A quick Pit Stop

Beauty is, apparently, in the eyes of the beholder. So perhaps if I was Helen Keller, I would have found downtown Medellín more charming.

After another festive night bus journey from Cartagena, in which delays due to fires were once again involved, I arrived to my hostel, appropriately named "The Pit Stop" since I quickly decided to stay only one night. The place came highly recommended by a fellow traveler whose judgment was thus immediately called in to question.

The majority of the rooms had cheesy titles, taken from the movie "Scarface." The Tony Montana room, obviously the most ornate, featured a bathroom styled after 80s drug lord tastes with an over abundance of mirrors, a Jacuzzi, his and her sinks, and a steam room. The only bed left when I arrived, however, was in the "Da' Funk" dorm. Still, I suppose it was better than being stuck in the "Pussy Pink" room. I didn't even want to see that one.

Additional "amenities" at the hostel included a pool, and enormous entertainment room equipped with satellite TV and over 200 DVDs, and a staff of scantily clad miniskirt wearers. I was suspicious I'd inadvertently signed up to spend the night in a frat house, and was thus relieved, while waiting in the entertainment room to use the internet, to find at least one fellow resident possessed with conversational skills more advanced than grunting.

"So where are you from?" I asked, unsure of the origins of his accent.
"LA!" he responded enthusiastically. "Hey! Did you know there, that it's really trendy these days to have a girlfriend who's bi-sexual?" So much for comradeship.

The one advantage of the Pit Stop was that it was located in an upscale, peaceful residential area, far south of the hustle bustle of the city center. Normally, I prefer to stay in hostels closer to the down town, and thus in striking distance of restaurants and the city's cultural attractions. That all depends on the city, however.

I took the metro to downtown Medellin in the afternoon to visit the acclaimed Museo de Antioquia--full of works by the famous Colombian artist Fernando Botero. Botero's iconic paintings and statues all feature enormously rotund figures who seem to be afflicted by particularly unwieldy thyroid conditions. His art is playful, and full of subtle detail, so it was a treat to see a whole museum dedicated to his work.

Afterwards, I though I´d make the most of the considerable journey into town, and explore the surrounding area. There was supposedly a large brick cathedral of architectural note nearby, so I set off in that general direction. Within just a few blocks, however, I was struck by a powerful disquieting urge to quote The Wizard of Oz. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Totto," I whispered to my invisible canine companion as I suddenly realized everyone on the busy street surround me was either: a prostitute, wearing a neck brace, rooting through the trash, or picking with a child-like curiosity at their open wounds.

I was momentarily tempted to stop to take a picture of the ironically positioned leggy transvestites who'd propped themselves against the doorway outside the entrance to the "Centro de Ayuda Spirituál" (Center for Spiritual Help), but I thought the better of it, and instead did an abrupt about face and headed back towards the metro. I've never seen such unabashed aggressive self-marketing by prostitutes, especially at 2:00pm. Each corner had a small gaggle of impatient working "women" looking eagerly around for their next customer.

They were all doing their best to uphold Medellín's reputation as the second "Silicon Valley" as well (and no, the nickname has nothing to do with the high tech industry). Several people have told me that in Medellín, it's not uncommon for girls to receive "enhancement" surgeries from their parents to celebrate their seminal 15th Quinciñera birthdays. The idealist in me wants to think such reports are, pardon the adjective, inflated, and that parents aren't actively contributing to a "pimp my daughter" phenomenon. (God, I hope that never becomes an actual MTV reality show).

I was on the first bus south the next morning, destination Solento, in the heart of the country's green, mountainous "Zona de Café" (Coffee Zone). A better personality match, me thinks.

Getting Dirty

Under normal circumstances, if someone invited me to bath in a volcano, I´d take it personally. In this case however, the volcano in question was filled with mud, not lava, so I tried not to take offense.

"El Volcán de Lodo" (The Mud Volcano) is a peculiar geological phenomenon located 50 km north of Cartagena, situated picturesquely along the banks of the Ciénaga (Lagoon) del Totumo. The volcano, at first glance, is somewhat underwhelming. It´s only 45 feet tall, and when as we approached it, we joked that it appeared to be a fourth grade science project on a slightly grander scale. I braced myself for the impending baking soda and vinegar eruption.

There were five of us on the trip from our shared hostel in Cartagena--Anit, an Israeli; Thomas, a German journalist; Alexia, a Parisian photographer; and Jen, a Canadian archaeologist. We all stripped down to our swim suits when we arrived and descended the ladder into the gray, pudding like consistency of the mud bath below. It was truly a unique and, at first, slightly disconcerting sensation. The mud was viscous, but so thick that I couldn't really sink despite the considerable depth of the crater. Nor could I move myself around self-propelled. Instead, I had to rely on helpful Good Samaritans willing to grab my foot or ear and yank me in my desired direction.

