August 14, Barranquilla

I arrived back in Barranquilla last night and had bug larvae squeezed out of my legs and ass. I hadn´t finished telling G and M the story of my stolen phone when M sent me off to the shower after a gaze at my bitten up legs so she could heal them. I get out of the shower and she tells me that what I thought were infected mosquito bites were actually the swellings where an insect had injected larvae into my leg that hatches tiny worms that feed on blood. Ugh! She squeezed blood and pus out of my three bites until the little larvae balls - looks like what comes out of a white-head - appeared on the toilet paper she was squeezing my red skin with. She then broke open an antibiotic pill and rubbed the powder into my bites.

This is what couchsurfing is for! Imagine if I just kept waiting for the bites to heal! M says I was lucky I didn´t get a fever.

I seem to leave a little piece of myself everywhere I go, as if I am trying to divest myself of something that I haven´t yet found. So far I´ve lost my toiletries bag, a few pairs of earrings, the butterfly tank top that I love and use for swimming, my swimming bottoms, and latest, my notebook, with the writing I do when I can´t get to the internet. It is as if my journey doesn´t want to be recorded, not in photos (which I lost with my phone), not in pen.

I´m not quite sure what is wrong with me but maybe I am moving from place to place too fast. I was in a rush, hoping to get to Venezuela to visit S, but it´s not really a reasonable thing to do. She can´t leave Caracas and Caracas is far away from Colombia, either very expensive plane rided or very long bus trips. So I will stay in Colombia.

I will try again to summarise my adventures last week. After visiting the school children, N and I walked to the river for a swim. He further chopped up the pants I chopped up in Tayrona because they were so ripped and used those to swim in. The river had quite a strong current, so we attempted to entwine, kiss, and stay in one place by gripping onto rocks with our hands and feet. It was fun. And very refreshing: it was so nice to finally be in cold water! After our swim, N and I had almuerzo in town and that evening I took off for Riohacha, saying I would come back to Palomino on my way back to Barranquilla.

Riohacha is the city where Marquez´s telegraph operator went to work after rejected by Fermina Diaz. Whether Riohacha of now bears any resemblence to Riohacha of then, I don´t know, but it is a low, spread-out city of typical Colombian cement boxes with barred windows and doors and a nice, fat beach with painted palm trees. In Riohacha I was picked up by a charming 22-year-old, who I wasn´t totally comfortable with. I felt like he paraded me around, showing to his friends and neighbours that he had a white girl on his arm. He didn´t listen to me even when I managed to communicate with this boy with no English, and he talked incessently.

I don´t know why I agreed to meet him again that evening. I was upset that he hadn´t taken me right back to my hostel like I asked after our swim in the ocean, but he was so ingratiating I just let his will overpower me. We agreed to go dancing. Instead we made out at the beach and I took him home with me.

I left the next day for Cabo de la Vela, a tourist village on the La Guajira peninsula where the desert meets the sea and the land is occupied by the nomadic Wayuu people. Here I felt like I had travelled to the ends of the earth. It was all desert, barely-there salt-water ponds, scrub and scrappy trees, abandoned Wayuu stick houses. I went on a tour, saw a salt mine, travelling with 5 others, lovely people. I slept in a hammock in a hut on the beach and we went to two different beaches for a swim in the warm and surfless Caribe sea.

I returned to Riohacha after two days in Cabo and hopped right on a bus back to Palomino. As the four-wheel drive was driving through the central market on our return I saw my 22-year-old lover and hid. I didn´t want to see him again, though I admit to a nice night. On the bus I got a phone call from him. I couldn´t understand a word, told him I was on my way to Palomino, wondered when I could hang up and finally did when it seemed he was done talking.

More tomorrow.

August 13, Santa Marta

Such adventures this past week, but not much access to the internet. I can't possibly write everything down in the limited time I have so I'll give a general sweep of impression.

