Bucaramanga - Zona Rosa

Part 2:
The evening of March 26th

As I mentioned earlier I didn’t sleep too much the night before. I only have one real night in Bucaramanga and I’m still irritated about my lack of nightlife so I ignore my heavy eyelids and take a shower around 10pm and get cleaned up. This would be my first time going out in a city by myself, especially a city I just arrived in this morning and know very little about.

I started with a stroll down some side streets with decent crowds and thumping clubs, I turned onto the main street and walked for what felt like 30 minutes. None of the clubs had really caught my interest yet; I begin thinking that if I’m drunk on my walk back, I should probably pick a place a little closer to my hostel.

After a few blocks I finally choose a bar, there is a fair amount of people milling out front and as someone walked in you could see there were a lot of people inside. This place doesn’t seem to have a name or a sign of any kind, only an alien green lighting all over its entrance.

As I walk in the guy checking my ID asks me why I am alone or something (Spanish). He starts to say something about not letting single males into the club or maybe he was looking for a cover charge, I shrug at him and he turns and talks to his superior. After an awkward full body glance the boss nods and lets me through without any cover or complaints. I was dressed pretty nicely, maybe that’s why they let me in, and/or they figured the extranjero would spend a lot of cash at the bar on cute Colombianas. I laugh to myself; I hardly ever buy drinks for girls.

I grab a beer and sit down at a table, I notice there are a lot of Captain Morgan girls dressed in their slutty pirate gear. After 10 minutes the music changes and a very Colombian looking pirate playing the part of Captain Morgan comes busting out of a side door with 10 more slutty pirates. He’s carrying a giant wood treasure chest and slams it on the ground. After some shouting in the the mic, prancing around, more shouting, he cracks open the chest and starts tossing out free merch to the people on the dance floor. The slutty pirates disperse and start passing out free double shots of rum, not bad.

Somehow I nursed my beer for at least 45 minutes, hadn’t exchanged glances with anyone I was interested in and decided to cut my losses. As I walk to the door some old guy flags me down. He says something in Spanish about, “how can you leave this place??? Look at all the pretty girls, you need to give it more time!”

OK old man. He motions to the bar and starts to order us both drinks, I cut him off when they arrive and pay for the beers. He was going to pay for my drink even though he knew nothing about me, I figured I would counter it with a “thank you” and maybe it would pay off in entertainment value.

I begin to regret my decision to stay as the old man starts motioning to this cougar dancing right by our table. Dancing might be the wrong word, she was really just simulating sex positions with her female friend. 15 minutes of staring later he calls her over to our table and instead of introducing himself and trying to go after her, he starts to guide her towards me. Ah! We exchange hello’s and for another 20 minutes I fight her advances, she is getting pretty pissed I won’t dance with her.

Old man (Spanish, he doesn’t speak any English) : Why don’t you go dance with her?
Me: I was hoping to talk to someone a little… uh.. younger.
He smiles, “let’s move over there then” *motions towards the dance floor where the average age drops to the low 20’s.

This club had a strange amount of 40 year olds, something tells me that’s how the clubs in Colombia are. No matter what your age is, if you can put on a skirt and heels, it is semi-socially acceptable to hit the club.

Happily and safely away from the old cougar I start to enjoy the club again, old man points to the second level that looks out over the dance floor, the crowd up there seems better than the one in the main area. He was getting irritated at me because I wasn’t making any advances on the girls he was highlighting. What can I say, I’m picky.. plus most of “his” girls had more booty than I feel comfortable with. He tells me to show him one that meets my standards; I saw this girl earlier and almost approached her right away until what appeared to be a boyfriend popped up at her side. Damn.

While we were making our way around this club the old man was actually trying to dance with girls, the kind of dancing a guy would do if he was 18, not 48. How am I supposed to talk to some local girls with my grandpa making a scene? I began thinking this night would cause some emotional scarring and I started considering my options for damage control. How am I going to ditch this guy and get out of here?

Lost in my thoughts I’m not paying attention to my surroundings, I look up to see old man walk straight up to the girl I gestured to and tries to start dancing with her and her 3-4 other young female friends. To add to my horror he starts talking to her and point at me. Fuck. Who the hell is this guy?? Why is he doing this to me?

She comes over, I apologize for the strange old guy I don’t even know. Once she understood that I did not know the old man, she was much more comfortable(duh). We start talking and her English is great (the first local girl I have talked to that knew any English) which won’t help me practice my Spanish but there is no way I can carry a conversation in Spanish this tired, with alcohol, and the loud club music.

It turns out that this girl is amazing, and (I believe) actually single. Studying Business Administration in College, and learning foreign languages in her free time. Somewhere along the night our conversation turned towards drug use. I believe I understood this correctly, she used to smoke weed every so often in the past, but stopped for a really interesting reason.

Quick background info: FARC, the “terrorist” paramilitary organization wrecking Colombia funds itself off of cocaine and other drug sales.

