Putting things where they don't belong

It took prearranged plans to pry me from caluroso Cali, but vecina Ryan's arrival propelled me from the heat-and-pastry induced laze that tied me to Cali for a full thirty five days. Thirty five memorable days. Memorable even for the hamster-brained like me because I need remember only a handful of variations of the same day, a few different time-fillers wedged between the papaya wakeup and the arepa, aborrajado y aguardiente nightcap.

I circled the city clasping hands and kissing cheeks, sneaking final groping handfuls of stacked streetside mannequins, promising the salsa rhythms permeating and pulsing the streets I'll return to conquer the confusion of my feet. Bags packed, Ryan and I moved to Salento, a pueblito nestled in Colombia's rolling eje cafetero (coffee zone). Besides hiking through El Valle de Cocora, snapping hundreds of ultimately identical looking shots of the mighty waxpalms (palma de cera), highland palms that grow sixty meters high, giraffed-versions of their beachland cousins, Salento was good for, well, sleeping. Going to bed early. And learning. So frequently alternating Spanish and English with our Swiss friend Michelle if often took me a sentence or two to register the tongue of the moment, I mistook "Pamela Anderson tiene hepatitis" for "Pamela Anderson has hippo-titties." In fact, both are true.

Toward Ecuador we passed through Popayán, La Ciudad Blanca, where defying Southern-bred expectations we encountered nary a Confederate flag, though the imported Budweiser was curious. An overnight bus to the border at Ipiales landed us at one of the world's most architecturally distinct churches, El Santuario de Las Lajas, built into a mountain wall buried between cliffs, atop a bridge constructed above a gorge-bottom river.

Quito was our first stop in Ecuador, a high-elevation metropolis longer than wide running between and halfway up bordering mountains. The old city's colonial charm distracts from the third-world seediness, but you're never more than a urine-stenched alley away from bootleg DVDs and dim and dingy, nameless kitchens fronted by tables stacked with ubiquitous silver pots and cualdrons, an accumulation from behind which a woman busily fanning flies squawks indecipherable advertisements at every passerby. One afternoon we ascended to a 4000m high mirador via tourist-priced cable car, dressed in beachwear, appearing every bit unprepared gringos on a casual country-hopping jaunt fighting gusting winds and shivering bodies to steady our cameras amongst wool-layer mummified Ecuatorianos. (Recalling scenarios to insulate from reality, namely youth soccer games played on rainy winter days, spawned this gem of a qoute: "It really sucks getting hit in the balls by a face. Or, wait, it really sucks getting hit in the face by a ball. I guess the other one doesn't really suck at all!") We visited the ecuator sans sunscreen, because in Latin America skin cancer is less expensive than sunscreen, which is to say the price per squirt means treatment is less expensive than a lifetime of prevention.

At our family-run hostel I drank 1.5L of murky tapwater based on assurances of citywide purification according to one son. The next time I neared the tap his mom caught me and cocked her head, disbelieving I couldn't solve the riddle of the giant container of purified water at the kitchen door. I think the son wanted to ensure we'd choose the more expensive private bath option...

Quitting Quito we came to Quilotoa, where we'd have to endure 4000m conditions for the length of our stay. So two or three planned nights quickly became a wind-whipped one, Ryan and I reasoning the views from any point on the crater rim above La Laguna de Quilotoa would be as arresting as those at any other point, thus precluding the need for any rim-traversing escapade. So we came to Baños, a clean and tamed touristic fantasyland, a sparkling unreality like Guatemala's Antigua. Surrounded by volcanos, lush green mountains spilling waterfalls, outskirts of the Amazon a bikeride away, it's an immediately pleasing gringo magnet that reminds you shortly why you needed to escape.

When life gives you ham...throw it at Shane Hopkins

The last week has been one of those blissful vacuums of time that would drive the accomplishment-minded, like the terminally-disease-stricken, to despair; my week wasted either sweating over the stove in the shared hostel slice-of-a-kitchen, sized and ventilated like a coffin, or splayed across cushions absorbed in pirated DVDs, disproving the popular pothead rumination that a body left undisturbed on a sofa for sufficient time will interweave fibers, creating the ultimate creature of comfort, curiously neglected in Greek mythology: PillowBoy. Well entrenched in a lazy routine, I've eaten two arepas con queso and two cheese-overloaded aborrajados, sometimes with a side of frijoles, for five nights and running. My belly and tastebuds concur that there's no way to tire of plantains and cheese, nor arepas slathered in more oiliness than Spring Breaking sorority sluts from midwestern universities. (However, if you're not entirely fluent in Spanish, for safety's sake you should avoid all baby blather in the kitchen. It creates a rather awkward first impression when you confuse, for example, the words "conocer" and "cocinar" when talking to the latina mother of an adorable infant: "¿Cuando vayas a traer la nena otra vez? ¡Me gustaría cocinarla mejor!")

