Tonight we played a board game called The Settlers of Catan. It was named the best board game in Germany, apparently. A German man named Phillip taught us the rules. I lost. But I had the ´longest road´for a long time. I think this game might be nerdy but I´m not really sure. Phillip also went white water rafting with us today. He sat behind me on the raft. Our rafting guide, Nestor, brought me back to Russia but saying "it is possible" before every sentence. It was possible for us to swim. It was possible for us to fall out of the boat. It was possible for us to pretty much do everything. None of us fell out of the boat though, Lewis was pretty close, but Phillip grabbed him. I swallowed a lot of water. It tasted like dirt. Phillip had a hot fiance named Franzi. She was German too. And about 6 feet tall. She was a doctor and he was a lawyer. How romantic.

Before I go any further, here is an awesome article by Paul Krugman--the world's greatest writing and researching economist--on why food in England used to be awful...

Somehow the same thing has happened to Colombia. Colombia has awful food. I don't mean that good food can't be had here, of course--Colombia, after all, is a place where almost anything pleasurable that you put into your body can be had. I mean that the typical, day-to-day food of Colombia tastes a lot worse than the typical food of any other place I´ve ever been to or heard about.

In the life of the university, you will meet tons of people whose main goal in life is to show that everyone is equal in every way. There's a little of that in all of us, and I can feel it clammoring inside of me "Who are you to carry your imperialist, white male standards afar to these simple jungle folk?!"

In my defense, I call to the stand my principle witness...the empanada!

Here is the empanada in his natural habitat--Argentina:



Here is the changeling that masquareades as the empanada here in Colombia:



The Colombian varietal, as you can see, is fried in a thick, yellow batter. If the military put empanadas in MRI kits, it might taste better than the empanada that a Colombian makes even with time and talent at his leisure.

The empanada isn't all. It's merely a symbol for the atrocities that go on in kitchens across Colombia. The bread is not very good. Lots of the food is fried, but not in the endearing Southern way. In fact, the best way to understand it is to imagine an Old Country Buffet, but with a smaller selection and you can't get very much food at one time.

I call my final witness. This is a food Colombians are very proud of and that comes with lots of dishes all the time. Take the stand, Mr. Arepa!

How do I explain the arepa? How do Colombians explain away the arepa?!

Have you ever been eating cornbread, and thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if this cornbread were completely flattened, and flavorless?" Probably you have never thought this, but at some point a Colombian did and the idea spread like wildfire across this land of emeralds and beautiful women.

At first when I got the arepa, I assumed there had been some mistake. When I saw Neil and Ryan got the same thing, I thought someone must be mad at us. Fine, we'll take our business elsewhere, I thought. But little did I suspect the arepa was lurking as a sidedish in every corner of Colombia. It literally has no flavor, and it has a crumbly texture. You might think, "Fine, but I bet they put stuff on it. Right there in the picture is a piece of good'looking cheese." Not so. I don't know what kind of cheese it is, or why the recipe is widely known, but it is also crumbly and tasteless. That crappy colombian cheese on an arepa is the blind leading the blind.

Today we sucked it up, dropped 60 dollars a piece, and went whitewater rafting on the river suarez. It was a lot of money, and ryan and i were bitching and moaning over the loss of our precious plata beforehand, but this australian guy heard us and said we were crazy to miss it. He was right.

The rapids were huge. Class 5 on a scale of 1 to 6. In our party were a pair of beautiful Germans, of whom one was a lawyer and the other a doctor, who were shortly to be married and no doubt perpetuate the master subset of the master race of which they form the core. A few times, we thought we would fall out of the boat, but everything stayed on an even keel (pun intended) and were made it out safely after about two hours. My favorite part was actually when we just stopped the raft and ate mangoes, cheese, and pork rines.

We didn't take any pictures, because the river was covered in water, and we were in the river, with the water there, too.

Shaved off my beard today, and consequently five years of my life.