She stopped with recreational weed because she didn’t want to support FARC. After getting her degree and spending a year in Germany to get an additional certification she plans to come back to Colombia and try to improve the conditions here. Awww.

All of this talking has made us thirsty, so I walk downstairs to get us some drinks. Ah, dammit doorman, you were right to let me in, hold on a sec while I open my wallet.

I got another beer and tried to order a rum and coke for her, lets call her D. Even after gesturing with a coke bottle and an imaginary bottle of rum the bartender had no idea what I was getting at. The cougar from earlier has spotted me and invades my personal space at the bar.

She doesn’t speak any English either.
Maria: I’m going to leave soon, want to come with?
Me: *hesitates, pretends not to understand what she said.
Maria: Are you by yourself?
Me: I gesture towards the empty glass on the bar representing my English to Spanish failure, and “the other woman”.

This conversation is happening at the same time as my discussion with the bartender about getting a fucking rum and coke. I will have to google this later (I’m writing this without internet at the moment) but I believe a rum and coke is called a Cuba-libre, which translates to a “free Cuba” hah, what?!

Another bartender says he’ll get my drink and then walks out the front door of the bar. What the hell? I’m holding a bottle of coke, and I see 40 bottles of rum behind you, what is the problem? I think he actually bought the drink from a different bar and gave to me… umm ok.

How much? Each of the beers I had earlier were 5 mil each, which is pretty pricey because you can buy them in Hostels and corner stores for 1.5 mil. 5 mil = nearly 3 US dollars, 5-8 mil will also get you a 2 course lunch with a drink. Her Cubalibre turns out to be 15 mil, which is insanely pricey considering my “expensive” hostel is only 20 mil a night. It’s clear I’m getting extranjero prices, but whatever, I just want to go back upstairs. Maria the cougar starts shouting at the bartenders that it isn’t right to charge me this much more, even though she knows the drink is for another woman.

This drink buying experience has taken at least half an hour, a potential death sentence to my interaction with D upstairs. I won’t be surprised if I get back up there and she’s gone, and I’m stuck with a drink I don’t even want.

Maria won’t let me go anywhere until she gives me her number, I didn’t want it.

After 10 minutes of wondering if I’d been ditched, I finally see D upstairs and she’s still interested. She gives me her full name for facebook and her phone number (I didn’t ask for it, although this one I really wanted).

My pride isn’t handling the old man’s dating service very well, but I guess all he did was break the ice for me. Unfortunately my bus ticket to Cucuta is tonight at 2am, hopefully I can meet up with D when I come back into Colombia in a few days or weeks.

Bucaramanga - First Sight

Sitting on the beach at midnight with an obnoxiously drunk blonde American girl, 2 cute Peruvian girls, and an Australian guy passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth I realized my nightlife experiences in Colombia suck so far. I mean, this moment is nice I guess. People probably fantasize about it, but it's not exactly "nightlife", just some alcoholics on the baby bottle on the beach. And maybe that isn’t a really fair assessment because I had only been “out” legitimately twice, my second and third night in Cartagena, and I’ve almost been here a month! I did enjoy those two nights out however I only interacted with people I had met at the hostel and went to the bar with, which is ok, but at some point I should really make an effort to talk to Colombians too.

Two days ago I took a night bus from Santa Marta to Bucaramanga, which put me at my hostel’s doorstep at about 5:30am. I slept for 2-3 hours and started the day exploring my new neighborhood. I found a little empanada shop run by a really nice and chatty older lady, plus the chicken and cheese empanadas were the best I’d had in Colombia. 3 empanadas and a Tropical Hit later (coming to a total of about $3 US dollars) I came across a guy selling fresh pineapple slices. And by fresh I mean he cuts the entire thing up in front of you, a clear plastic bag the size of my foot full of pineapple chunks with a toothpick as a utensil set me back .55 US cents, this morning keeps getting better.

Semana Santa is this week, it has just begun and it’s already pissing me off. I have to leave Colombia within the next three days, but if I wait to the last minute the buses may be full and I’ll end up overstaying my VISA, something I would like to avoid.

I booked a 2am bus to Cucuta (the closest border town) which is supposedly a 7 hour ride; although the same bus with the same company leaving at 6 am only takes 4 hours… I wonder if we are making many more stops. I checked out of my hostel today and now I’m just hanging around until 2am to take the bus, which saves me cash by not having to pay for a place to sleep tonight.

Mompos

T (the Dutch guy I have been travelling with for a few days) and I were standing in the corner store near La Casa Amarilla about to pay for our Mango Hits(fruity drink) when the power went out. Little screams rose up from the crowds in the streets practicing for Semana Santa. We used light from the one working headlight on a moped idling in the street and a store flashlight to find the proper coins and pay for the drinks.

“You wanted to punch someone in the face in your lifetime?” I joked, “well here’s your chance, we’re probably going to get mugged” as we step into the dark toward the hostel.

