Bogota to Cartagena. One bus ride I can't recommend to anyone.

Sometimes buses suck. That's just a fact of life when you are traveling, and I feel like I have done a pretty great job being fairly Zen about it. Just except it and move on. Unfortunately, it's not always that easy. Case in point, the worst bus ride of my life, which I just completed yesterday afternoon, and after telling this story here I never want to think about again. And yes, it involves vomit and feces.

It all started by boarding what was hands down the nicest bus I had ever seen. I mean the seats reclined almost all the way to a bed, and the leg rests were actual LEG rests not just a platform to place your feet. It was like those seats you always see in the first class section of a transcontinental flight, but never get to sit in. Instead, you just keep walking back to your cramped little seat, without the kick-ass leg rests.

And then it began...

The treacherous, winding road turned the ride into a roller coaster, made worse by the pedal-to-the-metal driving style of our conductor. This caused my seat-mate to vomit. Twice. The second time resulting in vomit on the floor, her bag, and, worst of all my bag, all thanks to a leaky plastic bag that just didn't quite do the trick. Thus, for two hours we sat in the aforementioned spewed chunks, waiting for the bus to stop so we could clean everything up.

OK, everything was clean, we had some food and the bus started out again. We could still recover from this. But then the bus broke down. And then we waited on the side of the road for about an hour as the driver tried to fix it, finally we were able to start driving again, only to be forced to change buses an hour later, which would not have been so bad except there were not enough seats on the bus for everyone. By "everyone" I mean myself and a German guy who had come along with us on the ride. And that is how I found myself lying on the floor in the middle of the aisle at the back of the bus, next to the lavatory.

Now, lying on the floor of a bus when you have a twenty hour ride (1l down at this point) is pretty unpleasant, but it was made all the more unpleasant by the fact that the toilet on this particular bus was not flushing, that the bus was not making any rest stops (and thus everyone was using the lavatory), that the sun was starting to rise, that the rising sun meant warmer temperatures, and that warmer temperatures meant a stench that you could not possibly imagine began emanating from the lavatory. Which happened to be where my head was located.

Luckily after a couple of hours I was able to grab a seat and ride out the rest of what turned into a 22 hour ride sitting in front of a kid who decided that he needed to frequently kick the back of my seat as hard as he could in order to exercise his legs. But you know what? After lying on the floor with my head next to the lavatory for two hours it wasn't so bad.

And that was my worst bus ride ever. The End.

Booyha Bogota!

Damn! Does it ever feel good to be here. I have been sipping drip coffee, using high-speed internet, and enjoying eating things such as fruits and vegetables again (I had almost forgotten that there are edible substances out there other than ham).

Last night as I lay in bed streaming the Daily Show I finally felt like I had reconnected with the outside world. A strange feeling after these last two months.

I know I am supposed to have some profound metaphor to describe my last two months, but I don't. This is about all I got: Have you ever wanted to eat a turkey sandwich, but when you went to your favorite sub shop all they had was ham? Imagine having that happen three times a day for 60 straight days, and having to wait in line for an hour each time. That was what my last two months were like.

I'm outta here!

And not a moment too soon! Not that it's been terrible here, but really there is only so much a good ol' red, white, and blue American, such as myself, can take here.

Next stop Colombia, which after these last two months has become a land where all my dreams will come true: high-speed internet, drip coffee, clear and easy to understand Spanish, Coke (no, not the white stuff, the real stuff, the good stuff, because that just does not exist here.), delicious food, and a whole lot more.

Colombia, la tierra de oportunidad, aqui vengo!

been a while...

I can't believe that I have not been able to put anything up here in the last month and a half. Most of you probably know why, and for those of you who don't you won't be getting any information out of me.

Since I can't write much (even though I have a ton to say) I will keep this very brief.

I'm having the time of my life. I've never been in a city I love as much as this one.

While most of you are probably imagining me in a tropical paradise right now the truth is that it has been fucking freezing here. Both Natalie and I wore our long underwear to bed the other night.

Spanish is a hell of a great language, but here it has been bastardized beyond recognition. I am anxiously awaiting a new country with a clearer dialect.

The food sucks. No way around it. This is the first time I have ever been anywhere where I didn't feel excited to eat the next delicious meal. Instead, I find myself dreading meal time.

Soccer is a fun sport. It is even more fun when played in an olympic swimming pool that has been drained of water.

Well, that's all for now. I look forward to writing at least one or two very long posts when I leave here in three weeks.