Cali seems to me a rather progressive city, with myriad thriving alternative communities. The most surprising, considering the Latin reputation for machismo, is the wide-open gay community. (But if you meet a gay guy who informs you his last name's "Mora," try to consider your words a bit more carefully than I did, asking with a giggle, "¿Cómo la fruta?" And remember guys: falling for a lesbian -- no matter that she's in all other aspects your dream girl realized -- is essentially, well, cockblocking yourself.) Hostel-mates Chris, Mike, Blanca, Leidy and I encountered a confluence of counter-cultures at an alcohol, drug, and manic electronic music fueled, rented-house rave -- Trashy Party -- put on by several Caleño friends. Chris turned into a walking highlight, screaming "MIKE!" up and down the streets; talking to Danielle, "mi amiga hormiga," before a savage turn in demeanor or drunken forgetfulness ended in her being squashed; answering the question-threat, "Has anyone ever cut your hair when you've been asleep?", with "No, I take my shoes off."; and providing the Koreanness necessary to prompt a random passerby to say, mid-stride and without context, "Chang." At which point, as much for the confused look on Chris' face as the comment itself -- which turns out to be much tamer, reportedly, than the strings of "Chinese" gibberish unleashed by teenage Paisas at the sight of Chris -- we melted into hysterics.

Colombians, well-versed in futból, play the first sane form of basketball I've encountered in Latin America. It helps that Colombians grow to full-size, with proportionate limbs as well, but they also play with a patience that avoids the video-game quality of, say, Guatemalan hoops. Gone is the head-down sprinting toward the arbitrarily-located, invisible-to-gringo-launch-pads that manage to convert Central American concrete courts into minefields, tiny explosions underfoot constantly launching the man with the ball into the air. Present is control -- something I might lose if people keep calling fouls for boxing out.

How nothing can manifest itself in tantas palabras.

Colombian kindness is something of an extreme -- which is why, lost in the smiles and invitations of best-friends-at-first-words, I keep wondering if I've encountered the Latino Jeffrey Dahmer.

Take, for example, the following conversation:

Them: "Hey, wanna come to our farm today?"

After glancing over my shoulder, "Are you talking to me? Hi, I'm Patrick."

I did follow one stranger from center city Cali to his home, somewhat impressed by his connections in education, mostly blinded by optimism thanks to the pounds of pastries I was lugging down la quinta, thus paralyzed by an inability to invent a good excuse. Exiting the night through his front door, I had to toe my way through an unlit room to descend into black nothingness, all the while waiting for the ax blow that would send me crumpling into the pre-dug grave at the foot of the stairs. As it were, we sipped limonada with his kids. (I might've liked ice cream, but anyone not named Escobar encounters a lose-lose delimma: Ron con pasas or educating the kids? Educating in hopes the tots might achieve a status making $6 pints a dinner table reality, of course.)

No word exists to describe the utter tranquility and felicity I feel here in Cali, Colombia, but I'll try two: Pastries; Boobs. And my three mile plus walks across the city to my newly favorited panadería, QuintaPan, are amply rewarding in both, even if my traffic-jammed digestive tract has been cramping the blissful dream. Do you think pregnancy is more like constipation or the other way around? (Either way, I've never been happier I'll never have to deal with pregnancy.)

There are yet a few sights to see in Cali, but occasionally launched by sugar-high into checklist traveler mode, I've knocked off landmarks and gorgeous city lookouts La Loma de La Cruz and La Iglesia de San Antonio, as well as La Estatua de Sebastián de Belalcázar. I attended a Colombian death metal show with a hostel friend and a bottle of aguardiente -- what pleasure reacquainting myself with unkempt facial growth, pummeling double bass and the half-tickler, half-bestower-of-blindness nature of longhair whipped 360°! (I awoke the next morning and discovered my neck was still celebrating: woohoo, whiplash!) As for lessons in maintaining perspective, call it anti-penny-pinching, it's definitely worth the extra US$0.20/kg for a higher quality papaya.

The generosity lavished upon me by the hostel-running folks, Jessicas #1 y #2, and, especially, the unparalleled Kelly and company is -- given my highly-negative karmic balance accumulated over countless years of squashing bugs; spreading early-morning-hate by unleashing acid-farts in the Geo, windows rolled-up, to discourage innocent neighbors from ever again requesting a ride to school, depriving me of precious seconds of sleep; terrorizing mi hermanito every time he threatened to beat me in video games, chess, sport...administering beatings even for the out-of-his-control, say if mom served him a slightly larger cut of meat or a greener sprig of broccoli -- quite undeserved. And yet here I am, being indulged in Colombia, sipping icy cerveza and blowing potent puffables in UniValle, la U, spitting Spanglish with Kelly. There's nowhere I'd rather be. How greatly do I esteem these friends? For an early morning wake-up to bike with Kelly to the tranquil, refreshing Rio Cali I hesitated not a second to skip what, I promise, would have been my first trip to a whorehouse -- and Colombian hookers are like the slot machines of your fantasies: beautifully crafted, requiring minimal input for guaranteed Jackpots.

