As I am driven from the airport by my friends family and her bestfriend, I regulary see 2 things on the roadside as we hurtle by:
Churches and Love Motels.
I am on the coast of Brazil to see the beaches and stay with my mates fiance's family, she is moving to England to be with him, and then her family and friends get me for 3 weeks. Sort of like a really bad wife swap. I also have this ambition to go to the furthest North, South, East, and West of South America. So when I look at a map in a few years I can say I travelled to every corner.
Anyway, religion is the order of the day here, it's everywhere: on the back of cars, on the walls, in the billboards, you cannot move for the power of religion. But at the same time you can't move for the hint of clandestine sex. Love motels are everywhere, basically offering you privacy by the hour to do what you want. And from what I witness over the next week or so it's shagging.
At the same time you can't move for the fear of danger. Everyone is scared, and I am told repeatedly that I am in a lot of danger, and that I can't leave the house, that people rob and kill for nothing, but my explanations that I live in Hackney fall on deaf ears.
So on the one hand you've got everyone following the word of the lord, but on the other everyone's killing, robbing, and shagging each others partners. All of which is covered quite clearly in the 10 commandments.
I am welcomed by my friends family, and her best friends family with open arms. It's truly a incredible experience, you're fed, looked after, and basically told that their house is yours now, and that whatever you want to so is cool with them. I can't recall hospitality like this anywhere else in the world other than South America.
However, things begin to take a turn for the worse one week in. It would appear that my commited, monogamous, 'I wanted to meet western men because Brazilian guys are all cheats and liars', trustworthy pal is in England feeling a little unwell. My patient mate puts it down to jet lag and the food, but a week of being sick it's off to the doctors.
Except it isn't, turns out the little lady is 3 weeks gone with her ex fellas kid. It would appear that she's not any of the things that she was meant to be.
Now I'm not going to discuss this but let's just say that what followed was 2 weeks of lying, backbiting, point winning, manipulation, emotional blackmail, and ugliness that I can't be bothered to repeat. But everything that did happen was in no way cool in a religious sense. I saw near enough every nasty characteristic you could think of. And I had to sit amongst and try to be nice.
I go away to a tiny beach resort called playa pipa, the Frenchies are there and I'm eager to get out of the city.
Now I met these guys on the boat trip, and they are the nicest set of surrender monkeys you could ever meet. However, they are both painfully good looking, in that annoying effortless French way. They slouch about looking perfect, and I feel like Rooney's hideous grown up baby next to these pair.
I decide to cope in the only way a ugly Welshmans knows how, get them drunk and hope they disgrace themselves. We drink a crate of lager and we are in merry spirits. Then from nowhere the Frenchies pull out the Cachaça. And in true backpacker style it's a massive bottle of paint thinner for about 2 quid. We drink it with a soya based fruit drink and bang through the bottle. I remember nothing from about 1am and wake up with the news that I have vomited all over the walk in shower, and then passed out.
Wales - 0
French - 2
I get back to Joaoa Passoa and am in a lift when I guy gets in and starts talking to my friend, about 20 seconds in he turns, looks at me, then says to my friend,
"He's not from round here is he?"
I explain that I'm from England and he immiediately invites me to go and play 5 a side football with him the next day. I go and am treated to classic Brazilian football. Sort of.
The fellas are all aged between 35 - 45 and are not at the peak of physical condition, especially the one with one arm. Except for 2 young lads who casually look very tasty. I introduce myself to everyone but the name doesn't stick, so it's agreed that they'll call me G.
15 minutes in and the G idea is out of the window, I am just called 'Ingleis' now and shouted at when I don't even have the ball. But all the classics are there, players cross themselves when the game starts, and again if they score. The tempers flare quicker and faster than a Bay City Rollers convention. The level of arguing is so big that I really think someones going to chop another arm off, and the standard of football is very very good.
I hold my own by not actually doing anything good or bad. the 'proffesor' kicks the ball in my face, and my team lose all their games. This has nothing to do with me, other than the fact that I'm put on the team with the worst players cos I'm English. And I'm sticking to that.
One cultural thing that I notice is manners. In every country it's different but it still manages to shock me. For example, in Brazil you can whistle at your waiter to call him over. whistle at him like he was a dog. It's incredible, and I consider the amount of shit that would be put into my food if I tried that in London.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Leticia, a ferry through the jungle, and beyond
I awake from an awkward sex dream that always ends with the woman I'm having sex with morphing into somebody I know. Not anybody that I want to have sex with though, usually it's someone I don´t like, or they don't like me. I look out of the window and take a moment to acknowledge that I am flying over hundreds of miles of trees, bunched together tightly like the queue for the opening day Selfridges sale. It's a real life rainforest. bloody hell!
It´s a wonderous site and as we land I know that the next few days are going to be very different to my normal life.
Leticia sits on a triangle of borders that combine Brazil, Peru and Colombia. You can basically walk from Colombia to Brazil and back again. It's a lot of fun.
I am officially on the booze again and sink a few beers with Phillipe, a really nice French dude who was on my flight. Lager has rarely tasted better than when you've been forced off it by a little shit of a parasite. and I learn quickly that here they like their lager ice cold. We sink a few and retire to bed. We'd arrived on the last night of a 3 day bender that they have here to celebrate the independance days of Colombia and Brazil. Everyone around looks hammered and the party was dwindling rapidly.
The next day I prepare a shopping list for my ferry through the amazon:
A hammock
5 litres of water
crisps
biscuits
I panic buy the hammock, settling on a nylon diamond stiched one in multicolours. I don't actually take time to consider the size of it, or the fact that I'll be lying in it for about 13 hours a day. I will eventually find out that not only is it not very comfortable, cuts into my back, making it look like I´m wearing a skin coloured Pringle sweater, that I paid well over the odds for it.
"you got properly stung" is said to me by the 5 other travellers bunked next to me on the boat.
I spend a lot more time choosing the crisps. Crisps are a very difficult choice on a daily basis for me anyway, I will stand in the corner shop paralysed for a good while weighing up the various brand options first, not even getting into the minefield of flavours until much later. But now I am face with a Everest sized challange,
"What crisp flavour will I eat for 4 days in a row?"
And the selection is poor, after about 20 minutes I settle on what I think are bbq flavoured walkers style crisps, thinking that they spicy ish flavour will keep me happy for the week.
Turns out they were just bacon flavour, and by day 2 I was giving packets away to the kid with the scary eyes, but saying that, even if I liked them I´d have given them to him, his eyes were see through sky blue, and he freaked me out. And he stared at me all the time, but I did conseed that this could have been because he'd never seen ginger hair before!
Now I get on the boat, set up the hammock, and settled in to watch the rest of the passengers put up their bigger, nicer, more comfortable hammocks.
The boat has the look of a 3 leveled freight ferry, and that will be because it is one. The bottom tier is full of brand new motorbikes, while the top 2 decks are filled with us.
Towards the end of day 1 the sound of bongos starts to reverberate around the deck. There's no pattern or rhythm to it from what I can hear, and upon looking for the source I understand why................
Picture if you will a topless traveller in linen trousers banging these bongos with his eyes closed, nodding his head from side to side. He´s got about 6 nitted bracelets on each arm, and one on his ankle.
"this" I think to myself,
"is not going to get any better"
And of course it doesn't, pretty quickly one of his mates takes over the bongos and out comes the mouth organ, a fucking mouth organ! They don't even sound good when a professional plays one, and this clown sounds like he's bought his the day before. They then proceed to 'jam' for the next 20 minutes. And when I say 'jam', I mean 'practice being shit'
I have always hated people who play music in public, without any regard to the people around them, I consider it the ultimate act of selfishness, to force upon everyone else what you want to do.
Music should only be played in public when you are:
Invited to do so by the vast majority of people present
Being paid to do so
Very fucking good at it.
And this chief was none of these things, and if you're not any of these things then you're practicing an instrument that you can't play, in front of people who don't want to hear you, not your proud parents, who sit and watch 'little Timothy' learn the piano.
I may as well have turned over a couple of bins and start smashing them with sticks. Inconsiderate Wanker.
This debarcle went on every day, and put me right off my lying down a lot and reading. But I have always been very positive and upbeat person, who tries selflessly to let every humanbeing express themselves, so I didn't throw him overboard. Or his stupid fucking bongos.
After 4 days of very little aside from sleeping on other peoples hammocks while they played cards, watching dolphins, bird spotting, and staring at the amazon, we pull into Manaus.