There were three Colombian guys already in the silty paste when we arrived--coated thoroughly in a gray film of mud which had partially hardened under the strong Colombian sun like river bank dwelling hippos. Only their eyes peeked out from this otherwise monotone exterior coating. Their job was to give massages, blindly rubbing visitors extremities below the surface with the mineral rich, supposedly therapeutic glop. Along with careers as deodorant sniffers or human cannonballs, this has to be one of the world's strangest professions. "All right honey, I'm off to wallow in mud and rub random foreigners' bodies for the day... Again! I'll be home in time for dinner!"

Eager to commence their work, the mud-caked masseuses reached out for us each like lurching, hungry swamp things as we descended into the crater. The massage was actually incredibly relaxing though. Especially after the mud filled my ears, temporarily deafening me to the piggish squeals of the overly hyper, mud flicking Brits who were finishing their bath as we arrived.

After they left, the mood was much more mellow, and our group could more thoroughly enjoy the child-like glee that inevitably comes from being entirely coated in goo. We played tic tac toe on the surface of the mud, and then more creative games of our own invention, such as "guess whose limb?" in which we submerged ourselves up to our necks, and took terns slowly lifting anonymous extremities.

We emerged looking like dripping gray aliens, and walked down to the nearby lagoon where women from the village awaited, coconut shell bowls in hand, to help us clans ourselves back to humanity.

"That was soooo refreshing!" gushed Jen on the ride back to Cartagena. "I could have stayed in there all day!"

"No kidding!" Seconded Anit. "It was really the bomb to the eyebrow!"

"The what?" I asked.

"The bomb to the eyebrow," he repeated. "Well, it sounds better in Hebrew, but it basically means, like, really good!"

Colloquial phrases can be quite revaluing about cultures and life experiences. I, for one, would not immediately think to equate a bomb coming in contact with any region of my face with a stellar experience. To an ex-soldier, however, just out of three years of mandatory military service, during which time surprise attacks were a daily possibility, I suppose a bomb to the eyebrow beats a bomb to the eyeball any day.

A Tale of Two Cities

They say that Cartagena is a fairytale city, and they're half right. The Old Town is indeed a magical, near surreal specimen of architectural grandeur. Impossibly quaint, Skittle colored buildings line the tidy narrow streets--each with white iron balconies which groan beneath the weight of overflowing fuchsia flowers. At night, the church-bordered plazas fill with café tables, and the cosmopolitan elite crowd around them enjoying freshly caught fish, and the lazy breeze which drifts off the nearby Caribbean Sea. Twinkling lines of Christmas lights adorn nearby palms, and trios of elderly guitar and accordion playing men take turns providing the live soundtrack.

This was picturesque scene I enjoyed as I spent my last evening in the city--my last evening too in the company of my traveling companion Jessica, who had to return to the States. The fairytale image of Cartagena was thus my last impression of the city, but it was not my first.

When I first arrived to Cartagena by plane, I had to go immediately to the bus station so that I could leave for Santa Marta to start the Lost City trek the following day. The airport and bus terminal are on completely opposite sides of town, however. The half hour taxi journey connecting them provided an illustrative introduction to the parallel societies in existence in the city.

The start of the ride went through a beautiful sector of the new town, filled with brightly colored homes and shops. Stumpy palm trees and flowering bushes sprung out of the front yards, and families, dressed in flip flops and tank tops, lounged lazily around plastic tables in the shade of their front stoops, seeking shelter from the already scorching 10 AM sun.

Gradually we drove out of these quaint, colorful environs, however, and into a very different sector of town. To the left of the narrow highway we sped along was the glistening Caribbean Sea, but to the right, miles and miles of endless shanty towns. As far as the eye could see stretched neighborhoods of dilapidated shacks, pieced together from stray scraps of lumber, sheets of black plastic, and sometimes, if the owner was lucky, a bit of corrugated tin for the roof. Garbage and waste littered the dirt alleyways dividing the dwellings, and emaciated dogs rooted hopefully through the rubbish looking for discarded scraps. Fetid, stagnant pools coated in layers of disturbingly non-natural lime green scum rose up around the shacks, as if threatening to engulf them. Naked children toddled unsupervised through the wastelands, curiously examining tin cans, or colorful bits of plastic. All the inhabitants were Afro-Colombian.

"These are some of the poorest neighborhoods in Colombia," the taxi driver, Alejandro, explained. "They're full of mostly refuges of the war. The violence comes to their villages, so they run away and come here. There are people in these neighborhoods from all over the country."

"The contrast is incredible a lot," I said, looking into the distance at the looming, brilliant white, ocean-view high rise condos. They stood mockingly on the horizon above the squalor in the foreground like arrogant kings lording over their tortured subjects.

"Yeah," Alejandro agreed. "There's the tourist Cartagena, and then there's this." He shook his head wearily and sighed. "It looks like Somalia." Neither of us really knew what to say after that, so he turned the music up slightly. The mournful wail of Charlie Parker's saxophone made for an apt soundtrack.