Finished the Gogol book I was reading. Taras Bulba is an awesome story, highly recommended, though one of the most anti-semitic things I´ve ever read.

We are in San Gil, the outdoorsy capital of Colombia. We went rafting today, it was amazing. We paddled through class five rapids (the scale goes up to six), with a German couple that is staying at our hostel.

Who wants to put us up in NYC on Wednesday night? (cough cough Amanda/Sara/Lily)

sort of. We got the picture at least. (read my last Shakira post if you don´t know what i´m talking about). One thing we didn´t account for was how awful Colombians are at taking photographs. The first girl hit the power button instead of the shutter button. So we asked a different kid hanging around the area and he just took a picture of the ground. So after several more takes, I managed to get the one I posted above after cropping out about 40% of the original. But anyway, if any of you readers out there have experience in editing wikipedia articles and want to do us a favor before we get back to the US ... well you know what to do.

We're back from the jungle. We went to Tayrona national park for two days, with the Kates. There, we slept only in hammocks, and did nothing except read and hang out on the beach all day. By night, we played card games with the Kates. I finally won back the 5000 pesos I lost at our previous card game in Manizales. It was awesome, because the Kates had put their winnings in the card box, so I literally won back the very same 5000 pesos I lost in Manizales.

Tayrona was placid, but a little boring. The water got deep really fast, and the waves were high, so you couldn't really swim much. And you couldn't rent boogie boards or snorkeling stuff or anything. On the up side, the water was crystal clear like I've never seen before. But that gets old pretty fast.

I liked sleeping in hammocks.

Sorry fans. The lack of posts have been due to an inordinate amount of excitement here in our Colombian lives and the fact we haven´t had access to internet in awhile. The best (well worst for us i guess) story is about to come. Surely via Lehe´s pen, but I can´t guarantee when. You will love it. Especially if you like extortion. And especially if like Ryan Morrison yelling things like, "Arrest me! Arrest me!"

Right now we are in taganga, staying at an awesome hostel called techos azules. Taganga is a small fishing town that is now like a backpackers haven just outside santa marta, on the carribean next to tayrona national park. It is paradise. There's a little beach that's pretty quiet. The water is crystal clear. The town is like 6000 people, and there's a strip along the beach with a bunch of huts selling cute little foods and stuff.

Last night we hired a fisherman to take us out this morning. It turned out not to be a very professional oepration, but it was fun anyway, because we got to go spear fishing with snorkel gear and harpoons. Spear fishing is the most fun I've had. The fish are bright, tropical fish, about twenty feet under you, but the water is like glass so you can chase them all around and it's fun. I didn't hit any fish, but neil hit two. He's a real sharpshooter. Later, we feasted on the fish that we caught spearfishing and regular fishing in the kitchen at our hostel. Ryan was really good at regular fishing. I was good at writing a blog entry about it.

Last night, we were laying on the beach, and Neil spotted the distant silhouettes of a girl in a pony tail flanked by a girl with a short haircut. We jumped up and ran over and, low and behold, it was our two favorite fellow travelers, kate and kate (one from australia, the other england). If you haven't been reading, we hung out with them in bogota the first night we went out, then met them in manizales at our hostel, where they beat us in an awesome poker match. We swam with them all night, and wen to ladies' night at a bar here that looks out over the bay.

Taganga is like the beach in The Beach with Leonardo Decaprio.

If you go to Shakira´s article on wikipedia you´ll find the above photo which was taken in Shakira´s hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia. Eight months ago we stumbled upon this photographic masterpiece and have ever since been infatuated with -- not only the possibilty of reenacting such an epic pose -- but going as far as replacing this outdated diamond in the rough with a new gem of our own -- a wikipedia photo edit with three norte americano travelers -- whose destiny has always been to find the She Wolf (even if that involves supplanting Shakira´s physical self with a poorly designed giant piece of sheet metal that sort of? looks like her). We will prevail.

