What I will not miss about travelling

And to be specific.. Hostels. (The computer I{m on has a different keyboard, and I can{t figure out how to make quotes or apostrophes, so bear with me)
Last night I awoke to a

ohh UHh

sound.

I was not happy.

Sure enough about 15 seconds later the sound maker gets out of bed awkwardly hunched over and delicately walks out of the room to the bathroom. Did that dude just wet dream?

The layout
This guy has his top sheet looped around the rail on the top bunk (he sleeps on the bottom bunk) so he has a sheet wall creating a little private cubby. When I went to sleep the sound maker also had his laptop back there .... SURFING THE INTERNET, oh god. For the hour before I fell asleep this mouth breather was breathing even louder than usual, and I swear I heard some wet noises. Ill derail for a second and bitch about loud, mouth breathers. Do you not notice how fucking loud you are? Doesnt your mouth dry out?

Also
My mp3 player is ancient. When I first showed it to Dutch he exclaimed
Holy Shit! It also comes with a workout plan!

I stared back with a confused look. He picks it up and pumps it like a barbell.

Oh you sonofabitch

My iRiver H320 from 2002 kicks ass. I had this bitch playing video years before the iPod Video came out, AND I can listen to radio, and record the radio. The feature all you apple jerks wish you had? Two lines out, so two people can listen without using a splitter or putting one headphone in each persons ear, because if you even have a splitter, you can{t find it when you need it.

Downside to my iRiver h320..
It stops working at high altitudes. It says there are zero files on the harddrive, and thats that. I run into this issue every time I fly. I eventually realized if I turned it on early in the flight (before you{re really high up) it worked just fine. You cannot turn it on and expect it to work once youre way up there.

In Merida I had a big problem. The city was so high up, my mp3 player never worked. And there was NOTHING to do during Semana Santa, fuck. On day 2 or 3 I had a brilliant idea.. put the mp3 player in a plastic bag.. turn it on.. squeeze bag for the 30 seconds it takes to get going therefore simulating a lower elevation with the increased air pressure. BINGO! It worked! I had the same problem in Medellin (except when there was a high pressure weather system. Medellin is right on the edge, so if it was rainy or anything the pressure dropped just below the threshold and the mp3 ceased to function again)

Bogota is so high up (I guess, or there might be a problem with my baby) that no matter how hard I squeeze the plastic bag it still tells me there are no files.

Why is this relevant?
I couldn{t drown out noise makers shenanigans with some Tupac or David Guetta, I had to push through it without any help.

Later today noise maker started chatting me up. Said he had to get up early and teach a 6am class (freelancing gringo English teacher) and that he always sleeps through his alarms that early. So on the occasional days he has the early class he stays up all night. STAYS... UP... ALL.. NIGHT... ......

This mother fucker didn{t wet dream, he fucking busted one out in a room with 7 other strangers attempting to sleep. ahhhhh, not cool. This reminds me of a time I was at a computer lab in Auckland and the guy next to me started jacking off to erotic literature. To be fair this computer lab was trying to be modern looking and was really dim, but damn dude, you looked like you were having a seizure.

This afternoon I was hanging out at the Platypus hostel (like normal) and the Mexican guy in the group wanted to hear some terrible jokes. The group consisted of myself, black american guy, white brit, white aussie, half colombian half american girl, darkish israeli guy, and the darkish mexican.

Some people went for it and threw down some pretty rough black and jew jokes. When people ran out of their most offensive jokes the mex said he had a really terrible one. He was right, it{s pretty bad. Nothing I couldnt handle, but the colombian american girl didn{t find this one tolerable.

He says..
What sound does a baby make when you put it in a blender and turn it on?
Fuck, I dont know I was too busy jacking off.

Ba dum pshh
Thats all folks.

Bogota

I have a lot of things I want to write about but I have been feeling extremely lazy the last few days. I am in Bogota now with a flight home on the 25th... not sure what I am going to do with myself when I am home, but hopefully it will be constructive. I honestly dont feel like being a tourist anymore, and I wonder if I should have spent the last 3 months going through Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina (maybe I would still give a shit about museums, or maybe I would be even more burnt out, who knows). That way everyday I could have a new city in front of me every few days, and maybe feel like I actually accomplished something during my time in South America.

I never even made it to the Coffee region in Colombia! Fuck. I am also regretting never making it to Giron, Villa de Leyva, and San Gil. I will tell myself that this might be a good thing, as it gives me something new to do when I come back to Colombia in the near future, but I dont think its working.

Mexican Cartel - Baby daddy

A few days ago I woke up to a text from Dutch earrrly in the morning (5:30) that didn't make much sense. He normally isn't awake until 9-10ish, I didn't think too much of it and figured he'd call me later and explain.

Sure enough around 9 he calls me sounding very nervous and rushed. His first words are..
"B, is there room at your place?"
Groggily, "Uh yea, I think some people left yesterday or the day before. Why?"
"Ok, good. I'm coming over. I need a room."
"Yea? What happened?"
"I'll explain when I get there, see you soon." Click.