We stopped in the street and took a quick video to take in the complete darkness. In the streets the only light came from a few more mopeds, I noticed the store we were in now has a back up generator running.

Two uneventful minutes later the power returns and we arrive at our hostel. The night security guard has locked the door again and left his post so we stand impatiently, waiting for the guy to do his only job and let us in.

Earlier in the day or maybe it was the night before a sweet elderly couple joined the small “crowd” in La Casa, now our total gringo population reached 6. As we walk towards our rooms and the kitchen I see everyone is showing their serious faces, with their hands planted on their hips.

The older Canadian lady looks to be in shock of some kind, standing awkwardly and staring outward at us. As we get closer I can see red dripping from her face down her neck onto her chest soaking her white v-neck.

Did someone fall down the stairs when the power went out?

“Some asshole threw a mother fucking rock at my wife. If I get my hands on that son of a bitch I’ll fucking kill him” growls the mild mannered man that had an air of sophistication about him earlier in the day.

“Who the fuck does that?” politely asks the older woman, bleeding all over herself. “They threw a fucking boulder at me”.

The night worker comes down from the terrace overlooking the busy plaza outside with a chunk of cement larger than most grapefruit in hand. In unintelligible Spanish complete with numerous shrugs he appears to tell us his breakdown of the situation.

“You should call Richard, have you called him yet?” Asks another man we were traveling with. Richard is the British travel journalist who owns this place, he bounces back and forth to Bogota and is not in Mompos tonight. The night worker says some more bullshit about not being able to reach Richard but has not shown much effort in trying.

A few minutes after T(acting as Spanish interpreter) and the Canadians left for the hospital the police arrived. They glanced at the boulder and went up the stairs to see the blood on the stairs leading up to the terrace.




She has just returned from the hospital now, feeling a little light and giggly from a shot in the ass. We’re not sure what was in the cocktail but the painkillers are clearly working. After many more “fucks” her attitude is positive and she made it clear she was not going to let this incident ruin her image of Colombia. We’re all sitting around the kitchen exchanging favorite audiobooks and movies, smiling and chatting, it is incredible to think someone could have died in the hostel tonight.

The first day

I thought I would have plenty of time to curl up with my laptop and type away about Colombia, but by the time I’m back at the hostel and the internet is working I’m so worn out the last thing I want to do is use my brain.

I want to talk about the last few days right away, but it will probably be better if I start from the beginning.

1:30am February 28
After packing and saying goodbye to a few friends I attempted to get an hour of sleep before the 2+ hour drive to Chicago. No luck. We arrive safely to the airport, everything is good.

My cheerful mood is broken when the Spirit Airlines counter employee asks me for my return-flight details.
“No return flight, it’s just a one-way” I say, feeling a little proud and excited to have such freedom in South America.

“No Sir, that is not possible. Americans flying into Cartagena, Colombia are unable gain entry without exit transport information.”

“Wha…?” Bullshit! No one on the online forums mentioned this (that I saw) and neither did travel.state.gov

After some really stupid minutes I asked for a manager or someone to come over. Even after she talked for 5 minutes I didn’t get a straight answer if this issue was with Colombian immigration, or Spirit Air being toolbags.

Blah Blah Blah, if I want to get on this flight I have to get a bogus return ticket (they will only let me book it less than 90 days out as Americans can theoretically stay 90 days sometimes without any additional paperwork). If I bought a one way and threw the ticket away, and then bought another one way to come home it was about the same price as a refundable ticket. I guess it was good to drop the $600 on the refundable in case something happens. Either way, I’m pretty pissed off.

The flights down went fine, talked to my first Colombiana on my second flight. She was pretty nice and flirty but not my type, plus she was flying with her parents and her mom kept looking over and smiling. A little distracting.

We climb down the stairs next to the plane on the tarmac and man is it hot and humid, uhhg. The line for DAS (immigracion) took about an hour in the same blistering heat. The agent checks out my flight info with 90 days written on it, or maybe he didn’t even glance at it, it was hard to tell.
“How long are you staying?”

“About 90 days please, is that alright?”

“Yes, no problem”
*Stamps passport for 30 days.

You motherfucker.
Now I have to either bail and go to Venezuela before Medellin and Bogota and hope I get a 60 day tourist visa with that border crossing or get some pictures and a bunch of forms and spend 10 hours trying to extend my visa... every 30 days.

I hop a cab to my hostel and get ripped off on the price like every other whitey with basic Spanish skills. I asked 3 times to lock in a price before I got in but he would only respond with, “I give you good price, no worry”.
“No, tell me the price”

*Tosses my bag in the trunk and closes it.

Whatever. I get in anyways. On the ride he asks if I need an apartment or a beautiful girl about 10 times each. Pass, no AIDS please.

Once I check in at the hostel I get online and see if my parents can cancel the flight I charged on the credit card this morning since I had already passed through immigration. Good news, they were able to remove the charge without a problem.