Anyway, what I realized is how freakin nice Europe is. Not America, OK parts of it are, but Europe is like a Disneyland Utopia. I don´t know what they are doing there but they need to keep it going and do whatever they need to do to keep it going. I know this sounds insensitive and soulless to many of those PC´ers out there, but I did the calculations on a beer napkin and if they distributed all the world´s money equally amongst all the world´s people it would be a shit hole everywhere. The PC´ers will be the ones to bitch me out for saying that but they would be the first to scream bloody murder and take up arms (or have others take up arms for them) if someone took away their yoga classes and their Frapichinos when all the world´s wealth was being redistributed. Here I am, living on dollars a day, not using a drop of gas, and I´m the one that thinks we should thank our lucky stars of what we have and protect it.
I was thinking of all this today while biking along as I usually do, coming up with theories and then new theories to contradict the one I just made 10km ago, when out of the bushes jumped Godzilla´s baby. This thing was the size of a baby crocodile (from head to tail it was my length). Before I could even blink the think was under my front tire, then it got smacked with two rotations of my pedals (I could feel it´s body clawing and squirming for life under my feet) and then finally it was churned out and spat out by my back wheel. My bike and heart jumped like I had hit a curb at full speed. The only thing I could say was, ¨Holy shit, holy shit!¨ It was the most worthy ¨Holy shit!¨ I have ever said in my life. Spanish just wont do in these situations. I´m not sure who was more surprised, Godzilla´s baby or me.
Caption: ¨Not ¨the¨ lizard but this is what we are talking about.¨After the giant lizard attack I made it into Tarazá. This is the last flat town before the 8500 foot incline in 20 miles. I am not looking forward to that. I guess it´s time to see what I´m made of.
Caption: ¨Thinking scenery at the foothills of the Andes and just moments before the giant lizard attack.¨
Caption: ¨Thinking scenery at the foothills of the Andes and just moments before the giant lizard attack.¨ Tarazá has all the charm of a border town but is located right in the heart of Colombia. My instincts were confirmed when a 49 year old lady working at the chicken shack befriended me and filled me in on all the local gossip. I guess Paramilitaries run this town and everyone, except for those related to drugs, is poor. The average tooth count here per person is 6.7, to give you an idea. The chicken lady could not be any nicer. She works from 7AM to 11PM 7 days a week, her husband cheated on her and left her 7 years ago after 20 years of marriage and her children are away in Medellín studying which leaves her here alone in paradise to eek out a living. She did not tell me this to invite me to a pity party. These are simply the facts of her life. She accepts it and has a great analogy to go with each story she tells. For her husband leaving her she at first thought, ¨It was my fault that he left. What did I do wrong?,¨ but now she has decided that relationships are much like an automobile. You fill up the car with gas, and when the gas runs out the ride is over. Sometimes you have enough gas for a year, and in her case there was enough for 20 happy years. Now you move on.
She ranks the painful experiences in her life. The loss of a love is second only to the loss of her mother, which she told me with hard red watery eyes. The chicken lady went on and on about life, and making time for people, especially family and friends, to hold and hug them, and to always be in touch with your mother. All this knowledge was bestowed to me over two full chicken lunches. Then she took me by the hand to where there was a cheap safe hospedaje, where the city center was and the internet cafe. I was blown away by her genuineness. I can imagine having the same conversation with the lady that works at KFC back at home.
Caption: ¨A moment, flag practice with band behind in Tarazá.¨After she returned to work I stood standing, mesmerized in front of the church where a band was playing and a flag team was practicing their moves. In front of them was a group of kids playing football, and watching them were adults sitting around in the town square talking amongst themselves. This place might be shady and poor, but the people are living life out in the streets and interacting with each other. Everyone knows everyone and their business. Before I met the chicken lady I thought everyone was working 4 hours a day, but I think what happens is people are working all the time but it´s within the fabric of the community. They are sitting and socializing with the people while they are working. Yes, they are tied down to their jobs, but they are also engaging themselves in more than just their work. Of course the financial situation means that the majority of the Colombians that live in pueblos never travel. They don´t have enough money to visit the next closest town, let alone to get a hotel and vacation there. They are shackled by their poverty. All of this weighs so heavily on me. It makes me dizzy, and thankful for what I have, but mostly sad and feel like I´m wearing a lead trench coat as I wander alone around the plaza with my thoughts.
For lunch I went to a restaurant in the plaza I visited the night before. The waitress tells the chef, who is a major Italian food connoisseur, that I am Italian. My Italian passport that I had been working on for 4 years arrived one week before I left for Colombia, so I did not have to be an American while traveling in S.A.. A good thing. The chef comes from the kitchen and sits down to watch me eat, per usual, while quizzing me on Italian food. He says spaghetti and I say Gnocchi, and this goes on until he wants to know more and more specific Italian vocab. Some of it I get lucky, like the word for fish, and remember from dating an Italian girl for the last year while living in Madrid. Some no.
¨So what is cabbage in Italian?¨ he askes.
Oh, jesus.
¨How much time did you spend in Italy?¨he asks me with curious eyebrows.
¨Ah,¨ again, my quick wits save me. ¨Well, I was born there but was raised in London and Madrid by my father.¨
He looks confused and smells a fish. He calls over a motor taxi friend of his. Motor taxis are known to be the shadiest of the shady. Apparently his friend speaks English, so he asks me questions in broken English and I respond back to him in Spanish, because I feel as if I´m being tested somehow. After a few minutes talking the driver has to leave and goes on his way.
I ask the chef, ¨How does he speak English so well.¨
I ask the chef, ¨How does he speak English so well.¨
¨Oh, he went to America and was arrested,¨ and he makes the universal sign of cuffs on his wrists.
Gotcha, so this guy was smuggling drugs, was caught and then learned English in prision. I´m hoping these guys are buying the European story cause these are not good parts to be an American when probably half of his friends are locked up in American prisions for Narco running.
Caption: ¨City plaza. Where people go to be humans.¨ The chicken lady came knocking on my hotel room door. Let me tell you that it scared the crap out of me but I was relieved it was only her. She says, ¨Oh, good. You´re here safe! I was worried cause I had not seen you for lunch and I knew you were walking around the town¨
Wow, that is really nice of her to check up on me, and then I started to realize how freakin bad the situation is here if she is checking up on me after not seeing me for 3 hours.
My heart is beating going to the internet cafe, thinking I´m going to be stuffed into a sleeping bag at any moment and whisked off to the jungles. When I get there I check my email and a couchsurfing email from a couple in medellín wrote me:
¨Hola Ryan,
As for Taraza, the problem is that lots of folks cooperate and benefit from the armed groups and will readily snitch. The surrounding area is peppered with coca fields (and probably poppy, aka"amapola"), you see. The gov't has taken a soft approach with the peasants there, trying to convince them to switch to legal cash crops. If they do grab you, there's just 2 likely outcomes, depending on which group takes you: paras/narcs: death. Farcs and the like: hostage for a long,long,long time. M'afraid I'm not joking! Pardon my French, but get the f... out of there asap!!! Tom¨
That´s heart warming...he´s lived here for 7 years.The very NEXT email is this message from the hostal owner in Medellín when he responded to my request for directions on how to arrive to his hosal via bike,
¨Hi Ryan,Taraza is certainly a dodgy town full of paramilitaries and guerrillas.. probably best to keep a low profile...¨
Ok, so I left the internet cafe even more weary of my surroundings than before and my weak knees carried me back down to the ¨chicken lady¨ that I´m now worried has just sold me down the river to the guerrillas. I ate my dinner chicken and was about to make a b-line to my room and lock myself in until sunrise. I just wanted morning to come so I could put some of this adrenaline to good use, and get my ass up that mountain.
After dinner the chicken lady wants to ´take me for a walk´. Huh? Why? What? And before I can excuse myself rudely I am walking with her down the road, down a dark dark alley and into an empty dark field. As we are walking across the field a warm wind has picked up meaning there is a thunderstorm coming. I ask to take a picture of her in front of a church with the lightening and thunder clapping in the background. The stage is set. I have already decided that this is my last day. We walk through the field and finally arrive to a house without lights down yet another alley.
¨Why are we here?¨ I reluctantly ask for fear of the answer.
¨Oh, I just need to drop off some money and I don´t want to walk alone,¨ was what I understood.
¨Ah¨...I never wanted to just run away as much as I did at that moment. Fuck being rude, just get out of there. This lady had been nothing but helpful, so I stayed even though my eyes were dialated. She handed the money to a black couple with a screaming crying baby and we made it back to the main road back to my hostel. She hands me something wrapped in a black plastic bag that she had been carrying.
¨This is for you,¨ she says.
I opened it up and it was a detailed almanac of all of Colombia with roads and complete with traditions and indigenous tribes for each region.
I stood there ashamed. First of all that I had doubted her pure intentions and secondly this lady, who told me sometimes she does not have enough money to buy a morning coffee, bought a complete stranger a gift to help me on my way. I was more than touched.
Luckily I had a necklace in a plastic bag that I was gifted from the artisan in Taganga.
¨I know this is for a man, but I want you to have it so you can remember me,¨ and I handed her the necklace.
We kissed on the cheek and parted ways.
¨I know this is for a man, but I want you to have it so you can remember me,¨ and I handed her the necklace.
We kissed on the cheek and parted ways.
I walked back to my room with a heavy heart and disappointed in myself. If we choose to be frightened and fearful that is all we can see around us. The risk is real, yes, but 99 times out of 100 people are good.
Caption: ¨The ¨chicken lady¨ angel with the roll of money in her right hand.¨
Caption: ¨This is where the Tarazá cartels and drug runners buy their clothes steeped in irony. ¨American´s tennis¨ with an American flag logo.¨