So there's life, brought to you on my ganked-but-recovered tank of an iBook G3. "¡La perdiste!" I heard, spinning around to see two Colombians fleeing down the block with my 7-year-old "Beefy Butt Muffin", which they'd snatched off a hostel-front table while I was turned and distracted by conversation. Arms akimbo, through clenched teeth I forced a few obscenities as they disappeared around the corner, the wick of shock burning out as I Usain Bolted from standstill to roadrunner, my sandals clapping across pavement, through traffic, for a five block pursuit that ended when, after enough rage-saturated "¡Hijueputas!" and "¡Ayudame!"s, pedestrians began to take notice and approach. The panic prompted in the dumbass ladrones who ran towards crowded streets culminated in the tossing of my iBook onto cement -- a crash that actually restored regular function in the popout DVD tray.

Well, time to pound pavement again, Señora Sweet Tooth's calling for the QuintaPan pastry reup; eating pastries out the ass...if, well, currently not out the ass.

Since I'm already going to hell...

Spanishdict.comming "raquitica" I discovered a Colombian friend was describing her appearance in a Facebook photo as "rickety". A solid minute into cackling in my otherwise empty hostel dormitory, I realized I couldn't actually recall rickets specifics. Thank Al God Gore for the internet!

There's really no way to feel good about yourself Google Imaging "rickets". Let's just make the generalization that querying Google Images for the diseased and disabled -- while already engaged in stomach-clenching laughter -- reflects a serious deficit of soul and compassion. (After reviewing the previous sentence, I'm pretty sure the timing of that laughter is insignificant. You're a monster regardless.)

And when the Google Image search results unleash a gleeful gush of tears while you rock back and forth on your bed like a capsized turtle, legs hugged to your chest, congratulations, you've accomplished indescribable despicability.

But, c'mon, let's be honest. Not laughing? How?
My path to hell has been paved by "curved bones" and "big, lumpy joints".

Leaving Cali has proved impossible. The inability to rouse myself long before hostel Check Out has preserved my aversion to productivity. Gorging on weighty fruits for breakfast. Running or hiking a bit, then embellishing the jockstrap fragrance leaking from my 10-bed dorm, decorating bedposts with my sweat-soaked clothes.
Lil Boosie keeps me mean muggin' on treks toward downtown and Panadería Quinta con Quinta, and every day at dusk a different arepa-plastered griddle coaxes pesos from my pockets. Occasionally arepas de choclo, sliced, pancake-yellow sweetcorn discs sandwiching rectangular blocks of white cheese. More often, the over-buttered bliss of your typical arepa con queso, the melty-cheese midsection stretching from hand to your chomping mandible with more elastic resiliency than any Peter Parker production. For a splurge, the mighty arepa con todo: looking like a giant Chick-Fil-A or Bojangles biscuit, bleeding Salsa de Aji instead of Texas Pete, layers of oil-penetrated napkins and tinfoil wrapping prevent fillings from spilling, buttery-yellowed dough discs enveloping bulging meats and cheese, a chicharrón, pollo, y res protein orgy.

Tuesday, at least, I contorted my gringo frame to mount a mini-bike for a great if knee-ravaging afternoon ride through Cali to countryside and El Río Pance, where Kelly, Paola and company introduced me to chicha de maíz and refreshingly cool waters. Sans sunscreen and subjected to UV-Index 10 rated rays, my cheeks just pinkened. Phase 1 of Conversion completed. Phase 2: Accent.

But if girls have stopped noticing me for my browness, homeless guys prove keener. And as general policy, regardless if you indulged or declined his requests for change, it's probably never a good idea to lend a homeless guy your iPod; if you're lucky -- and if sufficiently crunk off Boosie you're foolish enough to call bluff on his violent threats: "¿Conoce la guerrilla? Estoy con ellos. Yo mato a gente." -- all you'll have to do is trade him your arroz con leche to get it back.

Though choosing death might've hurt less.

Cali: Where sleeping makes you feel like a sellout

The Cali Routine: Party through the night, wake up sometime the next afternoon, track down a rice & bean heavy plate to eat, sleep again, wake up for a feast of arepas...otra vez, sigue la rumba.

