Photographic Series About the Colombian Caribbean - Sitionuevo: Road to Nueva Venecia

Sitionuevo is a small municipality of el departmento del Magdalena in Colombia. The only way to get to this place is through the Magdalena River, so you must use boats as a means of transport. The trip across the river lasts approximately 25 minutes running from the fluvial port of the municipality of Sabanagrande in the departmento of Atlántico. The tour of the river is very pleasant, you can see beautiful landscapes on both sides of the river, feel the wind in your face and see many birds flying along the route.

Fluvial port of Sabanagrande

Fluvial port of Sabanagrande

Leaving the Fluvial Port of Sabanagrande

A very interesting and striking image on the way to Sitionuevo, is an abandoned boat on one of the banks of the Magdalena River. It is an image that stays in our memories.

I made this photographic adventure thanks to the invitation made by a photographic collective called Lente Caribe, which is made up of professional and amateur photographers, who share something in common, our passion for photography and for documenting the Colombian Caribbean.

On the front edge of the boat wearing yellow t-shirts, we can see two members of Lente Caribe, on the left Eduardo and Hernando on the right.

When arriving at Sitionuevo, one of the first things that we found is a central square with a small and deteriorated catholic church, that church is the first evidence of the governmental abandonment in which this small municipality is located.

Many of the houses we see in its streets are very humble, some are built in wood and others in bricks made of adobe or cement .

Despite the economic poverty evident in many of the inhabitants of Sitionuevo, something that stands out in them is their kindness, the good vibes with which they receive visitors, they are always willing to engage in a pleasant chat with you and answer all your questions. Many of them give you a nice smile and even a coffee and when you manage to gain their trust, it is possible to take pictures that reflect the everyday life of the place.

The cemetery of the town is small and does not have large and artistic mausoleums as in other large cemeteries of the world, but two things caught my attention in this place, first, a tomb of the disappeared, she represents all the missing people and who could never being buried because their bodies were never found, some of these people drowned in the Magdalena River or were victims of the armed conflict in Colombia (I do not have photographs of this symbolic tomb). The other thing that caught my attention was to see a tomb which I think is of a person of the Jewish religion, I always wondered how a Jew would get to that place so far away.

Facade of Sitionuevo cemetery

In this photo you can see a tomb with the Star of David on its front

As far as I could see, the economy of the place depends on small-scale agriculture and livestock, as does the trade and manufacture of adobe bricks.

Peasant transporting agricultural products I

Peasant transporting agricultural products II

Adobe brick factory

Adobe brick

Tourism is incipient, but people do their best to provide good service to tourists who visit Sitionuevo.

Sitionuevo internal transport service.

If you visit Sitionuevo in a weekend, you could surely see many men from the village playing a game of dominoes in the middle of one of the streets of the village.

But without a doubt, the things I like the most about Sitionuevo is being able to see and photograph the beautiful sunsets on the Magdalena River.

Fluvial Port of Sitionuevo

Sunset on the Magdalena River. Sitionuevo (departmento del Magdalena, Colombia).

Sitionuevo is a mandatory step towards a beautiful palafitic town called Nueva Venecia, where all the houses are built on the water, which reminds us of the Italian city of Venice. Nueva Venecia is my next photographic adventure. I want to be in that place for a week to do a great photographic work, unfortunately I do not have the necessary resources to carry out this journey, but I am sure that the path taken in Steemit will lead me to fulfill this goal.