Manaus is a tough seaport town surrounded by rainforest. The men are all tough looking and drunk looking. These are hard men, who work very hard, and in turn drink and fight hard too. The women don't look much better, and you can imagine them giving as good as they get.
There's a smell of booze, violence, and sex in the air. And in that order.
I'm pleased that I am flying straight out, but still manage to get drunk with Ben from the boat, and make plans with the French boys to meet up on the coast.
Onward to Joao Passoa, the coast, and me star in a real life soap opera for 2 weeks.
It´s a wonderous site and as we land I know that the next few days are going to be very different to my normal life.
Leticia sits on a triangle of borders that combine Brazil, Peru and Colombia. You can basically walk from Colombia to Brazil and back again. It's a lot of fun.
I am officially on the booze again and sink a few beers with Phillipe, a really nice French dude who was on my flight. Lager has rarely tasted better than when you've been forced off it by a little shit of a parasite. and I learn quickly that here they like their lager ice cold. We sink a few and retire to bed. We'd arrived on the last night of a 3 day bender that they have here to celebrate the independance days of Colombia and Brazil. Everyone around looks hammered and the party was dwindling rapidly.
The next day I prepare a shopping list for my ferry through the amazon:
A hammock
5 litres of water
crisps
biscuits
I panic buy the hammock, settling on a nylon diamond stiched one in multicolours. I don't actually take time to consider the size of it, or the fact that I'll be lying in it for about 13 hours a day. I will eventually find out that not only is it not very comfortable, cuts into my back, making it look like I´m wearing a skin coloured Pringle sweater, that I paid well over the odds for it.
"you got properly stung" is said to me by the 5 other travellers bunked next to me on the boat.
I spend a lot more time choosing the crisps. Crisps are a very difficult choice on a daily basis for me anyway, I will stand in the corner shop paralysed for a good while weighing up the various brand options first, not even getting into the minefield of flavours until much later. But now I am face with a Everest sized challange,
"What crisp flavour will I eat for 4 days in a row?"
And the selection is poor, after about 20 minutes I settle on what I think are bbq flavoured walkers style crisps, thinking that they spicy ish flavour will keep me happy for the week.
Turns out they were just bacon flavour, and by day 2 I was giving packets away to the kid with the scary eyes, but saying that, even if I liked them I´d have given them to him, his eyes were see through sky blue, and he freaked me out. And he stared at me all the time, but I did conseed that this could have been because he'd never seen ginger hair before!
Now I get on the boat, set up the hammock, and settled in to watch the rest of the passengers put up their bigger, nicer, more comfortable hammocks.
The boat has the look of a 3 leveled freight ferry, and that will be because it is one. The bottom tier is full of brand new motorbikes, while the top 2 decks are filled with us.
Towards the end of day 1 the sound of bongos starts to reverberate around the deck. There's no pattern or rhythm to it from what I can hear, and upon looking for the source I understand why................
Picture if you will a topless traveller in linen trousers banging these bongos with his eyes closed, nodding his head from side to side. He´s got about 6 nitted bracelets on each arm, and one on his ankle.
"this" I think to myself,
"is not going to get any better"
And of course it doesn't, pretty quickly one of his mates takes over the bongos and out comes the mouth organ, a fucking mouth organ! They don't even sound good when a professional plays one, and this clown sounds like he's bought his the day before. They then proceed to 'jam' for the next 20 minutes. And when I say 'jam', I mean 'practice being shit'
I have always hated people who play music in public, without any regard to the people around them, I consider it the ultimate act of selfishness, to force upon everyone else what you want to do.
Music should only be played in public when you are:
Invited to do so by the vast majority of people present
Being paid to do so
Very fucking good at it.
And this chief was none of these things, and if you're not any of these things then you're practicing an instrument that you can't play, in front of people who don't want to hear you, not your proud parents, who sit and watch 'little Timothy' learn the piano.
I may as well have turned over a couple of bins and start smashing them with sticks. Inconsiderate Wanker.
This debarcle went on every day, and put me right off my lying down a lot and reading. But I have always been very positive and upbeat person, who tries selflessly to let every humanbeing express themselves, so I didn't throw him overboard. Or his stupid fucking bongos.
After 4 days of very little aside from sleeping on other peoples hammocks while they played cards, watching dolphins, bird spotting, and staring at the amazon, we pull into Manaus.
Manaus is a tough seaport town surrounded by rainforest. The men are all tough looking and drunk looking. These are hard men, who work very hard, and in turn drink and fight hard too. The women don't look much better, and you can imagine them giving as good as they get.
There's a smell of booze, violence, and sex in the air. And in that order.
I'm pleased that I am flying straight out, but still manage to get drunk with Ben from the boat, and make plans with the French boys to meet up on the coast.
Onward to Joao Passoa, the coast, and me star in a real life soap opera for 2 weeks.
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
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.
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.
The truck driver Mrs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
His new lady wasn´t best pleased about the surprise early morning stroll in the rain, but Woodmancy styled it out by saying,
"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.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Bogota, rain, and family life in Colombia
I arrive in Bogota feeling refreshed and relaxed, and ready to explore a big city and learn a new language.
7 hours of unrelenting rain later I am vexed, bored, and not bothered about leaving my little hostel.
It rains a lot here, I´d say more than in Wales, and I never thought that was possible.
The difference between here and the coast is incredible. The fact that you can have such changes in weather conditions only 3 hours apart (by plane I admit) is quite something.
Anyway, on goes the gortex coat and off to see some museums.
Museums, like churches, have slowly turned from being the unbearable places my parents forced me to go to, to actually being places I find enthralling and enjoyable. Museums because of the interesting stuff, churches because of the beauty, grandeur, man hours involved in building, and the giant waste of time that they are as there is no god.
I visit the gold museum and see the gold that was stolen from the Lost City, as well as hundres of years worth of gold from all over Colombia.
These ancient tribes used gold frequently as pieces to adorn their robes and clothing during religous or spiritual periods or ceremonies. They never considered it as a precious metal and would use it freely. It never had a financial meaning then. It got me thinking as to why people today love it so much? it´s nothing special, just a metal, what good is it if the shit hits the fan anyway? you can´t eat it and it won´t help out if your house is being looted and burnt down by marauding hordes. It´ll just sit there, being gold coloured and heavy, until someone murders you, rapes your kids, and steals it because it´s ´gold´
I visit the Police museum and get my own private tour guide, Mr Diego Chaves. A lovely, friendly man who lived in NY for 7 years but has lost some of his English since moving back to Bogota. He insists,
"I can understand every word you say, I just find it hard to talk back to you"
So he and I wander around while I swear wildly at the 80 -100 children that have come to see the police museum on the same day as me. The little shits run around, only stopping to stare at me as if I was part of the museum. Honestly, you´d think these kids had never seen a small, ginger, one ear bigger than the other, wet, Welshman before in their lives!
And when I say stare, I mean stare like I did when I saw a group of Chinese downs kids dressed like Eminem, and then I had to be escorted from the shopping centre by security.
Diego sniggers and hides his face while I call them all c**ts, and I get cheered up when Diego tells me that for most young people in Colombia with no money it´s either the police or the army for them. Both of which are pretty shitty all told. I ask if Diego intends to climb the promotional ladder, and he says,
"you only move up if you can pay, in 15 years I may be able to be a first level sergent, but I will never go beyond that because I cannot pay"
It ´s quite sad that he knows that no matter how hard he works, he´ll never get further because he can´t pay someone to let him.
Diego takes me to the ´history of weapons´floor of the museum. What exactly the history of weapons has got to do with the police I´m not sure, and as I stand in front of a table of rocks, alongside a huge painting of neanderthal man throwing said rocks at each other, I start to think that maybe the Bogota Police have got too many rooms in this museum, and that they are ´filling out´the space.
This is confirmed when I get taken to the ´log book room´ which is basically all the police signing in books from the last 300 years.
The best rooms are in the basement, by which time some other English speakers have joined the 2 man group. We visit the ´torture´room and finally the Pablo Escobar section.
There´s his brothers Harley, with gold plated engine. Pablo´s gold and silver handguns, the clothes he was wearing the day he died, and loads of posters and surveillance equipment, paid for by the US, to hunt him down. I get a little overzelous and start answering peoples questions on Diego´s behalf, you know, cos his English isn´t very good. This goes well until Diego and I fall out over whether or not Pablo ever got voted in as a local MP, he says no, I say yes, it´s a little awkward, and everyone thinks I´m a jumped up little know all, and that I should shut up. A theme that continued 1 week later when I went on the Pablo tour in Medellin.
