THE 'HORMIGA CULONA': BIG ASS ANT
When I reached Bucamaranga I was curious to taste the
Hormiga Culona, a big ant specie I read it was eaten fried
by the locals. Although being out of the season I easily
found them at the bus station. These 4mm diameter black
balls were sold in small transparent plastic bags. Immediately
a great idea popped up in my mind: buy the fried Hormiga
Culona as gift for my Italian friends! So I did and I
put them in my backbag. Stupid of me, it didn't take that
long I forgot to have. In fact then I left Bucamaranga,
starting my long travel to Mompos: 5h of paved road, 2h
of superbumpy dirty road, the river crossing on the rusty
ferry, again superbumpy road, the breakdown, finding an
accommodation in 'El Banco', spending the hot night in
a dirty locanda and the following morning finally reaching
Mompos. Here I left my bag in a shop while visiting the
town and when it was time to proceed to Cartagena I retrieved
it looking for a moped to reach the river and take a boat.
While walking I felt at first some hitch, than many bites
all over my back. It was painful! I tried to understand
what it was when I saw the bag and part of my body covered
by hundreds of small red ants! I immediately stopped,
took off the bag, and I saw a flow of this shitty animals
coming out right of my rugsack. I was jumping for the
bites while trying to remove them from my body, but they
were everywhere, few even in my slip! I guess the scene
seen from outside was exhilarant, luckily not many people
around in that moment. I didn't realised immediately what
was exactly happened till I opened the bag and saw the
flow of insects converging to my 'Hormiga Culona' plastic
bag. The small red ants were eating their fried big colleagues,
in a word, cannibals!
I promise you, it took a looot to remove all these shitty
red animals: the following day in Cartagena I was still
beating every single thing I had, to avoid the risk, for
instance, to wear a pair of slip with even few biting
read ants loitering over! :
