Every Day the River Changes

Travel Guide

A travel guide of Rio Magdalena

The author says:

Puerto Quinchana, Huila Department, Colombia — This tiny, remote mountain village is the last town before the trail to the Río Magdalena’s source, high in the Andes. Here, I spent time with townspeople and schoolchildren who told me about the oral histories, myths and legends that mark Colombia’s greatest waterway.

Neiva, Huila Department, Colombia — In Neiva, I met a man named Delfín Borrero, who had been building colorful wooden canoes by hand for 40 years. His outdoor workshop, by the river’s edge, was marked by colorful canoes–green and yellow, red and blue–perched on stands among a line of twisting trees. “I’ve made more than two thousand canoes of all sizes,” he told me. “For me, it’s an art. I’m an artisan here.”

Estación Cocorná, Antioquia Department, Colombia — In Estación Cocorná, I embarked on a riverboat expedition with biologists and community leaders in search of wild, invasive hippopotamuses that were introduced to the area and have since proliferated up and down the Magdalena River. The town is best reached by a curious contraption: a railroad cart powered by the engine of a motorcycle, running on a stretch of train track, called a motobalinera.

Hotel Pipatón, Barrancabermeja, Santander Department, Colombia — In the oil town of Barrancabermeja, I stumbled upon a once-grand riverside hotel that was closing its doors for good. “We focused on the roads and the trucks, but we forgot that this is our main artery,” the hotel’s caretaker told me, looking out over the river with great sadness. “This is our Mississippi.”

Santa Cruz de Mompox, Bolívar Department, Colombia — Rumor has it that Gabriel García Márquez’s fictional town of Macondo (in One Hundred Years of Solitude) was inspired in part by Mompox. It’s a magical town; here I met Simón Villanueva, an 89-year-old goldsmith who spent his life mastering the art of silver filigree jewelry. “You forget about time when you’re doing this,” Villanueva said from his front stoop, where he’d been creating little silver fishes and flowers for more than 75 years.

La Gloria, Magdalena Department, Colombia — In La Gloria, I rode along with schoolteacher Luis Soriano and his Biblioburro, a traveling donkey library that hauls books to children living on rural farmsteads so that they can read at home. Luis Soriano is a man who thinks of everyone and everything before himself. He remembers the children, who read; his donkeys, Alfa and Beto, who do the heavy lifting; the sirirí bird, who sings; García Márquez’s yellow butterflies, who remind him of the beautiful leaves of his favorite cañaguate tree.

Bocas de Ceniza, Barranquilla, Atlántico Department, Colombia –– Bocas de Ceniza literally means “mouths of ash,” because it’s where the ashen-gray Magdalena River meets the bright blue Caribbean. Here, a hardened group of fishermen live out on a five-mile stone jetty, exposed to the elements, and fish using kites. They are the last of the Magdalena’s residents before it finally reaches the sea.