Ciao,
Augusto

Happy Hedonistic Holidays (My Spring Break Christmas)

I'm sitting on a king size bed right now. The TV, a nice flat panel widescreen, is playing in the background, and I'm sipping a good cup of coffee. Today however is the last time I will be enjoying this luxury. We check out in a few hours, and head to the airport tomorrow for our next destination where, borrowing the term from some bad spy movies, I will be "going dark". No internet, no room service, no pool, no endless supply of booze, and no topless women.

That's right the hedonistic holiday is coming to an end. It's been a hell of a week! First I must thank Dave and Carol for treating Nat and I to such a great vacation, which is exactly what this was, a vacation. After a couple of weeks of sleeping on lumpy mattresses, purifying our drinking water every day, and having to forage for food it was nice to suddenly put all that behind us and enjoy a life filled with creature comforts.

It was also a little weird. I mean suddenly we were surrounded by whities. They were everywhere, on the beach, the street, in the restaurants and bars. Whities, whities everywhere. There was also the fact that a significant portion of the whities were topless (and given the small thong bottoms most of the women were wearing almost bottomless as well). Fueled by free booze and encouraged by the resort staff to partake in games like amateur pornstar contest, race to blow the balloon up with a bicycle pump (the catch being you aren't using your foot you are using your best humping technique), sex and excess were in the air. As were fake boobs. Not only were they in the air, they were in the pool, the restaurants, the bars, the beach, the rooms. How many people in this world have fake titties? And do they all come to Cancun for vacation?

A fun week to be sure, but a little unsettling at others. Every time I would catch part of a conversation in which a burned to a crisp whitie would say to another burned to a crisp whitie "Mexico is such a poor country, these poor waiters make only 4 or 5 dollars a day, and are really lucky to have these jobs." I wanted to scream. There were other ridiculous comments as well. Such as "This is my fourth time in Cancun, and this place is paradise. The problem is most guys come down here and get totally wrapped up in trying to *insert expletive used to describe sex here* a *insert explative used to describe a woman here*, but they miss out on just enjoying paradise. There are beautiful women everywhere, it's gorgeous, and you can drink as much as you want. All you need to do is relax, enjoy paradise, and before you know it you will be *insert explative used to describe sex here* a *insert expletive used to describe a woman here*.

Moments like these and many others left me on edge a lot. I wanted to scream at some of these people. I wanted to tell them how fake their lives were. How ignorant they were of the outside world, of the challenges that face a nation like Mexico. I wanted to strangle the stupid motherfucker next to me every time he said the words *insert expletive used to describe sex here* a *insert expletive used to describe a woman here*. Then I remembered "Hey! I'm on vacation, I need to relax.", and would swim over the poolside bar, order a drink, and enjoy the view. I had to agree the guy. The view was pretty great.

My Mexican Mishaps

I'm in Cancun right now, I have been here for four days now, and have slipped into a strange world that I do not fully understand. I will be describing my hedonistic holidays in a separate post, but first here is a quick update on three adventures that befell Nat and I over the last few days.

Departing San Cristobal for Cancun we knew we were in for a long ride. "Great", I had said as we queued up waiting to buy our tickets, "I can't wait for another 14 hour bus ride." If only that had been the case. When we got to the front of the line and purchased our tickets we discovered that we had underestimated the return trip, and would be spending 18 hours on the bus instead.

Our bus was not leaving until the following afternoon so we began searching for a cheap hostel to spend the night. The last hostel we had stayed at in San Cristobal was full, and after wandering by several other places that were either full, or too expensive we settled on Ek Balam more out of desperation than anything else. While we both have probably spent nights in worse accommodation in our lives we probably haven't spent many nights in sketchier places. The problems were too numerous to name them all. The lock on the door was busted. The guy working spent about 15 minutes trying to find a key for it, and finally gave up and showed us that if you just jammed a key in the lock really hard and shook the door for a few seconds it should pop open. This seemed to work pretty well, so stepping over the piles of hair and cigarette butts we made our way to the bed.

The following morning, after breakfast, I decided to show Natalie the torture apparatus that our posh room had been equipped with. Running from the only electrical outlet in the room was a long electric cord with the end stripped back to reveal several inches of copper wire inside. "Watch this!" I said, picking up the cable and touching the ends together. A brief blue flash and a shower of sparks shot out from the cable, and then darkness enveloped us. I had just blown out the circuit for the majority of the hostel. We used our headlamps to back our bags and left promptly.