Cali is the proclaimed Salsa capital of Colombia, a city renowned for spicy women and raging nightlife -- and, I can confirm, afternoonlife as well. My unconscious knack for arriving in cities at the beginning of major festivals landed me in Cali at the opening night of the XIII Festival de Música Petronio Álvarez 2009. Thus the Cali routine.

During the festival, which ran Wednesday, August 12 through Sunday the 16th, nights began at the Plaza de Toros. Nightly displays of coastal culture -- music and dance spiced by ubiquitous unmarked plastic bottles of licores típicos y guaro vended throughout the venue and circulating through the crowd -- enveloped everyone, the entire mass of humanity pressed into stadium seating afoot, gyrating, swaying, and screaming, but with the natural latin rhythm that escaped transmission to the gringo. (Probably some karmic reverberation for all those centuries spent conquering and enslaving and brutalizing...) Always afterward we attended the alleybound, 'til-dawn after-parties -- el remate -- lugging and chugging various spirits and pre-rolled puffables to barely navigable center-city alleys packed by encircling swarms fluidly grooving, cheering, and chanting to handpatted drumbeats.

Kelly, awesome as she is, hasn't expressed the slightest annoyance at being enlisted as my guía turistica, cheerily walking me through the city; introducing me to slews of friends; taking me to both the nameless housefront areparía and the late-night panadería -- Quinta con Quinta, serving an assortment of gooey sweets and pan pizza -- that have sparked my latest foodie obsessions; helping me take down bottles and bottles of intoxicants; bearing my indiscriminate, inescapable butchering of the art of dance.

After a few more days in Cali -- hopefully waking at hours that, should my filled-pastry breakfasts ooze as much motivational energy as they do arequipe, I can at least entertain notions of productivity that might transcend my daily, loyal-customer-motivated cross-city walk to procure pastries and buttery, griddle-hot arepas rellenas con queso -- I'll need to hit another spot as quiet as Manizales (photos L & R), the tranquil, gringo-free mountain city that facilitated my 'tween-Medellín-and-Cali recovery: four peaceful days enjoying good running and reading, better fresh fruits, and the first attempt at watching Colombian cinema sin subtítulos ("Rosario Tijeras").

But, hell, I'm still in Cali. And I smell thick discs of maiz cooking on some streetside griddle, all buttery brown tanlines with cheese dripping down from the clamshell cuts that open the world of arepas sencillas to arepas-whatever-the-fuck-you-can-stuff-in-here. Maybe I'll order a fat-bursting, toothpick-speared choricito on the side, the perfect compliment to the grease-sponge plátano relleno con queso, an entire lengthwise-split plantain gapfilled with melted cheese -- en Cali conocido como aborrajado -- with which I'll be lubricating my intestines. Call it compromising with the digestive tract in the absence of frijoles.

I live for the funk, I die for the funk

Showers are highly recommended for humans equipped with unparalyzed hands and arms, all travelers included, your hippie-factor not being a factor. Because, yes, I find it highly offensive when we rub shoulders and, bam, suddenly showering me smells like I've neglected the hygiene of an entire half of my body for a month, such that I'm washing the sleeve of an otherwise clean shirt at 3am in the hostel sink. While pretty damn drunk on guaro.

Seriously, how do you neglect such simple practices as bathing, deodorizing and clothes washing to the extent that the lightest contact with you transfers stink? There's a reason every time you step toward me I keep backing away. The stench emanating from your body forms a stink force-field that wards off humans as effectively as a poison-tipped sword. Your scent: puro campesino. But you're not an impoverished latino laboring 18 hours a day in sun-smothered fields to provide the bare minimum for your family. You're on an extended vacation. You have the time and resources to shower. And apply soap. Daily.

Hot water showering is one of the activities I indulged in during my stay in Medellín. La Feria de las Flores continued with various expositions and concerts and processions daily, including the highlight flower parade, in which everyone from just-walking children to just-walking ancianos bore huge and elaborate wood-mounted flower arrangements on their weight-bowed backs, walking miles and miles over hot concrete through the gauntlet of thousands upon thousands of drinking, whistling revelers. A half-gallon of aguardiente made its way into our hands too many times, thanks to a group of underage Colombianos excited by the sight of gringos. How did we know they were excited? The giggle-infused shrieks, "¡Miren, gringos!" Five or six separate groups of Colombians throughout the day requested photos of the gringos, sometimes posing themselves in the picture.

Likewise, a few days ago, running shirtless through El Poblado, a tiny kid spotted me and diverted his attention from the ice cream man. (And you know diverting the attention of any four-year-old from the ice cream man requires something equally incredible as would have been required to divert the attention of Michael Jackson from, well, that same four-year-old.) Kid cocked his head at me, pointed, and started yelling for his distracted dad, "¡Mira, MIRA!" Now to transfer that reaction to of-age women.