The Lost City

The trip was billed in the guide book under the "off the beaten track" section as "a week long Indiana Jones-style trek to the remains of an ancient culture hidden deep in the jungle." Hmmm... OK, sold. Thus, my friend Jessica and I last Tuesday embarked on our six day trek through the wilderness north east of Cartagena in search of the "Ciudád Pérdida" or "Lost City." So named because after the Spanish slaughter of the ruins' original inhabitants, the Tayrona peoples, the city was engulfed by the jungles' encroaching tentacles and not discovered again until the 1970s. "There were lots of Marijuana farmers in the area," our guide, Enrique, told us, "but then, in the 70s, the government started spraying campaigns to eradicate the fields, and so the people started looking for other forms of income." One of these sources happened to be pre-Colombian ruins grave robbing. Thus, the discovery of this 11th century gem in 1975--perhaps the only inadvertant positive outgrowth of the endless "war on drugs."

By chance, it happened that Jessica and I were the only members of our trek. Thus we, along with our guide Enrique, took a tail bone grueling two hour truck ride from the town of Santa Marta, to the isolated pueblo of "Machete"-- the ominously named set off point for our journey. A crowd of bored, camo-clad soldiers stood guard at the entrance to Machete to search our bags. They held their machine guns lazily, and generally appeared unenthusiastic about their assignment. One knew a bit of English, however, and decided to show off as he rooted through our underwear searching for the atomic bomb we no doubt had stashed somewhere in our hiking boots. "So! Is that your brother?" he asked to Jessica, motioning to me. I glared witheringly in response to his vocabulary error, but, eyeing his massive weapon, held my tongue. The first day's hiking was gruelingly steep, but mercifully only a few hours long.

At the apex of our assent, we paused to admire the 360 degree view of endless rolling green mountains surrounding us.

"This all used to be cocoa plants," Enrique informed us casually as we surveyed the vista. "It's only since December that they've been destroyed."

"Wow!" I remarked. "This is much much land for to be saying goodbye to the cocoa. And the government comes with the planes full of the make sick, and put on the ground from the air?"

"No no," Enrique said. "No, they did it by ground."

"And hows about the farmers?" I asked. "Whats they uses now for to make of the money?"

"Uhhh... " Enrique said, pausing as he though. "I think... nothing? The government doesn't come with the subsidies, so the people eat less. OK, enough rest! Let's go!"

We got into "camp" around four, and were eager to partake of the nearby crispy fresh river bed which also served as a shower. Our accommodations for the evening consisted of an open air roof, which stood over our waiting mosquito net adorned hammock beds. While we waited for our dinner to boil, a couple of curious locals approached us to converse. Apparently, an idealistic New Zealander had fallen in love with the area while on the trek, and had decided to move permanently into the community (thus, increasing the overall population by about 25%), and offer English lessons to students in the humble local school, and to aspiring guides.

"Will you quiz me?" A friendly 19 year old asked in Spanish, shoving his small notebook towards me. The book was full of simple begining exercises distinguishing the singular from the plural (ie- "I want a woman" vs. "I want some women") and conjugating basic verbs (ie- "We have no money" vs. "He has guns"). The older man had a thin, paperback "teach yourself English" book which was full of useful phrases. Each phrase was written in Spanish, English, and then followed by helpful pronunciation guides. The guides, though phonetically correct based on Spanish pronunciations, appeared at first glance to be a rare German dialect. For example:

Help = "¡jelp!"
-I'm being chased! = "¡Áim bin chéist!"
-Get the hell out of here! = "¡Guet de jel áut ov jier!"
-My denture is broken = "Mái déncher is bróuken"
-I´m caughing a lot = "Aim cófin e lot"
-I have cut myself = "Ái jav cat maisélf"
-Bunch of crooks! = "¡Bonch of crucks!"
-I've got to protect myself= "Áiv got tu potéct maisélf"

We had another hilly day of hiking the following day--passing periodic camps of soldiers stationed along the trail as we walked. Their headquarters consisted of basic camo-decored tarps draped over saplings. Not surprisingly, they seemed deprived of stimulation, and thus greeted us with frenzied, caged-primate-like salutations of enthusiasm as we passed. Though our group was small, there was little opportunity for true silent appreciation of the jungle around us due to a combination of Enrique's incesant whistling disorder, and my constant nose blowing--the result of a recently and ironically (given the stiffling hot climate) incurred cold.
The 19 year old pupil from the night before had helpfully diagnosed me after one of my particularly aggressive bouts of sneezing.

"Dengue!" he'd told me, knowingly. "Yup! You have Dengue fever!"
"Don't be saying this," I'd chided him, seriously.
"No, it's Dengue!" he'd insisted. "There's a lot of it in the area. First there's the cold, then the fever, then the sweats, then...." he waved his hand dismissively and ran a finger across his throat. "Poof," he finished ominously. I crossed my fingers that he hadn't been Harvard Medical School trained, and thus his diagnostic powers might be lacking.