Today we went to some mud baths. Better said, a mud volcano. Here is a picture of it from far away:



When you get to the top of mud volcano, you immerse in its milky contents. My favorite thing about the mud volcano was that it was exactly how I imagined it would be. Whenever you go to something like a mud volcano, you always build it up in your head. And when you get there, it's not so much mud as it is dark water with pebbles floating around, or it's really cold, or the mud is gross and has grass in it, or the mud is really shallow. There are a million things that can go wrong with a mud volcano experience. But none of them went wrong with this mud volcano. No sir. It was exactly like the large pools of stuff in hook. The mud was grey, and therefore not brown and resembling shit. The mud was very viscuous. You could smear it around and clump it, although it wasn't too dry. The mud buoyed you very well. It gave you the feeling of being weightless, because you could form your body into any shape and you would be automatically suspended there. Here is a picture of what the mud looked like with people in it:

I hear this song probably about 10 times a day. Colombians love to blare music from their respective restaurants/cafes/apartments/houses/inns/shacks/shannies/hotdog stands/clubs/bars etc. at such a high volume that it´s actually impossible to listen to less than 4 different simultaneous tunes while walking down a given city block. And from my experiences I would suggest there is about a 75% chance that at least 1 of those songs is "Me Gusta Me Gusta" by Los Buitres de Culiacan Sinaloa. I really like this song so this is all good news for me. The only annoying part of Colombian radio is that about every minute the radio station identifies itself by making a loud screaching noise, "REEK REEK!" and a strong male voice exclaims, "Radio Uno!" or whatever the station might be. That screaching noise will forever haunt me in my nightmares.

Last night we went to a soccer game with a huge group of gringos. It was Cartagena, where we are, verses barranquilla, where shakira is from. It was a tie. The match was exciting as soccer can be.

Today we hung out on the beach all day long. The water in the ocean here is warmer than the water in the shower. You pay about 6.50 US and you get this sort of tent with three chairs. Beers are available for 1 US each. It is a relaxing way to pass the day. I am in a really good mood all the time now.

we accidentally got a bus to Jurassic Park the other day. Though they claimed it was called Salento. I´m still suspìcious. That´s why we hi-tailed it out of there after only one day. We got in a good 2 hour horse ride though first. I think I want to be a cowboy now. It´s the most efficient way to escape dinosaurs I think. Not sure why Spielberg didn´t think of that. Horses have the best endurance out of any animal in the world. My horse´s name was Tango. He was eight years old and even though he was coming to the end of his life time, he was a good horse. He turned left when I said turn left and turned right when I said turn right. He stopped when I said stop. He trotted when I said trot. He even galloped. God bless Tango. I miss her. Have you ever galloped on a horse? It was my first time. I almost fell off a few times, but it was a blast. I refused to hold on with two hands, I wanted to ride like the cowboys. The Colombian cowboys.



So I told you that I´d update you on my brief relationship in Colombia. Her name was Luisa. Still is I imagine. At any rate, we met her on the Turibus, a bus that took us around Medellin to see all the most popular tourist sites. It was a purple hair affair, as the aussies say, or something like that. We saw the beautiful Colombian, by herself, on this Turibus, happy as can be. She heard us tell another person we were from estados unidos and she perked up and repeated, ahh estados unidos? Yep, I said. She spoke some English, better than my Spanish, so I was all over that. Not many Medellin locals voluntarily speak English. You´d think they were French.

She was traveling through the city by herself on her way back home to Bogota. She was very very pretty. Gorgeous perhaps. I had a couple photos taken with her but they are on Ryan´s camera which can´t be connected to a computer here. So I googled colombian girl and she actually looked pretty close to this:



Only half Indian, which I found out later, and just as many curves. I invited her to sit with me on the bus and drilled her with questions in my western PA accent, probably just confusing her. I made her translate the tour to me. She tried her hardest, God bless her. At each stop she´d get out and a man for Turibus would take about 20 pictures of her posing in front of things. Monuments, sun dials, palms, flowers, Botero sculptures (those god awful things they manage to put everywhere). I thought the man was a pervert. But she told me she was going to buy a CD of all the pictures later. I thought that was hilarious.

