A Swift Farewell?

28/July/2009 9PM
Finally back in Bogota! The 20-hour trip extended seemingly indefinitely. As I stood on the bus to disembark, a young fellow said, "Follow me, I'll show you which bus to catch to Candelaria," without me even begging for directions. The Transmileno seems pretty efficient, run like a subway with tickets and turnstiles at the entrance, rather than on board in a frenetic pocket-searching melee amid all the other passengers. The buses even look like subways, molded-plastic seats lining the walls, broad tinted windows, two segments separated by a plastic accordian lined with metal surrounding a circular pivot in floor and celing. The line map even resembles the one in New York.
We chat for a while on the bus. He's on summer break from college in Amsterdam, vising his family, the coast, and the jungle before returning to his studies.
I tell him I'm an English major, which narrows nothing down as far as my job-market choices. Teach English, he says, or translate. How's your SPanish?
Indeed, how is my Spanish? Seems alright. Could use some improvement...but can't we all?
I should have steered our conversation towards an invitation to crash on his parents' couch, but i missed the opportunity, and as he got up to get off, he took my email and said, "If I ever get down to Brazil to open my bar, I will give you an email."
"Yeah," I retort, "and maybe by that time I'll be teaching English down there and I'll help you find a place."

Now I'm back in the Platypus awaiting five AM. Another traveler is heading to the airport in the morning, and we've agreed to share a taxi. I don't have enough cash left for my own. I'd have had to go out in the dodgy small hours to catch a bus. This way I'll arrive two extra hours early. Christ.
It seems appropriate to be sitting at this table which bears my initials carved in three months ago. Sometimes it seems like a long time, and sometimes but a flash. Looking back I wish I'd been better about keeping notes, since everything not tied down will be lost overboard. Oh well, next time. I guess I can keep an appendix for retrograde remembrances.

Little ants trotting across the page following the scent of dulce-de-leche crumbs. The clock ticks on the wall next to the big hand-drawn map of Bogota. Which someone spent an inordinate amount of time on. The kitchen is locked, and I'm denied the coffee which made this country famous. This cookie is dry in my mouth, and I desperately wish for something hot to drink. I'm alone in the hours between the civilized bedtime of those with something scheduled tomorrow and the return of those out partying. At the moment I'm not yet tired. Time will soon begin its slow decline to standstill while my eyes droop and the words of my book melt together and mingle with the roman numerals passing in the distance.

I hear nothing except the ticking clock, the faint murmur of nightduty Spanish, and my slow-thumping heart. My eyelids feel heavy, like pillows. Similes come slowly to my weary mind. My skin feels greasy, and I can slmost still smell the grit of travel under my fingernails. Hair clings to my head or stands up crazily. Glasses slide interminably down my nose. I regard the clock through the small lenses. Three more hours. A book lies finished on the table before me. Another one sits in my bag waiting. I'm suddenly no longer very tired. I just want to shower, to change my clothes. In flipflops, my toes are cold and slightly sticky. How long can I spend in the shoer? Depends how hot it is...

A hot shower rejuvenates me, gives me a second wind. I have the hot water tanks all to myself, and take full advantage until my fingertips turn to blanched prunes and my toes regain sensation. Returning to the common room to start a new book, I stumble upon a group of three returned from the bar, nursing Aguila beers.
One fellow from Philidelphia--or was it Pittsburg? I said the wrong one before and he took offense--one bloke from northern London, and a girl from Switzerland on her way to study in Barcelona after B.A. The usual assortment.
They were in the middle of arguing about football--both kinds at once; that was the argument--when I walked in with my Michigan Football T-shirt, prompting the American to proclaim his alma-mater allegiance in red and white. I tell him that while the Badgers have done alright against us in the past couple seasons, we're still overall better in football, academics, and intangibles. He retorted something about cheese and beer. I said nothing, only chuckled and daydreamed of a nice Bell's Porter.

