Archive for category Colombia
End Notes
Originally posted at travelswithdelaney.com.
The camera I bought at an antique shop in Medellin, pre-broken:
I departed the luxurious apartment of Camila and Pilar after taking advantage of their kindness for far too long on a last ditch effort to see a little more of Colombia. I spent a fun day in a cold cold bus to Bogota and spent a weird night in a place called Alegria’s Hostel with a smoky, barracks-style dorm room full of semi-drunken English and a cat that freaked me out 3 times in the middle of the night by jumping up onto my bunk. I rocked over through the Candelaria to Platypus Hostel the next morning and found it full of friendly, English speaking youngsters with whom I spent a night drinking bad beer in the street after a day being a good tourist and finding my way around museums.
The Museo de Oro:
Another Botero Museum:
I left the next day for Santa Marta (after a delicious breakfast-slash-lunch). The 20-or-so-hour freezing cold bus ride was uneventful, other than a late-night stop by the military police to rifle through our bags and belongings looking for drugs and whatnot. And a stop in the middle of nowhere at a huge, roadside cafeteria that sold overpriced food to bus riders. Which I ate, happily.
I cruised through Santa Marta quickly and caught the first buseta I could find to Taganga, where I realized that the name of the hostel which I’d reserved was stored in my phone, which now had no battery. So I wandered around the little beach town with the 14-year-old on my back for a couple hours in the intense heat and sweated profusely until I found an Internet cafe and found the name of the hostel. An hour or so later (the streets in Taganga aren’t marked), I arrived at Hostel Tropical Maison and met Jean, the owner. Jean is the sort of fellow that people all over the world have stories about. He’s an old guy, a jazz pianist, a linguist who speaks at least six linguas, an opinionated storyteller, and a crank.
I was the only one in Jean’s house for the first couple days, which was a bit depressing, frankly. I spent a lot of time hearing about Jean’s lives abroad and his experiences alternately spying for the USIS and being followed by the FBI. And reading trashy novels in the comfy hammocks out back. But then, some very nice kids came and we went to the beach every single day for hours and hours. And I snorkeled like a mad man. And we went to the (two) clubs in Taganga and I danced like an idiot at one of them and tried my very best to flirt with girls. Oh, and my last night there I went nightswimming (in my dorkiest pair of underpants) with very kind, very cute Lizzie and very kind, very Australian James. Which was fun.
Yo Spoon, let’s go to Da Beach:
I came back to Medellin after a tearful (on my part) departure from the funnily, bizarrely inappropriate Canadian/South African couple and even-tempered Clover O’Brien (from guess what country) and found Camila as charming and gracious and lovely as ever. I saw her for just a few sad hours before I jumped in a cab the next morning to catch a plane back to, well, here.
I’m back in the States now, feeling like a bit of a stranger. I think that I’ve rewired by brain in the last almost eight months; some synapses in there have re-fused into a network in which my goal on any given day is to A] Find a place to stay, B] Find someone to hang out with, and C] Find a way to have a little bit of fun (but not too much). But I’m getting the hang of it again.
I loved my little trip. I loved the people I met, the places I saw. And yes, I am different.
Pink is the Best
I’m in Medellin, working on obliterating any traces of Castellano that I may have learned. A typical day:
1] Wake up at Camila’s lovely little apartment, eat a delicious breakfast cooked by either lovely, kind Camila or her lovely, hospitable mom. And feel a little guilty.
2] Loll around for an hour or two, obsessively checking Facebook and slowly working on personal hygiene tasks.
3] Work my way out into the sunlight. Walk to the Metro station down the hill from Envigado, take the spotlessly efficient Metro to Parque Berrio.
4] Eat a 6,000 peso lunch (which sounds expensive, but it’s really only three dollars) before heading over to the Museo Antioquia, which houses lots of Colonial and Colombian art, as well as a huge collection of Botero artwork. And has like 40 fat sculptures directly outside, which are funny and a little grotesque.
5] Jump on my new favorite friend, the Metro, to go check out the MAMM. But arrive there to find that it’s inexplicably closed.
6] So meet up with the Met to ride the crazy huge well-engineered gondola portion of the public transportation system up the hill to the allegedly dangerous little barrio of Santo Domingo, now home to a beautiful modern library bequeathed by the nation of Spain. To wander around a little bit and meet a super-charming technological librarian and speak some halting English.
7] Get kicked out of the library’s computer lab (because it was closing) and running in a downpour down the super-modern handicapped ramp. And falling on my knees in a super-radical rockstar slide in the deluge and ripping a rockstar hole in my jeans and getting some rockstar blood all over myself. And feeling pretty not-rockstar as the little kids were laughing at me and I boarded the fantastic futuristic gondola all wet and bloody.