I met him at the door and helped him check in and get his room. I'm staring at him silently waiting for him to explain what the fuck is going on. Dutch has been sleeping at L's place for the last few months. Did they break up? Have a fight?

He finally understands my dirty look and motions for me to follow him into his room and close the door so no one else can hear our conversation. (this must have looked suuuper gay)

Sitting on the corner of his new bed fidgeting, rubbing the side of his face and looking down at the floor he finally begins..
"It started a couple days ago. People calling my phone asking questions about me, all on different numbers. Last night someone kept calling over and over, I answered at around 3:00. It was some girl asking if I remembered her from Leticia, says we fucked a lot and that she misses me and wants me again. L is lying next to me in bed listening to all of this, so I had to explain to her that this was all lies man, uhgg that took forever. This girl kept saying she wanted to meet me somewhere in Medellin, and using the same nickname L uses for me."

"This sounds like the guy in Mexico fucking with you."
"Yea, we determined that. She's trying to get me isolated man, this guy is trying to fucking kill me. L told him I left last month, but he obviously knows that's a lie. One of her cousins who is good friends with this guy has my number, he even has pictures of my face. Fuck man, I can't walk around the center anymore. L wanted me to set a time to meet this girl, but then she would go and fuck this girl up."
"I don't think that's very safe for her."
"She said he might kill her to get S (L's daughter)."
"Hm, yea. Killing you or her makes his life easier".

Now, a couple weeks ago Dutch and I have already had some conversations about this guy working as muscle for the Mexican cartels. That consisted of this bit:
"That guy better fucking die soon man, he's really pushing it working with the cartels. In his position, it's only a matter of time"
"We can only hope"
"L mentioned setting something up to kill him, but if it didn't work he would definitely come and kill her. If this gets too bad, I'll just marry her and take her with me."
"How will that work with her black list thing?" (L can't leave the country, she's on a gov't watch list of some type)
"Shit I don't know, but I can't just let her die here. I was thinking about sending those people in ------ (a small colonial town) a message asking if they would let her live there if things got really bad, I would send them the money. It would be some place for her to hide out, no one would know where she is except us."
"That might be a good option to have."

L recently told Dutch that while we were in Cartagena one of her friends called in a favor. L dressed up all hot and slutty and went to a certain store to distract a guy. Her instructions were to get this guy to walk to the very back of the store so her friend could shoot him, it was a success. This is basically the same tactic being used on Dutch.

The Spiral / Mother's Day

The first time L killed someone it was on accident. She intended only to put fear (I don't know why) into this girl by surprising her with the barrel of a revolver pressed to her temple. In all the excitement a finger found a trigger and split this girls head open.

Dutch compares the life of L to the main girl in "Rosario Tijeras", I just watched the movie a few days ago and it is surprisingly close. L's older brother bled out on the street from bullet wounds right in front of her at a fairly young age, which was a contributing factor to L's future violent actions. After she accidentally wasted that girl, she started to freak the fuck out and got involved with her Uncle's antics. L's mother recently told me this Uncle used to cut the feet off of live cows for fun, this guy is not a good influence on anyone.

It's midnight the day before Mother's Day and I receive a text from Dutch saying, "B, you're coming tomorrow".
I already knew he was going to L's sister's apartment for a family get-together, but I had no intentions of inviting myself or coming with.
"But.. I don't want to crash your thing with her family."
"I knew you would be like this, that's why I told you were coming, I didn't ask."
It was final.

I didn't even consider to ask where this family hangout was taking place until we had been in the cab for 20 minutes. I forgot the name of the barrio 30 seconds after they told me, but it was in the North of Medellin, a fair ways up the valley wall.
(In Medellin, a basic rule of thumb is the further south you go, the safer the neighborhoods are. The north consists of barrios resembling the shanty-like buildings you see in pictures of Rio de Janeiro. Another generalization of safety here is the higher you go up the mountain the shittier the neighborhoods get, of course there are a lot of exceptions, but it's generally correct.)

We walk up their steps, through their front door, and there are a bunch of faces I have never seen before.
"Aqui", the apparent man of the house (everyone is dressed up and he's in his boxers, nothing else) says to me and puts a cold
beer in my hand.
"Oh, hey watch out. They're going to get us hammered today, it's only a matter of time until the break out the whiskey." Dutch warns me.
Sure enough 2-3 hours and several beers later I get a glass with a few ice cubes in it and about 6 shots of whiskey. Fuck.
I'm trying to be polite and converse with these people, and they keep impeding my efforts by making my brain useless.

Someone brings out a chess board and a conversation of who vs who runs on for a few minutes. Thankfully I dodged the bullet and the first match (match? game?) is between Dutch and Boxers Only.

They apparently have two chess boards and L challenges me to a duel. We prop the table on a stool on the front balcony overlooking the street and a small community park. The day is beginning to cool off, the sky is a few shades darker, and children are out playing soccer in the park. Aside from the drug dealers hanging out in the part of the park with a few closely placed tree's, the atmosphere is heaven.