Once at the bus station we began to wait, and wait, and wait finally an hour after we were supposed to depart for Cancun our bus showed up, and 20 minutes later we were underway. The going was slow and it was quickly apparent that we were not going to get to Cancun in 18 hours. We passed the time watching movies, the first of which was American Gangster, which had not been dubbed meaning that we got to enjoy it in English. Next came The Godfather (El Padrino in Spanish), which was exciting for about 30 seconds until it became apparent that this was not THE Godfather. Instead it was some insanely low budget flick (I'm talking a D movie here) starring, and directed by, Damian Chapa, who will now haunt my dreams forever. Forced to endure Damian Chapa's acting we suffered on until it finally ended around midnight. At which point they started it over again.

Finally, 24 hours later we arrived in Cancun. We made our way to the resort, had dinner, and promptly went to sleep. The next day we spent hours trying to figure out what to do when the airline holding our tickets to our next destination decided to cancel our reservation. Then, after spending the morning at the airport desperately searching for a way out of that mess, we made our way to the beach to finally relax.

We spread out on a bed (yes there are beds on the beach!!) and began reading our books. I had finished about 2 pages when I heard the first scream. A high pitched, bone rattling, scream of someone experiencing sheer agony. I looked up in time to see three guys dragging a woman out of the water by her life jacket.
The men carried her over to a bed and I ran over to see what was going on. The first things I noticed were the cuts on her leg. Certainly not life threatening, but none to pleasant either. More concerning was the odd angle of her hip, and the bumps protruding from it. I quickly ascertained that there had been a Ski Do accident and asked the men if there were paramedics on-sight. They said yes and that they were going to get them now. Thinking I would only have to deal with the situation for a minute or two I began my scan of her body, and another woman rushed over to help. After a minute no paramedics had arrived and we were then told there was no one on staff. While Natalie set about making sure that an ambulance had been called we bundled the woman in towels and tried to keep her calm though she continued to scream about her broken pelvis. It was a tense situation made worse when her friends came rushing over and started screaming and crying next to her. I monitored her pulse and kept her talking. From time to time she would black out and I would need to lean close to her chest to make sure she was still breathing. The throng of spectators had grown thick, and plenty of people tried to give advice. “She's passing out, give her sugar”, one guy sagely advised me. “OMG get fuck out of here.” I wanted to scream at him. Finally after about 30 minutes (though others have put it at more like 45) the paramedics arrived. With their help we cut her life jacket away and carefully rolled her onto a backboard. She was taken to the hospital and that is the end of my involvement in the story...almost.

The next day I was standing at the bar ordering drinks when I overheard a man relating the incident to some other guests. It went something like this:

“I saw these guys drag this woman out of the water screaming. She was bleeding REALLY badly from these HUGE, DEEP gashes in her leg (again, they were nasty cuts but not the biggest issue by far). Luckily she was a doctor and was able to keep herself conscious to direct people how to stop the bleeding because she knew that if she blacked out and they did not stop the bleeding she was going to bleed to death. Her blood was soaking through these towels and she kept taking to the people, who didn't know what they were doing, and finally got them to stop the bleeding. Then after an hour an ambulance FINALLY showed up and took her to the hospital. She was lucky she was a doctor or she would have been dead.”

I smiled to myself, shook my head, grabbed my Tequila Sunrise, and headed back to the beach. I was finally beginning to relax a bit.

Amigos y Extranjeros

It's crazy how often it happens. Everyone I know who has traveled has experienced it, and people write entire books about it. It doesn't matter where you go, whether you have the same skin color, the same religion, or even whether you speak the same language, it will happen to you. I am talking about the kindness of strangers (which, as I have mentioned before, happens to be the title of a pretty great book). Every time I experience it I am filled with more emotions than I can possibly describe. The obvious ones are gratitude and joy that there are so many kind people in the world, who for no reason other than kindness will invite you into their homes, share their food, and go out of their way to make you feel incredibly welcome. Then there are the other feelings it invokes. The ones that aren't as pleasant. There is a bit self-loathing, why don't I ever do the same thing for others? Never once have I invited a stranger who I have nothing in common with, but would like to do something nice for, into my house. And then there is that little voice in the back of my head saying "careful here, don't be too nice they might be trying to rip you off." Never once has that voice been correct, but it is always there, always causing me to be on guard, to make excuses to leave early, or otherwise excuse myself from the situation.

