Dulling the Senses: The Dangers of Aguardiente and Amiableness

I woke up at 2:30pm in my dorm bed with a new number scribbled in my little black pocket notepad, a cute heart appending the information. A business card for the hotel slid out from between the pages. All the markings of success.

My head ached the way it would if I'd decided to play stag with oncoming traffic. And who knows for sure? The string of beers had been repeatedly interrupted and enlivened by bottles passed from strangers hands, rum and aguardiente. A screwdriver poured by some cute Colombianas in a local park was, in my sloppy fervor, mistaken for a large shot and downed in a gulp.

Another image began to coagulate. A cute waitress at Blue, me flailing and failing, speaking Spanish spliced gibberish. Then the Peruvian fashion designer. Wearing a scarf. A nice guy. Man, it was awesome he wanted to buy me beers. Guess we grabbed a cab back to his hotel, where we posted up near the lobby bar for another round.

Hold up.

Fashion designer. Scarf. Getting me drunk. Who was it that appended their name and number with a heart?

Oh. Shit.

It took two sober seconds for the obvious -- that which hours before was obscured behind cans and bottles -- to become clear. Paul was delighted to learn I'd ended up across Medellín, drunk and solo, within an elevator's ride of quite the uncomfortable situation. Engage Mission Impossible: convincing all the pretty girls who observed my exit from the club and cab-dash with scarfed male accompaniment that it was an innocent misunderstanding.