Final Days in Colombia

Sorry about the lack of updates of late, I got swept up in Colombia and as my time there drew nearer and nearer to a close, I couldn't justify spending more than 5 minutes in an Internet cafe. So let me wrap up the last few days with a short anecdotal list of some things I saw.

* While getting ready to go diving, the boat pulls up to the dock and this little rat-like dog tried to make the leap to the dock from the boat only to make it halfway, paw around frantically and then fall about 3 feet into the water. The look on its face was one of pure terror as there was no way to get to solid ground without assistance. I laughed and plucked it out of the water. Surprisingly enough, it didn't show its appreciation by paying me any attention for the remainder of the day.

* While diving at a wreck about 90 feet down, in bad visibility, I cut my hand pretty good on the barnacles and rusted hull of the ship. This was fun and kept up my tradition of getting cuts on every trip I have been on (subsequently, that same night, I stepped on a shard broken glass bottle and it cut my foot (which has happened to me before in Nicaragua). Luckily, I am aware of my penchants for broken glass and carry around about 50 band-aids.

* Another fun diving incident was a leaky regulator which ate up my air at a quicker rate than normal. That was on my last dive and I got to hold a puffed up puffer fish so I was in good spirits regardless.

* Many nights were spent with my dive master Leandro as we made full use of the height of my condo by hurling baseball sized chunks of ice towards the ocean. I hit water on a couple of occasions (all under questionable sobriety).

* Going out in Colombia is fun. The one thing that is not cool is the inability of going to the bathroom and not see some European snorting up half a pound of yayo. I say European because the only Americans I met were ones who taught at an English school and lived in my building. Colombia's reputation is both a blessing and a curse. Other than that, the only people I saw going crazy were a few European and Australian tourists who came to Colombia for a very obvious reason... I steered clear from these people and all was well. I was approached by a drug dealer of clear influence and when I rejected his offer he was very surprised, he then tried giving me coke, then was amazed I turned that down. I told him, that's not why I'm here to which he said how honest I was and he loved me for respecting his country. He then called over a bodyguard who gave me information on getting in touch with him if I wanted to come on his yacht the next day and sail around these islands in Cartagena. I declined because my good fortune had already found the apartment and although I clearly have no problems with accepting niceties from people of questionable moral standings, I didn't want to leave the cushy situation I found myself in.

Leaving Colombia was hard. I took in my last sunset knowing one day I'll return. I was even told by these teachers that their school was looking for American teachers to come teach rich kids down there; they said their quality of life was amazing... I took down their email just in case.

Much love,
James

How do I get in these situations? Santa Marta Edition

This post is not very amusing. Two of the three girls I met in Cartagena were "massuses." I was unaware of this but it is very common here for women to dabble, and I use the word lightly, in prostitution. Many of the girls in Cartagena see a gringo and want to give you a "massage." Its sad because you see a lot of young girls with older gross men. I didnt notice this much in my other travels because I stayed away from places with money, in Colombia there is more money and therefore there is more of these seedy practices.... which brings me to my apartment situation. So, as I said before, I have this amazing apt at my disposal. The one girl that I rode with to Santa Marta (very touristy), is kinda like a madam to the other girls. She has apartments with her french husband (he is in his 40`s, her in her 20´s). My apt is owned by this Italian guy who is never there so they told em to stay there as long as I want. When I found out about their "business" I didn´t know how to feel, nor do I now, but like many things here, it is not for me to judge, the culture and peoples situations are very different than in the US. This situation is sad but its reality here. I have been diving daily with this great guy from Brazil. We are throwing a party in my honor (because I am so super) on sat at the apt. I even got a DJ from Philly to agree to dj for me, he has all his stuff here. It should be a great time, I don´t know how I get into these situations but this is where I am now. I will update you all again soon. Peace

