Plaza del Periodista

Medellin is a booming city with all amenities and picturesque setting, sprawled in a valley and up its hills. People are fiercely proud and their spanish sounds funny too. I was noticing more and more that lone women don´t travel in colombia and here i was the only. Bunch of foreigners here for the girls, they could never quite get, and the cheap coke which doesn´t quite crack it, nor is it what colombians prefer to take for various reasons. But when i finally caught up with Lorena, who´s also back for holidays, I had sore jaw from a grinning kind of night.

We were going to go dancing, since she is a freak on the dance floor, but when everyone´s budget got tight, she suggested we go to a little ol plaza where young folks hang out. Tiny asymmetrical plaza called parke del periodista(journalist) or parke del guanabana, because there´s a guanabana tree there, or more appropriately, parke del marijuana. There´s some sculptures (one is of person sitting on a bench made of dark metal and when i saw a real person sitting next to it, i became mesmerised), other benches and concrete to park your arse, lolly vendors and pot vendors. Young folks congregate here, have a cheap beer from the small bars around and merrily smoke away. There are metal heads and nerds, middle classes and ones without clean clothes, others with jelled hair, hot babes in stilettos and scraggly-haired ones too, other young girls walk in with adorned bodies but undeveloped and column-like curves, long shinny hair, bringing a cigarette to their budding mouths - clearly not long time smokers. Police do their obligatory patrol/stroll at which point people stop blowing smoke, and they´re on their way again.

La onda estuvo muuuuy buena!
There was a good feeling in the air, friends were bumping into each other every which way, and there was a hum of conversation and laughter in the air. My glazed eyes looked observedly. We picked up 6 friends of Lorena´s and allll was good. I was a hit for a little when some of them prodded me for all the word to describe the state of being HIGH. Needless to say we laughed about it for ages. And what´s more, as we walked by up a street in the balmy night, folks were out and there were even some hovering around each other ...rapping.

Next, bus to Cartagena and the coast.

They´re checking under the car...

Rosana and went to a shopping cetre to see a film and briefly i escaped my life and emersed myself in fantasyland and other people´s troubles. As we entered the carpark, Rosana stops the car, unlocks the doors, and pulls down her window to talk to one of the 4 security guards. They open the back seat doors, look inside the trunck, and slid mirrors under the car. "They´re looking for bombs, but chances are they don´t even know what one looks like."
Bogota is fascinating but it isn't spring time all year round like i've been told. Staying at Rosana's place, her folks doted over me and kept me safe and well. Folks everywhere continue to be ultra curtious.

Down the street we went and there were many lone gitarists in semi-vacant bar-restaurants, battling away. We seem to end up in one with only a handful of people, and 2 middle-aged drunk men, not in that bad a shape, slurring and deforming the musician's song. The very attentive waitress was receiving thanks, when the one of th e duo explained to her that his mate was looking for a woonderful woman just like her, and that what was on offer was a single man, without kids and loaded - that's literally what he said to get his mate laid. Sad old rich professionals.

I got together with the my other colombian mate, Jennifers, and we checked out her old uni, the national university of colombia which was buzzing with youth. Later that night we went to a great ol venue, one that she went to as a uni student. After talking myself in, having no documents and all (all excuses for a tip), i got in and found an awsom vibe, of tiny tables and chairs that squeezed out a little dance space, space to dance to salsa, reggae, african rhythms and coastal colombian carnaval beats... little air despite the tall ceilings, and lots of bodies sweating out alcohol. Indeed i danced the night away all the way till 3 in the morning when the city has to go to sleep. But aparently it kicks arse..

Coffee never tasted sooo good!

Cali supposed to be a party place but i decided to go paragliding instead. Oh that was gooood, and made friends. Called an instructor, Rob, but he couldn´t take me on cos his mum was visiting from Germany and didn´t have time. Nevertheless, gave me instructions how to get there, out of town somewhere passed Palmira and then land in Los Cielos, and promised to pick me up on his motorcycle and passed me on to another instructor on the side of a dirt track - not that he had to. So I squeeze into a 4W and up we go into the hills. I was the first one to jump and a bit nervous but in a very excited way. There´s nothing to it, just keep running off the cliff, is all i was told. I think i´ve got i new hobby when i get back home. Then Rob came by again, cos he had seen me fly and land from his home porch, and we hung out at his farm nearby talking about how living away from our home land was so much better in so many ways - i´m so unpatriotic. At least he was able to tell me of the amazing generosity he encountered when he´d travelled to Australia. It´s always different from the outside..