This was one of those moments you capture in your mind and cling to. It was during this time I began to realize how hard it is going to be to leave not only Colombia but specifically Medellin. I really felt like I belonged, L's sisters apartment and awesome family are giving me flashbacks to my home-stay in Suva, Fiji (one of the best experiences of my life).

Now, I haven't played a game of chess since 3rd grade. Which was also when I first learned how to play it..
I polished off the glass of whiskey only to have it replaced with a splash of coke and another 3 inches of rum. uhh "What are the rules again?" I struggle to muster up. L on the other hand, is 100% sober.

She begins by taking 6 of my pieces and severely neutering my attacking ability. My ego damaged I swallow the remainder of my glass and devote all of my focus on showing some cojones. L's sister comes by and throws 3 more inches of rum in my glass before I can politely decline, god dammit people. Somehow I am able to kill a few of her pieces, so if I lose I at least have something to show for myself.

All the while I'm wondering.. do I let her win because she's a girl? Nah, chivalry is pretty much dead anyways, ladies want equality, I'll show her equality. Do I let her win because she's Dutch's gf? Or because she has invited me to a family gathering and pumped me full of alcohol and food, or do I let her win because she has killed at least 8 people and I know she has a tazer stronger than the electrical outlets in The States resting in her back pocket?

Nah I really want to beat this bitch. I'm finally getting into the chess game and really, really, do not want to lose.

Nearly an hour later I finally hit her with a check-mate. In order to show her the upmost respect.. I stand up on my stool (quite wobbly as L's sister filled my glass for a THIRD time during the match) and shout some "whoo's!" and "in your face!"'s.

Instead of tazing me she just put her face in her hands and moped a little, I'll call that a success.

Aimless Abroad - Now with (a few) more pictures.

I jammed some pictures inbetween the blocks of text on my previous posts. I think they disrupt my rants a little, but that might be a good thing. There are more to come!

TOV - Aids, and L's background

While Dutch, myself, and the Brits traveled along the coast up to the Guajira Peninsula (pic below) he was waiting for some news from L. She is really paranoid of Aids and takes a test every few years. She does the 2 part series where the 2nd round comes 3 months later to guarantee that you didn't contract it a few weeks before your first test.



L has a little girl of 4 (I think) years.

Her baby-daddy is up in Mexico working with the cartels you're probably reading about in the news (if you're in the USA right now), making some $$ and sending it back to L to kiss her ass.

Dutch was feeling a little nervous about her Aids test because he wasn't as smart as he should have been with a girl in Ecuador - he came to Colombia after Ecuador. He wanted to get the phone call from L that her test came back negative before he went back to Medellin, because if she was positive.. she would probably kill him. And if not kill him, try to cut off his dick or something, she wants to be around for her daughter, so anyone standing in her way is going to get fucked up.

L lives in El Centro, which is one of the worst parts of the city to live. The pollution and homeless beggers laying on the sidewalks hit their highest density here. There is a hooker that will fuck you without a condom for about 30 US cents that hangs out around their street. Last weekend Dutch and L woke up in the middle of the night and looked out their window to see a crowd of people fighting and screaming.

A bunch of white guys had caught a black guy (he stole something) and were trying to hold him down while a guy swung a machete at him. Half the crowd was calling for blood, and others were shouting to let him go. Apparently shit like this is not all that unusual for them, so they went back to bed.

Two weeks ago L found a homeless guy sleeping in their stairwell on the top floor, which is where they live. My place in Prado Centro a few blocks away has two main gates/doors that require keys, their door off the street just swings open.

L first filled up a pot with water and threw it on this guys face, jolting him awake and confused.
She began screaming at him and kicking him in the stomach and face, stomp, stomp.

The man tries to get up while being fiercely kicked and falls down the stairs.

The edges to these stairs are not rubber like they are in some places in the States, each lip here has a sharp metal plate screwed to it. This stair well also does not have hand railings..

This lack of hand railings means when the man barrel-rolled off the top floor instead on crashing down one flight of stairs, he rolled off the sharp edge and hit the stairs after the landing that were further down. Crashing down face-first and then grinding down the remaining starts until the second landing he came to stop barely conscious in a growing pool of blood.

As he tried to get up and run (before his tumble off the stair ledge) he was shouting, "Porque Yo, porque Yo?!?!". (Why me, why me?!?) This haunts me a little.

Later that day Dutch and L saw him laying on the street, possibly unconscious.

The thing about this that bothers me the most is that because this guy was homeless, he hardly had enough money to feed himself. He DEFINITELY does not have money to go to the hospital and get some help. This guy's teeth were all fucked up (those that remained in his mouth) and his life just became that much harder.

"Tales" of Violence - Continued 2

During our strolls around Cartagena, and over a few beers from a Balcony in the Old Town at night before we hit the clubs Dutch brought me in on more happenings.

It is important to point out that L (his gf, remember?) is nearly 30 years old. This means that she grew up in the most violent times in Medellin, when Pablo Escobar was doing his thing. ($5,000 to anyone who kills a police officer). -> a small fortune at the time.