I walked to Pueblito in Parque Tayrona with a beautiful Venezuelan malaria researcher and her rasta boyfriend. Pueblito is this grassy oasis of round rock bases left over from pre-Colombian times. It comes after a long, beautiful, difficult walk up through the jungle, which for us involved a dip in the clear cold water of a shallow sand river. I finished the walk with inner thighs on fire from the rash I get from wearing wet clothes. My clothes have been damp for at least a week. I crave nothing more than doing laundry. But this dampness on my Pueblito journey I owe purely to sweat, which drips from me like from a man as I exercise in the heat of a Colombian coastal day.

That walk did me in and I only stayed in Tayrona overnight. I recoiled a bit from the beaches because it involves... wet, sticky clothes and long walks. Also, the old guy who ran the camp that charges 15 pesos per night for a hammock kept touching me and kissing me and trying to hang out with me. S the beautiful girl from Cali was trying to protect me a bit, I think, from him.

I'm probably the only person in the world who didn't want to stay in Tayrona forever. But, goddamn it, I like floors to put my bags on and places to hang my wet clothes! I have to be more persistent in my questioning of other backpackers to figure out how they do this sort of thing for so long.

Then there is the Palomino saga... I was going to go with S and her boyfriend Mr. C to Palomino and stay with their friend there. But they were on Colombian time, which means who knows when they will leave, if they will actually go where they say they will. My burning thighs wanted out of Tayrona so I left ahead of them, told they will call their friend C and I should wait for him at the gas station. I waited for him at the gas station. I waited for them, figuring at any moment they would emerge from a bus. Finally I let a pudgy young man steer me to a hotel across the street where I finally got a shower.

The hotel room was fusty musty and hot, dark and depressing. I was feeling pretty lousy but when I left the room that night a curly haired boy drinking in the bar next door invited me to join him and his friends for beers. Turns out they are a group of environmentalists, N and D living under gazebos in one of the towns small farms. They are volunteers, teaching recycling and sustainability to children and learning from the locals and organising projects. Most importantly they spoke English, though D, a woman I found a bit mesmerising with her long, long course curls, voluptuous body and bohemian clothes, spoke mostly in slow Spanish to me, helping me to learn.

I drank with them and then met them the next day for a trip to the capital of La Guajira, Mingaeo, where they brought me to meet local school children. There was a festival celebrating an independence battle and the kids were dressed as the Queen of Spain, soldiers, natives and other historical figures. We came at the end of the shows unfortunately but I watched the young kids chase each other around. The boys ran around hitting everybody with pieces of foam broken from a set piece. Now I understand why I was such a geek. If a kid came and randomly hit me I would have taken it personally and got upset. But the girls merely smiled and ran away, kind of joining in the game. Not that some of them didn't hit back.

Later a group of children of various ages encircled me, but I couldn't talk to them much. They asked me to dance and one girl put regaton on her cell phone and danced with me. They seemed thrilled by me even though I couldn't always understand or answer their questions and they gave me a string bracelets and two foil rings to remember them by. I was sorry not to have anything for them, but I gave the girl who gave me the bracelet an earring out of my ear and a bit of change since she actually asked me for money.

So I'm not dipping into the stories but fully tasting them, aren't I?

To come: the beauty of the end of the earth, the 22-year-old from Riohacha who followed me back to Palomino and stole my phone, my ongoing problems saying no to men...

What a crazy, up and down trip I'm having. And now I have absolutely no photos (gone with my phone) so you'll all just have to come to this beautiful country to see it for yourselves!

August 3, Taganga

I have finally left Barranquilla. This is what happens with couchsurfing. I intend to stay only a few days but I end up staying much longer, partly because I really enjoy my hosts, partly because in the face of their kindness my will gets subsumed by theirs. I don´t think Colombians have the same sense of time as we do in the West. They aren´t always on the go, go, go, and from what I can tell they spend a lot of time doing nothing. At least this was my experience in Barranquilla. There´s not that much to do and many people don´t have enough money to do much anyway. M spent a lot of time lying on the couch or in the hammock, and so did her mother when she came to visit. Maybe they do more when guests aren´t around.

Anyway, this meant I spent a lot of time also doing nothing, well, I did a lot of talking. But when I said ´I want to go to this place´, or ´I am going to leave tomorrow´, often it didn´t happen. G liked to organise things for me, like taxis and buses, and if he didn´t get it done, I didn´t go. I´m not complaining. It is nice to have people care for your safety. It just means that I don´t have lots of stories from my time in the not beautiful city of Barranquilla.