During my 9 days in Medellín some friends and I caught a Medellín vs. Nacional futbol match, which was quite the rowdy spectacle. The profanity laced songs and choruses -- many of which suggested various sexual favors team Nacional could perform upon the Medellín crowd -- rarely paused, the whole Medellín section of the stadium constantly jumping, waving flags and banners and pumping their fists, hurtling invectives without discrimination, be it a maricón Nacional or hijo de puta hometown player who misdribbled or held the ball too long.

A daytrip to Sante Fe de Antioquia proved an unforgettable excursion too, another beautiful Colombian colonial town, this one located a few hours bus-ride outside of Medellín. The main draw is the historic Puente de Occidente (right), a wooden suspension bridge and one of the first constructed in South America. Of course we ended up stepping down from the bus kilometers before town, in front of an entirely normal bridge (left...still set against beautiful scenery, eh?) that both a bus employee and a local insisted was the monument we'd come to see, instead of just admitting they weren't sure. AKA Classic Latin American style. (Paul has coined as the new default evasive response, "My father's name is Daniel.") But for that mishap we met and chatted up two cheery, gun-toting military teens, one of whom is also performs as a clown for children. (Can you guess which one?)


Somewhere in there was crammed a noteworthy pastry binge. Astounded by the variety and quality of cheap pastries available at the neighborhood Exito, a Colombian Wal-Mart, I at one point consumed consecutively dinner and breakfast of puro pastel. (As has been noted by many traveling friends, I'm weird. Especially in my singular-in-focus food binges. Beans or peanut butter & banana sandwiches for days on end. My daily vitamin-cramming sessions, consuming pounds of mangos or sapotes, sometimes a whole pineapple, in one session. Chugging liters of milk every few days.)


A simple man with simple tastes, I guess.

---

More from SANTA FE DE ANTIOQUIA:












More from LA FERIA DE LAS FLORES:
(Clockwise from top left: An outlet in the sidewalk, beside a wall, defining random; many plantains stoking my hunger for tajadas con carne molida; a man arranging and painting a many-times oversized flower display for the Pilsen beer company; normal police for a flower parade)

God in the Building

Medellín, "la ciudad de la eterna primavera," is probably what would happen if I were God and commanded with designing the proverbial 'heaven on earth'. Second to Playboy, the valley-bound metropolis has the most beautiful women per capita in the world. And maybe with a higher occurrence of plastic surgery. I can't even confirm that the women here have faces.

With the great luck that has kept me from accumulating felonies and prison terms, I arrived in Medellín at the beginning of La Feria de las Flores, an annual festival that envelops the city, drawing paisanos and foreigners alike for the week-plus duration (of officially or unofficially guaro- and cervecería-sponsored events). Take, for instance, the many-thousands-horses procession, highlighted by drunk men hootin' and hollerin' and staggering into the paths of trotting, frothing behemoths, risking trampling for photos beside mega-busted morena Barbies.

Plush barrio El Poblado, where I'm staying, and the nearby Zona Rosa party district are clean and manicured, frequented by the primped and silicon-pumped and their money-breathing, highest-bidder escorts. A quick Metro jaunt can carry you through city center, past highrises, shopping centers and expansive parks; over grungier avenues teeming with pedestrians navigating the maze of "¿Que busca, amor?"-screaming street-vendors and outlet-hawks; to packed and stacked city sectors where ramshackle configurations of junkyard materials pass for homes.

Besides meeting Kelly, a beautiful and oh-so-fun girl from Cali -- the sole reason I'm not leasing an apartment in Medellín...yet -- and kickin' it with Paul and the chévere crew of chicks and dudes inhabiting our 80-bed hostel, my days have mostly been defined by peanut butter, banana & raisin sandwich breakfasts; bandeja paisa lunches; bean-binge dinners; beer, rum, and guaro hazed nights.


But I've learned to dance electronica -- Maybe you'll sneer, "What's there to learn?" But you've never seen me dance -- and spit Colombian slang thanks to the Kelly and the Cali click, with whom I also hit Medellín sites Pueblita Paisa, a great city mirador, and Parque de Los Pies Descalzos.

Paul and I bussed to La Piedra de Peñol -- a 200m tall black rock oddity exploding skyward amidst an otherwise low-sitting, verdant expanse, the boulder some monstrous deity skipped so expertly across the oceans it hopped to land and lodged on contact. Arresting views of lush greenery dissected by winding blue slivers of lake await atop, after a 649 concrete stair ascent toward the heavens.

(Upon returning to our hostel and awaking my computer from sleep, I found ilovecocks.com prominently displayed in the Safari browser, courtesy of my hooker-loving British friends Craig and Danny, who, after my recent club confusion, have taken to interpreting my every comment as a homosexual Fruedian slip. Though sometimes, as when giving Paul instructions on drinking milk from a plastic bag -- "Just put it in your mouth, then squeeze it or suck it or something." -- I make it waaaay to easy.)