Anyway, it was a lovely day, and Diego invited me to go out with him on the weekend to show me around, but as I´d started my 2 week course of drugs to KILL Harry the parasite I declined.
After a week of Spanish lessons, rain, museums, Spanish lessons, and walking around, I decide to leave Bogota and go and stay with a family I met on the Lost City trek.
Marta and Manuel were in our group because Marta is a travel agent, and wanted to experience the lost city to see if it was suitable for her customers. She made Manuel come because he was off school that week. The poor bastard.
She invited all of us to come and stay with her and her family in Chia, about 20 minutes out of Bogota. I don´t think she ever thought that any of us would take her up on it, and she hid her dissapointment well when I called her.
But her welcome to me into her home and life was truly wonderful, and a highlight of my trip so far.
She lives on land that used to be her fathers farm. He sold off parts of the land in stages to buy a farm further out, as Bogota was growing closer and closer to Chia. But he kept plots of land for his family so now Marta lives in a house she built next door to her sister, who lives next to the brother, who lives next to the other sister, who lives next to the father, who lives opposite the mother.
They are amazing ramshackle houses, built by themselves in differing styles, but all beautiful. To have such a sense of family and communtiy in one area was something I´d not experienced before.
Marta took me to a family restaraunt that her cousin owned call ´él portico´. His farther had opened it as a small roadside steakhouse around 20 years previous. It was now a huge place, with 5 huge buildings for conferences and parties, with a bullring in the middle, a church to get married in, and loads of different rooms to have receptions, parties and all sorts in. It was quite a sight, and the food I ate was totally top draw.
That night Manuel was going to a 15th birthday party of a girl from his school. In Colombia the 15th birthday is the first big birthday, and people make a huge deal of it, booking big rooms with bands, food, and music. All oraganzied by the parents with invitations better than most wedding invites I´ve seen.
And no, I don´t mean the ones you designed. You know who you are.
As we drove into Botgota with Manuel and his date, it reminded me of the house parties that I threw around that age. Mostly behind my parents back.
They were drunken disasters, with young men doing childlike things to impress girls, while we all got smashed on cider and lager. People were jumping off the patio and into the flowerbeds, girls were being groped whilst unconcious, ornaments were being slightly smashed, and I was in the middle, hiding evidence quicker than the US goverment about 9/11.
Although my covering of the tracks wasn´t very good. A couple of months later, when the garden had grown into a jungle my Dad would be forced to get the grass trimmer out.
He´d wander into the house with yet another handful of crushed cans, looking perplexed and annoyed muttering,
"I just don´t know where they´re coming from"
"It´s the local kids throwing them over the fence Dad" I would confidently reply before hurtling to my room.
And I´d watch from the window, panic slowly rising inside me, as Dad wrestled to put in new plastic blades on the trimmer, knowing that he was about to fall upon the can equivalent of the Soham girls. minus the United shirts.
Then Dad would no longer be able to accept my ´local kids´theory, and that he would then also begin to realize why 1 crate of strongbow, 2 crates of lager, and some of his coin collection had all gone from the house in the last 2 months.
The following day we all go to watch the world cup final at a friend of Marta´s house.
Driving in Colombia is a particulary frightening exercise. The roads are not well maintained, so drivers lurch from one side of road to the next avoiding potholes, with very little concern about the traffic coming towards them. It´s similar to 2 drivers with Parkinsons playing a game of chicken. But without the fun aspect.
It´s a strange home entertainment set up in Colombian homes, as the TV is in the parents bedroom. or at least in the 4 family homes I visited.
So there´s 15 of us in these lovely peoples bedroom, the game finshes and the kids all dissapear to play and the adults sit around talking about art and holidays.
It then strikes me that I am stuck in a age vacum, I´m too old to play with the 17 year old lads upstairs, yet too young to talk with the adults about art, of course I´d be able to if I could speak Spanish but it´s still a very sobering realization.
So I sit there playing Angry Birds on my Iphone, occasionally answering questions in English about music.
I do sit and think about the family life here in Colombia, and talking to the parents of these lovely kids, you understand that the culture here is totally focused on the children, and making sure they have the best set up in life. And I knw that is the same all over the world, but being surrounded by it here, with these amazing people, makes me slightly jealous of their almost perfect way of life.
And to think that the German goverment still has Colombia on its ´don´t travel list´makes it all the more shocking.
My time is drawing to a close in Bogota, I just can´t stand the rain, and Medellin is calling me. Even though I can´t drink, and it´s considered one of the best party town in Colombia, I have plans for a jungle trip, so need to get through it and head out.
So off I go.
7 hours of unrelenting rain later I am vexed, bored, and not bothered about leaving my little hostel.
It rains a lot here, I´d say more than in Wales, and I never thought that was possible.
The difference between here and the coast is incredible. The fact that you can have such changes in weather conditions only 3 hours apart (by plane I admit) is quite something.
Anyway, on goes the gortex coat and off to see some museums.
Museums, like churches, have slowly turned from being the unbearable places my parents forced me to go to, to actually being places I find enthralling and enjoyable. Museums because of the interesting stuff, churches because of the beauty, grandeur, man hours involved in building, and the giant waste of time that they are as there is no god.
I visit the gold museum and see the gold that was stolen from the Lost City, as well as hundres of years worth of gold from all over Colombia.
These ancient tribes used gold frequently as pieces to adorn their robes and clothing during religous or spiritual periods or ceremonies. They never considered it as a precious metal and would use it freely. It never had a financial meaning then. It got me thinking as to why people today love it so much? it´s nothing special, just a metal, what good is it if the shit hits the fan anyway? you can´t eat it and it won´t help out if your house is being looted and burnt down by marauding hordes. It´ll just sit there, being gold coloured and heavy, until someone murders you, rapes your kids, and steals it because it´s ´gold´
I visit the Police museum and get my own private tour guide, Mr Diego Chaves. A lovely, friendly man who lived in NY for 7 years but has lost some of his English since moving back to Bogota. He insists,
"I can understand every word you say, I just find it hard to talk back to you"
So he and I wander around while I swear wildly at the 80 -100 children that have come to see the police museum on the same day as me. The little shits run around, only stopping to stare at me as if I was part of the museum. Honestly, you´d think these kids had never seen a small, ginger, one ear bigger than the other, wet, Welshman before in their lives!
And when I say stare, I mean stare like I did when I saw a group of Chinese downs kids dressed like Eminem, and then I had to be escorted from the shopping centre by security.
Diego sniggers and hides his face while I call them all c**ts, and I get cheered up when Diego tells me that for most young people in Colombia with no money it´s either the police or the army for them. Both of which are pretty shitty all told. I ask if Diego intends to climb the promotional ladder, and he says,
"you only move up if you can pay, in 15 years I may be able to be a first level sergent, but I will never go beyond that because I cannot pay"
It ´s quite sad that he knows that no matter how hard he works, he´ll never get further because he can´t pay someone to let him.
Diego takes me to the ´history of weapons´floor of the museum. What exactly the history of weapons has got to do with the police I´m not sure, and as I stand in front of a table of rocks, alongside a huge painting of neanderthal man throwing said rocks at each other, I start to think that maybe the Bogota Police have got too many rooms in this museum, and that they are ´filling out´the space.
This is confirmed when I get taken to the ´log book room´ which is basically all the police signing in books from the last 300 years.
The best rooms are in the basement, by which time some other English speakers have joined the 2 man group. We visit the ´torture´room and finally the Pablo Escobar section.
There´s his brothers Harley, with gold plated engine. Pablo´s gold and silver handguns, the clothes he was wearing the day he died, and loads of posters and surveillance equipment, paid for by the US, to hunt him down. I get a little overzelous and start answering peoples questions on Diego´s behalf, you know, cos his English isn´t very good. This goes well until Diego and I fall out over whether or not Pablo ever got voted in as a local MP, he says no, I say yes, it´s a little awkward, and everyone thinks I´m a jumped up little know all, and that I should shut up. A theme that continued 1 week later when I went on the Pablo tour in Medellin.
Anyway, it was a lovely day, and Diego invited me to go out with him on the weekend to show me around, but as I´d started my 2 week course of drugs to KILL Harry the parasite I declined.