As I watch the minute hand crawl around the American's watch, I realize I'm not at all tired. He stands me a couple of beers as five o'clock (am) rolls around. The guy from San Francisco I'd agreed to share a taxi with steps in groggily. How fitting that I began my journey with someone from California in this hostel, and I'm leaving the same sorta way. He pays for my half of the taxi, leaving me enough cash for a coffee and empanada at the airport.
I'm offered an exit row, and I accept, picturing my heroics in the event of a crash...or at least first one out the door. However that goes. Fighting down the prickly feeling of a bad omen--so far the night has gone rather too splendidly after t he late arrival of my bus--I wait for the counter to print my ticket. Oops, she says, looks like it's already been taken. Fine by me. I prefer to be crushed up against my tray table anyway.

The staffat the airport seem eager to try their English, while I desperately cling to Spanish, feeling my vocabulary already slipping away like grains in a glass.
Tick tock tick tock: the digital clock on my phone makes no noise, as surreal seconds slip silently toward takeoff, passing unnoticed like so many stories and memories. This whole trip already come and gone like a flash in a pan; I close my eyes and the purple stain dances across the backs of my eyelids, brilliant but transient and already fading. Can I capture its essence like a few photographs valued at a few thousand words? Or is it already too late...?

At the gate they turn me away. Too early. I sit across the way on a stiff woven-orange chair and rest my eyes. My heart pounds rapidly, sending extra oxygen to my overwrought brain. Soon it will start trying to dream, deprived of sensory-organization down-time for...who knows how long. At least 24 hours since my last snooze. And then just a catnap.

As soon as they open the gate for my flight, I stand and shuffle to the desk.
"Listen," I say to the pretty girl with more eye makeup than she needs. She blinks and smiles. "I'm recovering from malaria, and I desperately need rest." I smile back, wanly, exhaustedly, expectantly.
"Of course," she says, checking my ticket. "Go on ahead. Have a nice flight."
"Thanks," I yawn, and head down the tunnel and up the aisle, collapsing gratefully into my seat. Some minutes later a very attractive girl sits next to me, but my headphones are already on, and I probably won't bother trying to talk to her. The sirens of sleep already have me in their grasp.

We fly through some billowy stacks of clouds, approaching Orlando. Cuba lies well astern. The plane trembles as the windows are obscured by milky vapor, and in clear patches, I can see a rainbow far below, a streak of color across the pale green land.
Houses arranged in subdivisions; lakes glittering; a grouping of baseball diamond, softball diamond, football field, and track: a high school. America looks gorgeous, and I am looking forward to arriving at home for some well deserved rest before launching into the Next Thing--this time with some income!
But I will miss South America and all the adventures I've had, the lessons I've learned, the people I've met, regrets and triumphs: everything.

It just gets better. Weather over New York decided to shit on my homecoming parade, keeping the plane on the ground in Orlando until it was far too late to make my connecting flight to Chicago. We finally land at JFK at about the time I was supposed to land in CHicago. Grateful for cell phones. Thanks for the smooth welcome!

At customs, an older fellow greeted me, flipped through my passport a bit, and said, "Welcome home."
"Goddamn," I grinned, "I like the sound of that." And so here I am.

And that was supposed to be a nice Greek circle, closed and neat. But it's starting to look more like a spiral as I sit crosslegged in the JFK airport about to board a hop to Boston and catch an am flight to Chi-town.
I make contact with Erik and stifle my surprise when he eagerly agrees to meet me at the airport...if I ever get there. I'm losing track of my space/time orientation, sleep starved and weary. But Boston will be fun...if I ever get there.
Porr David has to get up at 4 to drive out to pick my ass up. Just think of it as a wake-and-bake adventure, I tell him. My ankles itch maddeningly, and I wonder if I'm bed-bug bit. Fucking hostels.
I'm having a bit of difficulty with English, expecting all the time to have to negotiate travel difficulties beginningwith "Hola, buenas, tengo un problema..." but everyone here speaks English, and it's hard to get used to.
To top it all off, my dying phone, battered and abused by travel, has very little charge left, and I'm constantly fighting to keep from smashing it with a well-placed elbow, since it barely works anymore. What luck.

