Medellin, meddling, and the death of Harry the parasite.

The route from Bogota to Medellin by bus is long, and fraught with the sort of erratic driving not seen since Maggie Thatcher tried to get down to Waitrose last Thrursday, driving a Range Rover sport.

You have to go up and down the mountains for 10 hours to get through to Medellin from Bogota.

But the scenery is incredible, it reminded me slightly of the winding roads of the South of France. Hairpin bends every 12 meters, as you look down the into a sheer drop of beautiful valleys. But the resemblance soon fades away when I look backwards and see the biggest encompassment of space I have ever seen. As I look to the horizon I can just about see beyond it at yet more miles of mountains and valleys. I just don´t think I´ve seen such a lot of land before.

The Bus driver is predictably insane, swerving across both tiny sides of the road at around 70km a hour, with minimal care about the large delivery trucks coming towards us. I knew I should have just sat at the back, and not directly behind the driver as my ticket stipulated.

One good thing about sitting in death seat 1 is I get a very close look at the trucks coming towards me and I witness a phenomenon that I thought was only seen in England:

The truck driver Mrs.

You seem them around the UK frequently, sitting in the cab next to the driver looking listless and bored, smoking fags, wearing hooped earings, and with their slippered feet up on the dashboard. But always looking quite fit for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that they were willing to sit there for 12+ hours while their fella delivered stuff all over the country, or it could of been the slightly slutty look about them, but I always found these girls quite hot.

And to see the Colombian version gave me a very gentle reminder of home. Then I sat through the film Taken in Spanish. Still a wicked film, even if it was in foreign.

Medellin is smaller than Bogota, but about 20 times prettier. Everything works and there´s a colour about the place, with art and installations dotted around the streets. I would say it´s the most polished city in Colombia.

I get to my hostel and it´s very very nice. It´s newly finished and feels like a boutique hotel, except that it´s being damaged slightly by overuse. Things always look nice until it gets used 20 times a day, then it looks broken.

There´s a free pool table, and as I´m not drinking this will become my home from home, rather than the bar.

Harry the parasite is in his final death throws, I can feel it because I feel loads better, that, and my toilet visits are down to single figures a day now. The temptation to drink is so overwhelming I feel like Ollie Reed, but I resolve to kill Harry before I give in to the drink.

This leads me to playing over 5 hours of pool a night, quickly becoming the most hated figure at Hostel Kiwi, but I never invented winner stays on, so it´s tough tits.

I make a new friend in the shape of James Woodmancy, a wonderful northern guy living in London. He will by the end of the week have inadvertantly come up with the catchphrase of the month after pulling a girl and bringing her back to the hostel.

When we both finally lose at pool we explore the town and take in a Pablo Escobar tour. This is a new tour that is blowing the competiton out of the water. After you´ve seen the normal sites provided by other tours (grave stone, house where he was shot, and the first mansion he built when he started making money) Tatiana (the tour operator, guide, and all round lovely person) takes you to Pablo´s brothers house, where Pablo stayed when he was on the run, and where he would host parties. You see loads of Pablo´s belongings, and then you meet and talk with his brother, which is fascinating. He was jailed for being part of Pablo´s gang and knows a lot about his brothers history.

As the tour goes on I can´t help myself and start butting into Tatiana´s speil, trying to add snippets of info and opinion. She takes it in good grace, and actually seems pleased somebody is taking an interest, but I sense the rest of the group is getting bored and pissed with my interjecting.

I can´t actually remember when I started being this annoying, I always used to shut up in public, unless it was to say something stupid or cuss someone else. Now my mouth runs off like a tap, and I vow to pull my neck in and shut up.

The tour finishes and we head to the hostel, about 10 minutes later Tatiana darts into the hostel, I assume to contiune with the light flirting from the tour. She strides to the table and I´m now convinced that she´s going to put it on me,

"One of you didn´t pay, and I need to pay the driver" are the first words out of her mouth.

Oh.

A guy called Max immediately replies

"That was me, I didn´t pay" in his flat Dutch accent.

He pays and Tatiana leaves. It´s a bit of a shitty end to the tour as we all kind of got on from the hostel, but if someone can do that, then it´s not dissimilar to him not paying for a meal when we go out, or ordering expensive courses just because he knows that we´re splitting the bill.

A 'group meal' tactic I have long hated by the way. Although I turn a blind eye to the 'drink more and make it cheaper on yourself' move, which I feel is justifiable and fair, especially with the friends I´ve got.

Saying that, that´s not as bad as when you go out for a group meal and someone has to say something like,

"Well, I only had the starter salad, and he had the chicken and drank more. And anyway, how much is sparkling water?"

You go out in a group, you pay in a group. If you want to pay alone, eat alone. Yes, it is unfair if you only have a starter, or if you´re not drinking, and if that is the case, don´t leave the house.

After this everyone goes out, to a bar where for 15 pounds you can drink for free until 1am. I don´t go as I´m not drinking, so I play pool with the resident pot smoker who doesn´t leave the hostel, and await the tales the following day.

Woodmancy´s pulled and looks pretty sheepish the following morning. He explains that the driver couldn´t find the hostel so he had to get out about 2 blocks from hostel.

His new lady wasn´t best pleased about the surprise early morning stroll in the rain, but Woodmancy styled it out by saying,

"circa, circa, tranquillo" in terrible Spanish, but with a monotone northern accent. It roughly translates as,

"it´s close, it´s close, calm down"

He gets her through the door and walks her to his 10 man dorm room. He opens the door and her face tells him enough to know that he will need to find alternative accomodation. After she politly declines the showers, toilet, cupboard, and roof, he eventually finds a private room unlocked and sets about it.

There are a few phrases or statements that I never thought would ever come out of my mouth, things like,

"I´ll have Carling/Fosters, I just don´t like the way stella tastes"
"Jade Goody's death was a real loss to Britain, and to society in general"
"Jordan is an excellent role model for women and children"
"I've always thought that George Bush's foreign policy was right on the money. And him doing 'what God told him to do' is a cracking way to run a superpower country"
"Michael McIntyre is one funny indivdual, and his hilarious and original statements about everyday life are spot on"
"He's much funnier than Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, or Micky Flanagan"
"I think reggeton has got a lot going for it musically"
"Sean is really good at pool"

One other statement I thought I'd never say did leave my lips on my penultimate day in Medellin,

"I am bored of staring at tits now"

They're everywhere in Medellin, mostly because it´s the surgery capital of Colombia. Tits, lips arses, faces, and near enough everything else has been sculpted in Medellin. There's even a right of passage that Colombian girls tend to follow, and it runs like this:

Breasts done at 16
Face injections at 18 to stop wrinkles
Arse implants for the 20 birthday

In that order, and all the time! It's mad, but you got to look though. Colombian women are some of the most beautiful women in the world, with or without the plastic.

After a long weekend of wandering the Medellin streets and trying to find parts of the city that are off the beaten track I get on a plane to Leticia, which sits on the border of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.

And I FINALLY get to have a beer.