As we hiked along the second day, we passed several indigenous Kogui communities, whose humble, archaic looking villages suggested a marked dissociation from the reaching tentacles of modernity. Their homes were small, circular thatched huts, fortified along the walls with dried mud. The men wore plain, calf length long sleeve tunics that, though once white, had long since been stained the hue of cream-heavy coffee. Beneath their tunics were long similarly colored pants. The women wore long, white toga-style wraps, and the children whatever random scraps of clothing were left over, if anything. Passing one of these villages, we came across two knee-high girls carrying back a ten foot long tree branch to their waiting, machete-wielding parent. The two children looked like twins--no older than three. They smiled shyly at us, and Enrique engaged in a series of affectionate maocking bird calls with them that served as a kind of coded jungle salutation.

As we continued on our walk, Jessica and I marveled at the spectacle of toddlers engatged in hard manual labor, and the strk contrast such an ubringing presented to a coddled American childhood. A friend of mine worked as a counselor at a "Safety Town" day camp in highschool, and most parents wouldn't even enroll their offspring at age three for fear they were far too fragile and inmature. There must be a middle ground...We finally arrived to the famed "Ciudád Pérdida" on our third day, after a hilly trek and eight river crossings. An easy to miss bank of stairs led steeply up to the hidden ruins from the river, and without Enrique there to spot it, I probably would have missed the entrance. We climbed the moss covered stairs for half and hour before reaching the first level of terraced ruins--circular stone mounds that once were the foundations of homes.

We continued to wind our way through the many levels of jungle ensconced neighborhoods before finally reaching the upper most level. Here, the jungle opened up, and two grass covered Olympic swimming pool sized circular terraces stood treeless, affording magnificent views of the surrounding jungle, which stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see. The ruins are patrolled by several platoons of soldiers, who ostensibly are there to protect the site from further grave robbers, and/or secure tourists' safety. There haven't been any conflicts in the area in the past two decades or so though. Thus, the soldiers have little to do but sit around, polish their guns, and play checkers. The scene, with its abundance of aimless troops with little concrete sense of their mission, surrounded by jungle, was eerily reminiscent of images from Vietnam. Minus the Spanish, of course.

Due to their bordem, the troops often filter in to the tourist area at night, seeking entertainment. It's amazing what an olive branch a deck of cards can be. Jessica and I started rousing games of "Cuarenta" ("40"), a popular South American card game, and thus made fast friends. Antonio, a 26-year old commander who looked about 19, was my partner, and was fast to catch on. He flashed his winning braces-adorned smile (with green brackets to match his camouflage's fatigues) when ever he scored us points. His machine gun stood propped against our picnic table, and Jessica, forgetting the word for it in Spanish, asked him:

"Can you move your... uh, how do you call that again in Spanish?"
"Oh, 'my toy'?" Antonio asked, gesturing towards his weapon.
"No! It's not a toy!" I insisted, "she means, what's it's name?"
"Oh, I see!" He said, the mystery clear now. "I call it 'my girlfriend'!"

We decided to change the topic.

As the night wore on, we grew more and more comfortable with our card playing friends, and started using the informal "tú" form.

"Gimmie that!" Jessica demanded to Antonio, when he misdealt the cards, and she had to recollect them, ripping them from his hands.

"Geez," he said, sighing. "You handle me like a doll."

When Wilston, the perpetually cheating soldier seated beside me looked at my hand one too many times, I punched him, chidingly on the shoulder.
"Stops that, yous!" I demanded.
"Ouch! Don't hit me!" he wined. Baby.

Indeed, most of the friends we made there did not fit the stereotypical macho image of a Colombian soldier, and seemed actually quite delicate. When the topic of favorite sports arose, Antonio's eyes lit up when Jessica mentioned yoga. "Me too!" he said enthusiastically, and demonstrated his flexibility by touching his nose to his knee. When I said soccer, he stared at me blankly. "I never played that," he said, unenthused. "All that kicking... I don't get it!" Go figure.

Later, as I was trying to concentrate on my Cuarenta strategy, Jayan, the soldier seated to my right, kept handing me the headphones to his minature MP3 player to play me a selection of his favorite songs. I nodded unenthusiastically and gave feigned thumbs up signs to most of his Latino music selection, but one song made me do a double take.

"What?" I said turning towards him suddenly. "Is this Enya?!?"
"Yes!" he said, pleased I'd recognized it. "She is one of my favorites! Very peaceful, no?"
She must have the biggest cross-over appeal of any working musician if she is counted a favorite amongst the ranks of granola-crunching New age Zen masters, Tolken worshiping Lord of the Rings fanatics, and M-16 toating Colombian early 20s males.

We had a full day to hang out and explore the ruins the following day. The other tour group that had been there the night before left in the morning, so we basically had the whole place to ourselves. Enrique walked us around through the maze of jungle covered stone pathways, explaining a bit more about the history of the site. Of greater interest to me, however, were his casual tales of his previous carreer before becoming a naturalist guide, as a workerbee in an illegal cocaine processing warehouse. What a natural carreer progression.