I hate the woman sitting next to me chatting hoarsely into her rhinestone-encrusted cell phone. Her blonde hair is piled on top of her head like straw as she whines about the recent rain ruining her do.
She has the voice and tone of a 19-year-old sorority girl, but she's about twice that age. Blah blah blah, she says, spewing gossip and filling the air wiht idiocy. The PA interrupts to announce the arrival of our plane, and people all around me start stirring. Oh my god, she just said "whatev." I want to throw my phone at her temple.
Everything feels a bit surreal.
My feet fall asleep, and I relish the anthill rush of prickly awakening. Time to walk.

The Boston airport is closed. I stay alive with single-serving snack packs and caffeine. I yield to the surreality of the predawn airport where everything is in stasis and a ghostly pallor illuminates the lost souls wandering in search of connecting flights.
I keep seeing people I know, and watch as they turn to strangers, unuttered greetings dying softly on my lips.
A security guard strolls past, impossible chin protruding past his blue smokey-the-bear hat. He disappears as scrolling marquees catch my eye. Pretty colors.
Janitors whistle as they push mops and buff floor tiles, Red Sox caps pulled low in the chilly sterile air.
My teeth feel mossy, and my breath tastes foul. The guy next to me on the plane smelled like a freshman. I briefly consider killing the taste with vodka, but opt for toothpaste instead. THe bars are all closed.

My body feels the pull of acceleration as the plane roars down the runway, but then I jolt awake and realize I'm sitting in the lobby in an uncomfortable chair, trying unsuccessfully to fade into sleep. I start to wonder when I'll meet Tyler Durden.
Trying to tally the hours, I realize it's July 30th, and I should be home in bed. Best estimate: 50h interspersed with less-than-adequate catnaps.

I wonder if I could leap behind the Dunkin Donuts counter and start the coffee brewing. Would they mind?
I also briefly consider riding around in a wheelchair, but abandon the idea to laziness.

Daylight, and the airport awakens to swelling swarms of people. I stir myslf and join the correct flow, finding my gate. The metal curve of the bombilla mate straw in my backpack causes a brief panic among the redeye security team, but we sort things out, and the heavy-lidded surge continues.
I locate and drink a large coffee, chasing it with some oatmeal before sitting to wait at the gate. Time flickers past, and I find myself in my window seat, twitching awake to stare out at the looming jet engine as the flight attendant passes out soda and coffee. I turn to my seatmate and ask the time. One hour to go. Barring, of course, any unforseen snafus.
The morning sun shines a brilliant blue, and Tyra Banks smiles her famous grimace on the TV in front of my face, talking to an absurdly pale zombie-flesh woman with sunken eyes and lank brown hair. Tyra, wearing a ring the size of a pizza, appears to be saying something rather droll and witty. I switch the channel to football reruns.

Last look at the land

How fitting that I'm spending 20 of my last 36 hours on a bus. A bit of a shame, but what can you do? That's travel departure. It tends to be rushed and tense, exhausting and infuriating, and mostly rather dull except in moments of frenzy. At the moment I'm just glad to be under airconditioning. By this time in my journey I've been having to carefully weigh and craftily justify every penny spent.

On long busrides you go to sleep with music in your ears and wake up sometime later in eerie silence cushioned by the rumble of the road and the occasional snore from other passengers folded into nearby seats. Choose another album and drift off again, waking up later remembering only a song or two. This repeats indefinitely.

The AC gets cold as time wears on, so you put on a jacket and roll down your pantlegs, hugging yourself with clammy arms trying to get your head comfortable. Now and then you wake up and the bus is stopped, letting folks on or off, filling up the tanks, opening doors to policemen for inspections.

In typical South American efficiency, the bus has broken down, and we're stranded sans spare a few hours from Bogota. I'm feverishly glad I decided to give myself plenty of leeway between busride and flight home. Bored, the men outside rock the bus like a cradle and piss on the tires. I guess they don't make the connection that they'd have to handle those tires in the event of a flat.