After a week of Spanish lessons, rain, museums, Spanish lessons, and walking around, I decide to leave Bogota and go and stay with a family I met on the Lost City trek.
Marta and Manuel were in our group because Marta is a travel agent, and wanted to experience the lost city to see if it was suitable for her customers. She made Manuel come because he was off school that week. The poor bastard.
She invited all of us to come and stay with her and her family in Chia, about 20 minutes out of Bogota. I don´t think she ever thought that any of us would take her up on it, and she hid her dissapointment well when I called her.
But her welcome to me into her home and life was truly wonderful, and a highlight of my trip so far.
She lives on land that used to be her fathers farm. He sold off parts of the land in stages to buy a farm further out, as Bogota was growing closer and closer to Chia. But he kept plots of land for his family so now Marta lives in a house she built next door to her sister, who lives next to the brother, who lives next to the other sister, who lives next to the father, who lives opposite the mother.
They are amazing ramshackle houses, built by themselves in differing styles, but all beautiful. To have such a sense of family and communtiy in one area was something I´d not experienced before.
Marta took me to a family restaraunt that her cousin owned call ´él portico´. His farther had opened it as a small roadside steakhouse around 20 years previous. It was now a huge place, with 5 huge buildings for conferences and parties, with a bullring in the middle, a church to get married in, and loads of different rooms to have receptions, parties and all sorts in. It was quite a sight, and the food I ate was totally top draw.
That night Manuel was going to a 15th birthday party of a girl from his school. In Colombia the 15th birthday is the first big birthday, and people make a huge deal of it, booking big rooms with bands, food, and music. All oraganzied by the parents with invitations better than most wedding invites I´ve seen.
And no, I don´t mean the ones you designed. You know who you are.
As we drove into Botgota with Manuel and his date, it reminded me of the house parties that I threw around that age. Mostly behind my parents back.
They were drunken disasters, with young men doing childlike things to impress girls, while we all got smashed on cider and lager. People were jumping off the patio and into the flowerbeds, girls were being groped whilst unconcious, ornaments were being slightly smashed, and I was in the middle, hiding evidence quicker than the US goverment about 9/11.
Although my covering of the tracks wasn´t very good. A couple of months later, when the garden had grown into a jungle my Dad would be forced to get the grass trimmer out.
He´d wander into the house with yet another handful of crushed cans, looking perplexed and annoyed muttering,
"I just don´t know where they´re coming from"
"It´s the local kids throwing them over the fence Dad" I would confidently reply before hurtling to my room.
And I´d watch from the window, panic slowly rising inside me, as Dad wrestled to put in new plastic blades on the trimmer, knowing that he was about to fall upon the can equivalent of the Soham girls. minus the United shirts.
Then Dad would no longer be able to accept my ´local kids´theory, and that he would then also begin to realize why 1 crate of strongbow, 2 crates of lager, and some of his coin collection had all gone from the house in the last 2 months.
The following day we all go to watch the world cup final at a friend of Marta´s house.
Driving in Colombia is a particulary frightening exercise. The roads are not well maintained, so drivers lurch from one side of road to the next avoiding potholes, with very little concern about the traffic coming towards them. It´s similar to 2 drivers with Parkinsons playing a game of chicken. But without the fun aspect.
It´s a strange home entertainment set up in Colombian homes, as the TV is in the parents bedroom. or at least in the 4 family homes I visited.
So there´s 15 of us in these lovely peoples bedroom, the game finshes and the kids all dissapear to play and the adults sit around talking about art and holidays.
It then strikes me that I am stuck in a age vacum, I´m too old to play with the 17 year old lads upstairs, yet too young to talk with the adults about art, of course I´d be able to if I could speak Spanish but it´s still a very sobering realization.
So I sit there playing Angry Birds on my Iphone, occasionally answering questions in English about music.
I do sit and think about the family life here in Colombia, and talking to the parents of these lovely kids, you understand that the culture here is totally focused on the children, and making sure they have the best set up in life. And I knw that is the same all over the world, but being surrounded by it here, with these amazing people, makes me slightly jealous of their almost perfect way of life.
And to think that the German goverment still has Colombia on its ´don´t travel list´makes it all the more shocking.
My time is drawing to a close in Bogota, I just can´t stand the rain, and Medellin is calling me. Even though I can´t drink, and it´s considered one of the best party town in Colombia, I have plans for a jungle trip, so need to get through it and head out.
So off I go.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Pass the Dutchie, Harry the parasite, and the most beautiful women in the world.
So I am starting to understand why foreign countries don´t build toilets that you can flush toilet paper down. It´s because they know that everything that comes out of me is like piss, so why the need for toilet paper? I can imagine the foreman on site saying,
¨well, if it´s all water let´s go for the cheaper pipes¨
I have now realized that I have a parasite living in my stomach, and until the drugs kick in, this parasite has been named Harry. I wouldn´t say we´re getting on too well but he lives inside me so I have to tolerate him I suppose.
And he´s no real fuss or bother, only the 13 - 17 times a day I have to have ´alone time´with him in the toilet. Other than that he´s a delight.
I find myself alone in Cartagena with a very peeling back and shoulders, but the Dutch chaps from the trek are still in town so we arrange to meet up.
Now I like the Dutch, always have. Any nation that can essentially have the same three foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is alright by me.
It is this basic mix of cold meat, bread and cheese that has made them a very easy going, straight talking, and pleasent people, and why wouldn´t you be anything other than cool if you always knew what was going to be on the table?
And they all speak English in a sort of drawl that makes them all sound stoned. Which is always amusing. And when they switch back to Dutch it sounds like the language version of a car crash, with jagged bits of word metal thrown all over the conversational road.
Hansie has been hit by illness and won´t join us. I suspect he´s saying this as he´s had enough of listening to me harp on about nothing, talking shit, and bothering him about being tall. I suspect this right up until he takes himself to hospital.
So Emon, Idris and myself make our way into the Old town for some beers.
The night before we had unsuccesfully tried to get into a local club called ´Bar Barbila´ we were wearing shorts and were turned away. So we´ve all got our jeans on this time and after some food and warm up beers we head down there.
The same 3 doorman from the night before can´t hide their dissapointment as we bound up to the door, but, true to their word, they let us in.
Now I´m going to find it very difficult to describe what I saw within these walls but I´ll try.
You walk through the entrance way to meet the loud but clear sound of quality salsa, on the right is a small bar that seems to be giving out panama hats, fake football shirts, and blow up footballs. It appears to be a World Cup themed night.
Past this bar you walk into the main bar area, to the right is a small DJ booth with no dancefloor. No big square space where everyone stares at a ugly, fat, old, sweaty DJ, playing music with a right moody look on his face. This lad was dancing and jumping around having a right laugh.
And the reason for this is because everyone dances EVERYWHERE!
On tables, on the bar, in the corridors, wherever they want. It´s mad but strangely liberating. If they´re sitting at a table they just get up and start dancing.
Anyway, in front of you is a bar around 7 meters long, further to the right is another bar, around about the same length, to the left of this was another room, quite long with yet another bar on the left. I would say that the place good easily hold 7 - 800 people but rather than fill it like a dance club they put tables everywhere. I would say about 90 - 100 tables.
Now this is where it gets hard. On every single table sat a woman of such beauty that I found it difficult to look. Some were young, some with their husbands, some maybe pushing 50, but all of them stunning. And then, and then! on most of these tables there was 4 or more beautiful women all sitting together!
We got some drinks and wandered around passing these tables of ladies, the like of which I had never been privvy to before. And I´ve met some beautiful women before, I´ve even been lucky enough to go out with a few (I mean you obviously) in my time but this was outrageous.
After a while I had to go and sit down, I just couldn´t face seeing all these girls over and over. We take a seat in a side room which we assume is the restaurant and is empty.
I sit there with my hand in my hands while Idris laughs at my inability to deal with melee of ladies in this place. We order a bottle of rum to share and take a pew.
Within 30 - 40 minutes the ´restaraunt´is FULL of women, big groups of women, with maybe 2 blokes between them. My mood veers between feeling like I´m in heaven, to being absolutley furious that these women are dancing all around me.
Emon is slowly getting his prowl on, dancing with the ladies and having conversations in Spanish. Idris casually smokes and drinks rum, regulary stopping both to chuckle at me. I am sitting with my back to the wall staring at the floor.