"It was a really good job!" he said enthusiastically in Spanish. "Of course, we had to work by night, but we were all good friends there. There were twenty of us that worked inside the factory, and fifteen that worked outside as guards. And, it was a little dangerous, I suppose." I asked for elaboration. "Well, for example, two days before I started my job there, a group of FARC guerillas raided it by night and shot seven people. Young people too--like 17 or 18. My friend was working there at the time. He had to run into the jungle and hide to avoid being shot. After that, he was a little traumatized." Understandably. I naively asked him why, given that this tragedy happened just before he started work there, he took the job. He looked at me with condesending pity and enunciated slowly, as if talking to a mentally impared recent stroke victim: "Di-ner-o." Each worker was paid 2,000 pesos per kilo of coke they processed each night, and on efficient nights, they could process over 100 kilos. That translates to 200,000 pesos, (about $117 dollars) for one night's work. Not bad, especially by Colombian wage standards.

He said he quit not because of the risk, but because the boss of the warehouse was killed in a car crash in Venezuela and after that, the whole opperation fell apart.
"Did you not know who was above your boss then?" I asked.
"Bah," he said dismissively, with a wave of his hand. "Some guy in Medallín. Who knows."

As we continued walking along the path, we saw a small cocoa plant growing wild in the shade of a nearby banana tree. It had delicate little green leaves, and seemed such an innocuous specimen of vegetation to be the cause of so much ruckus.

We completed the trek out back to Machete in two days--there was more down hill on the return, so the going was a bit easier. We finally got back into Machette on the sixth day--exhausted, parched, and ready for the (by contrast) insane luxury of the hostel that awaited us back in Taganga. It was thus an unwelcome suprise at first to learn that the tour company had deemed our group too small to warrent the cost of a jeep coming to pick us up, and so instead, we would be making the long, bumpy ride back to civilization on the back of motorbikes. Resigned, Jessica and I donned more sunscreen and our shades, securely fastened our boots to our backpacks, and hopped on our awaiting charriots. Once I found a grip that alleviated my fear of being bucked off the back, I actually found the ride quite pleasant, and the stunning greenery of the surrounding hillsides--dotted intermitantly by large, pink flowering disiduous trees--a treat indeed.

Back in Taganga, we showered, enjoying a scrumpteous dinner, and moseyed back to our hostel where we found a small group of people in the common lounge area watching The Godfather, one of my all time favorite movies. Sometimes, life is perfect. Of course the town suffered another of its frequent evening blackouts before we could finish the film, but it was about 8:30 by that point anyhow, so it was high time for bed. Ah, Colombia.

Bienvenidos a Bogotá

Upon entering the Bogota airport, at least one stereotype of Colombia was immediately confirmed: there was an exponential increase in the prevalence of aviator glasses amongst the male populace. Others, however, proved to by myths. For example, there were far less cavity searches than I was expecting as we snaked our way through the customs line—not even for the pair of whispering, conspiratorial nuns, who, despite their drab gray habits, looked pretty suspicious to me. Bogota was the only airport I´d ever visited though, where I had to put my backpack through an ex-ray after collecting it from baggage claim.

I took a taxi to my hostel, the enigmatically named “Platypus Inn” in the city center. Despite its somewhat basic amenities, it quickly endeared itself to me with its limitless supply of free, piping hot coffee. My loyalties are, at times, easily bought.

I went out to wander the old town, and was immediately struck by a two major difference about Colombia in comparison to Ecuador. First, it turns out Colombians use pesos instead of the familiar US dollar currency down south. Thus, I struggled with the mental math gymnastics of dividing all listed prices by 1,680 in my head, before inevitably giving up, and inadvertently probably forking over the equivalent of $14 for a tamale. Also taxing my limited cognitive capacities was the task of figuring out what street I was on. Though all roads seem to be clearly listed on maps as either “small street 6” if they run east-west, or “big street 2” if they run north-south, on the ground all roads have assumed sneaky, long winded aliases that bear little resemblance to their simple numerical Christian names. Thus, I was left to wonder, as I meandered down “Street of Divorce” whether I was really on small street number 10, or 11.

Despite this confusion, I somehow found my way eventually to the central Plaza de Bolivar—a majestic open area surrounded by breathtakingly beautiful cathedrals and colonial style buildings which today house various governmental offices. The plaza was my first encounter with evidence of the protracted internal armed struggle plaguing the country over the past decades. A demonstration had been staged there, with thousands of cinder blocks laid out in rows—each with the biographical information of a victim of the dirty war. A heartbreaking banner draped across the southern side of the plaza pleaded: “Enough! We can’t fit more pain in our hearts.” Welcome to Bogotá.

This moving exhibit had been removed, however, when I returned the following day on my way to the National Police Museum. Though normally I wouldn’t label myself an ardent fan of law enforcement history, I was eager to tour this establishment. After my guide, Jeffery Hernandez, led me and a small group of Colombians through the cursory “law enforcement through the ages” exhibit (ie-gory black and white drawings of pre-Colombian indigenous tribesmen gorging out the eyeballs of thieves and liars), we descended to the basement, where the real highlight of the museum was housed: a bizarrely fascinating history of the hunt for notorious drug king-pin, Pablo Escobar.