Yesterday I watched 3 documentaries, 1 on a gay, misanthropic Colombian writer, and 2 on the problems of the monetary system and how it is going to lead to one global government ruled behind the scenes by bankers. Called Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum, the documentaries gave an utterly convincing explanation about how Jesus is just a sun god based on ancient astrology (12 disciples the zodiac, 3 kings a constellation, that kind of thing), provided evidence that 9-11 was a Bush Administration job, following a long history of US designed efforts to get us to enter wars, and talked about how the Fed Reserve Bank is the biggest evil put on the world´s people because it enslaves people and government to debt. The second documentary then discussed a utopian project to build a resource economy, where technology would make everything abundant so we wouldn´t need to pay for anything or work anymore.

Yesterday evening, G, the German couchsurfer and I finally made it to La Cueva, the bar where Marquez and other writers and artists drank and wrote. Now it is a fancy, expensive place, but it was nice to be there. On the night I left off my last blog, the three of us, plus M went to a nice bar with wood and booths that played traditional Colombian music. We shared a bottle of aguardiente. Then we went back to G´s, now joined by his brother and girlfriend, G bought another bottle of aguardiente, and we danced a bit and made merry until 5.30am. This was the first time I´ve been drunk in Colombia.

I think the highlight of my time in Barranquilla was dancing in the rain with M. I was lounging around reading, a bit bored, and it poured and poured, thundering and lightning. I was sticky and hot and decided to go out and play in the rain like I did when I was a child. A great African song was playing on the stereo, so I danced outside the door. M joined me and we danced and danced to this really long song. She then got out the shampoo and conditioner and washed my hair. It was joyous.

Must go. Tomorrow will go into Tayrona National Park for beautiful beaches and forest walks.

30 July 2010, Barranquilla

I write to you from Barranquilla. This is an industrial/residential town, with many neighbourhoods full of one-story houses. I am back to couchsurfing, which has been lovely. I haven´t been on the go, go, go, but have been hanging out talking to G and M. M does not speak English, but we have managed to have some pretty serious girl talk with my limited Spanish and her even more limited English. I think she is very frustrated about this because she tells G that she thinks we would be close friends if we could speak the same language, but I'm just so happy I am communicating and understanding anything at all in Spanish that I am chuffed. Only couchsurfers can speak slow enough for me to understand. No one that I meet in public can slow down their speaking.

I talk in English with G in the mornings and late evenings, when he comes home from work. He is an avid reader, loves Neitzche, considers himself a nihilist and an atheist. He has the exuberance of someone who knows that his ideas are right, though he claims to understand that all is relative to our own egos. We can talk for four hours at a time. And let me tell you, he is doing most of the talking.

Today the three of us went into town and wandered through the streets of street sellers, soaking up the local atmosphere. We went into his favourite used bookshop, a wonderful two-level place of dusty old books in neat piles on the shelves. I bought two more books in Spanish by Eduardo Caballero Calderon. One day I will be able to read them. I began the young adult book by Calderon that I bought and couldn´t get through the first sentence, even with the help of my Spanish/English dictionary. But I will keep trying. How else to learn?

Cartagena is a quaint and romantic place. I preferred the neighbourhood my hostel was in, Getsamani, to the city inside the walls, but both are full of coloured houses with balconies. In Getsamani everything is rustically run-down and the doors to the houses are open so you can see inside to the tile-floored living rooms with couches, porch chairs and television sets. On Tuesday I met an Israeli couchsurfer in the hostel and we went out to an expensive sushi dinner together. We drank mojitos and the chef made me a beautiful gourmet vegetarian sushi, but it was the most expensive day I have had so far in Colombia. The sushi was $515,000 pesos, two drinks (it was happy hour) $13,000.