I don´t know what to do, all the girls are single and dancing, and love being approached to dance and chat with people. And by all accounts they love foreigners. Never before has there been a greater chance or reason for me to step up and get my groove on.
So I revert to the classic British way of going out and meeting girls:
I get drunk on the rum and jump up to dance to any house tune the DJ plays, immediately sitting down again when a salsa songs come on. I perhaps overdo the shoulder drop to compensate that I´m not consistently dancing but either way a table of girls start to dance in our general direction.
I then proceed to buy a load of beers and casually wait for a girl to come my way.
They don´t. None of them take the burnt, peeling bait.
It would appear that they like to be approached, and over here there is no such thing as the 2am emergency girl either.
I fall out of the bar at 4am and go home. lessons have been learnt.
The next night Emon, Idris, and a valiant Hans intend to go again, if only to show Hans. I decline, I can´t face it.
I decide to make good my escape and head to Bogota, where I will start Spanish lessons.
It´s been bought to my attention that my spelling and use of the words they, their, and there is wrong. I can only apologise.
You try doing this in a sweaty internet cafe, with local kids hassling you, and using a keyboard where all the functions aren´t where they´re meant to be!
x
¨well, if it´s all water let´s go for the cheaper pipes¨
I have now realized that I have a parasite living in my stomach, and until the drugs kick in, this parasite has been named Harry. I wouldn´t say we´re getting on too well but he lives inside me so I have to tolerate him I suppose.
And he´s no real fuss or bother, only the 13 - 17 times a day I have to have ´alone time´with him in the toilet. Other than that he´s a delight.
I find myself alone in Cartagena with a very peeling back and shoulders, but the Dutch chaps from the trek are still in town so we arrange to meet up.
Now I like the Dutch, always have. Any nation that can essentially have the same three foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is alright by me.
It is this basic mix of cold meat, bread and cheese that has made them a very easy going, straight talking, and pleasent people, and why wouldn´t you be anything other than cool if you always knew what was going to be on the table?
And they all speak English in a sort of drawl that makes them all sound stoned. Which is always amusing. And when they switch back to Dutch it sounds like the language version of a car crash, with jagged bits of word metal thrown all over the conversational road.
Hansie has been hit by illness and won´t join us. I suspect he´s saying this as he´s had enough of listening to me harp on about nothing, talking shit, and bothering him about being tall. I suspect this right up until he takes himself to hospital.
So Emon, Idris and myself make our way into the Old town for some beers.
The night before we had unsuccesfully tried to get into a local club called ´Bar Barbila´ we were wearing shorts and were turned away. So we´ve all got our jeans on this time and after some food and warm up beers we head down there.
The same 3 doorman from the night before can´t hide their dissapointment as we bound up to the door, but, true to their word, they let us in.
Now I´m going to find it very difficult to describe what I saw within these walls but I´ll try.
You walk through the entrance way to meet the loud but clear sound of quality salsa, on the right is a small bar that seems to be giving out panama hats, fake football shirts, and blow up footballs. It appears to be a World Cup themed night.
Past this bar you walk into the main bar area, to the right is a small DJ booth with no dancefloor. No big square space where everyone stares at a ugly, fat, old, sweaty DJ, playing music with a right moody look on his face. This lad was dancing and jumping around having a right laugh.
And the reason for this is because everyone dances EVERYWHERE!
On tables, on the bar, in the corridors, wherever they want. It´s mad but strangely liberating. If they´re sitting at a table they just get up and start dancing.
Anyway, in front of you is a bar around 7 meters long, further to the right is another bar, around about the same length, to the left of this was another room, quite long with yet another bar on the left. I would say that the place good easily hold 7 - 800 people but rather than fill it like a dance club they put tables everywhere. I would say about 90 - 100 tables.
Now this is where it gets hard. On every single table sat a woman of such beauty that I found it difficult to look. Some were young, some with their husbands, some maybe pushing 50, but all of them stunning. And then, and then! on most of these tables there was 4 or more beautiful women all sitting together!
We got some drinks and wandered around passing these tables of ladies, the like of which I had never been privvy to before. And I´ve met some beautiful women before, I´ve even been lucky enough to go out with a few (I mean you obviously) in my time but this was outrageous.
After a while I had to go and sit down, I just couldn´t face seeing all these girls over and over. We take a seat in a side room which we assume is the restaurant and is empty.
I sit there with my hand in my hands while Idris laughs at my inability to deal with melee of ladies in this place. We order a bottle of rum to share and take a pew.
Within 30 - 40 minutes the ´restaraunt´is FULL of women, big groups of women, with maybe 2 blokes between them. My mood veers between feeling like I´m in heaven, to being absolutley furious that these women are dancing all around me.
Emon is slowly getting his prowl on, dancing with the ladies and having conversations in Spanish. Idris casually smokes and drinks rum, regulary stopping both to chuckle at me. I am sitting with my back to the wall staring at the floor.
I don´t know what to do, all the girls are single and dancing, and love being approached to dance and chat with people. And by all accounts they love foreigners. Never before has there been a greater chance or reason for me to step up and get my groove on.
So I revert to the classic British way of going out and meeting girls:
I get drunk on the rum and jump up to dance to any house tune the DJ plays, immediately sitting down again when a salsa songs come on. I perhaps overdo the shoulder drop to compensate that I´m not consistently dancing but either way a table of girls start to dance in our general direction.
I then proceed to buy a load of beers and casually wait for a girl to come my way.
They don´t. None of them take the burnt, peeling bait.
It would appear that they like to be approached, and over here there is no such thing as the 2am emergency girl either.
I fall out of the bar at 4am and go home. lessons have been learnt.
The next night Emon, Idris, and a valiant Hans intend to go again, if only to show Hans. I decline, I can´t face it.
I decide to make good my escape and head to Bogota, where I will start Spanish lessons.
It´s been bought to my attention that my spelling and use of the words they, their, and there is wrong. I can only apologise.
You try doing this in a sweaty internet cafe, with local kids hassling you, and using a keyboard where all the functions aren´t where they´re meant to be!
x
Sunday, 27 June 2010
5 star living, hard grafting, and J K Rowling dicks my life up yet again
So last time I was in the tiny town of Taganga trying to enjoy the secluded beaches, while knitted bag wearing, 18 cord braclet sporting, not had a wash in months, dreadlocked hippies try to sell me knitted bags and cord bracelets.
I ran off back to Cartagena to begin a treat of treats - 2 weeks of luxury 5 star living with a dear old pal. He'd not had a ´proper´holiday in 4 years and was adament that 2 weeks on the beach and by the pool would be the tonic, and frankly I wasn't going to stand in his way.
Now walking into a 5 star hotel, that is mostly occupied by rich Colombians, wearing a battered white tee shirt and carrying 2 backpacks that are covered with dust from my bus trip is quite a test. The doorman wouldn't open the door for me, I´m sure he'd assumed that I was lost and wasn´t in the mood to give directions, but flashing a smile and a positive nod of the head, he eventually let me in.
The aircon was jet powered and the grandios entrance area bought a tingle down my spine, this is where I truly belonged.
Upon finding my pal we proceeded to drink the hotel bar beers (9,000 peso, I´d been paying 1,300) and get smashed and eat in a very nice restaurant. The salty tears of joy as I climbed into the ice cold bed will be with more for a good while.
But bitter irony put pay to those feelings of contentment as exactly 14 hours after I´d checked in I got the most vicous runs, or the Tom Tits to use the rhyming slang. Now I was faced with darting from the pool area to relieve my bladder waterfall every few minutes in the furnace poolside toilets, and I coulnd´t have got back to the room as it was on the seventh floor, and I was never going to make it safely, unless I wanted to leave a brown snake all the way through the hotel. 3 weeks of questionable street food and dodgy backstreet eateries, and I get sick in a 5 star hotel.
Now staying in a Colombian hotel, that for the large part, only caters for rich Colombians, the sight of a small, sweaty, pale white, ginger man, walking alongside a taller, dark haired, gringo, we experienced a fair share of curious amused looks from the staff and the partons. The pool guy, a short, stocky, man with a loud voice, who also loved playing loud salsa from a sound system a festival would be proud of. at 10am. found us to be a fairly amusing site. His name was Carlos and he quicky began shouting 'motha fuckas' loudly whenever we walked past him, he was a good laugh.
We played pool with him and he said,
"what are you names?"