Escobar was the ruthless leader of the infamous Medallín drug cartel throughout the 1980s. His alias was “the doctor,” (a title given to politicians in Colombia) since Escobar was in fact elected to Congress in the early 1980s.

The exhibit included such illustrative artifacts as Pablo’s confiscated personal arms collection (“not even the military had such sophisticated weapons at the time!” explained Jeffrey), a $100,000 silver-decaled Harley Davidson motorbike he’d given his cousin, and an odd, glass-encased model of his dead body when it was finally gunned down by police in 1993. Escobar famously escaped from prison while awaiting extradition in the early 90s, prompting an obsessive 500 day man hunt on the part of the “bloque de búsqueda” (searching block)—an elite 1500 member force of Colombian special agents, CIA, and Interpol forces. Pablo finally met his end after a dramatic rooftop chase in his hometown, Medallín.

“Here,” Jeffrey said, pointing to an encased adobe shingle, “is a piece of the roof on which he was shot! As you can see, it is stained here from his blood. And this,” he added, motioning to a drab, olive parka, “is the jacket he was wearing when he was killed. Obviously, he was a very fat man. But even though he was the 7^th richest person in the world, he dressed very plainly. Like a bum. So he blended in well in Colombia, and was hard to find.”

Given his hotly hunted status in Colombia, I asked Jeffrey why he hadn’t just fled the country. “Or maybe he couldn’t for to leave?” I asked.

“Oh no—he left the country many times!” Jeffrey countered. “In fact there is a very famous photo of him at your house!”
“My house?” I asked confused.
“Yes, in your country! In your house that is white! With the Bush!”

Indeed, a Google search later proved that Escobar did indeed visit our nation’s capital—a family vacation apparently, as in the photo, he and his son pose smiling in front of the White House. Apparently Tony Soprano isn’t the only one who can bridge the mobster-family values gap.

As I left the exhibit with a satisfied feeling of edification I rarely experience after museum visits, I noticed an inspirational phrase stenciled in cursive above the main entrance: “If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy forever, become a police officer.” Chicken soup for the Colombian law enforcement soul.

I spent my last day in Bogotá today visiting the famous salt cathedral in the town of Zipaquirá—50 km to the north. The cathedral is an ex-salt mine, converted into an eerie, underground house of worship. There are 12 chambers, some as big as indoor football stadiums, and all illuminated with a spooky iridescent neon blue light. As I wandered past the numerous shrines, faint Gothic choral music played in the background. I suspected the setting was what the Catholics had in mind with the whole purgatory concept—a disorienting venue which, though it suggests the possibility of grandeur and majestic beauty—is definitely not somewhere you’d want to hang out forever. The hazy smell of sulfur emanating from the depths of the mine threatened the alternative.

Tomorrow I bid adios to this urban jungle in favor of the genuine article. My roommate from Ecuador, Jessica, and I are going to meet up north of Cartagena to commence the six day “Ciudad Pérdida” (Lost City) trek. We will keep our eyes peeled in the hopes it soon will be found.

Intercontinental Reunions

Even though we both call the Northwest home, it took a meeting in Thailand, and wedding in Ecuador to bring my friend Megan and I together again. Thus, Ms. Jepson, (a fellow teacher at the school where I worked last year in Chiang Mai) and I found ourselves rendezvousing in Quito this past week. One of Megan’s best friends from college, Kathleen, was marrying her Cuban fiancée, Fran, in Cuenca, and I was on my way north to Colombia, so Quito was the logical crossing-paths point.

It had been over a year since we’d last seen each other, so once Megan arrived, we wasted no time heading out to a nearby café for some afternoon cocktails, and adventure re-counting. The stories flowed like wine as we downed screwdrivers which, in a bold culinary statement on the part of the bartender, had been made with Tang instead of the traditional orange juice. After that, we weren’t really up for any of the traditional, taxing tourist endeavors, so instead we roamed the neighborhood, poking our heads in to expensive souvenir shops and fondling insanely soft and insanely expensive goods made out of baby alpaca fur.

“Feel this one!” I commanded to Megan, sticking her face into a $100 poncho. Sales ladies with withering glares were quickly dispatched to put an end to our fun.

“Wow, and it’s really made out of baby alpacas?” Megan asked one store owner as she hugged a three foot tall teddy bear, pretending to contemplate a purchase. “Do you eat those things? I bet you do…” she continued. I was less than subtle about disguising my laughter.

Later in the evening, back at the hostel, we found the normally bustling common areas of our hostel, the Backpacker’s Inn, nearly disserted. “Where did everyone go?” I asked the sole remaining occupant, a Wisconsin native named Beth.

“Bah,” she said dismissively, “they’re all at the Bryan Adams concert. Can you believe it?” Ecuador is apparently becoming the next Japan in terms of hot spots for washed-up pop stars. Quito was plastered with posters advertising an upcoming Doors reunion tour when we were there too.