While we were eating and discussing the politics and economy of Israel, the two New Yorkers I invited myself to sit with in the square in the old town the night before came into the sushi place. I was engrossed in conversation, when I heard a male voice say,`'Is that Rachel?` I had sat with them for an hour and a half or so and talked about the politics and economics of Latin America. They both worked in finance and were much more pro-capitalist than me. I would love to have the Colombians I talk to explain to the Americans I talk to how the West and capitalism have fucked over their country, because I am never able to adequately get across the pillaging nature of capitalism. It is interesting, though, that economic views are so predictable. They are deeply related to one´s country's economic experience. Americans don't really understand the negative impacts of capitalism and South Americans feel exploited not only by the US but mostly by their own corrupt politicians.

The three men and I later met up in the old city to go to a salsa club. But the club was pretty empty and we paid $10,000 (which got us an overpriced drink) to get into a non-salsa discoteque. This was okay. The music was fine, but the boys wanted to stay on the upper level, which was really crowded and I could tell they really wanted to dance with Colombian girls. The Israeli and I didn´t stay that long.

On the Tuesday I took a trip to the Isles de las Roques. I wanted to try to find a little boat to tae me there, as a Swedish guy in the hostel suggested but I wandered around on Monday unable to find the right port for those boats. Instead I went to the modern art museum with a special exhibit on Mexican art and it´s normal South American art exhibit. It was a small and nice gallery. By Monday night I felt I had done Cartagena. I had walked around the old neighbourhoods and some of the ordinary central bits of Cartagena. So, it was good that the trip to Playa Blanca took all day Tuesday. I booked the trip in the hostel and was told to arrive at 7.30am. The large cruising boat didn`t leave until 9.00.

On the boat I talked with a Colombian man and his young son, who both spoke English. They were on a three-month holiday together. The boy was very smart and sweet. Our first stop was at an island with an aquarium. I didn´t want to go to the aquarium, was just desperate to finally get in water - so I hopped into the Caribbean, though there was no beach on this island. Some others were also in the water and one older woman talked to me a lot in rapid-fire Spanish that I barely understood.

The next stop was Playa Blanca, a long beach of white sand, trees, and many people trying to sell you things. We had lunch on the island and I went for a snorkel. It was decent - I saw some nice small phosphorescent fish and one nice coral. Here the Caribbean is very warm and waveless, clear green. So I was a little bit lonely and bored and came back sunburnt.

Now, though Barranquilla doesn't have much to see other than the bar that Marquez and other writers hung out in, and I'm not doing much other than talking, I feel good to be with couchsurfers and in a home. Tonight we are meeting a German couchsurfer and going for drinks at a bar. So next post may be about Barranquilla nightlife.

24 July 2010, Manizales

My trip has definitely gotten better since leaving big cities. I am also hostelling for a bit, which means I meet people who speak English to hang out with.

On Thursday and Friday I was in the quaint city of Salento. It is a small town of very colourful restaurants and artesan shops. On Thursday I walked the religous steps up a mountain - with messages about Jesus - and then found a trail. I met a man who asked me if I wanted him to take me to the river. I said yes because the river looked and sounded so good. We walked through barbed wire, mud, swamp and when we got to the river he started massaging and kissing me. I wouldn't let him kiss me on the lips, nor would I engage in chatter about his penis size, nor did I touch him back. He was a bit angry. But I bought him a beer and then went back to the hostel, a lovely, small, clean, wood-floored place.

On Friday I went hiking with the other folks in the hostel - young Americans and an old German couple. We walked through a valley of farmland with vews of the mountains before and behind us. We entered the non-cleared part of the mountains and it was beautiful ´bosque´, rainforest. It was such a gorgeous walk that I felt wonderful. Though it did get hard at the end as we kept climbing up and up and up. Finally we reached a mountaintop house serving hot drinks with cheese (this is normal in Colombia). After drinks and a rest we walked all the way back, which took half the time (maybe an hour and a half).

I spent the evening drinking beer with an interesting Israeli boy and left for Manizales in the morning. It was a beautiful mountainous bus trip and Manizales is such a pretty city, strewn through the mountains on all different levels. There is a cable car up to the top, the historic centre, and I took photos.