At about the 4th stop of the tour and about an hour into it all, she spotted an ad for watermelon and started mumbling how good it looked, but in Spanish so I presumed that´s what she was saying. I said, yeah that looks really good, the fruit here is amazing. Yes yes, she said in her thick accent, let´s look. So i followed her over to the watermellon. Luisa stood at about 5´9" I guess, very curving as i said before. Her rear was at the very least twice maybe three times as wide as mine. So the image of us walking together must have been more comical than I realized at the time. But I didn´t care of course.

We get to the watermellon place and it turns out they sold ice cream too. mmm! she said, that looks good. Yeah, that looks pretty good, I responded. She started jabbering in Spanish to the lady behind the counter. Then she started pointing at fruits. Then the fruits started going into a big bowl. Then ice cream. Then chocolate. Then more toppings. It was huge. Wow are you going to eat all of that? i asked. She said something in Spanish, forgetting that I wouldn´t understand. The lady behind the counter then looked at me and said a number. I looked at Luisa. Luisa looked at me. I looked at the lady behind the counter. What? i muttered. Luisa then said, 7500 pesos. What the hell, i thought. Am I on a date? What is this?! How did I end up on a date on a freaking Turibus. Whatever, i thought, and pulled out a wad of crumpled up bills. I smacked them on the counter like any gringo would. I only had about 3000. Luisa asked me, how much do you need. I don´t know, I can hardly even read these bills, i muttered again annoyingly. She pulled out a large billfold full of cash, crisp and clean. She obviously has been doing well for herself. I burned inside. Luisa covered the rest of the bill and we ate the ice cream together. It was damn good. I´m glad she got it.

So our Turibus date continued for another hour or so, a flirtatious affair, knocking knees as they say (do they say that? i think i made that one up), but really, literally knocking knees on the bus, laughing like an oblivious gringo. And at the end she wanted to continue our date into the evening. We went to a cathedral and then for some beers and dinner at an outdoor cafe. Ryan and Lewis came along of course, so not such an exclusive date as you may think. But I (we) did find out a lot about her. She was 28 (much older than she looked I thought), was divorced, and had a son. She was a clinical psychologist and studied English for only 1 year. At one point in the night I felt like I was her psychologist, or psychiatrist. She went on and on about her ex husband, about her ex boyfriend now stalking her in Medellin, and about love and all these life lessons that she has learned since being a beauty queen. Oh yeah, she was an ex beauty queen. That´s how she met her husband, who she said, was not a handsome man but gave her lots of things and that´s why she married him. This type of thing happens a lot to Colombians, she confirmed. The downfall of the Colombian beauty queen. It doesn´t always happen that way. Some of the most prominent female figures in Colombian politics are former beauty queens. Weird? Maybe. But LonelyPlanet said it´s not much weirder than The Terminator being Governor of California. I would agree.

Luisa was supposed to leave at 10pm for Bogota that night, but we convinced her to stay another night and go out with us. She was excited to show us Colombian night life and hurried off to her hotel to get ready. She said that she´d meet us at 9pm in front of our hostel. I showered and put on all my best clothes. 9:00 came, then 9:15, and 9:30 but no Luisa. We walked down the block to her hotel. We saw a silhouette of a couple on the roof terrace. A man and a curvy Colombiana. It was her. They were sipping drinks comfortably. It was her ex boyfriend. I was sure. They looked down at us. She saw us but didn´t move, just went back to sipping her drink. Or it could have been a ice cream. I couldn´t tell from where I stood. It could have just as easily been a big bowl of ice cream topped with fruit, chocolate, nuts, berries, and a thousand other toppings. He must have had enough pesos to pay for the desert in full, however. She didn´t need my crumpled gringo pesos anymore.

My (our) Colombian relationship was over.