“Tickets are only twenty dollars! Can you believe it?! What a deal! I mean it’s Brian. Adams!” one over-eager Dutch girl had gushed. Just because something seems cheap, however, does not mean you should buy it. I’d be surprised if I could get a syringe full of Ebola at the corner pharmacy for 20 cents as well, but that does not necessarily mean that purchasing it would be a good idea.

Thus, the confirmed party poopers, Megan, Beth and I hung out in the hostel kitchen getting acquainted. We were soon joined by Beth’s friend, a Quito native, Inayat—a tri-lingual orchid scientist/salsa teacher. I enjoy meeting people with seemingly contradictory personality traits, so his presence was a welcome addition to our merry trio.

Later in the evening, on the short two block walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner, Megan got an unpleasant introduction to a staple of Quito culture when a she was unexpectedly squirted with mustard. Coating unsuspecting tourists in condiments (mustard, mayo, jelly etc.) is a common thieving technique in Quito. Trio of crooks work together—one applying the unwelcome seasoning in a malicious liquid drive by of sorts, another playing the roll of the Good Samaritan who kindly offers a Kleenex to help remove the mess, and another who, in the confusion, runs by and snatches the bag. Both Beth and I had experience with this scheme, and thus quickly encircled our bewildered friend like protective mother elephants around a baby calf, ushering her quickly away from the would-be thief. We were all understandably a bit on edge after the near miss, and the experience convinced Megan and I to flee the crime infested environs of Quito in favor of the jungly goodness of nearby Mindo the following day. When it comes to choosing between the “fight or flight” strategies in the face of conflict, I have always been an unabashed proponent of the latter.

I had recently been to Mindo with my Mom, and was eager to return for its tranquil, yet adventure-conducive environs. Megan and I went on a deliciously muddy hike to a gorgeous waterfall on our first day there—running into a bonafide wild Toucan on our way. Our excitement at seeing the exotic avian was tempered only slightly by the fact that he lacked the traditional accompanying bowl of Fruit Loops. We spent a relaxing morning lollygagging in our hammocks the next day before leaving. We walked through the quaint town plaza on our way to the bus station admiring its tidily tended grounds. Mindo, apparently, prides itself on its cleanliness and there were a number of signs posted in the plaza to that effect. “Who’s going to pick up your trash if not you?!?” one asked. “Poverty is not an excuse to be dirty!” another reprimanded.

Back in Quito, Megan and I met up, as planned, with Inayat for a farewell night of Salsa dancing. The doorman at the club where we went also works during the days at the Backpacker’s Inn, so it was nice to see a familiar face. A 6´4” Afro-Ecuadorian who looks convincingly like he was plucked from a Calvin Klein fashions billboard campaign, “Stalin” tends to stand out. He apparently adopted the nick-name “Brian” when he moved to Quito a year ago, and really, I can’t blame him.

Megan and I had a fun-filled night of dancing, and did our best not to inadvertently wound our patient partners. When the evening finally wrapped up around 4am, we both vowed, with clenched fists, as if we were vengeful soap opera actors: “I will improve at Latin dancing! Mark my word!” I’ve been saying this earnestly for the past seven months now, but somehow I still believe.

Megan and I both had early flights the following morning—she to Cuenca, and me to Bogotá—which was a bit of a rude shock to our reluctant-to-rise carcasses. We bid each other fond farewells in the airport with promises not to let another year pass before such a pleasant debauchery filled reunion next occurred. Megan is planning on riding motorcycles from her home-base, Seattle, down to her future home, Argentina, with her future husband, Marshall, next year. I think it is a mark of good character when someone registers for motorcycle break pads instead of the traditional China saucers for their big day. I am so lucky to have somehow tricked such an admirable, adventurous soul into friendship.

Más viajes con La Madre...

Back on dry land after a week at sea, my Mom and I headed up to Mindo, a sleepy little jungle town northeast of Quito to kill some time before her friend Lynn was due to arrive. On the bus to Mindo, we coincidentally met a fellow Oregonian, Brian, who noticed my Mom’s "Oregon Public Broadcasting" tote bag (a recent pledge break donation coup) and excitedly shared his Portland roots. "I’m a member too!" he exclaimed eagerly. A mutual appreciation for reporter Christian Fodenventzel’s Enlgish accent was more than enough of a basis for a friendship, and the three of us explored Mindo’s many adventurous hiking opportunities over the next two days.

We returned to Quito to meet up with Lynn on Thursday, and had a gleeful evening reunion over empeñadas, and my Mom regaled her with tales of her Ecua-adventures thus far and her harrowing, near miss encounters with sea lions. My mom and Lynn have been friends for decades now, and the two have a kind of Laurel and Hardy give and take together which infused the ensuing week with a potent dose of comedic positive energy.