"Gareth Potter" I replied,
"Gared Podder?"
"No, No, Gareth Potter"
"oh! you meen like a da Harry Potter! you his fukkin cousin or his brodder?" he then proceeded to piss himself laughing, as did my pal.
Now I never liked the assoiciation to Harry, especially when certain larks enjoy calling me 'Gary Potter' but to have to deal with it 7,000 miles away was annoying, but Rowling's fucked me again.
4 days into burning myself poolside, swimming in a pool, and generally lazing around my pal mentioned a trip I'd suggested to him called the 'Ciudad Perdida, or the lost city tour. 5 nights and 6 days trekking through the jungle to visit an ancient city, built by the Tayrona people as a religous and spiritual site. and also lower down the mountain, housing for up to 1,500 people. It was lost in the 15th Century after the Spanish invaded and wiped them out. It was only ever found again by grave robbers in 1975, who plundered the area. Grave robbing was actually legal in those days. which was a little odd.
Either way this little adventure appealed to my friend, mostly because I think he wanted a bit of space between me and him after spening 4 days with me, while hotel staff pondered whether or not we were 'not the marrying kind' or 'good with colours' or 'first on the dance floor' or 'chi chi boys' or 'straight up male prostitutes'.
So it was decided, we'd have another night at the hotel, leave for the trek on the Friday, and start it on the Saturday morning.
Carlos was quite confused as to why two potential homosexuals wanted to climb around the mountains, looking for nothing in paricular, but he kept it mostly to himself.
"Hey Lloyd, wad the fukk is the madder with your friend Haree? all he do is read, sleep, read, sleep, read, sleep" was the parting question to my pal.
On the bus to Santa Marta the driver asks for my name,
"Potter" I reply,
"like Harry" pipes up Lloyd, and the whole bus has a good chuckle.
And so it began. We'd read some websites and quizzed some friends who'd done the tour before, as to what was in store for us, and what did we need to take.
Mostly people said it was amazing, bring loads of mosquito spray, some dry clothes for the evening, maybe a bin bag for you wet clothes, some sandals with straps on them, and a water bottle.
Now if I knew then what I know now I'd have rephrased that advice to:
bring spray, but the higher up you go that more rapid and mental they are. In fact by the top you'll think the spary was a attractive pheromone to them, and that they'd love it
Everything's going to get wet, and stink like the inside of Rik Wallers inner thigh.
you'll be throwing the sandals away on the last day because they've fallen apart and totally humm, so don't spend out on them.
You're going to have to make peace with the fact that you'll be drinking river water. The same river that they throw all the food, faeces, piss, and general waste into.
But I didn't know that did I? As of writing I have 97 mosquito bites on my body, 86 of those were due to being up a mountain with a mosquito net that simply kept the mosquito inside, rather than the other way round. Only my bright little white fella escaped the mauling , but if they could have found it, I'm sure they'd have gone down on it like Devine Brown went down on Hugh Grant.
We all meet at the turcol office in Santa Marta. Our group was like this:
Hans - a large Dutch fellow, who looks like my cousin, and looks at me without hiding the fact that he's thinking I'm odd, and querying why I won't shut up occasionally
Emon - Another Dutch fellow, smaller than Hans, but with an air of a Dutch footballer. Quiet but when he speaks, you tend to listen, if only because it's about football or women.
Idris - A jolly Dutch fellow, who would simply turn to me and say things like,
"you know Gareth, when I get home, I'm gonna eat, sleep, and then I'm going to fuck my girlfriend, and then I'm going to sleep again" most of the time this was unprompted chatter, but being so lovely, I just took it all in
Peter - A very good, honest, American boy. Minus the scary religous zeal, and has been out of the US enough times to know that other people are different , and that they should be respected. Marta and her son Manuel - A Colombian tour operater and veterinarian. who was on the trip to see if she could recommend it to her clients. She couldn't. and her son, who was a quiet, dignified, young fella.
Antonio - A mad engineer from Medellin, who couldn't speak a word of English , but would love to chat away to us, even though he knew we couldn't understand a word he'd say. but he was so animated that we let him crack on. We later found out that he was massive into god, and that he was possibly trying to convert all of us for the full 5 days.
A our guide Edwin, who'd been kidnapped doing the tour in 2005 but went straight back to it a couple of months later.
A that was our jolly crew, a nicer group of people you couldn't find, and if we'd have been in the other groups we saw during the trek, I'd have gone straight back down again on the first day. but more about them later. suffice to say. wankers.
The drive to the jungle was simple enough, until the off road, where the bus would veer dangerously close to the edge as we climbed higher and higher. The volumous mountains began to envelop us, and with every turn we'd climb higher, and the mountains would spread out into the distance. It was beautiful. And before anyone asks for photos, I can't be arsed downloading them all onto this questionable, Colombian computer, in this smelly internet shop.
Now I'm all for a little walk occasionally, I like to walk into town or a stroll down the canal to Canary Wharf, or even a few times round the park. I am not adverse to walking and find it a pleasant thing to do.
This wasn't walking though, this was hard graft, moving up inclines and declines, that would tower over you, or feel like you were going to fall straight down the mountain. This wasn't easy and I realized that this was going to be quite tough. If I hadn't done the marathon training a couple of months ago I'd have really struggled. Marta was having a tough time of it.
I'm a sweater, in the bodily fluid sense rather than the clothing sense. Always have been. Holidays in hot countries are quite taxing, as I expel my body weight out of every pore. And that's when I'm lying down by a pool drinking a beer. combine this with proper hard work and I was sweating like a peado at a school sports day.
My water was done by the first rest stop, some nice people had set up a little shop.
"Yes I would like a small bottle of water please, how much is that? 3,000 pesos? but they were only 2,000 at the bottom? nevermind, if I don't take on fluids soon, I'm going to pass out"
To say they had you over a barrel is one thing, I would say that they've got you half way up a mountain and you're half dead.
We get to the first stop of the day at around 3pm, we swim in the river, and jump off a waterfall. It's a glourious place , and if you don't work out the pissy river thing too early, it's the nicest swim you've ever head.
Dinner, some drinks with the boys to get to know them, then bed. or should I say hammock.
Now lights out in a hammock, you cannot see anything, not even your own hand in front of your face. The sort of darkness that freaks you right out, especially if you live in London, and the street light outside bedroom never goes out, and the only sound you hear is the birds and the animals, that sound like they're getting closer and closer to you.
Following morning after a petrifying, bitten ridden sleep we arise to a cocaine factory tour, as conducted by a little cross eyed fella, who looked like he'd done enough coke to power the Bolivian army for a year or two.
The factory wasn't a working factory, more like a mock shop, or chemical experiment that you'd see in techniquest (one for the Cardiff massive there) but he took us into the jungle and he went through the seven or so stages of cocaine production. It was very interesting and when the acid burnt through the coca plants, you had a acute awareness of what millions of people were stuffing their noses with every weekend. He stopped at the last stage of production, whereby it's dried and mixed with an acetone to release the chemical that gets you high. The finished product that he had was a paste, which looked like toothpaste, and numbed your mouth and face for a good 20 minutes.
He also said that he'd never done coke in his life, and looking around the factory, smelling the gasoline, and the 6 other harmful chemicals, you could totally see why he'd never touched it.
4 days later as we were coming down the mountain another group was coming up on there 2nd day. These long haired twats and jocks had taken all the paste that he'd made for them, and were now trying to smoke it at the rest stop. These boys didn't quite grasp that you wouldn't even get high but they were so annoying that I hoped they'd poison themselves. Wankers.
Bedtime again and lying in the darkness unable to sleep you think about a lot of things. Things like: life, the question of why we are here?, is there a god?, the afterlife, girls, old girlfriends, newer girlfriends, possible new girlfriends, work, films, music, money, ghostbusters, Rocky 4, is it possible to say John Cusack is a great actor? is it acceptable to use the word nigger in polite society? assuming of course that it's done in a satirical, ironic way, by people who cleary are not racist, (it's not by the way) animals, the real chance of me dying sooner than I want to, family, Lovejoy, Only fools and hourses, friends, old and new, the girl I upset at Uni, University, my belongings, my general stench, is it possible to go into shock after receiving 100 mosquito bites? why are backpackers such wankers? the envitable fact that someone's got a bigger penis than me, a lot of people as it goes, sex, not having sex, could I have sex in the jungle? or would I not be able to get a hard on? music, the relization that 3 days is the longest time I've ever gone wihtout listening to music in my life, my bike, my general health, aids, cancer, almost all diseases that can kill me, mosquitos, and was I ever going to actually go to sleep again?