On his belly beside and under the back of the bus, a man fiddles with tools and lugnuts while the driver kneels alongside shouting instructions. An ambulance shrieks past. We're also stuck in a long line of vehicles, presumably an accident-caused logjam. Salesfolk dart hither and thither, taking full advantage. Here it's food vendors. At home: lawyers. Even if they get the repairs done, we still aren't going anywhere.

I fill my pipe with the last of my tobacco and sit outside on the hill, puffing fragrant smoke and watching the fellows under the bus. In front of me a boy breaks a twig into increasingly smaller fragments.

The side of the bus is decorated horribly ironically; a picture of a supersonic airplane superimposed over the globe. The name "Concorde" in dashing red letters over a swath of green. Now being passed and left behind as traffic picks up once again. The vendors tramp off, chuckling and joking. And here we sit.

Someone once asked me do I liken myself a Tom or a Huck. I was stricken by the question as deeply philosophical and a bit mind boggling. After forming my own guess, I asked what she thought. She told me I was born a Tom but on my way to becoming Huck, a dreamer trying to put some plans to action.

Tom's a bright sumbitch, but gets caught up in his schemes and grand plans at the expense of others, while Huck is more simple and just ups and goes, taking adventure in stride. Tom is more wont to build an adventure, beginning to end, wrapping the whole blasted thing in neat little bows and ribbons. He, like I, has a swollen sense of drama.

As I sit here scratching away, I reckon she's right. But then the question arrises: whom do I want to be?

Another Concorde bus finally swoops by, and we continue on our way to Bogota. The countryside rolls by, rocky hills, patchwork fields, jungle slopes--and I realize with each passing fern and banana tree that these sights are my last. I simply cannot believe I'm going home tomorrow. The realization twists me up. I will miss this place, this pace. I'm ready for home...sometimes.

Clouds hang low over the valley, slinking over peaks and gulleys. I don't want to deal with the waiting--waiting for morning, waiting in a taxi, waiting in the airport, on the tarmac, for my connecting flight. Travel itself, point A to B is a bit of a void wherein time disappears and nothing quite happens. Even the world outside the vehicle seems frozen or at least unreal, like the movie playing out on the screen above the aisle.

Premature nostalgia

27/Jul/2009

I suddenly realize, with morbid regret, that no matter how I try, I'll lose so many stories, anything I've not written down. I'm truly amazed by my poor notetaking skills, both in general and on this daring jaunt which, I vividly discover every so often each day with pounding nostalgia, HAS HAPPENED and I'm about to be going home. It's rubbish. Absolute rubbish.

I'm reminded of the mortality of this trip just now and my note-taking by a story being told to my right about a guy being rolled on the street before arriving at his hostel to sit on the toilet shitting out his guts and puking in the nearby shower. How many times have I heard a similar story and feared the worst every time I shat a little loosely? No one wants the Screaming Eagle, but we're all aware of its hovering existence.

Stories circulate through the Culture of Travelers, making the rounds with quiet changes and subtle cultural tweaking across borders, through translations, and over time. Remarkable the stories one could collect given time enough and diligence to observe by first-hand gonzo experience. The Culture of Travelers is a remarkably vibrant entity, existing just beyond the awareness of those who've never been, like the world's biggest mushroom, growing just below the surface.

You hear the stories and nod, learning the lessons and vowing never to get into such an imbecilic situation, until you find yourself the victim of a brilliant scheme by the universe designed to test your sense of humor, aplomb, and grit. Everything balances itself out if one's focus isn't chokingly tight. We're all a sort of quivering mass in the personified muddle of space, time, life, economic cycles, ideas, and miscellaneous extras. I haven't quite figured it all out yet, but I will someday, even if that day is after my strings have been assimilated into the twisting chaos of the particulate realm of the subatomic.