Ths honors college explained today that they can only grant one semester of funding to b. phil. candidates getting a fifth year, because of bad funding difficulties. That is rough. Unless something changes, I will only be at pitt for a few more months, instead of another year. This semester I will have to be working pretty much non-stop. In some ways, though, this makes some decisions clearer, and it is a little exciting, but overall it throws a wrench in my plans to make a documentary. I will just have to do my best.

The winner wins the choice of a free postcard from Colombia or an ipod nano.

Yesterday, we went to the beach here in Cartagena. We reserved a small tent with chairs under it, and within minutes it had turned into a mini-mall of exotic wares and services. A group of middle-aged black women surrounded us offering massages, saying "so tensh, so tensh!" I found out I am not a forceful person, because this one man started breaking open oysters, opening up my hands, putting them in my hands, and raising them to my lips. After I ate three oysters, he tried to charge me 17 dollars. I told him I wasn't paying anything. He just sat next to me for awhile, until I gave him two dollars to go away. He did the same thing to ryan. I wonder what that guy puts on his resume. Oyster Conman. Oyster Forcefeeder.

After that, I decided to get a massage from the nice ladies. Honestly, they had no idea what they were doing and probably just saw videos of massages on tv and tried to replicate them. They kept saying "mucho trabajo!" implying that i work hard and that is why i am so tensh. but it was pretty fun and finny, and we got some great pictures which neil will hopefully be uploading pretty soon.

Last night we went out to a bar called La Havanah. It is a cuban bar, with an amazing live band that plays I guess salsa music every hour. The people are really beautiful and the girls all dance realy well. It is probably the best bar I've ever been to, except for Gene's Place.

While we waited for our bus in Armenia two days ago, Lewis gave a chicken to a bum. Not a live one, but a fried 2,000 peso kentucky fried-esque chicken. And let me make clear, this bum was no bum at all. He had firmly pressed jeans, cuffed at the bottom, white sneakers (as my parents call them), a collared shirt, and well maybe some missing teeth, i´m not sure I tried not to look at him. But it doesn´t matter. We were eating our chicken, not fried but grilled, and this colombian, i presume he was colombian, began rambling on and on. I didn´t really understand him, I don´t understand much here. But Lewis must have, because he stood up and bought the man a chicken. Lewis, when did you ever buy me a chicken! i exclaimed. Sorry guys i made a mistake, Lewis shamefully responded. No seriously, when have you bought me anything! but you bought this man a chicken?! I was upset. I still am. Where is my chicken. That dirty crook kept the change for that chicken too after he paid the chicken man. Where is my change lewis. Where is my change for the chicken that you´ve never bought me.

Cartagena is the New Orleans of Colombia. It's extremely humid, partially destroyed, and has this decaying colonial architecture. I love it. There are finally some black people around. I hate it when there are no black people in a place. It gives me the creeps. I also like humidity.

Everyone in Cartagena is my friend. I can tell, because when I walk down the street, everyone says, "Amigo!" and asks me for things that you would only demand from someone you were really, really good friends with. Things like money and milk. They also offer me things you would only offer your really, really good friend. Things like cocaine and marijuana. On one street corner, the whole time I carried out a transaction at a shop selling beer, a tall man stood right next to me repeating, "I've got everything, my friend. I'm the boss" in English. He said it forty times.

Here is a screenplay of this man's pitch actually working...

Lewis: hello, I'd like to buy two beers.
Shopkeeper: Certainly, let me fumble for change for five minutes.
The Boss: I've got everything. I'm the boss.
Lewis: Sorry, I'm not interested.
The Boss: I've got everything. I'm the boss.
Lewis: Sorry, I'm not itnerested.
The Bos: I've got everything. I'm the boss.
Lewis: You make a strong case, sir. That no one can resist. Now I'm looking to buy every type of drug available in Colombia.
The Boss: I've got everything.
Lewis: Hmmm. That's enticing. But I have a stipulation, and it's that I only buy drugs directly from the boss.
The Boss: I'm the boss.
Lewis: So, what you're saying is that you have everything, and you are also the boss. Both of my preconditions for buying drugs are satisfied. Give me all the drugs you've got!