Day three or four and I watch as the local Tayrona children gleefully throw a dog into a river so that it will cross. I can't help but think that us encroaching on their land and disturbing their lives can't be a good thing, especially when I see one smoking fags and basically taking our food rather than finding or growing his own.
We finally reach the summit and Edwin's knowledge ofthe place is facsinating, as is the story of getting kidnapped and running away from the kidnappers.
We get back down in one day rather than sleep another night, this isn't because we weren't enjoying it, but if it could be done in a day then let's get it over with. There was a slight air of competitiveness going to down, but I'm pleased to say that we all got down at our own pace, and that achievement was a shared one.
Lloyd and I headed straight back to a 5 star hotel in Santa Marta, the next day we drank from 10am until well into the next day. I didn't wear any suntan cream because I was under a umbrella, but obviously the 40 mins drunkenly floating in the sea turned my body into a nasty violent red colour. And on my left shoulder a big watery blister had formed, it looked like I been burnt with acid. horrible.
And now I'm here, Lloyd has left and I'm alone. I head to Bogota to learn Spanish and maybe to go and visit Marta and Manuel. And I'll let you know how I get on.
I ran off back to Cartagena to begin a treat of treats - 2 weeks of luxury 5 star living with a dear old pal. He'd not had a ´proper´holiday in 4 years and was adament that 2 weeks on the beach and by the pool would be the tonic, and frankly I wasn't going to stand in his way.
Now walking into a 5 star hotel, that is mostly occupied by rich Colombians, wearing a battered white tee shirt and carrying 2 backpacks that are covered with dust from my bus trip is quite a test. The doorman wouldn't open the door for me, I´m sure he'd assumed that I was lost and wasn´t in the mood to give directions, but flashing a smile and a positive nod of the head, he eventually let me in.
The aircon was jet powered and the grandios entrance area bought a tingle down my spine, this is where I truly belonged.
Upon finding my pal we proceeded to drink the hotel bar beers (9,000 peso, I´d been paying 1,300) and get smashed and eat in a very nice restaurant. The salty tears of joy as I climbed into the ice cold bed will be with more for a good while.
But bitter irony put pay to those feelings of contentment as exactly 14 hours after I´d checked in I got the most vicous runs, or the Tom Tits to use the rhyming slang. Now I was faced with darting from the pool area to relieve my bladder waterfall every few minutes in the furnace poolside toilets, and I coulnd´t have got back to the room as it was on the seventh floor, and I was never going to make it safely, unless I wanted to leave a brown snake all the way through the hotel. 3 weeks of questionable street food and dodgy backstreet eateries, and I get sick in a 5 star hotel.
Now staying in a Colombian hotel, that for the large part, only caters for rich Colombians, the sight of a small, sweaty, pale white, ginger man, walking alongside a taller, dark haired, gringo, we experienced a fair share of curious amused looks from the staff and the partons. The pool guy, a short, stocky, man with a loud voice, who also loved playing loud salsa from a sound system a festival would be proud of. at 10am. found us to be a fairly amusing site. His name was Carlos and he quicky began shouting 'motha fuckas' loudly whenever we walked past him, he was a good laugh.
We played pool with him and he said,
"what are you names?"
"Gareth Potter" I replied,
"Gared Podder?"
"No, No, Gareth Potter"
"oh! you meen like a da Harry Potter! you his fukkin cousin or his brodder?" he then proceeded to piss himself laughing, as did my pal.
Now I never liked the assoiciation to Harry, especially when certain larks enjoy calling me 'Gary Potter' but to have to deal with it 7,000 miles away was annoying, but Rowling's fucked me again.
4 days into burning myself poolside, swimming in a pool, and generally lazing around my pal mentioned a trip I'd suggested to him called the 'Ciudad Perdida, or the lost city tour. 5 nights and 6 days trekking through the jungle to visit an ancient city, built by the Tayrona people as a religous and spiritual site. and also lower down the mountain, housing for up to 1,500 people. It was lost in the 15th Century after the Spanish invaded and wiped them out. It was only ever found again by grave robbers in 1975, who plundered the area. Grave robbing was actually legal in those days. which was a little odd.
Either way this little adventure appealed to my friend, mostly because I think he wanted a bit of space between me and him after spening 4 days with me, while hotel staff pondered whether or not we were 'not the marrying kind' or 'good with colours' or 'first on the dance floor' or 'chi chi boys' or 'straight up male prostitutes'.
So it was decided, we'd have another night at the hotel, leave for the trek on the Friday, and start it on the Saturday morning.
Carlos was quite confused as to why two potential homosexuals wanted to climb around the mountains, looking for nothing in paricular, but he kept it mostly to himself.
"Hey Lloyd, wad the fukk is the madder with your friend Haree? all he do is read, sleep, read, sleep, read, sleep" was the parting question to my pal.
On the bus to Santa Marta the driver asks for my name,
"Potter" I reply,
"like Harry" pipes up Lloyd, and the whole bus has a good chuckle.
And so it began. We'd read some websites and quizzed some friends who'd done the tour before, as to what was in store for us, and what did we need to take.
Mostly people said it was amazing, bring loads of mosquito spray, some dry clothes for the evening, maybe a bin bag for you wet clothes, some sandals with straps on them, and a water bottle.
Now if I knew then what I know now I'd have rephrased that advice to:
bring spray, but the higher up you go that more rapid and mental they are. In fact by the top you'll think the spary was a attractive pheromone to them, and that they'd love it
Everything's going to get wet, and stink like the inside of Rik Wallers inner thigh.
you'll be throwing the sandals away on the last day because they've fallen apart and totally humm, so don't spend out on them.
You're going to have to make peace with the fact that you'll be drinking river water. The same river that they throw all the food, faeces, piss, and general waste into.
But I didn't know that did I? As of writing I have 97 mosquito bites on my body, 86 of those were due to being up a mountain with a mosquito net that simply kept the mosquito inside, rather than the other way round. Only my bright little white fella escaped the mauling , but if they could have found it, I'm sure they'd have gone down on it like Devine Brown went down on Hugh Grant.
We all meet at the turcol office in Santa Marta. Our group was like this:
Hans - a large Dutch fellow, who looks like my cousin, and looks at me without hiding the fact that he's thinking I'm odd, and querying why I won't shut up occasionally
Emon - Another Dutch fellow, smaller than Hans, but with an air of a Dutch footballer. Quiet but when he speaks, you tend to listen, if only because it's about football or women.
Idris - A jolly Dutch fellow, who would simply turn to me and say things like,
"you know Gareth, when I get home, I'm gonna eat, sleep, and then I'm going to fuck my girlfriend, and then I'm going to sleep again" most of the time this was unprompted chatter, but being so lovely, I just took it all in
Peter - A very good, honest, American boy. Minus the scary religous zeal, and has been out of the US enough times to know that other people are different , and that they should be respected. Marta and her son Manuel - A Colombian tour operater and veterinarian. who was on the trip to see if she could recommend it to her clients. She couldn't. and her son, who was a quiet, dignified, young fella.
Antonio - A mad engineer from Medellin, who couldn't speak a word of English , but would love to chat away to us, even though he knew we couldn't understand a word he'd say. but he was so animated that we let him crack on. We later found out that he was massive into god, and that he was possibly trying to convert all of us for the full 5 days.
A our guide Edwin, who'd been kidnapped doing the tour in 2005 but went straight back to it a couple of months later.
A that was our jolly crew, a nicer group of people you couldn't find, and if we'd have been in the other groups we saw during the trek, I'd have gone straight back down again on the first day. but more about them later. suffice to say. wankers.
The drive to the jungle was simple enough, until the off road, where the bus would veer dangerously close to the edge as we climbed higher and higher. The volumous mountains began to envelop us, and with every turn we'd climb higher, and the mountains would spread out into the distance. It was beautiful. And before anyone asks for photos, I can't be arsed downloading them all onto this questionable, Colombian computer, in this smelly internet shop.
Now I'm all for a little walk occasionally, I like to walk into town or a stroll down the canal to Canary Wharf, or even a few times round the park. I am not adverse to walking and find it a pleasant thing to do.