Confront the Fear

One evening as we sat on the beach sipping rum, we saw a boy standing at the lapping edge of the water, crying and tiptoeing onto the damp sand, but turning back at the first touch of water. A plastic bag thrown in by an older person, presumably a father, sank, shining faintly white under the dark water.

I turn to my British mates, one a junior highschool chemistry teacher and the other a sardonic computer guy who used to rock dreads, and wonder what's going on over there. The boy's plaintive cries reach our ears, and I stand up, resolute to sate my curiosity.

"I'm going to help him," I say, draining my dixie cup. I roll up my pant cuffs and saunter over.

The boy stands barechested wearing boardshorts past his knees. His belly bulges slightly, unaware yet of the idea of the sixpack.

"Qué pasó? Qué pasó, chico?" I call.

"La bolsa," he blubbers, tear-streaked cheeks glinting in the moonlight as he points at the bag. "I need to get it. Swim to get it."

"Porqué?" I ask.

"Mi padre...la bolsa...pescados...enojado!" he wails, little-kid Spanish fading into incomprehensibility.

"Tranquilo, chico," I urge, biting back laughter. We'd speculated this was some sort of rite of passage or cajolery by his dad to get him past a fear of water.

"Hay aguas malas y no puedo nadar," he whimpers. Bad scary water lay just a few feet past the submerged bag, surface hidden by shadows from shore.

"Tienes miedo?" I know how to deal with kids' fear. He nods dramatically, clasping his hands in front of himself after flapping them once in consternation.

"You can do it," I say, stepping into the surf. "Mira, I am going to come in with you. Then you can go?" He nods again, venturing into the gently curling water. By this time, the bag has drifted deeper, lulled by a riptide.

"No tenemos mucho tiempo," I warn; better get it now. I know he wants me to reach in and get it for him, but I think we both know that could never happen. Prime Directive sort of ideal. Minimize direct influence. I coax him in further, water lapping up my rolled pantlegs (These good old pants! I shall miss their constant greasy company!) He comes within a finger's breadth of snagging the prize, earning steep praise from his father, the gruff sort of approval boys live and die for.

"Ah, very close." He backs off, and looks up at me dolefully. "Try another time." You can do it, you are strong. Mira, your arms. Flex. Musculos. I pop my biceps and he grins, pointing at his own wiry upper arm. But mine's soft, he whines. My god, how to explain the mechanics of muscle movement to a little Colombian niño, barely old enough to blow his own nose? I get the point across, and he concedes that he is big and strong.

"I will be right here," I promise, "if anything mal happens."

He ventures forth again. Shit, the bag's drifted much more. He's in gentle high-tide swells up to his armpits. At this point, he might not get the bag. But gah! so close. Come on, little man, you can do this. Be strong. Quick! I send mental blasts of telegrams, but my accuracy is off, and he backs off again, pulling at my arm.

"Por favor!" he cries, "won't you get it señor?" I realize with amusement that he's calling me usted. It sounds different, more genuine from a boy of five than from an ingratiating street vendor. Alas, I cannot. If this is a test from your pops and I ruin it, I'd never forgive myself for contributing among other things to the pussification of the next generation. My friend, I tell him silently, if you can't get it now, you will next time.

He gives up, and we turn back. The older guy who'd thrown the bag in turns out to be the waiter/owner of the restaurant where we'd just eaten pizza, and in fact is the boy's father.

"Muy cerca," I shrug. He almost had it.

"Ge got closer when you were there than before," he smiles, "He has made progress with your help."

I laugh at the praise, embarrassed. "I remember when I was five, how scary the world was."

"Si," he nods.

"Proxima vez," I suggest. Next time. They both agree, and Papi scoops up the shivering boy in a towl and bears him toward the house and an awaiting bowl of soup.

