The Shell Collector

It all began with seashells and Vicente--my intimate knowing of one sliver of Colombia, that is.
It was sometime during the first week in Colombia when Sarah and I visited the small fishing town of Taganga, just north of Santa Marta, nestled in a sweet bay alongside Tayrona National Park.  This place is unique to say the least.  It is a village more or less, almost overrun by backpackers and Israelis (Israelistas en español), thriving on offering PADI Scuba courses, chalk-full of jugo (juice) stands, with no paved roads worth mentioning, and the two biggest ¨night club¨ destinations for the all the tourists and local youth in the area: Sensation and El Mirador.  Oh yeah.

Vicente lives at the far end of the small stretch of the main walk along the beach. Sarah and I spied his impeccable seashell display on a quaint wooden mesa (table) while wandering and he popped right up when we appeared to be interested in his treasures. I asked him a bunch of questions, while Sarah diligently took pictures.  I was pleased at this first real conversation I was able to carry on in Spanish.  For some reason I could understand Vicente, whereas most other people at this point spoke too fast, or my ears were still too full of English to allow the beautiful curves of Spanish to roll in.  He explained a little about the various shells and some other small pieces of information and I left this simple but genuine exchange with a promise to return the next day and the first feeling of true joy and contentment that I was here in Colombia.

So began our particular friendship, our immensely enjoyable conversations, in Spanish, of course.  I would go find Vicente after my Scuba class every afternoon and we would sit on red plastic chairs in the shade just off the beach where the fishermen would be hanging out cleaning their fish, or just hanging out.  Vicente is weathered and leathered and wiry and small.  He has lived in Taganga his entire life, some 55 years, give or take a few.  He was one of the first people to take gringos out to the surrounding beaches in his boat when extranjeros (foreigners) first trickled into this lovely place around 35 years ago.  He witnessed the transformation of Taganga from pura playa (pure beach) to the semi-charming, semi-confused place that is now.  There used to be milliones de peses (millions of fish) and now there are barely any; it used to be quiet when the sun went down, now the Israeli hostel, Casa Bai, blasts (terribel) trans music till dawn most days; but everyone is still family in town, according to Vicente, and it´s a very safe pueblo, which is a good thing because the police won´t do anything.  Vicente told me about how boats would zoom into Taganga from Florida, and other places in the US, load up to the brim with marijuana from the Sierra Nevada Mountains that rise up from the back of the pueblo, and zoom off again.  Donkeys would carry the marijuana down from the mountains and the neighboring Parque Tayrona to Taganga when it was still a remote enough place for no one to suspect anything. 

Above everything else, Vicente is a man of the sea.  He loves the sea and its creatures and characteristics more than anything.  He actually has a wife in Argentina, but he wouldn´t leave Taganga.  And one time, years ago, one of the fat American gringos Vicente would frequently take out in his boat to  go fishing or scuba diving, offered to let Vicente use his scuba equipment to go for a dive.  The way Vicente tells so animatedly about this experience I know it was one of the most incredible opportunities of his life.  He said they had to drag him by the flipper to get him back in the boat.  He would have stayed down there, under the sea forever if he could have.  All the fish and the lobsters and the caracoles (seashells)! ooooeehyyy! I wish you could hear him describe this.  On my last day in Taganga I brought Vicente a windchime I made of driftwood and seashells, one of which he gave me, and others I found at other beaches.  I gave him a picture of him at his seashell table.  I also brought him a picture of the seashell house in Berkeley, that I had described to him.  (If you don´t know this house, its on Mathews and Ward in Berkeley and definitely worth walking by.  Google ¨Seashell house berkeley¨. )  He kept looking at this picture, almost longingly, and musing about how beautiful, que bonito esta casa.  Que linda.... I hope with all my heart Vicente builds his seashell castle one day.