This wasn't walking though, this was hard graft, moving up inclines and declines, that would tower over you, or feel like you were going to fall straight down the mountain. This wasn't easy and I realized that this was going to be quite tough. If I hadn't done the marathon training a couple of months ago I'd have really struggled. Marta was having a tough time of it.
I'm a sweater, in the bodily fluid sense rather than the clothing sense. Always have been. Holidays in hot countries are quite taxing, as I expel my body weight out of every pore. And that's when I'm lying down by a pool drinking a beer. combine this with proper hard work and I was sweating like a peado at a school sports day.
My water was done by the first rest stop, some nice people had set up a little shop.
"Yes I would like a small bottle of water please, how much is that? 3,000 pesos? but they were only 2,000 at the bottom? nevermind, if I don't take on fluids soon, I'm going to pass out"
To say they had you over a barrel is one thing, I would say that they've got you half way up a mountain and you're half dead.
We get to the first stop of the day at around 3pm, we swim in the river, and jump off a waterfall. It's a glourious place , and if you don't work out the pissy river thing too early, it's the nicest swim you've ever head.
Dinner, some drinks with the boys to get to know them, then bed. or should I say hammock.
Now lights out in a hammock, you cannot see anything, not even your own hand in front of your face. The sort of darkness that freaks you right out, especially if you live in London, and the street light outside bedroom never goes out, and the only sound you hear is the birds and the animals, that sound like they're getting closer and closer to you.
Following morning after a petrifying, bitten ridden sleep we arise to a cocaine factory tour, as conducted by a little cross eyed fella, who looked like he'd done enough coke to power the Bolivian army for a year or two.
The factory wasn't a working factory, more like a mock shop, or chemical experiment that you'd see in techniquest (one for the Cardiff massive there) but he took us into the jungle and he went through the seven or so stages of cocaine production. It was very interesting and when the acid burnt through the coca plants, you had a acute awareness of what millions of people were stuffing their noses with every weekend. He stopped at the last stage of production, whereby it's dried and mixed with an acetone to release the chemical that gets you high. The finished product that he had was a paste, which looked like toothpaste, and numbed your mouth and face for a good 20 minutes.
He also said that he'd never done coke in his life, and looking around the factory, smelling the gasoline, and the 6 other harmful chemicals, you could totally see why he'd never touched it.
4 days later as we were coming down the mountain another group was coming up on there 2nd day. These long haired twats and jocks had taken all the paste that he'd made for them, and were now trying to smoke it at the rest stop. These boys didn't quite grasp that you wouldn't even get high but they were so annoying that I hoped they'd poison themselves. Wankers.
Bedtime again and lying in the darkness unable to sleep you think about a lot of things. Things like: life, the question of why we are here?, is there a god?, the afterlife, girls, old girlfriends, newer girlfriends, possible new girlfriends, work, films, music, money, ghostbusters, Rocky 4, is it possible to say John Cusack is a great actor? is it acceptable to use the word nigger in polite society? assuming of course that it's done in a satirical, ironic way, by people who cleary are not racist, (it's not by the way) animals, the real chance of me dying sooner than I want to, family, Lovejoy, Only fools and hourses, friends, old and new, the girl I upset at Uni, University, my belongings, my general stench, is it possible to go into shock after receiving 100 mosquito bites? why are backpackers such wankers? the envitable fact that someone's got a bigger penis than me, a lot of people as it goes, sex, not having sex, could I have sex in the jungle? or would I not be able to get a hard on? music, the relization that 3 days is the longest time I've ever gone wihtout listening to music in my life, my bike, my general health, aids, cancer, almost all diseases that can kill me, mosquitos, and was I ever going to actually go to sleep again?
Day three or four and I watch as the local Tayrona children gleefully throw a dog into a river so that it will cross. I can't help but think that us encroaching on their land and disturbing their lives can't be a good thing, especially when I see one smoking fags and basically taking our food rather than finding or growing his own.
We finally reach the summit and Edwin's knowledge ofthe place is facsinating, as is the story of getting kidnapped and running away from the kidnappers.
We get back down in one day rather than sleep another night, this isn't because we weren't enjoying it, but if it could be done in a day then let's get it over with. There was a slight air of competitiveness going to down, but I'm pleased to say that we all got down at our own pace, and that achievement was a shared one.
Lloyd and I headed straight back to a 5 star hotel in Santa Marta, the next day we drank from 10am until well into the next day. I didn't wear any suntan cream because I was under a umbrella, but obviously the 40 mins drunkenly floating in the sea turned my body into a nasty violent red colour. And on my left shoulder a big watery blister had formed, it looked like I been burnt with acid. horrible.
And now I'm here, Lloyd has left and I'm alone. I head to Bogota to learn Spanish and maybe to go and visit Marta and Manuel. And I'll let you know how I get on.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Haggling and corruption. The Colombian way
So I arrive into Mompos, a tiny town with a population of around 62,000 people. It used to be the main port for goods back in the 15th century, but since the coast opened up in the 16th century the place has basically been left untouched. So it´s a very old town with about 12 more churches than it actually needs.
It´s now a Useco protected sight which means money is given to restore and take care of the place, but our guide told us that the Mayor just steals all the money and buys him and his family loads of jeeps.
But I´m not Michael Palin so it´s back to the stream of rubbish that flows through my head.
There´s no prices on anything in Colombia, so you have to ask every time, and when you do ask the seller will look you up and down and judge quickly:
1. If you look stupid enough to be charged way over the odds for the pineapple
2. If you´re American, again so they can charge you more as they don´t like Americans
3. And if you´ll try to haggle them down on the price
After doing this when buying anything (even bus tickets, they´ll say a price, you ask for a discount, and they go ´yeah, ok´. Imagine that on the 38. nuts!) it gets a bit boring. and you feel like someone´s trying to cheat you all the time.
We get a boat trip down the river to another village that isn´t Useco protected and is a lot more raw. I noticed that a lot of the houses keep pigs as pets, and they let them wander around the village all day, then make there way home at night. I couldn´t work out if they played fetch with the pigs though.
They also organize mis-matched fights between Iguanas and monkeys. which is nice.
In Colombian bars there is a culture of showing off that you have the biggest sound system and flat screen TV. The TV´s show the video to the song that´s being played, and this is the norm. You have giant screens playing the videos, while the volume is so loud that you can´t speak to the person sitting next to you. It´s very strange.
And the music policy is, frankly, fucking nuts. They´ll play Salsa and traditional Colombian music, mixed with banging reggaeton and Paul Simon´s ´you can call me Al´ which I´ve heard in 3 different bars in 2 weeks! And it´s not even the good video with Chevy Chase, it´s live from about ´88.
And if I ever meet David Guetta I´m going to punch the floppy haired French surrender monkey so hard. that he´ll never make another video ever again. He´s got 4 songs over here that get played EVERYWHERE! Especially the one with Akon. Wankers.
You just can´t escape the little shit, him and Kelly Rowland, him and Estelle, him on his own, it´s borderline ruining my trip.
Saturday night is rave night in Mompos, so in the main square, 4 bars that face each other pull their massive speakers out and face them into the square. They then proceed to play music over the top of each other and comically loud volume until the early morning. Large men in large jeeps sit around drinking rum and beers, but there´s almost no girls out. I ask Cherie, who´s been living in Colombia for 2 years,
"Where are the ladies?"
"At home, pregnant" came the short reply from Cherie.
Quite a lot of Cherie´s comments are fairly short and to the point. Here´s a selection:
´Arseholes´= Colombian men
´Poncy fashion people, hanging out in Dalston, wearing pork pie hats´ = me, and her friend Amy.
´Twats´ = People in general
´Fuck off Shakira´ Well. Shakira mostly.
But she was super lovely and did say that the culture is more towards the women keeping the home while the men go out and,
"get fat, and sleep with other women........arseholes!"
It´s so hot here but about 40% of people wander around in jeans and shirts. I burst into tears everytime I leave an air conditioned room, but these people walk around in their Sunday best!
And I´m getting eaten alive by mosquitos. There about as useful as Jade Goody, but slightly more annoying. My legs are covered in big lumps that bleed all the time. It´s never ending.
Me and my new super best friend and human translator Julia leave Mompos and head for Taganga, which is a tiny fishing village that´s been taken over by hippy´s and people who take advantage of the cheap PADI diving. There´s more dread locks here than at Carnival. I´m leaving soon because I´m going to kill a hippy if I stay.
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