On his porch, looking into his garden in the sultry heat, i saw amazing butterflies, blue, black, yellow, orange, with big long legs prancing around flowers, humming birds, bees, beetles the size of my thumb zooming around in stereo from one side of my head to the other, and eagles flew above. It seemed like heaven. Out here in the country, there was pockets of silence, but not always, cos just about everywhere there are people living you´ll hear salsa music or the like.

Farewelled him and went to the landing stripped again cos Daniel, my instructor who going to Manilla, NSW, to compete in hangliding competitions, was going to give me a lift back to Cali at the end of the day. There at the landing strip again, i mounted another jeep and visited another hill top and hung out with other gliders and watching dozens of others glide. The dusty ride was great too. We passed a river tumbling down a rocky hillside were folks from Cali or surroundings had come for a day trip to dip toes in fresh water. Well, more than toes, bikinis were out, kids were running and screaming, cars were parked all over. At one passing there was water spraying out of a pipe from a brick construction, kids playing in the water, woman with arse against the sprouting water outlet, and as we drove by kids began to splash water all over us. My window didn´t work.. Later in the day, another type of crowd was congregating, dolls and babes: skin on the line, tight pants, push-ups, hair-jell and motorbikes. hmmm. My jaw had dropped so far down, i couldn´t move fast enough to get a photo.

Even though i wasn´t done with Cali, i decided to head for La Zona Cafetera, coffee country. Needless to say that i´ve taken up my favourite habit of drinking coffee again, cos coffee in Peru, Chile and Ecuador doesn´t even come close, and neither does Argentina in some places, and so i had given it up. While i was in Lima in a hostel for 2 days, i met and chatted with a Colombian couple, Margarita and Lole, for a few hours who didn´t hesitate to invite me to stay with them when i reach their home town. So then i arrive and meet Margarita in Pereira, a beautiful country town, amongst hills and mountains. This whole region´s like this and the right conditions for coffee cultivations. Off she takes me to Finlandia, a picturesque village where we indulge in coffee and cigarettes and meet her mate Mauro. The plaza is green and full of folks, fruit stalls abound and i tried this funny fruit, chontaduro, were you add either salt, lemon, or honey, or all of them together like i did. This country, like Brazil, is a fruitlovers heaven. After that, off to Salento, another pocket of paradise amongst lush green hills with blue mountain ranges in the distance, where we sit to have trout served over a patacon, a special banana, platano, that is cooked, mashed, rolled out thin and then fried. With all the bananas in australia i can´t believe we´re not indulging in this stuff!

I stay that night at Lole´s place in Manizales, in fact we all do. This kind of small town is precious also, university town, lots of bars and young folks, hills and scenic views - not a place to own a pushbike. Next day we drive to parke nacional Los Nevados. The Andes that start at the very south of chile and argentina split up in 3 mountain ranges when it reaches colombia, Los Nevados is one of them. Illequiped as i was, we didn´t quiet reach the snowy mountain peaks, next time. But let me get back to food, breakfast. It usually includes hot chocolate, not coffee, but it`s like nothing you`ve ever had. Or, another delight, agua panela con queso. Unrefined solidified sugarcane sugar (don´t know how to describe it) is served in a bowl of hot water where you can drop in cubes of white cheese, let it warm up and then spoon it out and slurp. Served with empanadas, cheesy bread buns, and toasted arepas (toasted maize bread). It´s a wonder i´m not overweight.

That night i thought i´d go and spend the night in Salento cos there´s a national park nearby and coffee farms. But it was late in the evening, missed the last bus from where i was leaving... short story, as Mauro was heading home to Finlandia told me i could stay at his little ol place with his mum for the night and we could go bush walking around there the next day. Sweet. But when we get there grandpa´s there and so are aunties and uncles and nephews etc, cos his cooking a gourmet delight for his going away - married to and english lass he´s going to live with her in London. Next day we do a hell of a bush walk where we can hear but can´t see the shy monkeys in a plethora of rich flora. But it doesn´t end there. That night we go to his other going-away with his mates. Back to Pereira, on the outskirts, we bus it to a friend´s finca (farm house) to spend the night and share it with a starry sky and fireflies - they´re so magical. Next day i´m supposed to head off again but delays and stuff i end up at Lole´s parents´house with him and Margarita, again honoured with food in a family home. I´ve been soooo taken care of.