Queen's English and Caribbean Air

26 July 2009

Oso perezoso (lazy bear) is what the Spaniards called the sloths they found in the jungles. WHen I first arrived at the so-named hostel, I thought it referred to the middle-age-girthed Canadian who was sitting at a table near the kitchen. His green checkered short-sleeved button-up contrasted wildly with the fuschia flowers on his board shorts. Over his head, woven palm fronds formed a roof alongside the platform where the hammocks hung. A few scattered tables and chairs stood between pots of potato plants, ferns, a rose bush, and what looked like a maple sprout but couldn't be.

Below the concrete floor of this open-air bar and lounge are guest rooms, but I've opted for the cheaper, less stuffy hammocks. After all, it's the Carribean. On this floor is a shower with three walls, open to the town and the hostel owner bustling about checking on her laundry (this is how we met). A black plastic reservoir perches above, but water pressure is a trickle. The bar of soap has turned to lava soap by virtue of the grit in the cinderblock on which it sits.

The owners' baby plays with trucks on the floor while a puppy and kitten tussle, and Roberto the parrot looks on burbling encouragement. To my right the bay sparkles, opening out on the broad sea. The construction near the beach is invisible past the trees.

In the office, a remarkable collection of books for trade including Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Animal Farm, and many others, a far cry from the usual hostel book exchange selection featuring Agatha Christie and other simpleminded dreck.

It's about quite exactly what you'd expect of a small Caribbean town tasting tourism and loving it. Doubling in size every year or so, its unchecked growth means the loss of whatever quaintness it is that makes them locals. But ask them how they feel about the rapid ingress of foreigners, and they'll beam and say, "Tank you for coming to my country. You welcome here," a gleam of white teeth in bronze skin adding, "Buy a bracelet?" For them, globalisation spells money and infrastructure and eager ever-changing flocks of customers.

On the other side of town my British friends are staying in a different hostel. They've been quite good motivators when I vacillate because of financial reasons. I can't really say 'no' to $75 scuba lessons, can I? And I'm already in debt, aren't I? My parents won't exactly begrudge me a few more quid, will they?

I find myself picking up Britishisms, renewing my old Anglophilic passions. I'll go there someday.

But here I am in the balmy Caribbean eve--and it is balmy: there is no other more accurate word...except sometimes "sultry"--scratching away and wondering, not about anything useful, but instead about whether i'll be able to fill this notebook up to the last page by the time I land in the States. I simply cannot believe I've less than a handful of days left in this arduous and enlightening vacation. Unreal.

I've been enjoying the company of these Limeys a great deal. Their humor is delightfully droll, compounded by their funny accents. They argue about their alma maters, one having gone to Cambridge and one having gone to Oxford. Neil, the long-haired computer guy, is surprisingly a vegetarian, though his gauntish sprawling limbs attest to it. His skin is pale--whether from lack of quality food out here or just out of Britishness is anyone's guess. His narrow face draws into a wry grimace at the thought of...most things. I'm surprised to discover that he's actually pretty good with women, despite his gawky hacker hands. Maybe it's because he's a bit of a tit. A nerd who decided to say "fuck it" and brave the awesome menace of the female human.

He woke up late this morning for SCUBA diving, nursing a headache and complaining of female-friend interference.

"She wanted very much to come back with me, but her friend was very keen on going home."