When L was around 7 years old (I'll check this and correct it later) her mother took her to see a dead black dude. This guy was murdered on the street and left on the sidewalk to rot for over a week. When L saw this rotting body, it had sat in the sun for about 5 days, while people stepped around him and went upon their daily routines.

Dutch said she was still able to describe the scent and sight of the maggots boring into the discolored flesh, also, this man was not shot to death. He was hacked by a machete.

L's Uncle apparently was involved in a lot of shady dealings and brought her into the shit as she grew up.. it shows.

"Tales" of Violence in Colombia

Before I go any further I'm going to post this warning in case anyone in the DEA or legal person of any kind would like to use my words in court.

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

One of my favorite things about traveling is that you can make a "close" friend in a day. You typically cut through the bullshit and will give up secrets you normally wouldn't tell anyone at home.

Even though these friendships are forged over a short amount of time, I think they're just as strong, and in some case even stronger than "normal" ones.

Over lunch that first or second full day in Cartagena with Dutch he told me about his hellish experience in a hospital in Ecuador. He's 23, and has some major kidney stones, after numerous tests in ghetto Ecuadorian hospitals finally deterined.


[Cartagena]

I decided to tell him about my hydrocele, one of my balls has a bunch of fluid surrounding it. Pretty sure it was caused by a hit to the groin during soccer or the time I caught the business end of a metal baseball bat in 5th grade. The doc's won't do surgery on this bad boy until it's causing me extreme amounts of pain, which will probably slowly increase over the course of a few weeks, months, or years because recovery time is 6-8 weeks of hell (so they tell me). Dutch on the other hand is going to feel completely fine one minute, and then the fury of god will be striking him down when he tries to take a piss.

He is going to be in incredible amounts of pain with absolutely no warning. I told him I would rather keep my hydrocele than trade with him, he on the other hand preferred his issue. Comparing our trips to the urologist with someone you have only known for a few hours definitely opens the doors for more conversation.

It also turns out we have both experienced very similar pregnancy scares, the interesting thing is we were both freaking out at the same time for the most recent ones, laying awake in bed during the same nights.

At this point either of us really has nothing to hide from the other, he decided to let me know about his girlfriend in Medellin named "L", and her acquaintances.

One day Dutch was sitting with one of L's coke dealing friends for lunch. The tables were near or on the sidewalk and some guy walks over towards them shouting giving them shit. Words are exchanged with the coke dealer and random guy. The random guy is holding a big pink bunny stuffed animal and throws it at the dealer, Dutch is still sitting at the table, fork in hand, wondering what is going on.

Random guy calls the dealer some word that sounds like gonorrhea (this word is apparently extremely offensive).
Dealer jumps up from the table, pulls out a butterfly knife whips it around in front of this guy's face, whilst holding the knife in his right hand punches the guy in the face (note what that would look like from the random guys view).

Random guy falls down on his back, dealer stands over him and starts stomping on this guys face and throat for a few seconds. Takes his foot off his face, looks at the damage, decides it's not enough and continues to stomp in this guys throat/face a few more times. He flips the butterfly knife back into it's smaller shape so it fits in his pocket, strolls back other to the table, sits down, and goes back to eating.

Confession - Bar

I.. like.. a reggae bar.

I don't know the name, but from the South East corner of Parque poblado, you walk about 50 meters and it's on the left. There's a big patio thing with tons of people sitting around.

I'm not sure why I feel embarrassed to like a reggae bar, I know a year ago I would have said it with no shame. I think it's because all of the gringo hippies here are so fucking dirty and annoying. They all seem to have weed farms at home and wear nothing but hemp, and carry around 6 little bags filled with string and other crap they made and are trying to sell.

These people are the reason for comments like, "fukkin' hippies". If I had to touch their hand, a large glob of purel would be the next thing touching my hand.

Within the first few minutes of my arrival they played a Caribbean/Latin American version of Rihanna's You Don't Love Me, and Akon's Mama Africa, they were very well done, and I was smitten.

The clientèle is pretty much all college kids, which is pretty nice after navigating through old dudes in Blue or other bars near Parque Lleras.

Disorganized Thoughts - week 2.5 in Medellin

Yesterday the guesthouse I am staying at received some new faces. For the first 10 days I stayed here the group of people didn’t change at all, now in the last three days we went from half-full to turning people away for a lack of space. Semi-related, the longest staying resident (6+ months) just moved out less than 5 minutes ago because he found a cheap place within walking distance of his school. He was a cool guy (taught English in China for a few years, so we had a lot to talk about), but I won’t miss waking up in the late morning to his girlfriend’s squeals while they fucked. His room was the penthouse upstairs, so her uh’s and ooh’s echoed down through the open laundry space right through my bedroom window.

Annyways, I was hanging out in the foyer area when three newbies poked their heads in. One was/is a cool older Jew(we talked about Israel and Jordan a lot, plus he gave me about 25 movies off his hard drive) named Moses, maybe 60. I think he’s in Colombia just to see what it’s like post-Escobar before he dies, the other is a couple from Florida.
“So, what is the area around here like”, asks the guy with his novia.
“Crack heads and underage prostitutes”
*Moses throws his head back as a flinch and grimaces, then nods with acceptance pursing his lips together.