¡Ay parce, que chimba Medellín! Pues, ya me voy a aproximarme a Cali, ¡y con razon!

Scrambled Boobs

Flipping through the channels on our hostel-room TV one swampy Santa Marta night, I scanned past a blurred and fuzzed premium channel -- something digital cable had erased from my memory -- and was immediately transported back home and back in time...

I remember watching scrambled Skinemax many late nights at my parent's home, a blanket up to my waist even in summer, ready to claim fever, volume down and remote always aimed, prepared to punch the previous channel button if any house-creak even resembled a footstep. Scrambled softcore's adolescent lesson is discovering that disembodied breasts bouncing in one squiggle-distorted sector of the screen -- while a bored and moaning, green-and-yellow tinged head bobs in the opposite lower corner, tangled arms wrapping around one side of the screen to the other -- retain all their arousing appeal. The moral is that boobs trump weirdness -- and Colombia is silly for silicone -- so don't be ashamed for coveting that borderline circus-worthy creature crouched at the bar.

(And teens, to save you many nervous nights worrying about your still-womb-bound "brother": I'm pretty sure it's impossible that a stray smear or greasy glob of semen, shot onto the keyboard or glued to the remote control, might, through a freak chain-of-contact, impregnate someone in your immediate family.)

Sex Spam Highlights
Title: Make your love stick as hard as you want it to be.
Text: Best oil for pork motor

Title: Your pork pistol won't fail.

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.

Beanboy

So there I was, at the top of the stairs tucked around the corner in the closet-sized nook from which opens one dorm room. In that vacant, wood-floored cubby sits one empty desk; and one mini-chair, the type you'd pose an oversize doll on. If you're into that sort of thing.

I was squatted in the chair, my ass spilling over the palm-sized seat, my computer and my mammoth tub of beans sitting chest high atop the desk, my spoon awkwardly poised, lifted over my shoulder, for the plunge. Goliath in a dollhouse. A guy walked around the corner toward his dorm door and I, with the picture of myself in my head -- that crazy hostel kid hanging out by himself, in some lonely corner crouched on children's play accessories -- started snickering audibly. That was the second time I'd started laughing unprompted -- that maniacal building laugh that billows upon it's own stupidity -- since I'd accompanied a couple of hostel mates outside the property gates to huddle and indulge while tempting blackmail or imprisonment by passing policía.

Which brings us to the first time I randomly erupted, in the kitchen moving antisocially amongst a group of stir-frying girls. Must've looked pretty crazy again, a guy pacing silently for a few minutes, Lil Boosie bumpin' through the headphones, suddenly in hysterics. Hauling around enough beans to feed most Central American villages, I suddenly appreciated how comical it must be for the people who witness me buying and preparing beans for myself, one half-kilo at a time. For the multiple girls who've said, "I hope you're not sleeping in my dorm." For the girl who told me, "You've got gorgeous beans." For anyone who sees me ladling from one of my fridge-stacked Tupperwares bulging with a lumpy brown, sausage links, beans and cheese cubes pressing through the soupiness against the walls. For anyone who has encountered me hunched over a bucket, spoon in hand, a recurring image the last few days.

And for many days to come.

The Sweat Saga Continues

After the sleep-deprived overnight bus between Bucaramanga and Santa Marta, Colombia – loading the iPod with Season 4 of The Wire proved a sage decision – Paul, Chris and I stepped into a northern-coastal oven. Besides the browner skin and brutal humidity, not much had changed. The food was still fried, bland, beanless. Street-vended tropical fruits still imbued trash-littered streets with vibrancy.


We booked passable cement cells for $8000 Colombian Pesos per night, scarfed nature’s multicolor bounty -- fibers catching between our teeth as sticky nectar stained our chins – while sifting sand between our toes, and wasted the remainder of the day soaking sun in nearby Taganga, reminding ourselves that, no, we weren’t melting like the Wicked Witch of the West, just sweating. At nightfall we wasted a wise-spender’s day’s worth of meal money on a beachfront tourist trap that sucked the flavor from our fish as successfully as the bejeweling of Kelly Tripuka and Kurt Rambis would have the Cash Money or No Limit Records rosters.

We split for the pristine Parque Tayrona the next morning, hiking through jungle to boulder-bounded white sand beaches, shading ourselves and tempting “Guess what kills more people than sharks each year!” statistics beneath overhanging palms. The water was refreshing, perfect except for the tendency of salt-water to give sweating hikers crotch rash. A night in a hammock near the beach sounded more satisfyingly poetic than it proved in practice, but neither animal nor hippie raided my humidity-dampened stock of pre-prepared peanut butter & banana sandwiches.


