The Diplomat
From 11 to 15 May, the port of Barcelona will receive the training ship ARC Gloria, the flagship of the Colombian Navy, which is on a training cruise in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to train its cadets. It will stop in the Catalan capital for five days and can be visited free of charge and without prior reservation.
Live music and dances, gastronomic presentations, talks and exhibitions will form part of the cultural and tourism promotion agenda of the ambassador on the seas of Colombia, the country of beauty, which will also take to the streets of Barcelona with continuous readings or theatrical performances of Gabriel García Márquez as part of the tenth anniversary of the death of the Colombian Nobel Prize winner for Literature and his close relationship with the Catalan capital.
The 2024 voyage of this enormous sailing ship began on 1 March and will end in London on 6 July. On 9 August it plans to arrive again in the Latin American country, after more than 100 days at sea and a month and a half in 10 foreign ports. It will embark two consecutive crews of cadets: the relay will be in Barcelona, which is halfway along the route. Seventy-three students (61 men and 12 women) will go down and 74 (61 men and 13 women) will go up.
Visits on board will be completely free and fans of the naval giants will have to get a place on site for the experience, because entry will be on a first-come, first-served basis. The opening hours for the public will be from 14:00 to 19:00 and the tour of the ship will last about 40 minutes. The visit 12 years ago, which lasted only two days, saw young cadets perched on the ship’s masts, a popular reception with Colombian flags and a brief welcome from the local authorities.
The Colombian Navy’s flagship is scheduled to arrive in Barcelona on Saturday 11 May at 9.30 a.m. at the dock next to the World Trade Center. From then until 10 p.m., the weekend’s programme of activities includes various cultural exhibitions, such as those of the Young Creators of Chocó, a Colombian non-profit cultural organisation that promotes reflection, reconciliation and peaceful coexistence through urban and traditional dance; or Sentimiento Cimarrón, a folkloric dance company created in 2005 in Barcelona that works to showcase and integrate traditional Colombian music and dance into Catalan culture, or chef Rey Guerrero, who promotes the cuisine of the Colombian Pacific, which blends African, indigenous and European flavours, and who will give presentations on viche, an ancestral drink from this region of Colombia.
On board the ship, there will also be samples of some of Colombia’s edible products such as coffees, liquors, samples of handicrafts and different types of souvenirs of the flagship coffee ship. Also on board is a photographic exhibition of Colombian birds, replicas of the Gold Museum and audiovisual pieces from the Pacific: Resilience and Truth project.
On Monday 13 May, the public on board will be able to take part in the entrepreneurship fair, as well as folkloric performances by Sentimiento Cimarrón, Sanjuanero Huilense, Sara Aldana, Lumbalú and La Máquina. Back on land, at 19:00 hours at the Fundación Conservatori Liceu, there will be a talk and presentation by the Corporación Jóvenes Creadores del Chocó.
On Tuesday 14 May, the ship will continue with the entrepreneurship fair, as well as performances by the singer Ingrid, the artistic company Fuego en los Pies, the singer José Polaco and the group La Ruka. At midday, at the Gabriel García Márquez Library, there will be a continued reading of La Hojarasca, for which registration is open, to end the day with a vallenata parranda on the ship or with the presentation of the play Diatriba de amor contra un hombre sentado at the Fundació Conservatori Liceu.
On Wednesday 15 May, the ship will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., ending with a farewell batucada.