It started Friday night with a mildly intoxicated Mexican shouting out to me "Hello, where are you from." I was walking away from him at the time, headed in search of my favorite warm weather treat, ice cream, and did not stop to talk with him. After sating my craving for ice cream Natalie and I were walking back down the street in the opposite direction, and there in the same place was the same man sitting on a chair with two other guys drinking beer and listening to music. Clearly I was not going to be able to avoid them unless I acted like a total dick and just ignored them. This really isn't my style so I decided to go right up to them and say hello. Before I knew it we had been introduced to all of them, the man who had called out to me was named Julio Cesar, and he was with his father Julio, a now retired boxer who had apparently made a bit of a name for himself as a boxer and was nicknamed Chocomilk. Within a couple of minutes chairs had been brought out for us and we were sipping beers with Chocomilk and Julio Cesar. Jokes were told, and as a true test of my Spanish I actually was understanding them. We laughed and drank beer, asked each other questions and drank beer, and simply sat in the street and drank beer. When all was said and done Nat and I were both feeling a bit drunk and excused ourselves for the night, but promised to visit their restaurant the following day for lunch.

True to our word we showed up at their restaurant planning to be polite, buy a small lunch and then say goodbye. As a quick aside, Paradise, which is how I will refer to my place of residence for the past week (though that is not it's name), had only two drawbacks, the mosquitoes and the prices of food at the restaurants. Therefore we were a bit weary of going to a beach side restaurant where the owner had promised to cook us a feast, as this could quite possibly cost at least an entire day's budget. Julio was not there when we arrived, and so we sat on the beach sipping a soda and waiting for him. After finishing our sodas he had still not arrived and so we ordered a beer. When Julio showed up he was quite busy as he had just returned from the nearest town with everything he would need to operate hit taqueria that night. After about ten minutes he called us over to the kitchen and introduced us to his entire family. His four children and his wife politely greeted us, and then he showed us to a nearby table (I should mention that despite the fact that Julio has four children, the oldest of whom is 18, Julio is only 33). Soon the music was blasting, and a very fresh shrimp salad had been placed on the table in front of us along with two more beers.

There was only one problem. I'm allergic to shellfish. I had mentioned this to him the night before, but in our inebriated state it must have slipped his mind. Therefore I did my best to pick around the shrimp without anyone noticing, all the while encouraging Natalie to stuff her face with shrimp. "You are eating for two." I told her, and when her fork would lie resting on the plate I would shoot her a pleading look, and beg her to cram a few more bites into her mouth.

After the shellfish came a freshly cooked plate of beef that would be chopped into the filling for the tacos he would sell on the street that night. I'm not much of a beef fan, but this was truly fantastic, and of course was accompanied by more beers.

After a couple of hours Julio had to get his taqueria set up. We promised to come eat tacos that night, and as I got up I asked what we owed him for lunch. "Nada." was the reply. "Really?" I asked, "Are you sure?" He explained to me that we were guests in his house and that he was very happy to have met us and to become friends. He called me his hermano (brother), and hugged both of us as we left. He also invited us to Christmas dinner with his entire extended family.

We returned to his taco stand that night with our two German friends, with whom we had spent the week, and set about trying to eat as many tacos as we could in order to at least help him reach his goal of selling 20 kilos of tacos that night. We brought beers, and every time he had a few minutes he would come sit with us and drink a beer. When his friends would come by he would call me over and introduce me as his friend, and excitedly tell his friends about how we had met the night before.

When we were finally ready to live I paid for our tacos and was getting ready to leave a sizable tip. His 18 year old daughter, who was helping him run the taco stand came back and handed me 100 pesos which was far more change than I should have gotten back. She explained that she didn't have the proper change for me so I should just take the 100 instead. I tried to insist that they keep the 100 pesos since I was planning on giving them nearly the full 200 I had originally handed her anyway as a tip, but Julio wouldn't hear of it and insisted I keep my money.

We said goodbye promising to visit soon. I hope that I will. I hope that was not the last time I see Julio and his family. I hope that by the end of the night he had sold his 20 kilos of tacos. I hope that more people visit his restaurant, which like all restaurants there was perpetually empty. I hope that one day Julio will experience the same overwhelming emotions I did when a complete stranger decided to go out of his way to be kind, and to help me learn more about his language and his country. Most of all I hope that I will begin to act in the same way as Julio, that I will reach out to those in need, that I will be kind to strangers for no other reason than because it is how we should all try to treat one another.