Throughout our conversation I tried to tone down how shitty our neighborhood was, but I couldn’t lie and mislead them. If you want a nice clean safe neighbor hood that feels like an extension of the US, get your ass back to Poblado and don’t leave your padded room. Voluntarily living in Prado Centro is to live in the “real”, grimy, disgusting Medellin that is a much more accurate representation of the city.

“Is there any good nightlife around here?”
“Only if you take a cab or walk straight to the Metro, the streets aren’t safe at night”
“Oh..”
“Well, I guess you can—in some places—but you have to turn on your ‘don’t fuck with me face’”
“What does that look like?” He smirks, waiting for me to provide an example.
Christ, this guy is going to get eaten alive out there.
“It’s your atmosphere, you have to eat and breath confidence, walk like you know where you’re going no matter what. Like you’ll rip anyone who gives you shit apart”
I will fill another post on just this matter later..

This guy made me think how green I must have looked in Cartagena.
“Omg there’s nearly naked street beggers covered in 2 months of filth pissing and shitting in the streets”
“Eek, no traffic rules, or driving lanes, how do I cross the street?”
“That hooker is looking at me, oh no, aids!”

Later in the evening I was out having a few drinks with some of my local friends (in Poblado, I’ll mock the neighborhood, but Poblado has 90% of the cities bars, alright?).
It was my first time “partying” near Parque Lleras (full of gringo chumps paying for sex or taking girls they barely know on shopping sprees and shit so they can fuck them later).
Thankfully we were about 4 blocks off the square and around bars that actually had near-local prices again. We sat on this little ledge overlooking the street, I had a local girl under my arm, surrounded in good company, speaking Spanish well enough to carry a conversation; life was good. I think back to my first few days in Medellin and reminisce on my “green-ness”, once again struggling to even remember what worries were on my mind at the time.

The rumors about Medellin being a hotspot for gorgeous women is completely accurate. You can’t go on the Metro without running into a Colombiana that would stand out in a crowd back home. All of this hotness DOES come at a cost though.
Bitch list:
-Sex tourists, fuck off you pervy twats that can’t get laid at home. You are pathetic. You ruin it for every other man by throwing cash at these girls all day long. I woke up two days ago to a text from a girl saying, “Corazoon! No tengo dinero.. :(“

She invited me to go to a Finca with her friends this weekend, two days before we’re supposed to go she says she doesn’t have enough cash, and that she can only go if she can *somehow find the dinero* -> i.e. convince me to pay for everything, perhaps even for her friends too.

Another guy at this guesthouse gets calls everyday from women asking for 50mil or whatever to “tide them over” for a few days.

Two weekends ago the female friend of a girl I was hanging out with (I had only known this girl for a few hours) goes up to a street vender late at night, grabs a bunch of shit, then looks at me and sticks her hand out silently waiting for me to put some paper in it.

Bitch, I am not an ATM.

I can keep going with these examples but I want to save it for another post to really do it justice.

All it takes is a few guys without backbones to give in to these stupid demands and the whole city is wrecked. Every girl here seems to have a friend who is extorting cash from a North American or European, so when they meet one in a bar.. they want a sugar daddy too.

The girl I was out with last night went up to the bar (on her own) and bought me a beer while she got her own drink. I was absolutely astounded. I told the guys back at the guesthouse and received, “that’s when you know she’s a good girl”, “you better hold on to that one” and similar comments. The only problem is that I don’t get the “butterflies” with this one, that could be another post on it’s own.. again.

To wrap up this spiraling mess of a post, cute girls in Medellin that don’t want your money DO exist, it just requires a lot of searching, and that’s a shame.

Travel Disappointment

There may not be a volcano over South America but there is a cloud of dust spewing from the DAS (immigration) office. Dutch is a really smart guy, but he's also really fucking dumb. One of the Brits even called him Autistic, but I think it's more of a semi-savant thing.

The first or second day we tooled around Cartagena he shared his experience with a shaman in Tena, Ecuador. He made the entire experience sound quite awful.

Cliffs of the conversation from my fuzzy memory:
"So, before you drink the ayahuasca a Shaman cleanses you, which basically means spitting water in your face and beating you in the head with a branch. The translator said my spirit was far away, so he had to do it for over an hour. There are these tribes that base their entire religion around ayahuasca and trip out on it all the time, it' basically a cleansing ritual. And by cleansing, I mean hours of shitting and vomiting in the jungle when you don't know what's going on. Forget about your body man, it's all about the mind".

Yep, he really sold me with that..
A week or two later when we started hanging out with the three Brits he told them the story too, at that moment they planned to do ayahuasca together in Tena whenever they left Colombia (their final destination is Buenos Aires, nothing unusual there). I said ayahuasca didn't appeal to me and that I would stay in Colombia or Venezuela, depending on where I was at the time.