I wonna stay here forever!!!!!!!!!!!!

And... touch down!

Smooth entry into one of the world most feared countries, no hickups and made it with my mate to Pasto, a quiet southern town where folks aren´t used to my funny accent and so i tend to keep my mouth shut letting Rosana do the talking. Pasto is at the foot of an active Volcano, level 2, which occasionally puffs up. Breathing masks hang right inside the front door along with the house keys. We´re staying with friends of Rosana´s, who have a small but welcoming home and who took us around for the city tour, which needed only 1 day. Everywhere i look women are wearing clothes so ultra tight and girlie, i choke just looking at them, but somehow beautifully adorened. Who would´ve thought i could look dowdy, ME! I hesitantly said to Roasana that i might need at least one outfit that´s not hanging off of me like a sack of potatoes, so now we´re on the look out for ropa apretadita como una berenjena...

I didn´t have plans on getting to the Pacific coast but knowing it was so close we decided to take a two-day trip to Tumaca and catch the rays. On a minibus, as you do, winding mountains and more pot-holes than you can possible swirve around, we carry along some beautiful landscape, agriculture like patchwork quilt, and some of the most impoverished lands of the country. About 2 hours from the coast the ground gets lusher, the humidity and heat starts to slap you around every which way, coco trees, banana plantations and the endless military checkpoints. No drama really, and no paramilitary or guerrilla in these parts, probably because of the strong military presence and not a stronghold of the former - be assured loved ones, i choose my destinations wisely and with ample international and local advice.

Getting closer into town we see housing, on the shores of this kind of delta river-sea landscape, built rudimentary on stilts and very modest looking. The population on both coasts of columbia, the pacific and the atlantic, is predominantly black, and, suprise, lacking in infrastructure and social and economic benefits that are more likely to be enjoyed by capital cities and whatnot. Off our bus and on to urban transport to the seaside to get to our beachview lodgings - shame the tiolet doesn´t come with a toilet seat. Fish and seafood is great here, and you get folks carrying fresh fish, in the heat, door to door. And have i mentioned the million varieties of corn AND maize cooked in alllll sorts of ways, and although i´m finding hard to have every day, i know i going to miss it later when i´m gone. The row of hut-restaurants on the sand each have music blaring out of them which is a shame cos you can´t make out any one of them. The beach has grey sand.

We were in the disorganised centre of town where there is a concrete football field and tall black boys are playing. Sitting on a bench a young man next to us is intrigued and needs to know where we´re from. At first i joke and say i´m local but he sets me straight by highlighting the color of my arm next to his, he smiles innocently lettingthe facts speak for themselves. He wants to know what australia is like and i start by saying that i don´t even like it. That shocks him cos people generally like where they´re from, he says. I feel i have to explain, justify and exemplify. Life is individualistic, i say, and solitary. There aren´t people all over the street all day long, music isn´t heard on the street neither, folks don´t sing their way to the supermarket, we´re dictated by the car and long distances, and we don´t dance ...well. He looks at me in horror. I´m checking through in my head if what i said is in fact fair about my people. I continue explaining (or try) the different living conditions and landscape of australian life, more to myself it seems than anyone. It starts to rain and Rosana and i turn around to each other like scared cats. We have to catch a bus, we say, and he says good bye and runs off confused.

Out here in international wilderness, i´m constantly presenting and defining not just me but my national identity, but this is not a precise science. I´m not sure i´m doing a good job, and why when people ask me whether to immigrate to australia i tell them there´s better places to go to and i give them the run down of all the things they´ll be missing..? ...my issues? But I AM glad i´m coming back soon, i´ve got it all worked out, well, most of it. (Hey, comments are welcomed but sign in other than anonymous)

So back to Pasto and on the way to Cali, where i get dumped on my own. Later.