8] To go back down the hill and eat a really bad expensive sushi roll in Parque LLeras that was not fried in tempura batter, but some kind of corn meal, which does not work well with the Japanese food.
9] Before jumping back on the M and taking my Camino Verde bus back to my perfect apartment and loll around a bit more before welcoming Camila back home from her 14 (or so) hour day at the fancy restaurant.
Other, less common occurrences:
Cirque de Soleil was in town for Los Juegos Sudamericanas and Camila mentioned that I ought to go. When we stopped by a hostel in Parque Lleras to grab a map, she happened to know someone that worked there that somehow had access to (maybe a bit below the board) entrance to the inauguration show. So there was some rapid discourse in a language that I now don’t understand at all on many cellular telephones, and I was told to show up at a certain place at a certain time. Which I did and waited around a couple hours with some super sweet college kids for some shady guy to arrive out of the crowd with dubious access to the show. Which he never did, so I followed the college kids to a nearby bar where I was forced to drink an undisclosed amount of aguardiente and danced really poorly/sweatily with a kind/patient young woman who put up with me even though I have as much rhythm as a, well, a WASP-y white guy from a cold climate.
The college kids:
A delicious meal at Camila’s very fancy restaurant at which I chatted amiably with Rob (from California), her boss and the head chef, and ate one of the best meals of my life, all explained in lurid detail by them both. Was wowed.
Night at the disco with Camila and her very special friends, pretending that Cami is European to the poor drunk Colombian guy (self-proclaimed nickname “the body”) and dancing like a little kid before meeting Pink (not the Pink) and being forced to say some very nasty things in a language I don’t understand and joining in the cleverly written song, Pink is the Best.
Also:
Medellin is Canada. But warm. And the people are more attractive. Everything is clean and modern and attractive. The citizenry is incredibly kind and gregarious and just, well, nice. I feel safer in Medellin (rightly or no) than I’ve felt anywhere outside Patagonia in the last seven months. It’s more Canada than Canada. Is this what Scandanavia is like?
I’ve gone to the aquarium and the botanical gardens and another museum and another museum and a big fancy market and a big fancy mall and another big fancy mall. And the movies, twice.
I walk a lot. And it’s hilly and warm. I’m getting a little sweaty. But people are so nice, they never mention it.
Not Kidnapped
I made it to Riobamba (after missing my bus and spending another long night in Manta) only to discover that no, the train does not go all the way down the Devil’s nose, and no, you can’t buy a ticket even on the abridged ride. So I turned around the next morning and headed back to Quito, where I again found Rich and walked around town a little and ate a deliciously expensive meal in gringolandia. And the next morning took three buses to Otavalo and The Biggest Market in Ecuador and was slightly disappointed, even though I went Saturday when it was supposed to be off the hook. So I took 2 buses and the trole back to Quito, ate another burrito, and took a little time fretting about my next day’s jaunt into Colombia.
I awoke at 5:15 the next morning and headed off to Colombia in high style. Lonely Planet, that scourge of travelers, told me that Terminal Carapungo is the place to catch buses North. So, I again took the trole to the end of the line and hopped on a bus with a giant sign that read “Carapungo.” And rode it for an hour before realizing that there was a little town on the outskirts of Quito called Carapungo, and the bus terminal confusingly isn’t located there. I jumped off the bus with my mochila gigante in tow and grabbed a shady-looking taxi to ask where the heck I needed to go. Terminal Norte is evidently what it’s called, kids.
Five hour bus from Quito to Tulcan: uneventful. Taxi to Rumichaca: uneventful. Border crossing at Rumichaca: marred by closed borders (a four-hour wait for the Colombian elections) and a mixup by myself and fellow Michigander Tyler over which country’s immigration office we were supposed to visit first, but buoyed by good conversation with friendly (of course) Canadians that had just spent a week on the farm with the Irish expat screamers, currently located 6 hours outside Popayan. Combi ride to Ipiales: uneventful. 10 hour bus ride to Cali: happily uneventful, with a bit of chatting with friendly Irish couple who’ve seen all the countries I have with the addition of Brazil in only 7 weeks. 10 hour bus ride to Medellin: uneventful and beautiful.
Medellin is a lovely, lovely place. It’s really a beautiful city, incredibly modern and clean, and surrounded by pretty little tree-covered mountains. People are more friendly and helpful (people approach me on the street and ask me if they can help. A lot.) than anywhere I’ve yet been. Camila and her mom are hospitality defined. And everywhere I look are quaint shops and charming restaurants and activities and cute little tree-lined avenues. I’m enjoying myself quite a bit, and I’ve only been here a day and a half.
But my camera is now officially broken. So you’ll just have to imagine it.
Yours.
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- Steph on End Notes
- Delaney on Pink is the Best
- Martin Krupka on Pink is the Best
- Tyler on Not Kidnapped
- Sister on Not Kidnapped
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