A bad time for jokes part 2

Ok so, as the three of us are on our way to the casino, it´s around 12am, in other words, its early for a night on the town... and we come to a police road block/checkpoint (they could have been army, they were dressed like the army but I do not remember, this detail is unimportant). Now, I know I have nothing on me, except cash (if you are naive about travel in Latin America... cops take cash off ¨extraneros¨because really what can you do about it) and a bottle of beer from the bar. I hide the beer under the seat even though it is legal to have an open container as long as you are not driving. I proceed to step out of the car along with the taxi driver and the two Aussies. The cops begin to search all of us. My cop was the leader and seemed particularly unhappy. This is probably due to the fact the poor guy has to work nights... I know all about night jobs, they generally suck if you have to do anything besides sleep through them. Anyway, as he was patting me down (quiet thoroughly I might add) I decided in my ¨enlightened¨ state, to have a little fun to try to make this guy laugh... At this point in the story I need to issue a warning to the nun that reads this (and anyone else who has any respect for me). Sister Tess, you know I love you and I also know that for some reason completely unbeknownst to me, you think highly of me... please for the sake of my standing in your eyes (and possibly gods although I am on shaky ground with him as is) , skip this next part. So the not so friendly frowning Colombian cop (double points for double alliteration) asks me if I have any guns on me. I crack a smile, point to my jeans and say ¨just this one!¨ Then I let out a little laugh to make sure he knew I was joking. Well, he got the joke, but apparently didn´t think it was as funny as I did, so much for my icebreakering (new word alert) ability. He pretended I didn´t say anything (surely he thought it was funny, dick jokes are a form of bonding that cross cultural barriers) and then stuck his finger in my watch pocket to check for drugs again. I think he just had to keep up his tough cop persona, surely we would have laughed about it and thrown a few back at the club if he were off duty. Anyway, then he kinda pushed me back towards the taxi and we left. Won 20´000 pesos at blackjack, got upset at the pitboss for not letting a double down on 11 go through which I would have won another 20´000 on, made a scene and cashed out. I was wide awake, the Aussies were not, this is due to my superior staying power when on vacation. I don't want to miss anything so I force myself to stay up and do fun things. I cab it to the club with them and they walk home. I enter the club and strike up a convo with a couple of Italian guys there, we make dick jokes, drink more, everything is merry. I meet these 3 girls, they seem nice enough and when I tell them I am leaving for Santa Marta (a touristy place 4 hours from Cartagena) they tell me to go with them because they live and work there. I say sure, I have no friends there, now I have 3. I leave the club, go back to my dorm and listen to this psycho Norwegian tell the worlds longest story about almost getting hacked to death in China. By the time he shuts up (honestly it was a good story but it was very late and I wanted sleep) it was 5am. So the next morning, I meet the girls at the bus stop. Turns out the ¨they¨ turned into one. This was weird but whatever. The trip to Santa Marta had some interesting conversation to say the least. Let me put it this way, I now have a very expensive 2 bd, 2 bath condo at my disposal. A giant man made waterfall is just an elevator away with multiple pools, hot tubs and saunas whenever I want. The master bedroom has amazing views of both the Caribbean and the Sierra Nevadas... I´ll explain tomorrow. Jamesobar.

A bad time for jokes.

I´ve always had questionable timing, especially in tense situations...I think it stems from a lack of proper fear when it should be debilitating me or something. This is not to sound tough or anything, I think it´s a chemical inbalance, probably due to my parents drug use in the 60´s, 70´s and likely most of the 80´s. Anyway, I say all this because on my last night in Cartagena, a funny thing happened, sortof. So the Chiva stops towards the end at this seaside ¨discoteca.¨ The gimmick is that no one except people from the chiva are at said discoteca. This poses a slight problem because I somehow picked the geriatric chiva. THe median age must have been 60. Now, 60 year old Colombians are way more exciting that 60 old Americans but they are still 60. So i decide to walk along the completely dark and almost empty beach to a parked taxi with 5 tattooed Colombians drinking ¨Something Special¨ brand Scotch. I strike up a conversation in the most amiable way I know how and become the immediate life of their little beach-side bash. I announce that the seaside discoteca sucks and I want to know where people under 60 go on a sunday night. They tell me a club, I say good I am going to find a taxi. They say, here´s a taxi, lets go. So I grab the Aussies and we head to the club. Turns out the Aussies want a casino, having no fear of South American casinos, I say sure. and we change course for the casino. NOw , I know most of you reading this think getting in the car with the questionably shady (and possibly drunk) taxista is the part that I say something really stupid... you are right. But you are going to have to wait till tomorrow to find out why because my time is up at the Internet cafe. de Colombia, Jamescobar