Two full days of sweating and trudging through that nationally protected paradise later, we returned to Santa Marta, where I finally encountered worthy seafood, devouring a delicious Cazuela de Mariscos – a meaty shellfish stew simmering in a creamy milky sauce. Word had it Cartagena is for admirers of womanly perfection what, um, The Gold Club is for admirers of womanly perfection – which is to say well-primped and probably prosthetically enhanced -- and as we were a few beers deep and plans for the next day hadn’t developed past sweating, we made some frat-boy toasts – grunts and such -- and decided to dip.


The next morning, four hours of cushioned-seated, air-conditioned freedom from humidity southward, we descended into Cartagena, admiring the various shades of brown and ample vastness of booty bouncing betwixt all that colonial architecture all those misprioritizing gawkers were ooohhing and aaahhhing about. Misguided as they are, Cartagena is beautiful, understandably the crown of Colombian tourism, rife with shady parks and ornate churches, fortresses, the defensively walled-in old-town lined with attention-arresting colonial masterpieces – all thick columns, street-overhanging porches and wood-slatted windows -- single city blocks splashed with a rainbow’s worth of color.


It’s hard to be anything but low-key in Cartagena, where I’ve spent as much time in as out of the shower, sweating through clean clothes as if beer marathons were physically grueling. Sandwich-artistry is a new hobby, stuffing thick fresh-baked baguettes with market-fresh tomatoes and avocados, sautéed onions and fatty chorizitos, rectangular slabs of queso blanco hacked from the block, a pinch of salt and drizzles of hot sauce for spice.

After expressing an irrationality-inflated affinity for frijoles to the cleaning staff, passions propelled by the virtual absence of beans from my oft-ordered Colombian platters, I was christened El Gringo Frijolito and instructed to stock specific supplies from the corner store: “Compremos una cebolla, unos tomates, frijoles rojos y un Maggi.” The produce attendant was quite amused when I inquired, after long scanning the crates of vegetables, “Cual es el Maggi.” The bean-scooper was quite impressed I wanted “un medio kilo de frijoles rojos.” And my janitorial staff, cooking-aid amigas laughed heartily about the digestive repercussions of my desire to “llenarme de frijoles y nada mas.” I just smiled and got my bean on, Chef Frijolito.

"It was so funny it wasn't even embarrassing."

Guatemala wrapped up without any more cougar attacks, the only drama being the chicken bus pick-pocketing of Jackson by a hamburger-crazed Chapin – a detail discerned post-robbery, when the bank statement reflected no further damage than a $6 Big Mac binge at McDonalds. Maybe other institutions, with their superior standards of security, were more perceptive; presuming that some shabbily dressed Guatemalteca probably didn’t have an ATM card. And probably wasn’t named Jackson Whetsel.

Those minimal losses little more than nuisance, San Pedro La Laguna experienced a Gringo exchange, Jackson replacing Patrick at the language school and in las calles, quickly a hit with all my knee-high friends and their families, a new white behemoth to maul at every appearance. My last days I spent circulating through San Pedro, despidiendo a mis amigos. Jackson and I were invited to several delicious meals with Josefa’s beautiful family, whose humble doll-house kitchen could barely contain our human-sized figures. We accompanied Josefa and crew to Las Cristalinas as well, a beautiful and contaminated swimming spot somewhere between San Juan y San Pablo La Laguna.

And then, after thirty consecutive hours in airports or aboard planes, after enduring multiple bag searches and questions sessions by US Customs – I got off easy compared to my highly suspect, traditionally dressed Guatemalan doll, who was aggressively squeezed and molested by overzealous agents – I landed in Charlotte, whisked away by my parents, accompanied by my grandma, toward a gluttonous satiating of nine-months building cravings. Big-ass delicious pizzas and pitchers of Bell’s Two Hearted Ale (from Revolution Pizza & Ale House in Noda). Forearm-sized cuts of pineapple coconut cake at Landmark Diner. (And good ol’ Southern charm: a gentleman’s club billboard either crude or homicidal: “Come meat our dancers.”)

My three weeks back in the States were a blur. I lost days in front of the bigscreen courtesy of On-Demand programming and Redbox, hours of zombie-ism broken only by scent-triggered staggers to the kitchen, to discover which delicious dinner from my pages-long list of “foods that make my lust for Heidi Klum seem normal” my angelic mother had prepared that night: Chicken enchiladas; Spinach quiche; Shish kabobs; Spinach salad; Roasted root vegetables; More spinach salad; Cobblers; Carrot cake…

There was a fantastic weekend in DC with lil’ bro, piping latin tunes through his plush digs, slaughtering brain cells at the DC-area Beer, Bourbon, & BBQ Festival. Then off to the latest of our beloved, tri-annual family reunions, this year on NY’s Lake George -- another weeklong family party of sporting (shuffleboard, beach volleyball, basketball, soccer, etc.); cards (an entire meeting hall dominated by our family, more groups of fours and sixes circled around tables than a kindergarten class, playing psychological warfare with each and every discard, card counting and contorted faces defining another famous Canasta marathon); and consumption (liquors and mixers smuggled in by the handle, ice horded in trashcans, the solo cups of family young and old kept brimming as we once again flirted with ejection from an “alcohol free” family center -- and I couldn’t have been conspicuous if I’d tried, my entire wardrobe soaked in and reeking of the liter of Guatemalan firewater that had exploded in my checked bag during the flight.)

