A Chiva Bus and a Discovery on a Colombian Beach
4 min readMar 18, 2019
The evening air of Santa Marta hung warm and thick. Three chivas, traditional farm transport turned Colombian party bus, were waiting in the parking lot. With their garish paint jobs and purple strobe lights, they looked more traveling carny than mobile disco. We were a group of nine middle aged Philadelphians who came to Colombia sharing only our devotion to Elizabeth, our Colombian Spanish teacher.