Cartagena

So, i arrived in Cartagena on Saturday. Stayed in a pretty lame hostel, read a lot. Got reacquainted with being in Latin America. On Sunday night I took two of my roommates to go on a traditional Chiva. A Chiva is an open bus/truck with a live band. The music is the typical Caribbean coastal music called Vallenato. Its heavy with accordion and actually sounds pretty good. There is a person on the mic in the front of the bus telling jokes, explaining the historic sites and then cueing up the band, which sits in the middle of the chiva. So they have this dance contest where the girls and then en the guys from each row get up and shake their bonbons. Well, I just have to say I represented the US and NY pretty damn well. Oh, did I mention the bottles of rum they give while driving around... this country knows how to have fun that´´s for sure. So we stop on the walls of Old Cartagena. The whole old colonial city is surrounded by a gi-normous wall with canons. The chiva brought us to the top of one part of the wall where there were various people to try to extract your tourist pesos( due to Colombia´s reputation, most of the tourists in Colombia are from other Colombian cities). One of the highlights on this trip was this amazing Afro-Caribbean dance troupe. There wasnt much light so the pictures don´t do it justice. The other highlight/lowlight was this endangered sloth that some dude was carrying around to take pictures with. They are really weird looking but it was sad that people can just take these animals and try to make $ off of them. Then again, if a person is poor and trying to get money for their family, does the flash of a camera annoying an endangered species not justify the situation? That´s not for my gringo-ass to judge... needless to say, I respectfully declined to take a picture of or with the sloth, much to the chagrin of it´s ¨keeper¨ I want to include a picture and tell about the rest of the night. I will return later today with my camera to get some pics and videos. Be well ....

After much ado, I´ve arrived in Colombia

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly curse out the not so fine folks at American Airlines. My flight was supposed to leave from Laguardia to DC, then an overnight 9 hour layover in DC onto Miami, and finally a 2 hour wait to Barranquilla. Well, yesterday, the weather was amazing in NY (for a February afternoon), sunny, no wind and about 45 degrees. I get to the airport after leaving work early and paying nearly 40$ to a half-lost African cabbie, only to find that the flight has been cancelled due to conditions IE...weather. WEATHER. ÄA lady says inclement conditions¨ I say¨what inclement conditions?¨ Lady hands me a new itinerary flying from JFK at 1030PM. I tell this lady that I don´t care if they cancel my flight, but don´t flat out lie to my face. She says and I quote ¨it could be windy¨ I almost lost it but remained calm cool and collected and said something along the lines of ¨Say you underbooked, or no one paid enough for tickets, or your puppy died, but don´t tell me it´s the weather when it´s clearly not.¨ Not only do I have to travel to the other end of friggin Queens but it kills my plans in DC. Oh well, enough complaining. Long story short, drinking on a midnight-6am layover while fighting with an Ethiopian DC cabbie is NOT the best way to travel to what some say is the most dangerous country in the western hemisphere (that's BS i think). I arrived in Barranquilla today, the home of Shakira (more than one proud Colombian has said this to me today). If I see her I will make sure she breaks up with her royal Argentinian boyfriend and becomes my wifey. UPDATE. I left Barranquilla without even seeing the giant statue of her, so much for my marriage plans.
On my way from ¨New¨Cartegena to the colonial old town¨, I tried to snap a few pictures of the street scenes and my cabbie yelled at me to put the camera away because it will get stolen out of my hand while Im sitting in the cab. I felt he was exaggerating because Im Casperish but I went against my will and put the camera away for 2 minutes. Ill try to update again tomorrow,
Be well Kiddos

Goodbye mass emails.. hello blog?

I told myself I would never have a blog, here I am.
This is hard for me because I have bashed bloggers and blogging for years on account that the verb "blog" and any variation thereof sounds just redonkulous (much like the word redonkulous, which I have coined) Let me at least defend myself to say that the impetus for this blog is not to feed my already healthy ego, but to reduce the # of mass emails I send out when I travel. So I may very well be a hypocritical, egotistical sack o' hot nickels who has also talked shit and then joined (and consequently tried to get rid of) facebook, but I am just looking out for my friends' inboxes. If you want to peruse my rantings and follow my trips, this is the place to do it. I've been telling myself I wanted to write more for years, needless to say it hasn't worked out so hot. I doubt this is the solution but maybe I will stick with it.

The reason I am doing this now is that I just bought a ticket to Colombia. I leave tomorrow. I was going to send out a mass email, figured this is more fair. Wish me luck, maybe I will update this thing again.

Peace,
James ( i dont know if "bloggers" sign off at all or like this, but I do, cope.)