Flying and football

22/Jul/09
The Hostel Macando in San Gil offers outdoorsy tours of all kinds ranging from abseiling down a waterfall to whitewater kayaking and rafting, to paintball, hiking, biking, and paragliding.
My British chums, Neil and Richard and I chose the latter. We spent the morning lazing around, reading, using the internet, relaxing in the heat. At noon we boarded the van to take us up the hill.
After the guide wrestled the side door shut, we rumbled and rattled up a steep road which turned into a cobbled two-track passing through tobacco and corn fields, drying huts, barns, convenience stores, and the necessary coffee plantations shaded by banana trees.
At the top of the hill we parked in the shade of an enormous leanto under which hung hundreds of tobacco leaves in various stages of dryness, and unloaded gear from the van's roof rack. We hiiked briefly between rows of tobacco plants which are a sort of sickly pale green when growing, and came out on the cleared hilltop where the guides began laying out harnesses and parachutes.
The wind gusts pretty strong at the top of the hill. Condors sail on the breeze, and in the distance a few wing-shaped parachutes indicate another company's earlier start. A few shrieks of excitement drift over carried by the wind.
We go by weight, so Richard straps in first. As his parachute inflates, controlled by the pilot attached to his back, it sings like a flute, and then he's lifted up and out of sight. Shading my eyes, I watch until my guide beckons me over, and I hoist the backpack/cushion seat over my shoulders, and the pilot buckles us together. he turns to make some final adjustments--or so I presume for a split second until the nylon billows up and uplls us forward to the edge of the hill.
"Corre!" he says, and I take a few stumbling strides until my feet leave the ground and I stop pumping the air, feeling foolish. We soar up into the air, catching currents and zooming around a bit. I can feel innumerable minute adjustments as the pilot uses hands and feet and body tension to control the wing. We swoop over treetops, grazing so close I consider reaching a toe out to kick at a clump of leaves before Manuel flicks his wrist, and we catch an updraft, climbing so high so fast that I blink, and the forest looks like a thick carpet of various greens far below alongside patchwork fields of tobacco, corn, and coffee, and water reservoirs resemble teacups.
A young condor below us shows off his nature-endowed ability which we've had to manufacture through dextrous ingenuity. He tucks his wings and spins into a dive, leveling out and swinging up on a thermal, soon disappearing from sight above the parachute.
Manuel takes us for a couple of dips and turns before swirling up the same thermal. The distant canyon cuts across the land like a crack in the sidewalk, and Manuel says something.
"Que?" I shout, wind whistling through my ears.
"Spinning?" He repeats. It take me a moment to realize he spoke in English and was asking if I'd like to spiral down.
"Si, claro!"
He chuckles and twists us into an experimental circle pattern, checking the draft. Then suddenly I'm flung outwards, pinched by my harness, G-forces sucking at my stomach as we pivot around the parachute. Wind roars, tearing water from my eyes as the centripetal force strains the straps. I shriek in delight, changing quickly to a manly rebel yell as we circle down down down, leveling out over our takeoff hill and landing with a cushioned thud on the dry grass.
A bit dizzy, I nevertheless consider getting a solo certification at some point in the dreamy future. What a job these guys have: get paid to float on the breeze to the delight of the inexperienced.

Later that night we played soccer with some other guests at the hostel and a bunch of local kids. Five-on-five king-of-the-court with changeover after two goals. Reminded me of bball at the CCRB, and I shot a few hoops with the soccerball before and after the games. My team won nary a game, losing several times to the dynastic Other Gringos, or the second-best team comprised of Colombian youths. Soccer was fun, and I'd very much like to get better at it, but I must admit I was longing for some basketball.
The pitch was concrete, lit by stadium lights, all of which sponsored by the government which maintains soccer arenas in every neighborhood. This strikes me as delightfully civilized and conscious of the People.
I can't believe this is the first time I've played--or even watched live--soccer in South America. A week left and only now do I realize I could have been honing my skills all along if I'd given thought to the matter. Oh well; next time.

Viva la independencia!