This attitude was extremely helpful in the face of the string of minor setbacks we faced in the following day’s travel. First, on the bus ride south from Quito, a malicious thief of Houdini-like prowess somehow managed to, undetected, extract my Mom’s camera from a zipped camera case, which was safely inside her Velcro-fastened OPB bag, which was in turn wrapped around her leg on the window seat of the bus. She was not asleep and/or drugged at the time. Second, for some reason, I deemed it a good idea to take Lynn, on her first full day in country, fresh from the sea-level environs of Salem, Oregon, immediately to the 12,000 ft. Andes Mountain nestled Quilatoa Lagoon. Lynn was a remarkable trooper, and in fact had a wonderful time on our afternoon hike down to the lagoon, and the ensuing donkey ride back up atop her gassy burro. But in the evening, altitude sickness reared its ugly head, forcing her to spend the majority of the evening curled in the fetal position of our freezing cabin quarters, setting speed records with each ensuing bathroom sprint. As I surveyed my guests that evening-one in a near death like state from lack of electrolytes, the other trying to keep up a brave face after the loss of her most prized possession-I considered the possibility that, as a tour guide, I may lack promise.

When we finally arrived to Cuenca the following evening, after a grueling ten hour day of travel on buses known for their high quantity of both live-poultry passengers, and pungent ponchos, Mom and Lynn nearly kissed the ground, so happy to have arrived at their destination. They looked at me, their torturer, with pitiful, grateful eyes, praying this was the end of their gauntlet of torment. I felt like the seemingly sadistic, but purposeful kung-fu master with my young protégés before me. "Ask not why you must suffer, young grasshoppers. All will be revealed to you in time."

Indeed, my master plan began to go much smoother from there on out. One day we went to the nearby pueblo of Cañar with my friend Paola to visit some Incan ruins, and to meet her extended family for lunch. Mom and Lynn, both seasoned veterans of Spanish I classes, eagerly exchanged Spanish greetings and first year vocabulary with our hosts. Aided by elementary mime, and at least a rudimentary level of English comprehension on the part of many of Paola’s relatives, they managed to produce some lively conversations and good will. Thus, when "you have a beautiful kitchen!" was accidentally confused with "you smell like a dirty pig" no offense was taken.

Another evening, the three of us went to dinner at my favorite Colombian-owned café, Moliendos, with a dozen of my friends from town. My friend Kathleen, and her Cuban fiancée, Fran, came and shared some entertaining tales of their recent trials to obtain a US visa for Fran. We can all rest assured that the Department of Homeland Security has our backs, because apparently, on the application form, they ask such hard hitting questions as: "Do you plan on attacking the United States once you enter the country, or engaging in acts of terrorism and/or sabotage?" There are boxes provided to check "yes" or "no."

When Fran’s visa was denied for disclosing that he’d at one point been part of the Communist Party in his home country (an offense grouped together with a list that included terrorist and child molester) Kathleen wrote her senators asking for help on his behalf. A New York native, one of her representatives is Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton’s office wrote her back saying that the Senator couldn’t help because Kathleen’s request was quote: "too political." Someone should really sit Hillary down and break the bad news to her that she is currently campaigning not to be the nation’s head hip-hop star or marine biologist, but politician. Dealing with political issues, unfortunately, goes with the territory. Kathleen’s anecdote, along with Clinton’s misguided decision last summer to select an anthem from the she-devil Canadian, Celine Dione, as her campaign theme song, have shoved me more firmly into the Obama camp.

Mom and Lynn and I ended our visit together with a blissfully relaxing stint down in Vilcabamba, a mountain nestled hamlet seven hours south of Cuenca. With its fantastic views, abundance of hammocks, and readily available access to massage, the Izchalyuma hostel in Vilcabamba "vale la pena" (it’s worth the pain) to get there. The journey south proved to be another illustrative experience in South American travel. We’d heard there were problems along the main highway due to indigenous protesters who often utilize road blocks as a means of demonstration. To avoid this, our driver took an alternative route for part of the journey along one lane, dirt roads that paralleled the main highway. It was an exercise in creative maneuvering, to be sure, when we ran into buses coming in the opposite direction. I employed the perhaps less than practical method of closing my eyes and visualizing skinny things like pencils and professional ballerinas as the vehicles gingerly squeezed passed each other on the narrow mountain lanes.

Once we eventually rejoined with the highway, I thought we were home free, but there was one more obstacle to navigate-a group of anti-foreign mining protesters had placed a downed tree across the highway, piled a bunch of forest debris around it, and lit it on fire. "Ok!" explained the conductor on our bus, "that’s it! We can’t go any further, so get all your bags, walk around it, and get on another bus on the other side!" Mom and Lynn again were incredibly good sports, and willingly donned their backpacking bags and clambered around the smoking barricade to reach our awaiting chariot on the other side.

"Ha Ha!" said one of the protesters good naturedly as we clumsily made our way through the ditch on the side of the road, "not all foreigners are bad!"

Vilcabamba was a great place to decompress, and enjoy, stress-free, the end of the trip. Mom and Lynn left yesterday for Quito, and should currently be on a plane, Oregon bound, enjoying some fine Continental Airlines cuisine and a B-level romantic comedy. I hope they are basking in their travel hardcore-ness and looking scornfully at their pampered, moist towelette utilizing seat mates. I’m lucky I have such adventurous Motherships.