I believe he was inspired by Havoc's I'm the Boss.

On Wedensday, went went horseback riding. Then we got in a jeep and rode up to a beautiful national park. Then we got in a small bus and rode to the city of Armenia, near Salento. Then we bought a bus ticket to Cartagena, up north on the coast.

The guy at the bus counter said the ride would take 19 hours. It actually took 23 hours. I don't believe this was a miscalculation. Luckily, he also said it would cost 140 pesos, but I haggled him down to 118. Maybe that is why it took longer.

Spending 23 hours on a bus is like playing Oregon Trail. The bus is always looking for passes through the mountain. Members of your party have different skills. I went to sleep for 7 hours, and when I woke up, we'd hardly gone anywhere, leading me to believe that, at some point during the night, the bus driver cauked the bus and floated it across a river. I really wanted to hunt for buffalo, but the bus driver said guerillas ate all the buffalo.

Spending 23 hours on a bus opened up my eyes to what is involved in keeping the sabbath for orthodox jewish people. I couldn't move too much or do anything complicated. All I could do was sit and think and rest. A lot of deep thoughts went through my mind. However, whereas they are reading the torah, I was reading David Coperfield by Charles Dickens.

I made out much better than Ryan or Neil, because the person I was siting next to didn't have a baby.

Cartegena
sweat´a´hana
it´s like a savannah
only with less sand
well not a lot less
but hot, maybe more humid
more people too.
more internet cafes.
more fruit.
more norte americanas most likely.

24 hr bus rides
in Colombia are hell
kids kicking you
mothers not caring
children sleeping on you
fathers snoring
turns, twists, bumps
bathroom smells
door won´t open
too dark
where´s my light
too dark to find the light
back to my seat
fall asleep
wake up, have to pee more urgently
BOOM! a gringo left the bathroom
how do i open the door?
just pull it really hard

British in Colombia
are they British Colombian?
Canadian? nay.
are they Colombian
definitely not
what did you say
what was that
i´m sorry, i don´t understand
what what what
speak slower
speak clearer
that´s how you say that
ha ha ha, really?
o jeez, so many British in Colombia
where are the Scottish
where are the Aussies
where are the Kates
the Colombian Kates
the traveling colombian half Aussie double Kate Kates
not british colombians
not colombians in britain
not british in colombians
not even colombians

Blondes
few and far between
a blonde is a warning
an omen
for danger
more than red
more than yellow
more than green
stay away from colombian blondes
they are not colombian
or they´re not blonde
either way a blonde is not good here
before you know
you´ll be giving a chicken to a bum
not a real bum
but a professional bum
you´ll be outside a bus terminal
feeding chickens to bums
the blondes that is
only the blondes
only the gringos and the gringas
only they feed chickens to the ´bums´
fried, greasy, sickly looking chickens
the worst chickens
in the worst conditions
bred in the worst predispositions
around horse crap
around human crap
around garbage
around trash
around chavs
british white trash that is
worse than americans
worse than chickens
worse than a colombian chicken

can be found under the header photo.

like this: "Our travel map is here!"

The map shows our route from city to city, village to village in some cases (but only in a straight line, unfortunately not by road because Mapvivo doesn´t have Colombian roads in their database).

In Colombia, long distance bus travel is part of life. But bus travel here is less greyhound and more grand prix than what people in the land of nascar would expect. It's kind of like the dreamcast game Crazy Taxi, only it's a bus full of people, and it's in the andes, you die if you lose, and all you get if you win is 10 minutes at a truck stop with confusing bathrooms.

The major highways are only two lanes wide, and have buildings right up alongside. They cling to cliffsides of the andes and are flanked by tiny barriers that would definitely not stop a bus. In spite of the high cost of going off the road, the bus drivers are wildly determined to pass every truck that gets in their way by passing on the other side of the road, against opposing traffic. They do this even on blind turns. I believe that if a plague of blindness swept the world, colombian buses would carry on business as usual, since sight was never a big factor anyway.

Inside the bus, although the reading lights don't work, there is a blinking meter that lets the passengers know how fast we are going. I wodner why it's there. It just scares everyone. Possibly, a human calculator could figure how far you've gone by multiplying the time spent at each velocity by the velocity. Or, you could telephone police whenever the bus driver goes to fast, and tell them to pull over your own bus. Really, though, the meter is obviously there for fun. Just like you want to know how fast your roller coaster moves, you want to know how fast this crazy bus is flying up and down these mountains. It's especially dramatic for us, though, since we always assume right away that the bus is going 90 miles per hour, instead of kilometers per hour. It is a thrill sadly lost on the metric-saavy colombians.

I really like these bus rides. Soon we have a 20 hour ride to cartajena.

Tonight we played poker in the hostel. I lost to a pair of girls from england and australia named The Kates who we keep running into in our travels.

Today we went on a tour of a coffee planation here in Manizales in the heart of the "efe cafetero," which translates directly as "coffee axis." It's unclear why they decided to call this an "axis," rather than a region, a country, area, or whatever. I think of the axis powers or the axis of evil, definitely not the axis of any type of beverage.

The coffe planation was my favorite thing we've done so far. We walked all around the fields and the facilities, learning how coffee is actually made. The workers do not earn much- about 8 dollars per day during the good season. They also have to pay three dollars a day for their food.

There was a spaniard on the tour who talked funny and was really interested in american ownership of shotguns. He said he was in america, and in the paper there were stories about people shooting each other with shotguns.

Our tour guide loved president uribe and thought hugo chavez was a loco. She said she welcomed america building bases all along the venezuela border, so that the guerillas couldn't cross the border to safety with hugo chavez the loco. It's weird to hear people talk about your country as something disconnected from you completely. I had no idea about the America-building-bases-on-the-venezuela-border issue, and even if I saw it in the news it would only stick in my head half a second if I hadn't been here. But to people abroad, even the smallest blip on our TV news can be a life-or-death matter.

We just got to Manizales. This is one of the major cities in the Eje Cafetero, the major coffee growing region of Colombia. This is probably where your coffee comes from.

Neil is fiddling with this map program that will probably be able to show you all where that is shortly.

This town is sweet, and is built on a really steep hill.

Tomorrow we are going to a finca, where I am going to buy as much coffee as I can fit in my bag.

Colombian beer is very good in the bottle, but horrible in the can.

Our hostal has a free pool table and free breakfast.

and there are a lot of plastic boobs. That is all I have to say for now. Oh, and yesterday I temporarily had a 38 year old Colombian girlfriend who is an ex-beauty queen.

More on that story to come.

My comprehension of spanish has never been better. Colombians speak clearly.

On the other hand, my comprehension of british people is terrible. They're filling up all the hostels, and I can hardly understand anything they say. It never ceases here. Every night going to bed, it's a constant din of "wat wat liem wat!" I also can't distinguish between australians and british people.

Lewis and I are concurrently writing posts so I´m not sure which will be published first.

In any case, this post is concerning events that transpired on the night of 12 Agosto 2009.

----

The Bible told us that if we wanted to meet some college-aged Colombians we should head down to a block by Carrera 41. We got there and found ourselves on a small block with about three bars/clubs and not many people.

Lugar 1: A gated bar and restaurant with a bunch of guys laughing outside and people dancing inside. This looked like a pretty fun place to sit down for a while.

Lugar 2: Wannabe Lugar 1, menos gente con menos anos. A large bar with nothing on it and a missing bartender. About two people dancing.

Lugar 3: A staircase with blaring music and an obnoxious green light. Two people inside that could not hear what each other were saying.


