Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona -

“A la izquierda, la muerte! A la derecha, la gloria!” shouted Don Pepe, the driver, a man with no teeth and an angel’s confidence. He spun the wheel. The chiva—a riot of neon paint, hand-painted flowers, and a grinning devil on the tailgate—lurched right.

“I’m not a mechanic,” Juliana said, pulling out her phone. No signal. Of course.

“A la izquierda, el pasado. A la derecha, la gloria.”

Don Pepe crossed himself. “La patrona,” he whispered, looking at Juliana. “She has returned.” Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona

“Merry Christmas!” Juliana yelled, and the crowd yelled back, “ Juliana! Juliana Navidad! ”

Juliana laughed. Not a nervous laugh. A real one. It had been four years since she’d laughed like that. Four years since she’d left Medellín for a sterile apartment in Toronto, chasing a promotion that left her with carpal tunnel and a curated loneliness. Her abuela’s final words echoed in her head: “Mija, la navidad no se vive en un celular. Se vive en la chiva culiona.”

She didn’t return to Toronto. She bought La Espantapájaros from Don Pepe for a symbolic peso, renovated the engine with real parts, and started a new tradition: the Chiva Culiona de los Ausentes —a ride for all the Colombians who’d left, so they could come back for one night, sit on the roof, and remember that joy is not an algorithm. It’s a big, loud, ugly, beautiful bus full of imperfect people, taking the wrong road at the right speed, singing off-key into the abyss. “A la izquierda, la muerte

Juliana looked at the engine. It was a Frankenstein of wire, tape, and Don Pepe’s prayers. A hose was cracked. The radiator was leaking a sad green tear onto the dirt.

So Juliana did the only thing she knew: she improvised. She tore the hem of her linen shirt—a stupidly expensive thing from a Yorkville boutique—and wrapped the hose. She borrowed a woman’s hairspray to seal a leak. She convinced a teenage boy to sacrifice his bicycle’s inner tube for a belt. And when the battery whimpered its last, she ordered everyone out.

At the first stop—a shack on a misty hillside—an old woman named Doña Clara hobbled out with a basket of empanadas . “Ay, Juliana,” she whispered, kissing her cheek. “You came back. But the chiva… she has no guasca . No fire.” The chiva—a riot of neon paint, hand-painted flowers,

The rest of the night dissolved into legend. The chiva climbed higher into the clouds, its interior a moving party of villancicos , spilled canelazo , and the smell of pine and frijoles. Juliana sat on the roof—the culiona’s famous roof, where couples went to kiss and children went to see the stars—and looked down at the valley. Every window in every farmhouse was lit with a candle. The world looked like a spilled box of sequins.

That’s why she was here. Not for the novena . For the fight.

They danced until dawn. Don Pepe gave her the brass bell from the chiva’s front rail. “So you never forget how to come home,” he said.

And every Christmas Eve, as the chiva rounds that cliffside curve, Juliana leans into the wind and shouts the only prayer she needs: