Land of Guerrillas and the Chicken Lady

I don´t know what it is about this trip, whether it´s how I´m traveling by bike or if it´s because I understand the language this time or because I´m so alone (I have not seen a tourist or spoken English in a week now), but the poverty is really affecting me. Each story is sadder than the next. What I´m guessing is that my personal safety is directly related to how well off I perceive my surroundings to be so I´m more in-tuned. Like Crocodile Dundee in the Australian Outback my senses are becoming refined.

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.¨

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.¨

¨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 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.¨

90210 Travel Romance y Ovejas

Do you know when you are talking to someone and you start to notice how much they are saying the word ¨like¨? Then all you can do is be fascinated and listen to that word come up over and over again and you lose track of what the person is talking about, on top of that you´re a little annoyed? Well, that is what customer service is like in Colombia at the moment. All I can hear is ¨a la orden¨, which means at your service. The thing is it´s said to everyone to solicit a service, when you are about to ask for a service you actually want, after each time you ask for something within your order, and then, of course, at the end yet another, ¨a la orden¨.

Maybe I´m just losing my mind because I´m traveling by myself at the moment. Each day is filled with many superficial encounters that are mainly centered around food, water and shelter. The pueblo Colombian´s are nice enough but I´m really not sure what they talk about amongst themselves. They are mainly relaxing in front of their houses like the families on the weekends in the ghettos of Anaheim. Waking up at 6am in Cartagena to rain was all it took for me to postpone my departure another day. I ended up going to a free tango show and violin recital and getting mixed up in a sticky 90201 travel romance drama all at the same time.

Caption: ¨Tango from Argentina in Colombia.¨

Caption: ¨Cameras and microphones always make things look more important than things really are.¨

Caption: ¨Violin recital.¨

Here´s the quick wrap up and you can tell me on a scale of 1 to 10 on how big of an asshole I am. I met a nice half Canadian/Swiss girl on the beach in Playa Blanca. Our first conversation took place skinny dipping in the ocean while swimming in bio-phosphorescence. Each time you move, whether it´s your arms or legs deep under, you leave a glowing trail of sparkles like Peter Pan covered in Pixie dust. Add a joint and a hooch mix passed around made out of rum, vodka and wine and you can get the idea of how amazing swimming in the liquid murky covered in glittering stars under the moon with a naked girl.

The girl is 24, we hit it off magically probably more to blame on the atmosphere, wild life and chemicals swimming both over and under our skin. She arrives without a place to sleep and luckily I have a hammock to share that´s just a 2 km walk down the beach. We spend a hot sticky and mostly sleepless night trying to get comfortable in the hammock covered by a mosquito net after I got bored playing kissy face with someone that kissed like a 16 year old. I´m saved by the sun at 6am and walk her halfway down the beach so I can get back to my hammock alone to get an hour of sleep because the night before I had slept only an hour underneath a table with a dog.

Caption: ¨Playa Blanca, where the magic happens.¨

Caption: ¨Beach camping and cooking. I spent less than 5 dollars a day while there.¨

Long story longer, I end up having dinner with this girl when I get back to Cartagena the following night and I really get to know her, sober. Wow, did that suck. She is as cute as a bug´s ear and nice. Too nice. So apologetically nice that you wonder if she has any personality besides nice. Picture out of control shoulder shrugging and big smiles all night to any comment made as if she didn´t understand English, but yet she does. Yes, it was bad. It turns out that another girl I met through Couchsurfing wants to meet at 8pm so I have to make her flotsam and jetsam but quick. I tell her I´m feeling tired and that we need to find her a taxi. She drags her feet around the city looking for a taxi and I now have ants in my pants. 8.25pm and I feel a weight has been lifted as her taxi pulls away.

Just before she got into the taxi she says, ¨I´m going to miss you¨.

My knee-jerk response is a confused, ¨Huh?¨

I head to the plaza to meet the Colombian CS girl. I see her sitting next to two people that are friends with the Canadian/Swiss girl from where we met on the beach skinny dipping. Are you kidding me? Bad luck. We have beers together and chat in what ends up being a group of about 10 of us. The next night, at the Tango/Violin Recital you´ll never guess who is there. Yep, just my luck. Canada/Switzerland. She is happy but I can tell physically nervous to see me. She hands me a piece of bread to share and her hands are trembling. Jesus. So sweet and nice. After the show I´m looking to leave with the least amount of awkwardness, but she catches me.

¨So, I thought you were leaving this morning,¨ she says.

¨Ah, it was raining when I woke up. Any excuse to stay in Cartagena another day. And it worked out. I got to see a free tango show tonight. I´m probably definitely leaving tomorrow,¨ I lightheartedly reply.

Um...did you go out last night after I took the taxi?¨ she asks with these doe-like eyes.

¨Ah,¨ was my quick thinking reply.

¨Because my friends texted me saying they were having drinks with you last night,¨ she continues.

¨Yep, I did,¨ was my cold and confident reply, now that I know I´m caught

¨Did you happen to run into them or did you plan it,¨and she wont stop with the questions.

Well, if she´s going to put me in a corner.¨Ah, ya, it was a couchsurf meet up,¨ why not tell her now that she is digging for dirt.

¨Oh, I would have come back but the taxi ride was too expensive to go home, then back to the center, then back home,¨ was her reply.

What? She would have come. Oh, that would have been even better. At this point I realize she is still in denial and again, far too sweet. I find a pin-sized opening in the conversation and get the hell out of the Tango Hall with a quick parting beso on the cheek. Now how big of an ass am I? We smooched in the hammock but nothing more. I didn´t feel like I owed her anything, nor her to me anything. I was nice, and fine until I got caught in my own tangled web.

Thank god the weather was nice the next day and I could leave at 7am without any problems. To fill you in on a few quick boring biking tales. I ended up arriving 96km at 2pm at my final destination. I learned a few important tips. The body is a machine. Water is the oil and food is the gasoline. Gatorade is not food. I didn´t eat all riding except for a light breakfast and a banana during the entire 7 hour ride. By 1.30 I had bonked. I couldn´t turn the pedals over. I was exhausted by heat, and what I figured out later, a lack of food. I have now begun eating a breakfast, three lunches (one every two hours) and a dinner. The hunger is fierce. I can eat a bumper off a moving car.

The next day, I took it easy cause my tires sounded like bubblegum stuck on my shoe during a summer day in a Ralph´s asphault parking lot. It was hot. I ended up rolling into a pueblo called Ovejas. I should have just kept going when I asked the kids if they served, ¨almuerzo¨(lunch) and they took the piss of my Spanish accent. It went downhill from there. After having lunch surrounded by 6 kids asking me questions or just watching me put spoon fulls of food in my mouth I checked into one of the darkest, most miserable rooms I have ever visited. One of the kids that showed me to my room made the universal sign of finger in the hole sign for sex, and motioned his head to the 17 year old cleaning girl with Michellin man rolls. I said no thanks.

Then before I could close the door another younger girl came up to ask me to give her a 1000 pesos. Sorry, no. And I locked myself in my bug infested room.

Caption: ¨Ovejas bathroom. No running water. Bucket of water and cup for a shower. You can´t see the mosquitoes but they are there. Prisoners have better amenities. This can be yours too for only 4USD a night, and I still was over charged.¨

The next 5 hours were like being on house arrest. I wanted to leave my room cause it was a super heated shit box, but when I left I saw the boys conspiring to steal my shit. Normally I wouldn´t give it a second thought but there was a giant opening on the ceiling of my shit box that could be climbed over from the next room, which was empty and had a well placed chair against the wall.

I also learned a valuable lesson. Never ever never ever get a Hospedaje (place to sleep) near a bar, and especially not a bar that is blasting music all day and night. In Colombia, as I have noticed in other Latin countries, they have two settings for their music: Off, or Full blast, turned to 11 and getting their money´s worth out of those shitty tinny speakers that can´t handle that much power.

Needless to say, my shit box was right in blasting range. I wore some ear plugs to read outside my room until it got dark. By 8pm I just wanted to finish my dinner and crawl into bed and forget this day had ever happened, but it would not be that easy. While having dinner the owner sat down with me, then two more 17 year old girls joined us. The three of them got to watch me eat, again, and then the dessert was to be one of these girls, according to the owner. I said politely no, for the 5th time (that´s an average of a solicitation per hour. Ovejas, a great place.)

Apparently no one says no to these lovely ladies in this town cause then one of them starts bitching me out with all the sass of a Latina, ¨What?! You don´t like what you see?!¨. This is when I get up, turn my back and say I have a girlfriend in Europe as I gingerly make my way to my room and lock myself in with the mosquitoes.

If you are ever biking in Colombia, give the little pueblo Ovejas a miss.

Scuba and the Offical Welcome to Colombia

One event begets the next. It´s strange how a seemingly insignificant event can start the dominos dropping. In this case it was sharing a hostal room in Taganga a week ago with a 45 year old woman from Bogota who had two kids, one 30 and one 27. Please do the quick math on that one. Well, we became friends, if you count me fighting sleep late night to listen to her ramble on and on in Spanish about her life reconfirming to me that all women around the world love to talk without picking up on the clues on whether or not that person is in the mood or mental state to talk. This one-sided friendship ended up bearing fruit, going to show that well timed ¨ah¨ and ¨qué fuerte¨ is all it takes to bond with some people.

Caption ¨Tanganga. Where the welcoming happens.¨

The first fruit bore when she brought me to her friend´s restaurant with the smallest, best tasting burritos found in Colombia until now. I became friend´s with the owner of the place, Carolina, and then left to the Crackpackers Lost City tour (see last episode). I returned from the couples intense retreat - couples from Ireland, Germany, and Australia - and was ready to do an underwater therapy session known as scuba in Parque de Tayrona. Nothing is more relaxing for me than floating upside, slowly breathing and watching your bubbles climb through 60 feet of water. Screw looking at the fish, I want to feel like a fish. I float around like a dead belly-up seal with a giant grin for most of the time, only to look around to find my guide every few minutes.

When asked by the Dive Instructor when was the last time I dove I told him about a year ago. So I watched a 20 minute refresher video that covered the important dive pointers like, ¨FACT, PADI divers have more fun than normal people,¨ while showing divers doing hula dancing moves under water. Awesome. I´m prepared.

Caption: ¨Relaxed, happy fishies.¨

Before I realize it I am sitting on a rocking boat with all my gear and realizing that I have not scuba dived in at LEAST 3 years, probably more. I jump into the water, do my own safety check from what I could remember of my Open Water Course from 6 years ago and notice there is a hole in my BCD. I tell the instructor and he says, don´t overinflate it or it could rupture but it should be ok. (For those that do not know, the BCD is a vest that you wear that inflates with air to keep you aloat in the water. If it ruptures you are a lead bowling ball underwater:) At this point my head is spinning and he gives the sign to go down.

Well, here goes nothing.

So I go down and about 10 feet down I have a panic attack. First of all I hardly remember shit from the course and second of all I have a hole in my BCD. Underwater panic is a special sort of panic. You start thinking you can´t breathe properly and you basically freak out and you can hear your heart like a kick drum in your head. I start swimming to the surface. Bye bye group that is already down below on the sea floor.

At the surface there are rough seas and I´m getting rag-dolled. On top of that I have to keep inflating my BCD to stay afloat on top of the water because of the hole. I took a couple of calming breaths. Relaxed myself for two mintues, focused and went back down to meet the group. It was one of those defining life moments. I was able to overcome, get a hold of myself, and get down there and even relax down there for 45 min. That was a mini-everest for me. I left the ocean feeling like a new man.

Later that afternoon over yet another burrito I came across the second fruit that had ripened while I had been in the Lost City, Carolina´s visting friend, Angela, a funny youthful-eyed 27 year old Colombian girl from Calí (a city south of Bogota). Now I don´t get it either, but girls seem to be intrigued by little dirty curley-haired guys traveling by bicycle. I even tell them that I don´t think I´m strong enough to make it but I´m going to try anyway. They tend to agree and tell me that I´m crazy, as we have all already agreed upon.

Well, things happen quickly, especially when you´re moving on the following day. We chatted it up over lunch and I went to run some errands like buying 5 liters of water in giant plastic bags and price-gouged in various other stores due to being a foreigner.

Caption: ¨Not a tourist.¨

Later that night, over a single beer and a single baby-arm sized joint filled with weed from the Cogi tribe in the mountains surrounding the Lost City, we got to know each other better along with some people that happened to be in the bar area of the restaurant.

One of the characters was this black Colombian from Bogota who had just finished a 3 day binge of partying. His nose ached and his nerves were frayed shown by the constantly twitching forehead and over-blinking of his eyelids. You could see him calming down following each exhale of the dragon-like plume of smoke. He got into the mood of telling stories of ¨the good days¨ when his coffe table was literally tiled in silver and gold and covered in piles of coke. It was a time when the indoor parties would last one week straight, were so long and so intense, according to him, it would turn a black man white. The guy was, and to me still is, the king of party. He told story after story until I was in the clouds riding that dragon just mentioned.

When the dragon finally dropped me off back in the bar I found myself with Angela again and with the dilema of where to go. She didn´t want to stay at her place and normally the owners of hostels do not let people bring in ladies due to security issues. More on this later. We go back to my place and the hostel owner lets her in with me, which is a miracle in of itself, but then I find the angles are watching me (well, I was with Angela after all...) because there is no one else sharing my dorm room. Just me and the official Colombian welcoming commitee.

Now I have heard stories about Colombian women. They, like other latin ladies, are known to be a handful in bed. But surely it can´t be that different from Spain. Let me say that this particular lass had two settings...one setting was a blender turned on HIGH and the other setting was Hurricane Ike. Sweet jesus. I´m just glad I got to sleep that night with all the bits and pieces in the same spot they started the day. We passed out sweaty and satisfied, although if there were more condoms around, and thank God there were not, I would have shook hands with death.

I woke up in the morning and noticed that all my stuff (iPod, camera, and cash) were still there but that she was gone. Thank God, I wasn´t robbed blind, but I knew her through someone, but this is Colombia and I figured all good stories ended horrible here. I was then awoken by a rap at the door. It was the owner of the hostal and I reflexively told him that I would pay for the extra visitor last night. He says nothing about it and tells me there was an artisan bag taken last night (filled with the usual hippy bead making stuff, string, endangered eagle talons from the amazon rain forest and other items impossible to replace like a crystalized coral snake eyeball that have no financial worth to us but to these hippies it means their livelyhood.)

Caption ¨The hostel owner. You can tell he does not believe me.¨
Caption: ¨The hostel´s valuable reputation was on the line. This is the street where it is located.¨

The owner, of course, blames it on the girl. I tell him that she didn´t rob me but he either doesn´t believe me or doesn´t care and he tells me I have to talk to the Brazilian man who lost his bag. This Brazilian artisan (someone who travels all over South American by making bracelets and earrings to support himself) is a great guy that can somehow live on 90 cents a day. To give you a visual of what he looks like, imagine Lou Diamond Philips had a baby with another Lou Diamond Philips, then tanned for 6 years, wore no shirt, and wore a necklace with various animal teeth hanging from around his neck.

Luckily I had ¨bro´ed¨ out with this guy earlier by smoking him out earlier. Now we talked and he itemized each precious gem lost and I did genuinely feel bad, and at the same time I was planning a quick escape in the rain on my bike for the bus station 10km away as soon as possible. I told him sorry without mentioning anything regarding the girl, which of course he knew about, and I gifted him a tennis ball-sized sack of the Cogi weed.

As I said, the guy is cool and has a certain presence, like a shaman in his appreticeship stage. I think he hypnotizes ladies and gets them to do whatever he wants.The guy returns 5 minutes later while I´m frantically packing by bags and gives me a necklace he made while the hostal owner is watching. I´m thinking that either this is the coolest guy and he has forgiven me (we are yet to know who is at fault), or he has put a hex on this necklace so I end up under some truck tires before nightfall. I´m so scatter brained I don´t know what to think but I walked over to the hostal owner, because right then seemed like a good time, and I tell the owner that me and the Brazilian guy are cool and that I have him some Marijuana. The owner tells me to bring the girl to his hostel but I explained that she has left for the beach and will return tomorrow, but that I was leaving within the next hour. He told me to leave a message with the restaurant owner, but I knew she was gone too, but OK. I would do it. I hoped on my bike and spent the next 6 hours riding the bike and bus back to Cartagena trying to figure out what the hell I should do with this damn necklace.

This morning, back in Cartagena safe and sound, I have decided I will tie it to my bike. It got me this far...

Caption: ¨Taganga street hair styles.¨

Gringo Crackpackers in search of The Lost City

Caption: ¨Sooo touristy.¨

When you are traveling there will be a phrase you will hear often. ¨Ah, that place is far too touristy¨. And this doesn´t just go for places that are overrun with middle-aged Germans and Brits with amazing 9 to 5 tan lines. It is said by backpackers to show that this person knows how to spot a virgin backpacker heaven, which is a crock of shit because what backpackers do is trample down the same safe path because it us comforting and filled with other backpackers like themselves. The touristless backpacker spot is an oxymoron. These same people would be dying for another backpacker to talk to after one night in a pueblo just 2 miles off the backpacker blazed path.

In this regard, I don´t reluctantly join the ¨Camino de gringos a Cuidad Perdida¨ but leap well knowingly into it. After all, the last time I checked I was a gringo. Your other option is to carry 6 days worth of food, buy the visitor permit that the military asks for once you enter the national park and then get some maps to follow up to the lost city (in one day we crossed the river 9 times) and find a place to sleep in the jungle. Unless you are a commando or have done the hike before I would say you would have a 50/50 chance of making it up and back before your food ran out or getting lost. In my opinion this hike is still relatively pristine since you are sleeping in an archaeological site on the 3rd and 4th night. The hike was filled with the usual international suspects; Israelis, Brits, Irish, Germans, Aussies, and the token American. They are all ranging from polite to overly-polite. Any topics verging towards the edges of normal (meaning getting interesting) and you´re seen as a freakazoid. The Aussie mentions that Japanese men buy used girls underwear from vending machines in Japan and all the girls in the group make the obligatory, ¨ewww¨. One of the girls says,

¨I wouldn´t want some strange man smelling my underwear,¨ and my knee jerk response was, ¨Who cares what someone does to your clothes if you´re not using them anymore? I wouldn´t care if someone used my body in a gay gang bang after I was dead. I´m dead, it´s not going to bother me.¨

No one saw the connection between the two. You can get the idea of the tone I set.

Caption: ¨I´ll suck your dick if you scratch my legs for 30 minutes.¨

Starting the long hot and biting jungle insects walk up I was able to do some firsthand research on the stories I had heard about Colombia. And boy was I excited. One of them was about the young boys ´practicing´ sex and having their first sexual experiences with donkeys.
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=823490101 ¨The Asses of the Caribbean.¨
Jamie, the porter, confirmed the stories but said that it was only rural boys that would do it. Jamie grew up in a rural area. He was definitely uncomfortable about the line of questioning, even denying it happens until I told him I already talked to Colombians that told me it did happen. I guess he didn´t want to tarnish his tough guy ex-paramilitary image. More about the paramilitaries later.
Caption : ¨Jaime, his back to the camera to protect is donkey fuqing identity.¨

The second story was the Burundanga tree I had heard so much about.
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1119242704 (Colombian Devil´s Breath.¨)
This tree grows wildly throughout Colombia in the jungle and even in urban areas. There are stories about tourists making tea with the white flowers and tripping for three days. As my guide, Castro, told me,

¨Remember one liter of water per flower. I had an Israeli and a German in my group before that made the tea with 2 flowers in half a liter of water. They started acting crazy crazy. Instead of going into the bathroom where the imaginary animals were hiding they took a shit right in front of the group on the temple.¨ Ok, good advice.

If you go to Ciudad Perdida you want to pray you get this guy for your guide.
Caption: ¨ Castro. I trust this man with my life.¨

Studliness, confidence and charm exudes from this man that not even a dead baby full worth of coke could provide. The man spiffs himself up at each water hole while we lazily bask in the sun and sparkling water to cool our itching bites. Before we are ready he has already gelled up his hair, lathered his arms and chest in hair conditioner, and slathered on a grandpa-sized dose of Hugo Boss cologne.

Castro also had an experience with Burundanga. The great thing about Castro was he would tell you anything about his life, about now or then, very matter-of-factly. He was and is involved in Narco-Trafficking. Back before the Bush assisted Uribe (current Pres of Colombia that is hugely popular with about 75 to 85% popular support) dessimation of coco crops near urban, tourist centers and highways coco was grown in the Santa Marta mountain range where Castro grew up. With its easy access to the coast it was a perfect place to grow coco, turn it into cocaine and ship it to the states in boats. Everyone, and he did mean everyone, was involved in the coke game at some point in Santa Marta and the farm lands that surrounded it. Castro, being just as charming as he is now back then, would wear 6 million pesos worth of gold in sausage thick necklaces and fat gold rings on each finger.

Well Scapolamine, the white powder product of the Burundanga tree, was used then as it is now. To rob your ass blind. Two girls came up to Castro and they started drinking together. But Castro was smart and he would only pour the shots for himself and the girls from a bottle he hid in his pants to avoid being drugged. Unfortunately the ladies were smarter and one put the powder on her lips and kissed him, while the other put the white powder on her nipple and he kissed it. He woke up three days later in a hospital, nearly dying and having lost all his jewelry.

I´m not sure what the moral of that story is, but it seems to me that in every single gangster/cartel building movie the main character achieves exactly what he wants and is then destroyed in every aspect of his life...his empire crumbles, his superficial lady leaves him and his best friend backstabs him and usually ends up banging his lady. To me it seems just like the pursuit of the American Dream. The greatest part is everyone from nerdy Jewish kids in private colleges to rapper thugsters idolizes these great blow ups and blow outs. One of us is missing the point.

There was an additional ¨extra touristy¨ upsell side tour with the coke factory hut. Since when was a private tour to a coke hut in the jungle seen as touristy? But this is what each backpacker was telling me. If they were giving away souvenir t-shirts then ok, I could see that.
Caption: ¨My Ciudad Perdida souvenir t-shirt.¨

We go hiking up the river 15 min from where we were staying at 7am to see the coke kitchen. Maybe it was watching too much Mr. Rogers while I was a kid but I was just as stoked on going on the coke factory tour as I was seeing how Crayolas were made when I was 8. We arrive to the plastic tarp held by sticks with a pile of plastic bottles arranged next to a pile of fresh coco leaves. Most of the bottles were not used and was all part of the smoke and mirrors to make you feel like you got your overpriced money´s worth for this 30 minute upsell. Yes, we were ripped off.
Caption : Mostly empty bottles, but ones that had something were extremely toxic and caustic.¨

Yes, definitely worth it. I wont bore you with the recipe cause you can surely find it online but what you should know is that the guy was touching these chemicals with this hands, which included gasoline, sulfuric acid, potassium permanganate, salt, and lye.
Caption: ¨He touches his wife and donkey with that hand.¨

The end result was a gray pungent smelling paste that can only be smoked in this form. If you try to snort it rivers of blood will pour from your nose.

Caption, ¨Don´t try to put this stuff up your nose.¨

An undisclosed backpacker said that his brain went numb 10 min after smoking it. The final product is sold to the real drug dealers that have giant ovens that dry out the coke, and then they add 4 more lovely chemicals to turn it into nose candy. The coco farmers and guys that make the toxic paste make pennies compared to the guys that do the final processing and shipping.

Bush and Uribe have been erradicating coco fields by spraying the fields with an agent orange type herbicide. As a result other food crops such as bananas and coffee are dying and they are still trying to figure out if there are any agent orange type nuerological affects on the children being born in the area. I did some of my own research and took this photo of a demon-eyed children from the indiginous village.

Caption: ¨Take the time to blow this pic up and look at the eyes of this kid on the left.¨

The best case scenario is the kid needs glasses, and the worst case is he was spawned by the devil. He would beat puppies tied to trees. The child was not right. As usual, best intentions of getting rid of one problem, coke, makes another, neurological problems.

Back to Castro; while walking down the trail I asked him what his craziest Narco story was and he replied very casually, ¨When both of my brother´s were killed by the drug gurrillas. Then I switched to full-time tour operator.¨

A little while later, again walking alone on the trail with him because I was the only person who could communicate with the guide out group of 12, if I noticed the mobile phone call he made before we left the last village before getting out of mobile reception range. Yep, I did. Well, he was checking to make sure that his London ´amigos´ had arrived safetly back in London. He had hooked them up with a few kilos and they had smuggled them back in the country. ¨How you might ask?¨ cause I sure as hell did. Castro´s friend makes European brand shoes with the sole filled with coke. 500 grams per pair of shoes. He says he has many clients from Italy, Spain and the UK that come each year for their holidays and to bring back their kilos. He says he doesn´t solicite buyers and that tourist search him out, yet I got a hunch he was telling me this story to see if I was ´interested´ in bringing back a little investment.

Ah, crackpackers...sooo touristy

The solo bike ride begins

After another great night of sleep our nerves are frayed. Uni-bomber is annoyed, as we all are, and he wants to return to Cartagena. No problema.

I pack my stuff, exchange hugs and emails and I´m on my way to Barranquilla, the 4th largest city in Colombia, to find some clip-on bike shoes for the uphills that await me in the Andes. The guys have convinced me it´s the only way to tackle those hills, so I make it my mission for the day to find a bike shop before they close.

Caption: ¨Scenery.¨

Caption: ¨Art.¨

It´s all hot uphill and I get to play leapfrog frogger with buses all the way into the city center. It´s a liberating feeling traveling solo and now traveling at my own pace. Not only do you get to meet more people but I can get more things done in one day than I did in 3 days with those guys. Jar Jar is an amazing person but speed, even he will admit, is not his forte. It takes him 2 hours to do anything; to pack his bags, to brush his teeth, or to eat his lunch. I was talking to one of his friend´s in Cartagena and they told me they were together in the hostel and were going to eat lunch together in an hour, but first Jar Jar had to run an errand in the city. He left. Upon returning to the hostel later that evening the friend wanted to know what had happened and I overheard the following conversation,

¨Well, I went out to buy a journal, and then, well, I got turned around and I just found my way back right now.¨
¨10 hours later?¨ she replied.
¨Ah, yep.¨ was his friendly smiling response.

How could you get angry at that? But you get the idea of why they have biked 3 weeks in 7 months.

Caption: ¨Pointers, the both of us.¨

I found a hotel in Barranquilla by 5pm, showered, and then hit the town to find biking clip-on shoes. I came up with nothing at 4 places and then, because I was alone, was shown some very nice Colombia hospitality. A stranger said he knew of a place on the other end of town. He biked me 40 minutes to the other side of the city to the door step of the best bike shop in town. What hospitality. I was blown away. He just wished me luck on my adventure and went on his way. The bike shop was equally friendly and sent me on my way with a hand drawn map to find a book store with road maps of all of Colombia. I had to bike back to my hotel in the dark with, as the Real Estate classified ads euphemistically say about a treeless neighborhood in a bad area, ¨shadey trees lining the streets¨ (wink wink). People look, and I just bike by.

I put together my new pedals and shoes in my cramped hotel room. Ate a chicken and passed out early to the Colombian spice channel.

Tomorrow will be a long day.

A Volcano of Mud in Totumo Sept 3, 4 & 5 2008

Did I already mention that it was motherfuqing hot and humid here? It´s about 98 degrees and 98% humidity. Great biking weather. You can work up a sweat eating or turning the pages of a newspaper.

Jar Jar and the Uni-bomber are itching to hit the road and check out this volcano of mud that you can bathe in about 50 km northeast of Cartagena. Although it´s the opposite direction I am planning to head there are some touristy things I wanted to do out that direction including the Volcano, the beaches of Tagana, Tayrona park and the trek of Ciudad Perdida. The added bonus would be going with these guys and learning from bikers that have been very slowly making there way from Mexico City to Colombia over the past 7 months. Very slowly. To make it clear to everyone, I don´t have a clue about travelling on a bicycle, so i jumped at the chance to ride and camp with these guys.

They tell me more the merrier and we head off. Jar Jar has injured his knee so we want to ride slowly and they are not bringing much stuff with them except for camping equipment and supplies for a night, but I bring everything just incase I want to continue on solo after the Volcano.

We take our sweet time getting up, eating and loading the bikes which puts us at a departure time of 1.30 PM, the most bone-softening hot part of the day to do our biking. Pouring sweat we make great time to Volcano but decide to set up camp on the beach early, cook dinner and check out the Volcano the next day.

Jar Jar and the Uni-bomber don´t speak Spanish so I went around asking where the best and safest place to camp would be. The locals direct us to a spot and we end up camping on the beach of a very poor pueblo. Thirty children file in and, per usual, Jar Jar´s international fan club surrounds him and his bike. You have to appreciate what the pair, him and his neon green recumbant bike, looks like to the locals. To the kids in this pueblo it is like a circus has just arrived to town in a space ship from Pluto. While we bike down the steets of the pueblo it´s like ¨the wave¨ at a baseball game, the local woman selling food and juice on the side of the road erupt into a joyous shameless laughter and bend over clenching their stomaches in hysterica as we pass by.

¨Yep, we´re just blending with the locals. Nothing out of the ordinary here. We´re just like you guys,¨ we say to ourselves as we toot our horns and ring our bells and waving with plastic smiles.