7 weeks of pondering and countless google searches later I decide to man up (a few days ago). Fuck it, you don't get to trip balls in the Amazon with a shaman everyday, let's do it. Some of the comments online about ayahuasca were quite fascinating, someone described it as unlocking a door, walking through it, and turning around to go back only to find that the lock has changed -> meaning that ayahuasca is a one way street; it'll change you forever.

Dutch said his trip lasted nearly 10 hours, and for the next 30+ hours he was basically a zombie. Sitting hunched over thinking and thinking and thinking. He had some major life changing revelations and I was already letting myself imagine what I could possibly think about for my trip as we planned to leave this Sunday, meet the Brits in Quito and then head over to Tena by Wed for the Shaman.

During lunch this afternoon I asked him how long he has been in Colombia, he nearly drops his fork and looks at me with wide eyes as if a strange hand just grabbed his balls from under the table. "Fuck fuck fuck man, how the hell did I forget about that?!"

*few seconds of silence

"So you're over the 60 days then, huh?"

My question actually was directed to his total time in Colombia (because you can only stay 6 months every 12 months, [although I later remembered that the rule is now 6 months every calendar year, so if you timed it right you could actually stay for a straight year]) but it made him realize he's overstaying his tourist visa... by 20 days.. that's going to be quite a large fine.

We quickly polished off the rest of our rice, chicken, and fried plantains then Dutch ran off to figure out how fucked he was. I get a call a few hours later.

"Uh B, I'm not going anywhere on Sunday. I'm really sorry man. I have to come back to the DAS office on Monday to figure out how much my fine will be."

CRASH
My dreams of rolling around on my back in the dirt staring at the sky through the tops of the trees is taken away from me. The Shaman Dutch was going to take us to wasn't just any Shaman, I guess this one is really famous, it wouldn't be right to go without him, I don't even know if we could find the right spot without him. Plus I was going to have to spend about 30 hours on various buses just to get to Quito, only to turn around and reverse the path a few days later.

I can't really be mad, because he didn't have to invite us do it with him, and no one is more pissed off than he is. We still haven't gotten a response from the Brits yet from the Facebook message bearing the bad news, I know they were all looking forward to it for the last month.

But I am definitely disappointed :/ maybe we can find a shaman around here but it won't be the same without the Amazon backdrop and accompanying sounds, but I guess it's better than nothing?

If I ever have the opportunity to give it a go, I'll definitely write a follow-up.

Cheers

Back to Santa Marta after La Guajira Peninsula

I wrote this 3-4 weeks ago and never got around to posting it.. It became irrelevant when l met up with Holland in Medellin last week and the Brits came the day after. However, they have all gone to Manizales and beyond for the hot springs and shit down there, so yea.. I guess it works again.

Last night we lost the Dutchman. We were planning on parting ways once our bus arrived to the terminal in Santa Marta (from Riohacha), however as we were getting off the driver told (screamed over the sound of traffic) Dutch it would be easier to get to Medellin from Barranquilla, so with a moments notice he jumped back on the bus as it began to pull away. A bus employee was also hanging onto the outer edge of the door, shouting something about Marijuana, it was quite chaotic.

It was during this crowded and confusing exchange I realized how different the rest of my time in Colombia and elsewhere will be from the last 3 weeks. I met Dutchman my very first night at the Northstar in Bocagrande, Cartagena, 99% of my trip thus far has been with this insane stranger at my side. Today I am still with familiar faces, the Brits and I are spending one more night (we ended up staying 2 nights because it's an awesome place) at the Brisa Loca before they head off to Taganga, and I Bucaramanga. In the lobby area we stumbled across another Brit the other Brits traveled with for a while in Venezuela, ha, so he’s back in the group once more.

Once the Dutchman left all Spanish conversations became my responsibility. If I learned one thing from Dutchman it was that Colombians lie, a lot, and on purpose.

Before packing our bags in the taxi’s trunk we made sure he knew where the Brisa Loca was, Si Si, he assures me. All is well, the Brisa Loca is right in the center of town across from the main square, and is the most popular hostel in all of Santa Marta, surely there would be no issues..

After 15 minutes of driving the cab stops in front of Pollo Loco, a fried chicken restaurante.
Aqui aqui! He shouts and starts to unload our bags.. uhh what?
Senor, senor… this is not it I explain. He points and says Pollo Loco. Yes, we see the massive sign. We need La B-r-i-s-a L-o-c-a. He gestures towards Pollo Loco one more time furiously nodding his head. No no no.

Es un lugar para dormir, lo no es un restaurante x3
(It’s a place for sleep, it is not a restaurant)

We want to take all of our baggage to a fried chicken fast food joint?

10 minutes later explaining that it is a bright orange building in the main square of town we finally arrive, I know my Spanish sucks but I wonder what the fuck is wrong with this guy.

Below, a blurry shot of Brisa Loca from their terrace down into the court yard. And a bit of the dorm room.

