Colombiana Chiva Culiona: Juliana Navidad A La

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.”

But this year, the chiva was dying. Don Pepe’s son had moved to Bogotá. The younger generation wanted sleek buses with Wi-Fi, not a 1970s relic that smelled of diesel and damp wool. The town council had declared the chiva “unsafe.” Juliana’s own cousin, Carlos, had sent her a mocking voice note: “Vení a ver el entierro de la tradición, gringa de mierda.”

The Chiva Culiona —the “big-assed bus”—was legendary in these parts. Not just for its wild paint job or the way it fishtailed on hairpin turns, but for its mission: every December 24th, it transformed into a mobile novena . It collected prayers, gifts, and drunk uncles from seven forgotten veredas, delivering them to the town square of Jericó for the Midnight Mass of the Rooster. Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona

The December sun blazed over the mountain roads of Antioquia, but inside the painted wooden shell of La Espantapájaros —the Scarecrow—the Christmas spirit was running on pure stubbornness and aguardiente. Juliana gripped the rusty rail of the open-air bus, her knuckles white, as the chiva’s oversized tires kissed the edge of a cliff overlooking a canyon so deep it seemed to swallow the sky.

“No,” said Doña Clara. “But you’re a calculadora . You solve problems.” Juliana laughed

The engine coughed. Farted blue smoke. And roared.

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. It had been four years since she’d laughed like that

“Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona”