Is Colombia safe?

Caption: ´´Missing Persons Poster. These are posted around cities like we see missing pet signs in West Hollywood.´´

It´s really not as dangerous here in Colombia as the news suggests, but it´s still no northern Europe or Japan .

Caption: ´´Standing near these guys you feel as if you are an extra in a bad futuristic action movie with Sylvester Stallone. To tell you the truth I was a little scared to snap a photo, but I had to.´´

The cities in Colombia tend to be more dangerous than the countryside. In the city if you don´t have any food you wont eat, and when someone doesn´t have food they get desperate and shit goes down. Now if you are in the countryside and you don´t have food you go over to your neighbors place and pick some platanos. The people in the countryside, while they can be just as poor as the poorest people in the city, are not desperate and in general have more teeth. You will see more violent crime in the cities, but that holds true all over the world and is nothing special in Colombia . The great thing about Colombia , and for me on the bike, is there is lots of countryside still left here. To me, the place seems like one big rainy jungle with lily pads in the shape of cities.

Caption: ´´This fortress is in a nice neighborhood in Medellin. You would think there would be something really important inside, but the store sells cell phones.You can hear the snaping of the electric wires along the roof when you walk by.´´

The situation has really improved as of late, but there are still tell-tale signs of the not so distant past. There are metal bars and glass on the convenient stores like you will see in the Korean liquor stores in the ghetto in the States. There are security guards outside of every shopping center and apartment complex. The regular shops put security tags on everything, including batteries. All moto drivers must wear vests that have their license plate clearly displayed after a law was enacted to try and cut down on the number of moto-assassinations that were occurring in Bogota. In clubs and bars you have to take care and watch your drink so no one slips you something and you don´t wake up naked and broke in a park with a horrible headache the next day. Also, you cannot take any cigarettes or crackers or drinks offered to you by sweet smiling grandpas on the bus since they are also probably laced.

What was my point again? Oh, yes, since it was not safe for a while, and now it is getting better, Colombia is just now starting to open up for tourists. It´s always nice to catch a country in this blooming stage because they have not yet perfected the art of how to truly rip off a tourist. Visit Vietnam , Thailand , Peru and Ecuador if you want a lesson in how to get fleeced.

Recently I biked through an indigenous demonstration on the road who was asking for land that was promised to them by the Colombian Govt but was not given to them. For me it is fascinating to see pure indigenous people because in the States we did such an industrious job of exterminating all of them. Here in Colombia they alive and debating.

I spoke to a European Colombian and asked him what he thought of the indigenous people marching into Calí to start a dialogue with the President Uribe regarding their grievances. I will paraphrase him, ¨On one hand the indigenous people have legitimate grievances to get land that was rightfully theirs before Spain arrived, but they want more land than what is reasonable. The truth of the matter is the half the indigenous people are hard working and the other half is lazy drunks. They want more land so they can turn around and sell it, make a few million pesos and then stop working. They do not care about getting back their ancestors holy land per say, they want govt handouts.¨

http://us.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/10/23/colombia.shooting/index.html This CNN link is the protest that I innocently biked through. The roads were shut down going both ways to auto traffic but the police did not mind my bike going through. I waved to the police when I entered, then waved to the indigenous people, then waved to the police that were book ending the procession. The article says the police shot at the demonstrators, which is true since it was captured on video, who were throwing stones and molotov cocktails. Luckily this must have been after I biked through because I missed all the action. I did snap these photos though.

Caption: ´´The indigenous protesters and the police. Yep, I biked right past these guys with no problems. I guess I missed the gun shots by a few hours.´´

So Colombia still has its political problems even though the President has the highest approval rate of any president in a democratically elected nation, ranging from 75 to 85% in the polls. Some say that the results of these polls are dubious, and I would have to agree.

For me it is a tough philosophical question to answer. Is a loss of freedom worth the increase in security? No one can deny President Uribe´s stats since he has been in office. Kidnapping, murders, and all crime are all way down. Only 5 years ago people that had money would buy old crappy cars to attract less attention for fear of being robbed. Colombians could not travel within their own country for fear of being captured by guerrillas on the road. Now, thanks to the military, the roads are open and safe. People with money can now purchase a BMW and drive without fear between major cities on the autopistas. For anyone with money, or for a traveler, this is a great thing. Foreign business is now willing to invest because there is social stability and no worries about guerrillas taking your business for hostage. The economy has grown by leaps in the past 8 years, mainly due to the investment by the foreigners and the standard of living, at least for the middle class, is improving. But all is not fair and well. Military enrollment is mandatory for all young men, unless you can pay the 400 USD to pay your way out of it. This leaves, as it usually does, the poorest to do the shit work of holding the guns on the highways. Also, the govt has been accused of murdering members of opposition parties with little or no trials. I guess all is fair in war, and there is a war going on. FARC supporters (FARC is part of the Guerrillas) say they are no more terrorists than the people that were against the Nazi’s pre-WWII Germany , since Hitler like Uribe, was also democratically elected.

Uribe is also great friends with our President Bush. So you know instinctively all cannot be kosher. Colombia , along with Israel and Egypt , is in the top three of foreign aid in the form of cash and military aid from the States. A quick lesson in Colombian politics: There are three warring factions. 1) Paramilitaries that were originally the paid bodyguards for the campesinos, the farm workers in the low lands that grew food and coco, to protect them from the Guerrillas. 2) Guerrillas mainly grow coco in the highlands (away from military presence) and and unlike the Paramilitaries they would use kidnapping to gain access to more land and to take control of drug trafficking. 3) The Govt which is the Military. All three groups use violence and intimidation to get what they want.

Uribe originally rose to power as the candidate for the Presidency being supported by the Paramilitaries. He used their influence to get into power, and once he got into power he double-crossed them by handing over the Paramilitary leaders to the States to be tried. Since then the Paramilitaries have lost some of their strength but they are regrouping, according to my chef on the Cuidad Perdida trek, who was a Paramilitary until just recently.

Both the Paramilitary and the Guerrillas have used brutal means to intimidate and get innocent farm owners off their lands to use for growing coco. One of the firsthand stories I heard was they took an 8 year old boy from the pueblo and dragged him down the street to a corner and shot him. But they would not shoot to kill him. They would shoot him in the leg, then drag him to the next corner, and shoot him in the arm, and drag him around the neighborhood sending the entire pueblo a message until the kid finally bled to death. Another technique they used would be to kidnap a child, then chainsaw his body into parts and leave the parts around the village. It was yet another way to send a message to the people.

So these people, fearing for their lives and their children, left their lands. Colombia has the largest displaced population of people within its own borders of any country in the world (2 to 3 million people), and is second in number of total displaced people to Sudan .

(http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/4444d3ce20.html).

The farmers left their lands in a mass exodus, and having no where to go they ended up in the cities like Medellin , Cali , Bogota , Barranquilla , and Bucaramanga . Uribe’s Govt has not fully addressed the problem, mainly because those displaced people are unregistered and cannot vote so their needs are swept under society’s rug.

One of my travel friends attended a meeting with the lawyers of the displaced persons in Medellin and was informed that one of the Paramilitary leaders responsible for killing an entire village of 1000 owns a finca (a farm) right next to Uribe’s. You can now see why there is not much attention or help is being given to the displaced people when these guys are rubbing shoulders with the President of Colombia.

America ‘gives’ financial aid to Colombia to help fight the war on drugs and to stem the tide of the left Guerrilla elements that are still alive and well in their country, like FARC. As evil as Bush and his advisors are they are no idiots. Once Colombia receives this money they have to use it to purchase arms and herbicides (for the coco fields) and helicopters, etc from American companies who are amigos of Bush Inc. Everyone is happy since Colombia gets what it wants, the owners of the companies in the States have a guaranteed market, and Bush is happy with his increased campaign contributions from those companies he helped. All is great except for the American tax payer who is getting shafted and whoever is getting sprayed with those bullets and herbicides.

One last note: Your main risk in Colombia is being run down by a black smoke producing bus or twisting your ankle in a pot hole while not paying attention. Oh, and today an American guy staying at the hostel took a wrong turn into the wrong neighborhood and was robbed at knife point by a gang of youths. When the guy came back to the hostel a little shaken the owners of the hostel asked him where he was. ''Ah, that's a bad neighborhood. An Irish guy wandered into the same area and came out buck-naked about a month ago, so you should consider yourself lucky.''

This very same afternoon, today, I was taking a walk with a two hostel friends up to the city look out. A few Colombians came up to us to warn us that there were two groups of two guys following us. One waiting for us below and the other watching us on top of the hill, and that we should be cautious because they are known to be bad. The important thing is that we understood what they were saying, and then walked down the backside of the hill with this friendly bunch of Colombians that was trying to help us out. At home you know what neighborhoods to avoid but when you are traveling you can be 'exploring' a city and end up in the wrong area very quickly.

So Colombia is far from free of its problems but in my opinion it is a great place to take a holiday. I want to have my honeymoon here. I am thinking you are still yet to be convinced, especially after those photos.

I think I can, I think I can, I know I can´t

Salento was a holiday within a holiday. Tucked into temperate hills the days are neither long nor short. Just right.

Caption:¨Salento: Coffee plants, platano trees, all in a bamboo frame.¨

The best part of Salento was it gave me a chance to settle in and bond a bit with the fellow backpackers. Going, yet again, over days of spectacular scenery and entertaining encounters and having no one with which to share experiences is getting old. Then, because I am starved for conversation and in a weak attempt to make me feel like others can halfway understand where I have been and what I have seen, I annoyingly tell them biking story after story after story, until I want to put my own hands around my throat to shut me the hell up. Luckily for me some of them are genuinely interested.

Caption: ¨One of the victims of my endless story telling.¨

I am quite capricious. One moment I think biking solo is the only way to meet the locals and have an opportunity to really have amazing experiences and put your self out there, the next moment I want someone to relate this entire experience with and to. It was after Salento I started to really wonder if the biking solo was really worth it. Yes, it has been amazing, but I feel as if I have done my fair share of solo traveling. I have spent more than the average person ¨getting to know myself¨ away from family and friends, and I have looked in each corner, under the mattress, under the dresser and rug of my brain, so to speak, and I am now quite confident there are not going to be many new realizations having more alone time. It will only give me the opportunity to get more comfortable with being alone and become dour.

I remember when I first started traveling and I met people that had been traveling away from family and friends for a long period of time. I distinctly remember the cut off was at 6 years when people started to get a little strange. They were now on their own trip, and not on a trip related to anyone else. I think that our experiences define us. If you are a doctor or a lawyer or a construction worker, you are trained and work in this field for years and eventually there are similar personality traits within these careers. All of these jobs are knitted within the fabric of normal society and they are then bound by similar experiences and responsibilities. A person that has been traveling or living abroad will have a completely different experience and as the years go by they will find it harder to relate to the people they left. Naturally your view of the world changes, and now, after having been ¨on the road¨ for a while I have started to see the gradual changes in myself that I saw so glaringly in others when I first started to travel. On one hand it is nice because I am different, but on the other I feel that I am starting to reach a point where I cannot imagine dating someone that has not extensively traveled or lived in another country or is an exotic foreigner. This cuts down the dating pool of my own Tierra Madre by about 90% of the female population, if not more. So I have opened horizons on one front and, for better or for worse, closed them on another.

Caption: ¨A child walking his little dog through the playground.¨

I am going to give my fickle mind a bit more time to decide. I will bike my ass to Quito, over some¨hills¨ (I like to use the euphemism of hill in order not to get discouraged) of about 13,000 feet (3,700 meters) and decide there if I will continue onward, solo or otherwise.

Caption: ¨Another roadside attraction. I had to take a pic of this artistic Oreo combo.¨

I had this whole plan to get to the border before my Colombian VISA runs out in 4 days, and I would have made it since I am in Popayán, only 4 days ride from the border, but I came down with my first cold. It has been a cornucopia of sore throat, fever, body muscle aches, throbbing eyeball headache, and a draining lack of energy. While in that half delirious state of fever sleep your mind goes through all the alluring options of what it is you could possibly have. I ruled out malaria of the testicles and brain infection, instead thinking it is a cold or flu at worse, although my lungs hurt.

Luckily I decided not to try and ¨sweat it out¨ by biking onward from Popayán when I first started to feel a little off. I would have been stuck in a no mans land between here and the border which is known to be still be in guerrilla hands. Instead I am in a safe cozy traveler hostel with two of the nicest hostel owners, The Scots Tony and Kim, to help me with my VISA extension and a daily dose of sympathy. I will stay here a few extra nights, perhaps take a class of Spanish and watch lots and lots of movies.

Caption:¨This guy looks how I feel at the moment. ¨

If I am honest with myself I think I know why I got sick. My bike rides since Salento have been nothing short of super human for me. I am now able to go distances in times I never thought possible when I started my journey in the northern part of Colombia. My legs have been replaced with two wild steeds and I am still not certain how to control these guys. I pet them, comb their hair, and feed them oats and water daily. They take care of me and I take care of them. Well, I think I abused my steeds between Calí and Popayán and over ran them a bit to the point of exhaustion. It was 10 hours of uphill, and 140km with the last two hours in some cold rain. Over-exertion was to blame and now I am paying the price by letting the steeds relax and graze for a few days.

Caption: ¨Not one of my wild steeds, but this guy was following me.¨

Caption: ¨I spend lots of quality time with the owners/chefs of the restaurantes along the way. All sweethearts that make great soup.¨

Casa de Nelly all to myself

Caption: ¨Casa de Nelly.¨

I found my own archaeological treasure in a guesthouse called Casa de Nelly here in San Augustìn. Everyone comes to this pueblo of 2000 people to see 1000 year-old cold hard stones chiseled by people that had a smaller vocabulary that I do in Spanish. Paralyzed by the beauty I have decided not to do anything. The archaeological sites and piles of rocks that surround me out of sight will be here when I come back someday. I have more important things to do....

Caption: ¨The garden that absorbs you.¨

Casa de Nelly is cursed with magnificent tranquility and is baptized in hourly rains. Cycles of rain, clouds, rebirth of the sun and a thousand days of weather are lived in 2 hours time- a new chance of life every few minutes. I read DH Lawrence all day. Compared to a regular day on the bike I stayed dry and happy and still. I think I´m gradually losing my mind, or perhaps creating a new surly one.

I am enjoying every dry relaxing moment of my life. Savoring it. My legs up in a hammock and I sink into a deeper, more profound relaxation than ever before. It´s wonderful. I drink it in. My heart beats thick and slowly. Bronze Chrysanthemums wave ¨hi¨ to me from the garden that snuggle in around me.

A 60 year old purple-haired lady no taller than a hobbit who looks over the place brings me a coffee and tells me that Saturn`s return is at 2pm. I am happy and content about that news. Do I have time for another day here?

Caption: ¨Sun, rain, flower, rain, sun.¨

I guess it´s a good thing I have a 60 day travel VISA or I would never leave Colombia. I could do without the stress of hearing that imaginary ticking clock. I decide to instead drown out that sound by putting on a song. Sometimes you find a song you have heard before but never really listened to and it defines your feeling at that exact moment. That song right now is ¨My dearest friend¨ by Devendra Banhard from the album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon.

Swinging.

Have you ever drank a cup of coffee while being surrounded by a garden of coffee plants while a little indigenous lady gingerly picks red ripe Arabic coffee beans with sun scorched hands from the branches?

Cheap luxury adventure travel. It´s the only way I can explain it. My life.

Spinning.

I´m skipping gaily, no, hop-scotching through mine fields with an intrepid smile painted on my face. Clueless, careless and very very alive. About to be more so. That feeling of understanding the world only lasts as long as those hairs are standing on your arms, then it slips through your fingers like water.

Dripping.

Caption: ¨This sums up my life. My view from the hammock.¨

Caption: ¨You can feel the heavy solitude.¨

Sweat in the eyes of strong coffee country

I rudely departed from Medellín early on Sunday morning without saying as much as a ¨Goodbye¨ to my week long friends. I´m not a big fan of ¨Goodbyes¨ and it´s even harder to make them seem natural when it´s people that you have been accidentally calling the wrong name on and off all week.
I hit the road on a holiday weekend and was pleasantly surprised to find one of the main roads leading south out of Medellín was closed for foot traffic and bikers. I was able to make it out of the city stress free. Then I hit the hill leaving Medellín.
I am slowly but steadily making my way up the hill with my bike loaded with my usual crap. Weekend warrior bikers are curious and continually asking me questions while passing. I´m struggling to breathe and they NEVER understand what I say the first time I say it due to my accent so I have to say it again, exactly how I said it the first time, and then they get it. Sometimes I am so frustrated I am yelling at them in this very clear monotone voice so they will clearly get what I am saying without me having to repeat. So far I have not ignored anyone and I try to be as respectful as possible to these inquisitive folk.
One of them clung on like a leech and would not let go. He also happened to be one of the top competitive bikers in Colombia. The guy has these frightening watermelon thighs and a very light 11 pound bike that he had to mention and rub in my face. This guy can bike circles around me and I start to get somewhat frustrated huffing and puffing my way up the hill while he is playful pedaling and smiling and thoroughly enjoying the interview he´s giving me. My patience was being tried and I secretly wished death on him or a flat or anything that would get this guy to let me suffer in peace.
My answer was of course answered but only in the form to teach me a lesson. On a slight decline my tire popped and I crashed into a giant puddle of mud and nearly missed a barb wire fence. They guy pedaled ahead, then circled around and joined me. Great. Now I get to have him watch me massacre my tire cause I´m not proficient fixing flats in anywhere under an hour. The guy, being as nice as I was afraid he was, hoped off the bike and helped me out. He taught me tricks that proved to be helpful when fixing flats on my own.
We got the bike moving again and now I was indebted to him, but all the same I was tired and wanted a break. I found a place to eat, and he joined me. I was able to buy him something for his help, to earn back those karma points I had lost while wishing him death when I had sweat burning in my eyes.
He continued to lead me all the way up to the summit. 26km in all the guy rode with me, which as about 2.5 hours at my slow uphill pace. We shook hands and parted ways; yet again learning a lesson on humanity and humility.

Caption: ¨Oh, those lovely hills. Bring them on.¨

The backside of the mountain was another downhill grin-fest. There is nothing like pumping techno music while you take your life in your own hands blazing by semi´s only relying on rubber tires with patches on them and $5 worth of break pads. You feel like a bird on Ecstasy. Nothing can get you down. You can taunt dogs that can´t catch you. It´s wonderful until that next hill. And there is always the next hill and it always arrives too soon. Then time slows down again and you have to pay back the downhill debt you just enjoyed.
I ended up going 75km that day until I found a water amusement park with camping. Ok, sounds great. For $7 you can have access to pools, water slides, camp grounds and about 200 Colombian families on a holiday weekend. The Colombian families were nothing but nice. Taking me in and offering me food. Asking me the usual questions in disbelief, ¨You are traveling solo?¨ and the like.

Caption: ¨One of the Colombian families that could not believe I am riding solo in Colombia. And I could not believe how bad that stuff they were spreading on their bodies smelled.¨

I enjoyed watching the families bonding and playing together in the water park. It even gave me pangs of wanting to start my own family. Interacting with Colombians and seeing how important their families are and the look of concern on their faces that I was alone so far away from my friends and family has made me think more than once.

I basked in the sun and water. I was stared and pointed at but still enjoyed myself even when the youngsters would stop walking and watch with big curious eyes the wet long-haired gringo walk by. It´s a non-stop show wherever I go.

At night the festivities continued with traditionally dressed dancers enjoying themselves while the families watched. I was out of my mind overly excited about all of this. Am I that entertainment starved? After the dancing and a solo guitarist performance that no one wanted to see end, there were games to win prizes, like a free breakfast. Five eager ladies volunteered and came up to play a game not yet revealed. It turns out it´s a singing game where you have to keep singing the right words of the song when the music cuts out. Not only could these unrehearsed ladies do it, they did it with style and grace and well. One of them was even dancing and swinging her hips to the beat while belting out the lyrics to a well known Colombian song I have never heard in my life. It got me wondering if the same would happen where I´m from at home. If so, not like this. There was something wholesome and warm that emanated from them. A giddy grin could not be wiped off my face while sitting Indian style before the show.

Caption: ¨ Who would have thunk it here in a pueblo in the middle of Colombia?¨

Caption: ¨Camping in a water amusement park. Amusing, eh?¨

Caption: ¨Night festivities. Warm blooded creatures.¨

I got up in the dark the following morning to pack up my tent. My only company was a flock of vultures picking through the BBQ remains of the campers from the night before. Those vultures follow me wherever I go while I bike. I curse and yell at them flying overhead when I´m in pain and tired that I´m NOT dead yet.

I biked a very long 97km uphill that day. Joyous scenery that makes your eyes hurt. I ran out of will power to make it the last very steep 9km to the town Chinchiná. I got a call on my cell from my brother at 3pm while eating lunch. As I had been eating a really dirty-shady vagabond was laying about 10 feet from me on the concrete with an empty 2 liter bottle of coke under his head as a pillow and staring at me the entire time with this gaze that was somewhere between puppy dog ´I would like food´ eyes and ´I know you have money and I want to rob you cause I´m strung out on drugs´ eyes. So Randy calls me and the vagabond takes the opportunity to come up and ask me for my knife sitting on my table. ¨Ok,¨ and I reflexively stand up from my chair. He squatts 3 feet from my table and starts to cut the empty bottle in half. I told Randy, my brother, to call me back in 5 because I had to pay the bill and go across the street cause I didn´t want this guy to hear me speaking English. I hang up and the guy is asking me, with knife in hand, if he can finish my coke. ¨Yep, it´s for you, ¨ was all I could say. I never imagined providing the weapon for my attacker.

I went across the street to the gas station and got a room. A very shitty place and it looked like a prison with chicken wire and barb wire surrounding the concrete box structure. Whatever. I was tired, beat and would rather talk on the phone with my brother than bike a 10th hour that day.

That next morning, again leaving at 6am, I made it up 25km of straight up hills while listening to Emilina Torrini. Struggling up these hills becomes painless and tears well up in my eyes as I pass excruciatingly beautiful scenery lit by the rising morning sun. It´s then I decide I want to have sex with Emilina Torrini´s voice.

Caption: ¨She made me cry.¨

I made it to the top of the hill three hours later (yep, about 8km per hour) to Santa Rosa. Here I found a truck and a company to take me another 18 km up a steep dirt road with thermals at the top. $20 for the ride, camp site, access to the thermals and breakfast. I brought food to make a camping soup lunch with lots of bread and fruits.

Caption: ¨Jurrasic Camping.¨

The Termales de San Vicente can only be compared to Jurassic Park. Steep jungle cliffs enclose a pristine wilderness with cascading waterfalls and bubbling hot pools. I marinated my aching knees and sore watermelons in hot waters and a strong sulfur smelling Turkish Bath that made you hallucinate after 15 minutes. I think they call it a Turkish bath because you are bathing in your own sweat. You can see each pore crying on your skin making a perfect bead.

Caption: ¨Abs of Steel in just 8 hours a day.¨

At the end of the day I decided I had to get a massage. It was cheap and I was once again alone. I did have company with two families interviewing me separately for a few hours each while in the thermal pools together. They were curious and sweet and since I was not exerting myself up a hill biking I found it enjoyable instead of wanting to curse them with incurable diseases.

Caption: ¨Damn you, GOD!¨

Camping was cold, but cozy inside my down sleeping bag while I fell asleep to the music of rain dancing on my tent. I woke up to find a few of the seams in my tent are not as waterproof as I would have hoped. Drips were inside the tent and now it leaves me with in a quagmire of what to do with my tent. A new one? Carry more weight with another tarp for the top? Ah, shittles. I´ll worry about it later. It´s winter here and it rains everyday at least two hours a day. There is NO weather forecasting here cause it´s pointless. Look outside. It will change in 45 minutes.

Caption: ¨My breakfast morning view. Total bullshit.¨

The next morning I had a slow start. I couldn´t muster up an appetite to eat all of my free breakfast which I know I need to eat for the day´s bike ride. After breakfast I took another dip in the hot pools to warm up the legs after the cool night. Then I headed down the 18km of downhill after having to walk my bike up 2km of straight uphill gravel. I could not bike up that to save my life. Walking was difficult.

Caption: ¨Dirt road.¨

While on the downhill what do I see creeping slowly but surely around the corner? A most ridiculous sight- a bike loaded with giant colorful bags. Now I know how absurd I look to the locals! Turns out it´s an American lady from Colorado biking from Quito through Colombia with no destination in mind. I think she was just as happy to see me as I was to see her and we covered ourselves greedily in verbal vomit for an hour. We were dizzy and drunk off the encounter, not remembering anything we were saying or what was being said.

It can´t be underestimated the moral boost it gives you to run into a fellow bike traveler that has also lost their mind. And I mean lost their mind traveling solo (here she is a lady, no less) on a bike through South America and deprived of talking to fellow travelers. We talked for an hour and I went on my way. More adventure and rolling hills lay ahead for me this day. A flat was fixed, a long hill was climbed and then a speedy downhill to a camping spot just outside Salento in Zona Cafetera, an authentic colonial pueblo with a heavenly coffee aroma.

Caption: ¨Solo American woman biker that made me feel sane, and Colombian military all in one shot. Just your typical 9am photo.¨

I wanted to see this camp site, but I really wanted to make it to Salento, only 4km up the road. I called on the owner of the place and this frail energetic fellow of 40 something years greets me and takes me inside. Right away he invites me into his house, and I am full of biker sweat stink, and offers me his couch and asks if I want a joint. I said, ¨Well, I´m not sure I want to stay but I want to take a look.¨
¨No worries, man, relax. You can smoke, no obligations,¨ was his genuine reply.
We shared a joint and after my ride it expectantly floored me. He puts on his TV, pops in a DVD and turns the volume to FULL, as all Colombians do, and starts air guitaring this Jethro Tull song.
¨So you play the guitar?¨ I ask him with puffy eyes and a smile.
¨No, flute,¨ and right then a flute solo that can only be rivaled by the scene in Anchorman was on the screen and my new hippy stoner friend was air fluting right along. He took a moment to put down the imaginary air flute and picked up a jar of Milo (like Quick chocolate milk powder mix) and took a giant spoonful and hands it to me. We then passed the joint and Milo mix until we were finished and content. He then drops in my lap a book about tree houses. I thumbed through this book mesmerized. Each tree house was more amazing than the last. He is fascinated by tree houses and I am fascinated by him.
Now I was in the proper state of mind to take the tour of his grounds, and definitely in no state to make it up the 4km road because I was stumbling walking. He takes me on a magical tour of his grounds. Each room is more amazing than the next with themes. One themed tent has animal skins, bones, and teeth from all over the world. Everything has been carefully crafted. It is a work of love and not of garish money. A handmade bamboo coffee table has an elephant foot sitting on top of it; there is a mural on the wall made of bird feathers and lion teeth.

{http://www.geocities.com/campingmonteroca/ This is the site. Take a look at the themed rooms.}

The next separate room a few minutes walk from the first one is called ¨Hippy Hilton¨ and is decked out in rare 70´s albums and art: Beatles memorabilia, waterbed, and murals all done tastefully, with little money and lots of love.
Each room was more amazing than the next. Another US Army tent with decorations from all over South America. Another tent filled with stars that glow in the night so it seems you are sleeping in the Milky Way.
We go to his tree house in construction (remember the book) and there is a ladder leading up to a platform where he has a table of 4 kilos of weed drying that he picked that morning. He hands me a fistful and tells me it´s organic and free of chemicals. Awesome, thanks.

Then he takes me to his labor of love, his own mini museum of artifacts he collected from around South American on his travels. A molar from a mammoth, jaw bone of the oldest indigenous tribe of Colombia, spine of a whale, incandescent meteorites, and the list goes on and on. My head was dizzy was amazement. Then he takes me to his snake collection. Here we play and hold snakes he says are safe, but I start to lose faith in that fact when he pulls one of this favorite and ´sweetest´ snakes out of it´s cage. He holds it by the tail and gingerly passes the tail from one hand to the next while keeping his legs as far back as possible. The snakes head is right at knee level and is striking for his legs and crotch, finally catching his pant legs with a bite and not letting go. It´s then he starts walking to me asking if I want to hold the snake and the snake turns its attention to me and starts striking at me in my biker shorts.
¨NO, get that thing away from me. It´s trying to bite my shit!¨ and the guy just laughs it off and puts it back in the cage. All this in Spanish, too, by the way.
We go back to his house, eat some fruit loops and then he says I can choose any camp site in the place. I start walking with him but I already know this place is amazing but not a place to stay with NO visitors. I tell him that I´m going to head up the hill before it gets dark cause the place in Salento will have people that I would like to talk to since it´s been 4 days of Spanish for me. He says no problem and that he will give me a ride up there! Wow. What a man.
We drive up with the bike in the back of the car with the trunk partly open. When we arrive to town we are nearly green from the carbon monoxide filling the car. He takes me on a tour of town and introduces me to his friends. They a military guy comes up and shakes his hand to say hi and asks him for weed. He hands him a fistful of weed and they part ways with smiles. I´m stoned and he just sold weed to the military. I love this country.
I got to the guesthouse and was back in the cozy traveler cocoon. I got to share a dorm room with the most annoying Israeli girl I have ever met. She is surly. She is the type of person that even when she is right she is wrong because both her and her tone sucks. She was telling off these Aussie travelers because they didn´t want to eat a cheap menu meal. God have mercy on the soul of the man that spends his life with that lady. She will make his life a living hell.
Salento is wonderful with charming colorful buildings with colonial architecture. The coffee is strong, good, and inspires giant shits. The locals play a little practical joke on the tourits by locking all the bathrooms in the cafés and you have to pay 400 pesos (about 25 cents) to use them. It must be due to the havoc created by the strong coffee in the bathrooms. Too much info, I know, but this is just life here on the road.

A visit to a mainstream Colombian club

The other day I did some quick work on the metro after a girl innocently asked me where I was from because I stick out like a black dude in Buenas Aires. We ended up exchanging numbers and planned a Friday night hang out. Cell phones are horrible, yes I know, but they will at least triple your social life. You meet backpackers that are very proud that they don´t have a cell or iPod. Good for them. I am happy for them, but we are in a country where the people use phones to arrange hang outs (I was biking when I saw it so I couldn´t take a picture but I saw a Colombian cowboy on a horse going down the road while talking on a cell. It reminds me of the time when I didn´t have a cell years and years ago. I saw the neighbor´s Mexican gardener talking on his cell with his lawnmowers piled in the back of his bondoed 1980 pick-up truck and I figured it was time to get a cell). They are not going to stop by your hostel, take you by the hand and bring you out with their friends. Coincidentally, these same people without cell phones end up either 1) hanging out at the hostel and watching movies all night or 2) leaving our hostel to go party at another hostel down the street. I guess it´s the Colombian hostel tour. They are definitely keeping it real.

The girl was cute and sweet. Messages were exchanged and we had a meet up at a club called Palmayas. Now I already knew about this club and I already knew I wouldn´t like it. You make sacrifices when you are in a foreign land. And one of those sacrifices are your ears and taste. I would prefer to get a typical Colombian night out on the town than go to a cool electronic club and only talk English all night with other foreigners. Colombians that go out to these mainstream clubs go out in groups and they do not socialize outside those groups. It´s much like other big cities that way, but even more so here since their is always a feeling in the air that people should be extra cautious, especially the ladies cause shadey shit does happen here in Colombia. The girls will not go out unless there are at least 3 of them, and then usually with some of their guy friends, so the fact that I was invited along meant I had an ´in´ and I didn´t have to sit and watch in the party go by like watching fish in an aquarium.

I brought along this ex-party animal American that has been living in the West Indies for the past 18 years doing odd end jobs and loves to travel. We paid the cover which added insult to injury to have to pay for what I knew was coming.

We walked in and I was not disappointed. An enormous building with one giant room decorated with balloons, giant screens in each corner showing strippers doing the booty clap with blue screen laser beam graphics, full-sized free standing neon palm trees, paid dancers on platforms, and endless groups of Colombians all singing their lungs out to Spanish songs I had never heard, never wanted to hear, and hope I do not hear again. They mixed up the music between bad Spanish sing-along rock, Salsa, Merengue, Reggaeton, oh, and don´t forget the bad techno anthems from 15 years ago! You can ALWAYS count on the third world for bad techno.

The two of us bought a bottle of rum in the club in an attempt to trick our brains into enjoying this. The pre-party started hours before so we entered the club warmed up. Wandering aimlessly with my glass of rum and ice I found the group. The girl I met on the metro is grinding up against this ogre who is sweating and has the look of a man with one thought on his mind, and it´s not to play Bingo. I say ´hi´ to the group. The three girls are sweet, not drinking (¡¡PARTY!!), and I have to meet the two guys the are with. The ogre shakes my hand and I get a good grip of a big sweaty meatball of a hand with greasy sausage fingers. This guy is oozing. He is also one of those guys who has to keep shaking your hands and giving you bro-job half-hugs throughout the night.

After yet another sweaty embrace from the ogre, number 15 I think, he introduces us to a real treat sitting on a bar stool. He says it´s his sister but I immediately think he is giving the gringos a hard time cause she was as cold as a cucumber. Ah, so he introduces us to a stranger, ha ha, funny funny. She gives me a one up and down glance and I can immediately see written on her face, like someone who has been chewing lime rinds all night, that I am not nearly abusive enough for her. This guy has all the charisma of a juvenile delinquent and can bench press a pony. Then he takes his ¨sister´s hand¨ and starts dancing with her. In Colombia they call it dancing but I call it grind humping. Her arms are around his neck and he is wearing an amazing distant sexual gaze on his face. His sister is a plastic surgery disaster and her tits are spilling all over his shirt. I asked the sweetheart from the metro if that was his sister and she confirms it indeed is. Shocking.

She goes on to explain that you can dance sexual with someone but it doesn´t mean that you want to sleep with that person. It´s just how they dance. Wow. I wonder how you can every figure out if someone is flirting with you. I guess you get a tug on your nuts with a hand down the back of the pants. I don´t know. I´m confused, the rum is working, the laser lights and artificial smoke is making me feel even more intoxicated than I am. With all this Latin love dancing going on I turn into uber-white boy and clam up. I end up doing the 80´s white man dance with a chair cause it feels nice and safe, and right when I get in the groove I get interrupted by yet another meatball handshake and sweaty embrace. ¨Yes, yes, me estoy pasando muy bien. Gracias,¨ (yes, I´m having a great time) I say to him yet again.

All the alcohol in the world can´t save the two of us. After nearly 2 hours we have to tap out. You can only fake having fun for so long. We met the other girls, did some ear hole shout talking which, as always, involves lots of, ¨qué?, no te oigo, como?¨ (what?, I can´t hear you, huh?). After 5 one word answers to 5 questions you move on. I think they only speak grinding here anyway. I sound like a stick in the mud but I really do enjoy dancing. I can dance all night, but now, after years of going out I can´t fake a good time and I know when the night has peaked. This night it peaked when I sunk 4 balls in a game of billiards before we entered the club.

I had a Colombian hang out, and it makes me realize how we live on completely different planets. Their customs, the spice running through their blood is as foreign to me as my coldness is to them. Why not put my hand on their ass and just start grinding with someone I´ve never met? Mmm, I feel like a slimy scum bucket is why. I also figure it´s not my city, not my country, not my culture and that I could be treading on some unseen lines, not to mention the boyfriend coming back from the bathroom. I would rather stay a safe distance and take in the experience as a cultural observer.

*I forgot my camera so you´ll have to use your imagination

I contradict myself

Memories of past cigarettes smoked while smoking. Emotional traveling.

Caption: ¨Lost my mind.¨

I read a line in a book that has I title I cannot recall, nor the character who said it, that went something like, ¨Unemotional people always cry from movies.¨ Although I know this doesn´t apply 100% of the time I identified myself with this sentence. Watching movies in the safe sanctuary of the hostel I find myself overly emotional, swept away with misplaced emotions. Somehow a movie triggers all those moments I experienced as the watchful observer that I could not deal with in the moment. They bubble to the surface. So busy in doing. So busy with dealing with the events that are taking place that your emotions don´t have time to catch up. Emotionaly inhibited. Instead the seeds are planted and grow slowly. You don´t find time to deal with them until you are quiet, until a waft of smoke, or a overly dramatic scene pulls back the curtain of the fully grown surprise. You are caught by the aweful beauty that you did not expect to see in that moment.

I sit quietly watching a scene with a potato in my throat. All that I fear and desire in life comes rushing to the surface and you wonder what you are doing in this moment is the best thing to create the future that you will be happy with in 30 years, if that day will ever come. Yes, I know that the future does not exist, only the present and all the simple truths that make sense in one moment and in the next moment are arm wrestled away by my the conditioning of my upbringing. You can´t underestimate the affect that your home environment has on you. It´s always carried with you, like your nose or eye color.

The emotional crust is peeled away at times and you become more human. You can clearly see the importance of everything and you realize it is impossible to be at all places at once and to please everyone, including yourself. It is in these moments you are equal with the rest of humanity. Brothers in fear, desires, hopelessness, and happiness. We all desire the same impossibilty but act differently in our struggle. Yes, in three mintues the curtain has returned, the smoke blows away, the potato is gone, and you are yourself, alone, and busy back to doing. Life continues until that next moment sneaks up on you where you become a human again, and you forget about yourself.

I bask in the luxurious friviolty that traveling allows, but it isn´t for this that I enjoy it. Rather it´s the addiction to those moments where you feel more human. You are humbled by your momentary peek into the grand reality that engulfs us. All your efforts that put up a profective barrier to keep you safe, your arms attached to your body, and your head to your body are nothing more than a luck-filled lie. Walls built of money and planning just keep you from realizations. Money cannot make you a better or worse person. It is a nuetral energy and you create it´s meaning by your attitude and relationship with it. You wont become a buddist if you give away all your money.

As Whitman says, I contradict myself, I am full of contradictions, as you can clearly read, I am. Isn´t that a great gift to allow yourself?

To be a human, but to rarely act like one due to well learned habits.

Re-entry into Reality

Where does the time go? I keep making convenient excuses not to write. Lately, since arriving to Medellín, it has been I need to recover, relax and do some serious socializing after my 10 days of being a biking hermit. 4 days has passed and I´ve met some Colombians, more travelers than anyone, and seen about 10 movies. The hostel here has a great selection.

I need to back up. I made it into Medellín on Oct 3rd after a long 130km bike ride. Yes, some of it was downhill that involved a lot of hollering with wild-eyed rabid joy and swallowing a few Colombian bugs. Not even that could damper my excitement on that downhill. I had earned every bloody sweaty inch. I was BOMBING down the mountain in a 30 kph zone going 60 kph, passing semi-trucks and even one time riding the yellow line between two semis- one coming at me and one going to slow in front of me.

Caption: ¨Truck drivers like this I get to share a lane with. Awesome.¨

It was a good test for the bike and brakes. Everything checked out and I made it down the hill with another 30km to ride on the freeway in Medellín. I´m not sure that was legal because I didn´t see another non-motorized vehicle on the road. The fumes getting into the heart of the city were making me dizzy in the 3pm afternoon heat, but I rolled into the hostel after a 9.5 hours in the saddle.
Caption: ¨The hills I bombed.¨

Caption: ¨Child prison.¨

Caption: ¨I taught some Italian to these pueblo kids.¨

I rolled into the hostel on my bike feeling like a para-trooper just getting back to the States after serving his country for 3 consecutive tours of duty in ´Nam. I was ready for a grand reception, ladies decked in flowers and pouring champagne in my mouth, but overall everyone was pretty unenthusiastic and perhaps even pity for what I had done to myself, meaning traveling by bike in South America.

I showered up and started to meet some people around the hostel. The first being my roommate, an overly fit Aussie, that has seen me at a breakfast bus stop that morning when I had finally reached the peak of the summit after 3 hours of biking at 9am. His words where, ¨I thought to myself, where is that poor guy going?¨ Yep, that was me and now I was his roommate. He wanted to know how my ass and legs were holding up all the while shaking his head wondering why anyone would want to bike up those mountains.

I guess it was a strange coincidence, but for me nothing seems strange anymore.

Now I´m back in reality. English is spoken and we are back in our travel bubble, insulated from the reality that the rest of Colombia knows and lives. It seems utterly lazy, comfortable, familiar and most of the voices and conversations make my skin crawl. I have to acclimate to my new environment. I sit around judging and condemning. Something made me feel like I had earned the trip there. Like I deserved to be in Colombia more than them, but that is ridiculous and I know it, but I can´t help but feel it. Their stories are of minor inconveniences and trivialities, like,
¨It was soooo embarrassing last night when I was in the club and tripped on a two inch step. Everyone, and I mean everyone saw me. I mean, like, really, why do they put two inch steps in clubs anyway? They know we are drunk! Now I have a bruised hand and knee. Soooo embarrassing. I decided then that I had enough red bull and wine....¨
Caption: ¨Medellín nightlife brought to you by...¨

Caption: ¨Twinklies¨

And the dialogue goes on like that. Then you need to take into consideration that coke is $5 a gram down here and you get an idea of how interesting their conversations become. While sitting on the couch you could feel the toxic-ness oozing out of the tourists from the days they have been binging in Medellín. It seems for some reason, well, we know the reason, that people get stuck in Medellín for weeks and even months. Everyone has to figure out Visa renewals and the like. Sites in the city seen are discussed like the clubs, other hostels that have potentially more action, where to ´score´, and of course Pablo Escobar´s grave. I have reached the party pinnacle of the world that sucks people into a vortex. It is the polar opposite of my experience up to now here in Colombia.

At the same time I love how familiar everything is and I need to stay put for a time. This has become my surrogate dysfunctional family. And they are loved for all their faults and shortcomings because that is what happens while traveling. It´s very rare you meet someone you just hate and can´t stand. Most people aren´t around long enough to really get sick of them and people are so in need of being liked that everyone tends to be very friendly and easy going. In the end it all works out and good times are hard not to be had. By the time the next few days roll by and I find myself ready to get back in the saddle I will end up having a pang due to my ephemeral home being lost.

Spirits are high, but that could also be due to spirits. I had not had a drink in a few weeks. Now my socializing has gone from 1st gear to 5th in a matter of hours.

Picture Popurri

Caption: ¨This is some sick ironic humor. Making the Indian statue supplicate in a public square to a Catholic church.¨

Caption: ¨This man gave me an adrenaline pumping shaky handed straight razor shave. I was checking the blade to see if there was chucks of flesh on it.¨
Caption: ¨Facades.¨

Caption: ¨Countryside casa.¨
Caption: ¨An old western-like pueblo square in I can´t remember where.¨
Caption: ¨Ray of light.¨

Caption: ¨Roadside attractions.¨
Caption: ¨Pimp my moto. This is so your ass is ridin in style on a hot chick´s face.¨
Caption: ¨Pablito Escobar will feed you to the pigs. They start the cartel training young here.¨


Caption: ¨I heard techno music blasting from my hotel room. I ran out into the plaza to dance and the only lady there was well into her 70´s and was throughly enjoying herself. I got self conscious and decided not to dance and instead took pictures of her. She was working that staff.¨
Caption: ¨Is the moon waxing or waning? I don´t know what that means but it sounds like something you do with your wang.¨

Caption: ¨My leg is like a tub of Neapolitan Ice Cream. My knee is chocolate tan, the strawberry strip of burn, and the upper milky vanilla. ¨