Losing our Humanity

I have only been in Colombia/Venezuela for a little over a month and I am already seeing the changes it has had on me. Holland once told me his sister was worried he was losing his humanity in Colombia. I’m not sure what he told her that deserved that reply, I forgot, sorry.
When I first arrived in Cartagena I was overwhelmed. I can’t say it was culture shock, but I think a better term is disgust. I could not believe humans allowed themselves to live in such terrible conditions without making an effort to change it. Local Colombians throw their trash wherever they feel like it, just to walk around the same pile of trash the next day until they are literally walking through a path carved through trash that should have been in a garbage from day 1. The half completed demolitions and partial construction projects were more than an eye sore, many of these buildings looked like they could collapse at any time. It appears as though a local found it, ignored the leaning brick walls, tossed a corrugated tin roof on top of it and called it home.

I wondered if I would ever be able to tolerate such an environment as my “home”, and although I’m still not sure if I can call it “home” it only took a few weeks for the edge to wear off. I still notice all the shit, but now it doesn’t surprise me. I step over the human feces on the sidewalk with the rest of them and dodge cars crossing 6 lanes of traffic with a bored look on my face.

A few days before I arrived in Merida, Venezuela a (British?) girl was traveling from Caracas to take an adventure trip to Los Llanos organized by our particular hostel, a 4 day South American safari. Bus drivers on night buses and the big intercity buses are supposed to drive to their destination without picking anyone up. Supposed to.. Nearly every bus driver tries to grab more people off street corners to make more money they don’t have to report to the bus company, as there is no hard proof there were any more passengers once the bus leaves the terminal.
The bus driver stopped to pick up some more customers, instead of taking a seat, they took the bus hostage and held everyone up. When told to hand over all of her belongings this girl clutched her bag and hesitated. Boom. They shot and killed her on the spot, I don’t know where they shot her but I hope for her sake it was in the head. If she lay there on the bus dying from a stomach or chest wound, she would have too much time to regret the decisions that lead to her being on that bus.

About 5 days later (my third day at the hostel) a Frenchman showed up with just a small backpack. On his bus from Caracas they were all forced to take all their bags off and run them through a mobile x-ray scanner—a big truck/semi thing the Venezuelan military drags around the country. All of the bags in the storage below the bus were lined up in the median between the two directions of traffic waiting to be x-rayed. A motorcycle with two people on it rolls to a stop, picks up his bag and takes off, the VE military was too busy to be bothered and did not do a thing to help this guy.

Yesterday I witnessed my first motorcycle accident. No less than 5 minutes after leaving my hostel for the first time in Medellin to take a stroll and explore the area I heard the *baawwwk* sound of a tire losing grip and beginning to slide. I turn over my shoulder from the sidewalk to see three people in the air and hit the ground like rag dolls. I didn’t pay too much attention to how they fell because the motorcycle was flipping in my direction but stopped about 15 feet away.

Two of the people in the air were policemen.. strange, I thought. They both stood up, brushed themselves off and walked towards the woman on the ground. It appears as though the woman chose a bad time to cross the street and was hit by the two policemen on the motorcycle, awkward/bad luck. She did a complete flip and landed on her left hip/elbow only a few feet from the curb. A few seconds after landing, she opens her eyes, looks around and starts to push herself up only to begin screaming and screaming. She collapses and her eyes close, with no more movement for the next few minutes. The two police are now standing on either side of her. I know it is bad to move someone who may be really hurt, but they didn’t even bother checking her vitals or anything. A man steps out of a shop behind me, “Ella es muerta?” (or something like that). I replied that I wasn’t sure, and that she had just tried to get up a few moments earlier.
Two more cops show up, take a cellphone out of her pocket and soon there are 5 people (4 of them cops) standing in a circle around this lady all on cellphones, not actually paying her any attention.

After focusing on her for a bit you could see she was still breathing, she opened her eyes a little after I noticed this. A big crowd of people appeared right behind her, with her cheek on the cement she was facing my direction ( on the other side of the road). When her eyes first opened they darted around, her body completely frozen. After glancing up towards the sky (probably looking for the murmuring voices behind her) she looks at me. Her stare hits me right in the eyes and she holds it for a few seconds before closing her eyes again. She does this two more times, more eye contact.

I won’t pretend that, “Oh man, Colombia has made me so hard brah” because I really did not feel good about meeting her eyes, but the whole situation felt so casual. A guy on a motorcycle had parked right next to me, he saw the crash too, started saying something about his bike. I was looking for a park when the accident took my attention, I asked the man where the park was and he gave me directions. We stood around a little longer but left before an Ambulance showed up.
I wonder if the woman lived, I mean if you’re hit in the pelvis/stomach by a motorcycle with two people on it at 40 mph, do a side-flip and hit your pelvis/stomach on the concrete again… there are probably some internal issues.

Later that day I found myself accidentally walking through a part of Medellin with a lot of Motorcycle shops. I stopped and took a peak at a Kawasaki store and went to the street bike section, with the image of those people rag-dolling through the air the motorcycle looked a little less appealing, but I had spoke with a Swede in Merida for a while about his 1000 GSX-R and I was starting to get hooked again.

I promise I'll write today... err tomorrow, yea, I'll do it tomorrow.

For over a month now I have tried to start writing shit that happened in Cartagena and the first few weeks of my time in Colombia. I have even written new posts about things that had just happened only to find myself physically unable to sum up the effort to dig up the 'old' memories.

