Mompox_Cien años de soledad

Down in the jungle, in Colombia, on the river Magdalena, stands Mompox. While you walk on the riverfront along the side of beautiful colonial porches, sometimes you can see the boats full of goods docking or shipping out towards north and all the sailors and workers carrying cases and boxes around. Then you look around and the calm and stillness make you remember that after the river shifted and the main port became Magangué, Mompox was left alone and time stopped. Until you go out from the town center and mud replaces the stone-paved walk and the only boats you see are these long-shaped iron motor-boats laying on the riverside or slowly moving along the current.

The next day we walked towards the city center and we were sweating under the tremendous heat and humidity. After a while I started feeling the stillness of the place and suddenly the struggling from the sweating became acceptance and I went along with it and started feeling relaxed. Everything slowed down, I could feel my heartbeat calming, and my mind clearing while resting under a porch with a cold beer on the table. But as we arrived to the town center there were no trees and I started feeling the heat again and I could sense the temperature difference seeing the high contrast between the shadows of the porches and the light of the yards. And everywhere I looked I could see people standing still or fallen asleep in the middle of what they were doing.

The next day we went for a trip along the river in a motorboat. When we reached the swamplands, the horizon opened and it all became quiet, with raw boats moved slowly by the fishermen with their long paddle coming straight out the water. Suddenly the silence broke and we stopped just near a group of children that after school had taken two boats and come to play in the water.

As the sun went down, I sat there on the boat watching the shadows getting longer on the ground, with the kids screaming in their joy next to the boat. Then the boat started shaking and a kid climbed right on, he gave a quick look at us and than he dived again into the water. He seemed to enjoy it so much that the other kids decided to imitate him and started climbing and diving over and over again, until we left waving a bit wistfully at them.

We knew we were leaving that night, and life would start rolling again for us soon, as we left behind Mompox, the town on the Magdalena river that didn’t care about the passing of time.