ of Barranquilla. That point being where all distances are measured from. From beginning work in 1955 it took 27 years to complete and can seat, if needs be, 4000 people. It contains something I’m not totally comfortable with and is likely to scare the kids no end. This is what I meant at the beginning, Christ the Liberator. It’s one of the scariest (for kids) and one of the worst and unnecessary things I’ve ever seen in a religious building. That’s just my opinion. Think of the difference between this and the beautiful things you can see, and I have shown in previous reports, of the colours and vibrancy of some Indian temples - I’ll leave it to the official description to fill you in. Scan through it if necessary. It’s one of the most contrived reasonings for having this sort of thing I’ve ever read - “This sculptural work by master Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt and cast by master Darío Montoya is 16 meters high and 7 meters wide, weighs 16 tons and was made in bronze, under the patronage of the Presidency of the Republic, between 1978 and 1985. It was conceived as a tribute to Christ who reconciles man with God. The man emerges from a great wave remembering the sea through which civilization and the Christian faith of Spain came to America. This man is represented in the three human figures: a white (the European), an Indian (the aboriginal) and a black (the African). When these three races merge, the Latin American man emerges, a man enslaved by sin, and its consequences: ignorance, injustice, violence, corruption, abuse of power. Likewise, a man in a permanent process of liberation who seeks his salvation in Christ. The body of Christ is filled with hands, imprints on the chest of the image of him, of that people who want to be reconciled with themselves, with history and with God in contact with the body of Christ. Christ liberates the people by means of the fire that emerges from the volcano of love on his side, which turned into flames forms the cross, already glorified (in the right hand), and the law (in the left arm), by means of which he liberates man, but this cross and that law are of love, since the law without love does not liberate and the cross without love does not sanctify. The crown of thorns, after the resurrection, is not on the head as a sign of martyrdom, but rises from the back like a sun that illuminates the freedom of the Latin American people. Water, fire, races (white, black and Indian), with the loving force of the cross of Christ, are oriented in a great ascent towards the Savior Father.” Yeah, right.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 19, 2022 13:56:20 GMT
Definitely not a happy vision of religion, but after all, Christians decided that the symbol of their religion should be a naked tortured man nailed to some boards, so it's a little late for us to worry about it. The only equally grotesque image that I can think of in another religion is Prometheus getting his liver eaten by an eagle every night for having done something nice for human beings.
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Post by htmb on Mar 19, 2022 15:25:15 GMT
It’s enormous, too!
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 19, 2022 16:12:11 GMT
Horrible thing.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 19, 2022 17:18:31 GMT
The whole church is just plain ugly and pretty scary -- even the weirdly rounded repeated cross motifs are menacing, as is that inverted coffin lid hanging over all. But the Christ the Liberator thing is simply grotesque & really bad "art" to boot.
All the bas-relief butts facing the congregation are a nice touch, though.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 20, 2022 11:56:31 GMT
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 20, 2022 12:52:02 GMT
I like the Edificio Garcia.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 20, 2022 13:39:30 GMT
Yes, it's quite a place.
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Post by tod2 on Mar 20, 2022 14:30:59 GMT
Besides the lines and lines of wire overhead I am very impressed with the condition of the streets. I see no trash scattered in the gutter roadsides. I wish my city looked like that but its never going to happen. Judging from the bomb-site my guests live in their accommodation - the streets of my city have no chance in hell.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 20, 2022 17:02:33 GMT
I think a lot of having clean streets has less to do with the amount of street sweepers, though obviously more is better, and more to do with the attitude of the populace. How acceptable, or non-thinking, it is to just chuck stuff out on the street.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 20, 2022 17:54:34 GMT
Totally excellent set of photos, but it is a shame that you have decided to completely flout the request to put photo in more bite sized chunks to prevent us from easily commenting more specifically on your amazing talent. However, I will still say that I particularly like the street art and the distressing bas relief creatures who like to read books. One of the street artists is clearly Da Cruz, an artist from the 19th arrondissement in Paris. www.street-artwork.com/fr/artist-profile/44
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 20, 2022 21:48:38 GMT
Yes, there were too many in that post but I have been subsequently cutting it down from the original post where you complained. I set up all the photos and comments in a section (e.g. Barranquilla) in a Word document with the links for the post copied and posted from the hosting site. It tends to extend to several pages. I then swipe down a page or a page and a half, copy and paste it into the reply box. This is usually a manageable length. Then select 'preview' to check it and post it.
With this one I didn't check it as I had a couple of commitments but wanted to post it before I started them - I notice now one or two of the photos somewhere have stretched the screen. I have a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the post. This would have been eliminated by adjusting the size of the photos if I had checked it properly. Looking at my original Word document I can see I've swiped through about two and a half pages accidentally and didn't notice, so posted all that anyway. You can also see the lack of notification it has been edited, which I often do after posting when I notice something.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 21, 2022 8:46:19 GMT
Not to worry. We're all amateurs here.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 22, 2022 7:12:39 GMT
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Post by bjd on Mar 22, 2022 7:32:38 GMT
Great, Mark! My kind of pictures, especially the store dummies all lined up.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 22, 2022 7:35:40 GMT
The people who live in the Torre Manzur probably don't consider themselves to be living in the same world as at ground level.
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