20/Jul/2009, Colombian Independence Day

A cloudy sky and brusque breeze keep the streets cool as people mill about enjoying the spectacles. Vendors are out in force, chanting out their wares for anyone nearby: fresh fruit! chorizos! sandwiches! fried platanos! arroz con leche! aromaticas! face paints!
Red, yellow, and blue Colombian flags abound. Some clutched in children's sticky hands alongside foam cut-out pets-on-wires; some worn as garments; some flying overhead the capitol building; some lying castoff in the street amid fruit rinds, sandwich wrappers, cigarette butts, empty styfofoam cups, and other miscellaneous detritus of festivities.
Metallically-dressed performers move like robots when children fill their chest boxes wiht coins, and stray dogs trot around happily gnawing on edible remnants. Near the square, a circle of people gather around a pair of keyboards upon which a young lad lavishes national tunes while a man in a white linen suit sings into a microphone. Behind them an old veteran shuffles a dance and flaps his jaw in time with the words, a vacant grin spread through his white beard. His old blue Navy jacket with its sickle-and-hammer shoulder patch and furry collar stands in grim contrast to the stiff green fatigues of the National Soldiers standing guard around the plaza with assault rifles and pimple-pocked cheeks. The veteran hitches up his patched and discolored trousers, already perched up near his ribs, and adjusts the red fez on his head wiht a gangly nd gnarled hand. A medal pinned to the jacket indicates a fierce pride in his past, outweighing his need to pawn it for food or drink. Someone in the crowd offers him a cigarette, and he gratefully accepts, bowing stiffly before resuming his jig.
Near the Presidential Palace, a crowd gathers, restrained by police--distinguishable from the Army only by the words--and portable crowd-control fences. The people hold signs demanding justice, asking for peace, deploring the lies, and condemning the FARC. Based on that last, and their overall content attitude, I'd guess these folk support Uribe but want even more persecution of the rogue terrorist forces who no longer have any value or goal other than continuing to exist in indiscriminant violence. But some disagree.
A man pushes a wheelchair in which sits a mannikin dressed in a white tunic with a scale in one hand and a rusty machete in the other, an oxygen mask over her face.
Across the street another circcle gathers. People place coins on numbered upsidedown buckets, wagering on which one the trained guinea pigs will run to after their street-suave owner releases them. Children rush to deposit coins as the man goads the crowd with a microphone headset. All I can think of is the cuy I ate in Peru.
A grizzled fellow approaches as I sit on a bench. he greets me respectfully, talking about literature and how he saw me writing.
"I also write," he says.
"Si?" I reply incredulously, "Por un periodico o que?"
No, he says, just for pleasure. He writes about the government, the streets, the people. We lapse into the informal as he presses a dogeared and discolored half-width legal pad into my hands indicating his address scrawled on the cardboard back.
"Guardalo," he says, asking me--if I've understood correctly--to write his life and send it to him. I hide my initial excitement saying, "Yeah, okay. I will." We shake hands, and he leaves. If I can make anything out of the spidery Spanish writing, perhaps I can actually get something done. If not: I'll use the encounter as inspiration and make up the rest. Sure...
The crowd around me thins out as the smoke from a nearby chorizo grill wafts past. I look up nad stare into the eyes of Simón Bolivar as the man carrying the enormous oil painting walks in front of my bench. Slightly spooked, I decide it's time to stroll a bit.
Two guys kneel on the sidewalk in front of a display of landscapes amid an array of spray paints and splotches of color. Their hands, coated in so many hues mingled to dark brown, dab at swaths of color, and spray circles and slashes to produce sunscapes and twilit forests for the amusement and purchase of passersby. Hunched over like that, they must be zoned on fumes: they wear nothing over their faces, though many in their audience hid behind surgical masks in fear of the Flu.
A family of dirty children sprawl in the alcove of a closed bank, forlorn mother (or grandmother) watching with wizened eyes. I hand her my baggie of sausage and fried banana, and she accepts it with mumbled thanks.
"Hey buddy, where you from?" A man in a greasy tweed coat sticks his hand out. He's balding and tall for a Colombian.
"The States," I respond by rote.
"Really? Whereabouts? I'm from New York." I take his hand before kneeling down to appraise a machete as a gift for my brother. He mentions something about calling his sister as I answer "Detroit." If this man thinks I'll just hand him my cell phone...
"What brings you to Colombia?"
Just visiting. What brings you to Colombia? His English is damned good.
"I got in a cab in the city and it turned out the fuckin' thing had bad breaklights, and when a cop pulled us over he found narcotics under the seat so they deported me." Sob.
I tell him I didn't have anything with me--no, not even enough to buy you a coffee--except my books. Lo siento, buddy. He finally walks away, leaving me in peace.
I spend another hour or so reading in the park as the anticlimactic independence day festivities wane toward twilight and bedtime.