I blame at least half of this laziness on the heat in Cartagena/Mompos/Santa Marta. You couldn't even think without sweating.

The first morning in Cartagena, Colombia was to be spent at the international film festival watching El Secreto en Sus Ojos (the secret in your eyes) an Argentinian film that was supposed to be really good, with Holland, Argentina, and West Coast USA (I seem to remember where people are from better than their actual names).

The night before our Hostel's owner had a party for his girlfriend who just returned from visiting her home (Spain) and invited a ton of his friends to hang out at the hostel. At the time it seemed pretty cool, you just arrived and you're already mingling with a local crowd. It was a lot less cool when they kept hanging out the next few days taking up all the spots on the couches, watching shitty tv, and hogging the computer.

Anyways, within the first 8 hours of life in Cartagena I had already encountered a really hot Colombiana. I did not spot her from across the street or through a shop window, she was sitting on the couch across from me, staring.

A lot of the black/really dark girls on the coast seem to have really light gray eyes, I think this was the first time I had seen this great combination. A bright yellow top thing with 4in heels and shoooort black shorts never looked so good.

"Hey man" the 25 yr old hostel owner says to me, "you should go talk to her". I don't understand what it is about me that makes other guys think I need help (see my Bucaramanga - Zona Rosa post) but I thought it was pretty obvious that that was what I was already moments away from doing.
Before I can reply he has decided to change plans, and calls her off the couch and introduces us.

Earlier in the day I showed him how terrible my Spanish is/was (it's still pretty rough), so he knows I can only carry a conversation in English. This friend of his, ONLY speaks Spanish. The whole night felt like a cruel joke. All in all this was a great motivation maker for improving my Spanish.

The next morning I chill around the hostel looking for the guys to go to the movie and they aren't in sight. Damn. I end up taking the 30 minute stroll down Bocagrande's beach to El Centro, the old Colonial part of Cartagena with this very unique 55+ yr old Black lady who was really into Ebonics. She has been all over Latin America (especially Cuba) so I actually did enjoy talking with her.

In the evening I run into West Coast USA.
"Oh here you are now" she says.
"Hm? I should be saying that to you"
"What do you mean, you stood up Holland."
"What? No way, I was here at the time we said, where were you?"
"I went out in the morning and Holland stayed behind to pick you up"
"Well god dammit, I don't know how we missed each other."

Holland and I both thought we were stood up, the next day we were both sitting around the hostel looking for something to do. The beach is our best option, and gets our votes.

While we're walking 1.5 blocks to the beach (Bocagrande is only 3 blocks wide, our hostel is in the middle, no matter which way we walk, we get a beach) Holland gets a phone call from his girlfriend in Medellin. One of their friends was shot a few times earlier that morning (dead), and the night before, one of their other friends shot and killed some guy and was caught by the police. In one phone call he lost two friends, less than 20 steps from the hostel.

He paused a little after the conversation, filled me in on the details and then we continued to the beach. At that moment I should have understood it was likely we were going to have more conversations like this, I was naive though and chalked it up to a one time event. I was wrong..

Semana Santa - Merida, Venezuela

When I read about Merida I thought I had found the perfect town to stay for a few weeks and focus on improving my Spanish. So many people on forums said Merida was such a great place, it is unfortunate Semana Santa is "ruining" my experience.

For the last 6 days 90% of the shops have been closed all day, after 3:00 you struggle to find places to feed yourself, it's insane. Today I would say 95% of the businesses never opened and now half of those that WERE open, are now closed. Buses out of the city are full for the next two days, so I sit here in my hostel listing to my Michel Thomas Spanish audio-course (it's really great, btw) spending cash at the shitty 4:1 ratio out of the ATM while everyone else is getting 6:1 on the black market.

No matter how I phrased the email to my parents asking them to transfer some cash to the hostels foreign account it sounds terribly shady. From my online banking client I cannot make the transfer and I don't feel like calling the bank. Shit, I might not even be able to call the bank because all of the international call centers are closed anyways. I try to explain that everyone else in the hostel is using the blackmarket to get a better exchange rate.

This is not the "but Mom, everyone is going to _____'s party but me", literally EVERYONE here is getting the good rate (aside from myself). This is not America, the black market cash exchange seems to be the primary exchange because Chavez is such a douche.

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.

4 months to burn?

Why not go to Colombia?

After reading and reading and reading and trying to determine what exactly I want to get out of a trip for the next four months I have finally chosen Colombia. Runners up are Panama, and Turkey.

I was all set to nab a flight to Istanbul when I noticed the flight price dropped $300 if I went a month later. And a round trip ticket to Central America right away was... that's right, $300. A "free" trip/new destination!

After my year in Korea (if I want to try another country at that point) I figure it will be easier (cheaper) to get to Turkey than South/Central America. Plus I want to visit with some friends in Germany at some point, the round trip from Turkey is really reasonable.

I picked up a 1 way, so if I am not feeling Colombia I can bail in April and still go to Turkey without blowing too much more cash than I was already planning on.