A week back in NC -- divided between bars, my left-side-of-the-couch spot in front of the TV, and the kitchen -- closed out my vacation within a vacation. The debaucherous 4th of July was extended a few days and celebrated in Raleigh with Kibbs, Russell and Bruce, with special guest appearances by Saul, Shane, Dave, Mike Janes and lots of random girls (whose numbers may or may not be programmed in my mom’s cell phone).

And so I -- sleep deprived after consecutive nights of cervezas and reminiscing about Central America, desde la comida hasta el incredible baile tipico de la Garifuna, la punta; after several weeks of postponing even the most cursory South American planning – materialized in sprawling Bogotá, Colombia with a hostel reservation somewhere in La Candelaria, a hip but grimy section of the city dotted with universities, museums, cafes and bars, teeming by day and unsafe to walk at night. I spent six nights in Destino Nómado, a fine hostel in a less-mugged area, telling myself every night that the next day was the day I’d do the planning necessary to divorce myself from the city. But the draw of bandeja paisa (the traditional Colombian variety platter), arepas (fried cornmeal discs stuffed with cheese and/or meats), and obleas (Frisbee-sized wafer-discs sandwiching generous slathers of dulce de leche, various fruit jellies, etc); the steady diet of watery beer and aguardiente as prescribed by dorm-encountered friends Paul and Raul; plus my boundless laziness kept me captive.

But, for travelers, sometimes laziness breeds opportunity. I was in Bogotá to play futsal against locals. Around to stretch a 30th-floor clubbing session until after-sunrise, in a posh discoteca where coke was snorted as liberally as air despite the omnipresent security. I was available to play tejo, the traditional, alcohol- and shit-talking powered Colombian drinking game involving cases of beer, refills of cases of beer, and tossing metal weights down an alley toward an upward slanted clay-pit, with a metal ring in the middle, on the rim of which are placed small bags of gunpowder – when the weight smashes a pouch against the metal rim, there’s a LOUD and visible explosion, lots of clinking and rejoicing.

I walked the city with Paul and Raul, observing extremes of poverty and wealth – sheet metal- and tarp-walled homes in the shadows of highrises and luxury condos; horse drawn carts behind BMWs. From atop a skyscraper we marveled as the endless city crawled over the surrounding mountains into infinity, gawking at the public-transit-only highway lanes, clogged for miles with exhaust-spewing buses bumper to bumper, packed as tightly and inching as uniformly as trains.

Finally the route out of Bogotá materialized, though not without calamity. After Paul, Alex and I accidentally boarded a bus going away from el terminal de autobuses, we climbed mountainside slums into the far south of the city – where Raul, Colombian himself, had previously mentioned is the place “even Colombians don’t go. Maybe they’ll find the pieces of your body.” Our route terminated in a black-bus filled parking lot, the silence outside that property suggesting the days decapitations had already been performed. After asking at least five people – from idling bus drivers to tiptoeing locals shocked to learn that gringos, like themselves, are born with bodies assembled – we ascertained that at a nearby corner buses passed heading toward the terminal, where we arrived with, not in, bags.

Paul and I arrived in quiet, colonial Villa de Leiva at night, creeping into town in a chorus of incessantly blaring horns and sky-illuminating explosions, accidentally absorbed into a procession as townfolk with blankets draped over their shoulders, slipped over their heads through a single center-cut hole, sauntered past sipping Colombian lagers. For a few days every July -- as happens in every Latin town at some specified point during the year -- Villa de Leiva is transformed into a party, it’s massive central square turned into a maze of vendors, a bullfighting ring constructed, outsiders converging for a few days of dance-and-alcohol saturated revelry. The distant throb of reggaeton became my lullaby.


A daytrip to Santa Sofia for six hours of high-octane hiking was about the only accomplishment during that few day stay, before we departed for Bucaramanga. Where the only notable accomplishment -- beyond practicing my mango peeling and platáno y yuca frying techniques -- has been the daytrip to El Cañon de Chichamocha, a dramatic gorge gutting the Colombian highlands.

And I can’t imagine the sun-baked coast will cull more activity from this hammock-bound loafer.