Today, I spent the day in a national park, in a bus driving from cloud forest to desert. Then my group spent 3 hrs climbing a snow-topped peak. We didn´t climb very far but we climbed to 5,000 feet so it was really hard going. We stopped every 5 minutes to recover our breathing. Climbing at high altitude is not fun and it is cold, and bare dirt peaks covered in snow aren't beautiful to me, but I am glad I made the climb as I kept wanting to give up.

After a big Colombian lunch, we went to hot springs for an hour. In a half hourwe party.

19 July 2010, Cali

Finally, I have gotten back into my gmail account (well, it isn't working at the moment on Z's computer, but thanks to Michelle I was able to reset my password because she got me back into my lipmag account, which was the address my password reset was sent to). So, thank you, Michelle! This makes me feel so much better, having my gmail, my blog, my photos, documents, contacts(!!) back.

Hopefully this sees my mood pick up. I admit I have not been the traveller I would like to be. I am beginning now to recover from the flu thanks to the healthy food that Z keeps serving me and lots of rest. The rest is a problem, though, because I feel more like sleeping than doing anything else. Today I wandered around Cali, a big city of 4 million, and just kept thinking about how down I felt and how I don´t particularly want to be here. I feel at the moment like this trip is something I have to endure. I guess I am just not interested in being in big, non-beautiful cities anymore.

Cali is a party city but I haven't felt up for partying. I must get out soon, but I think Z likes having the company and she is another who is treating me so well. But I need to get to the north coast and its beaches. It will be well deserved. At least it is hot here and, today, sunny.

In Bogota I went to the botanic garden. The tropical greenhouses are very lovely, all palmy and orchidy and lily-paddy. However, it poured so I spent more time reading When I Was Five I Killed Myself (excellent book!) in the cafe than wandering the gardens. I walked from the Transmilenio stop (the train-like bus system), ate fried yucca and plantains while it poured, stopped in a big beautiful wood library while it poured again, walked through a huge park to the botanic gardens. I got lost on the way back in the big park and ended up accepting a ride from a military man to the Transmilenio stop. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and told me he loved me but dropped me off safely at the stop. Well, maybe not so safely: I had to walk along a tiny median strip between the Transmilenio, which has it's own lanes, and the highway in order to get into the stop, which felt very dangerous.

I also spent a day with A´s other couchsurfers going to the Salt Cathedral, a vast, vast serious of coves with crosses and halls with benches made in the salt mine. This is a huge attraction in Colombia, but I wasn't that impressed. Natural caves do it for me much more than a lot of simple religious crosses and a few detailed angels. The scale of the place was the most impressive part.

from World Nomad´s blog, 16 July 2010

So, I´ve lost access to my Blogger blog. I resume journaling here.

Bogota is a nice city. I cannot find a better word than ´nice´. It isn´t beautiful (though there are beautiful things here), it isn´t grand (though there are grand things here). It is neither friendly or unfriendly. It isn´t full of garbage and graffiti, there are many roads of second-world-looking warehouses and shops, there are gated communities and shopping malls.

There is a stunning very old section of colourful small houses, some amazing cathedrals, impressive colonial buildings of grandeur, stylish cafes and bars, industrial roads, large highways, a shitload of road construction, neighbourhoods swathed in new apartment building, identical building after identical building, green mountains rising up around the city. It is warmish but grey, low-lying. Bogota is an incredibly architecturally diverse - hodgepodge - affair. I dig it.

My time here has been marred by the flu that is debilitating me a little bit, my constant dry mouth because I can´t breathe out of my nose. I have played the traditional Colombian game of tejo, where you throw heavy metallic - not disks, not balls - space-ship like objects at a slanted board of mud. The object is to get your tejo to stick in the mud in the middle of two pink paper triangles stuck on the board with gunpowder in them. If you get in the middle zou get 6 points. If you make the gunpowder go off you get 3 points. Otherwise the person whose tejo sticks nearest the middle gets 1 point. I was actually alright at this muddy game that involves drinking beer. You pay for the beer, not the game.

I am not feeling very motivated to write much, or even to do much. Tonight I take a night bus to Cali, where hopefully it is hot and sunny. This, I need.