Caption, ¨Colombia´s Carribian coast.¨

They start in with the usual questions and we will answer them but after 30 minutes our patience wears out as they stand 1 foot from us, staring, while we write in our journals or read. We have found that stopping what you are doing and staring back at them, without blinking, usually gives them a clue and they get bored and go away.

The sea is rough from the hurricanes in the Carribian, but a skinny dipping is in need to take the heat off and wash away the salty sweat with salty sea water. Dinner pasta was served to hungry stomaches while we watched our TV, the setting sun over the ocean at 6.30PM. Darkness falls faster here for some reason and a fire is necessary to keep moral up and to provide entertainment.

While we are poking at coals and contemplating going to sleep a dark man appears from the darkness. A unanimous, ¨jesus christ¨ from the group and then introductions to the man that has no facial features standing infront of the black sea. I have found that ignorance is bliss. Since Jar Jar and the Uni-Bomber don´t speak Spanish they don´t understand it when the guy tells us, ¨ There are theives in the bushes surrounding you waiting for you to go to sleep so they can rob your things. I have place you can stay that is safe but you have to pay. ¨
I relay the message to the guys and they are unphased but this being my first night camping in Colombia (day 2) I was curious to know if this guy wanted to scare us into his living quarters for some money or if he was a good semaritan. The guy goes away and wishes us luck. I retire to my tent and try to get some sleep. I would say I got a good 20 min of sleep that night with the rest of it spent peering out the flaps to see if my bike tires were still there.

Morning comes and we´re still alive. Wow, it feels good to be alive and with your stuff. I´m quickly thinking in my head that camping alone will not be the best idea and that there is safety in numbers.

We have a quick breakfast at the local fry parlor. Jar Jar is surrounded by his International Fan Club per usual. Then we head over to El Volcán de Lodo (the volcano of mud) just up the road. Caption: ¨Breakfast joint where all food is fried to your liking and The International Fan Club.¨

As we are slowly making it up the loose rocky road we see the tour buses are leaving, so we´re delighted to find that we have the volcano to ourselves. Jar Jar doesn´t hesitate and goes right up the wooden staircase without paying the 2.50 USD entry fee, stripes down buck naked and jumps in the mud. That leaves the Uni-bomber and me to negotiate with the guy for the price, we pay for ourselves, strip down and jump on in to the most bizarre feeling your body has ever felt. The texture is a bouyant gray creamy custard. You can´t sink yourself if you wanted to. It´s such a refreshing skin massage as you writhe and wiggle about. Mud in your eyes, ears and all those other important parts. Oh, did I mention that no one goes in this volcano naked? Ya, we´re the only ones. We get out and are drying to get the full body mud mask treatment. There is nothing like mud drying to a nice hard shell on your nuts. The guys working there are fascinated that the three of us are naked.

Uni-bomber and I make our way down to the fresh water lake below to wash up and Jar Jar is as happy as a pig in shit playing in the volcano. He is parading around naked caked in mud infront of God and everybody. The old men are yelling at him cause there are kids around and he is saying in his best American accent, ¨Es natuRaLESA!¨ (it´s natural!). Oh, and I forgot to mention that both Jar Jar and and Uni-bomber are hung like Brontausaures. When not excited I´m hung like a pistachio.

Caption: ¨Jar Jar showing off natuRaLESA!¨


After a good hour and a half Jar Jar is done playing. It´s great to see someone enjoy themselves in each moment of the day, at his own pace and this he does. No one is going to rush this guy and no one wants to rush him. We each let the other do what they feel at the moment. I sit back and let them set the pace, I mean, Jar Jar set the pace since it always defaults to the slowest speed. It makes you take time and enjoy yourself as well. There is nowhere to be but where we are. Sounds cheesey but you realize that it is a lovely luxury.

We decide not to bike back to Cartagena but instead find a new beach to camp on. This one is isolated and painfully beautiful.



Caption: ¨Tent and beach. Simple pleasures.¨

You can´t see the bugs on the beach but they are there. We make a great dinner soup and wash it down with a couple handfuls of beers and listen to my portable iPod speakers, one of my luxury items on the trip and very necessary when travelling alone or with a special travel friend for the night.

That night we discussed going onward to Santa Marta and they were half-heartedly convinced to travel onward the next morning. We made it to Puerto de Colombia about another 60km from the Volcano. This was a quaint little city with no beach camping so we got a room. I have had many shitty rooms in my days, but this room takes the cake. It must have been a mosquito and insect breeding ground or have had a research camera in there to test how quickly one can lose their minds from being eaten by bugs. The mosquitos worked on any flesh left uncovered while the bed bugs worked on any part of the body under the covers. Factor in the temperature is near 100 at night and that the humidity was so intense it left me looking for a carrot peeler to remove my skin in hopes of getting some relief.
We all ended up abandoning the room and sleeping outside in our hammocks and tents in the garden. I had a good hour of sleep before the sweltering sun reappeared.

