Mobility

I arrived in Santa Marta yesterday after a very lovely visit to Bogotá and Medellin.

A photo of one of the poorer communities in Medellin (shot from the cable car)

I’ve been nursing a sprained ankle for two weeks (I had a silly accident where I lost my footing when I was coming down some very steep stairs while carrying my very large backpack).

Since the accident, I’ve been trying to slow down and take it easy. But with each passing day, I constantly find myself wanting to go out and see more of these new cities that I’ve been visiting. Despite the injury, I’ve so far averaged 14,304 steps (or 10 kilometres) a day since I’ve gotten hurt. Everyday, I can hear this voice inside my head that’s telling me to go out - to see all the cool attractions and not waste any of the time or money that I spent to get / stay here.

I’ve since negotiated with myself: if my ankle gets better, I plan to do a 4-day hike to the Lost City which covers ~44 kilometres with 2700 meters of elevation. And if not, I will get my open water diving certification. Somehow that little compromise has comforted my inner tiger mom. It’s been just over two months since I’ve stopped working and I still have this deep desire to be productive. I can somehow rest easy if I’ve either practiced my Spanish or yoga, hiked, surfed or walked all over the city and seen all the sights.

Parque Arvi was one of my favourite sights in Medellin

This injury really has me thinking about mobility. Earlier this year, I was off my feet for a few weeks after tearing my MCL. It was a grade 3 sprain so I was pretty immobile for a bit over a month. And the doctor said at the end of April that it’ll be at least six months until it is 100% for sports with a lot of impact and pivoting.

Now that I am on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, I aim to to embrace the concept of “Caribbean time” and be a bit more leisurely. Well it’s also 30-35 degrees here and incredibly humid so I can definitely benefit from moving more slowly.

During my trip, I’ve also thought about mobility in the travelling sense. I’ve met a number of Colombians who want to visit the US so badly but are constantly denied a visa. These are individuals who are educated, have good jobs and aren’t intending to go to the US to seek refugee status or anything. For Colombians to visit the US, they have to do a whole application and interview process before they can visit. As the naive Canadian that I am, I took for granted how easily I can visit other countries; especially, the US. Perhaps there’s a small fee to be paid (for example, I paid $150 when I went to Argentina) but I’ve yet to visit a place where I’ve had to apply for a tourism visa ahead of time. Since June, I’ve been in 3 countries and 8 cities and by the end of this trip, I’ll have visited 5 countries and 11 cities (give or take).

I’ve also met so many people while travelling who are working remote far, far away from their home country. These digital nomads just go from country to country on these tourism visas ranging between 1 to 12 months. Once the end date for their visa approaches, these digital nomads just find another country to visit. It’s such an interesting lifestyle that has increased in popularity since Covid-19. For example: today, I met an architect who works for an Argentinian architecture firm that mainly does US projects. My neighbour in Puerto Escondido, Rey, works for one of Microsoft’s Texas locations. I also met this wonderful American woman, Amy, while I was in Oaxaca City; she’s a therapist who remotely supports clients in California and Arizona. The list goes on.

In Santa Marta, there’s also a large population of refugees from Venezuela. It’s been really sad to see how many of them are living on the streets here.

In stark contrast, there are a ton of hotels, condos and yachts at the waterfront. The increase of digital nomads and tourists in Colombia among other Latin American countries have led to rising costs. It’s like gentrification on a whole other level. And I’m super mindful of how I’m contributing to the problem too….