Caption:¨Quaint.¨

Caption, Jar Jar and his road kill on the way to Puerto de Colombia¨

Day 1, Airport in Cartagena, Colombia

Well the day that I had been waiting to come is finally here. My balls feel as if they are being pulled into my stomach, if you want to get an idea of my mental and physical state, but funk it. I always know the ¨pre part¨ and the ¨what if´ing¨ is always worse than the ¨doing¨.

Caption: ¨Great visuals to go with the new Pinback album. Have you heard song number 3 yet?¨

Looking down on the sea my mind dances from one extreme to the other like a bi-polar schizophrenic. Voices in my head telling me about the great moments to come and then quickly bouncing to the next spectacular tragedy that awaits when I have Malaria of the testicles.

Caption: ¨Malaria of the Testicles.¨

What I love about time is you can´t stop it. No matter what it keeps going, and although at times it seems slower or faster, eventually, if you planned something, it will arrive. I have arrived. Hot steamy air hits like a warm wet washcloth over my head as I make my way down the tarmac. The airport in Cartagena is the size of a 7-11 and there are touts waiting to carry your check-in luggage for the very affordable price of 5 USD. Are you kidding me? 5 bucks to carry my giant bike box and my giant bag with all my pannier bike bags 30 feet to the curb?

The luggage carts are for private use only. Gotcha. I gracefully drag my giant cardboard box and large bag holding my 4 panniers to the curb in one go. Tearing into the box I start pulling the bike parts out of the box and quickly assembling it like a David Copperfield act. I might add that I had a crowd around me like a street magician as well. Most of them are asking, ¨Where are you going?¨, ¨Where did you come from?¨, ¨How much did that cost?¨, and ¨Are you alone?¨. It turns out those same 4 questions are the only questions they ask in Colombia. I have perfected the conversation to cut down on a second clarifying question. All of the answers are lies, in case you were wondering. But finely crafted lies at that.

Luckily the airport is only 5 km from the city center so I start biking into town. Within 10 minutes I am lost and content being lost. The city is a delightful colonial town with 3rd world charm. The people could not be any less interested in me although I feel like I am biking through town with a sign that says, ¨Robame¨ (rob me) pinned to my back.

The streets get narrower and narrower with more and more people so I figure I´m heading towards ¨el centro¨. Then I see someone ridiculous, and I get a faint idea of how I must look to these Colombians. It turns out it is an American from Oklahoma on a recumbent bicycle.

Caption, ¨All Americans blend in this well.¨

The dude looks like a character straight out of the newest trilogy of Star Wars films His dreads have been pulled horizontally to make giant ear-like structures like Jar Jar Binks. There is a party on the backside as well; there are more dreads flattened into a paddle shape with a colorful hand-woven coin purse pinned to his hair. The coin purse holds secrets. If you want to know what is inside the only way to open it is to make a secret Santa exchange. You have to put something in it and then take something out.

Caption, ¨Jar Jar Binks¨

Caption, ¨The Secret Santa satchel, a permanent fixture.¨

The guy can´t be any more delightful, down-to-earth or more pleasant to converse with. He´s as stoked to see me as I am to see him and he shows me to the cheapest hostel in town where you can camp out in the common area for 3 dollars a night. Ok, sounds good to me.

There at the Posada de Pirata Hostel I get to meet his biking companion who has the wild-eyed gaze of the uni-bomber, but is nice in his own anti-social way . He exudes vibes of someone that has not had is penis touched by a lady in far far to long, which was later confirmed by Jar Jar.

Caption, ¨The intense gaze of the Uni-Bomber. This is him happy.¨

The hostel is dirty and filled with hippy artisans that travel the world juggling, being mimes and making bracelets. There is even a few from Argentina that make food for people in the hostel and sell it. You can eat yourself silly on the warmest most savory empanadas for 2 dollars a night. Deal.

As usual I start my curious walk around the city in the dark to get my bearings and feel settled in. The city itself has colonial architecture, amazing overhanging wooden balconies with colorful pastel facades. I find myself walking around with my mouth open and understanding what it must have felt like to be a sailor just arriving into port a few hundred years ago. Unfortunately, because I am a 21st century suburban kid, the only thing I can compare it to is an amazing mix of Disneyland and Knott´s Berry Farm Old West and Mexico-land, and I am dizzy with 8 year old awe of everything. The fears and worries have already been baptized away drinking in the atmosphere and a few beers.

Caption, ¨These are the balconies in Cartagena that give me hard ons.¨

The Pre-Prep and the answer to the question, ¨Why?¨

I wrote something about the mental, physical and bike preparation for this trip. I hated it, so deleted it.

When you can´t find your own words to express your thoughts I think it´s best to steal those of others, and in this case it´s my favorite author Henry Miller, ¨One´s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.¨

and a photo.

Like this guy, the ex-ambassador of Uruguay, who was smuggling kilos of cocaine on his business trips between NYC and Colombia. He was caught and sent to jail in Colombia. Once convicted it´s hard to find a job in Colombia so he lives on a dollar a day giving English lessons in his pueblo. I know, bad shadow.