Claro, we decided on Lugar 1. We tried entering through the gate but the bouncer stopped us. We didn´t have any females with us so we weren´t allowed to enter. This didn´t make any sense because the place wasn´t even filled.

We walked five paces to Lugar 2 and sat down inside. A bartender appeared after a few minutes and we had a round of Aguila. It was pretty quiet inside so we walked outside onto the patio. We ordered a small bottle of Absolut, which was served with a warm bottle of orange juice. While drinking this we noticed a group of three to our right. I started talking to the third wheel, because I felt bad that her friend and her friend´s boyfriend were completely ignoring her. I soon found out that she was 17. I´m not sure what gave this away first, the fact that she said her favorite things to do were, ¨Pasar un rato con mis amigo, ir al cine y tomar (Hang out with friends, go to the movies, and drink),¨ or her actually telling me her age. I didn´t feel like talking to her, but was essentially forced to by Neil and Lewis. We left a short while after.

While I was on the plane from the States, I met a friend named Antonio who said that a good place to check out was la Zona T, cerca del Parque 93. We took a taxi there, and quickly realized that this was probably one of the most expensive places to go out in Bogota.

When we got there, Lewis and I both had to pee. Neil stood guard while we ran down into a tiled driveway. As soon as we got to the bottom, an alarm went off and we got the hell out. For whatever reason we decided on a loud bar about a block away.

I thought I was at a New Year´s Party at 12:01 a.m. There were streamers all of the floor, a huge TV screen, and hundreds of people dancing - on the dance floor, on tables, on each other. The beers were eight dollars, which was ridiculous but we had them anyway. The place was a lot of fun, but by that point we were pretty tired, and only stayed for about an hour or two. We talked to a few people before heading home. Our taxi driver didn´t say anything on the ride home, and seemed pretty angry in the rearview mirror.

Here are some interesting things about Colombia:

The police are an army. They all carry machine guns and wear helmets and flack jackets. They dress in camo. They're all over the place. This makes me wonder what the bad guys are packing. According to some cab drivers I talked to, the badass police are one reason crime has plummeted so much in colombia under the current presidential regime. Unfortunately, this also has to do with a more lax attitude towards civil liberties--the police can stop and search without much cause--but it's important to remember that, in America, we have never faced the types of security problems they have here. Consider that, during America's civil war, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. Now imagine the US civil war, but the west is also seceding into its own country, and the South doesn't care about conscripting children, raping women, and leaving landmines all over for the off-chance of killing a yankee soldier, and, meanwhile, ultra-nationalists in the north have banded together in their own privately-run militaries that run around the whole country chopping people up with chainsaws and literally feeding their enemies alive to ponds full of crocodiles.

Colombia has amazing public spaces. The parks have good landscaping. Medians are parks. The Transmillenio bus rapid transit (more on this later) is more hygenic than literally anything I have ever seen connected to the government in the US.

The money is really big. 2000 pesos are one US dollar. You feel like you're making it rain in the club constantly.

Everything is really cheap. A regular meal here is like two or three dollars.

Bogota is surprisingly cold. It's 2000 meters high, so it doesn't matter that you're right next to the equator. It's colder than pittsburgh in the summer.

There are hardly any Americans here. If you want to try somewhere off the beaten path, try colombia.

Lewis already beat me to updating about ´The Tooth´ but I wanted to wait until I got some pictures to upload.



















This is my pre-op infected tooth. The penultimate one. It doesn´t look bad here, but it HURT! OUCH!

So I decided on Dr. Catalina Mendez, because we pretty much blindly follow our ´gringo bible´AKA our Lonely Planet travel book. We called on Monday evening, and they said they could take me the next day at 10:30am.

How awesome is that?

It took us about 3 hours to find the office, because the ´gringo bible´printed the wrong address. But we finally got there and Dr. Catalina´s husband, Carlos Pasada, took me in immediately. This is him:


















He didn´t speak any English so Lewis and Ryan translated the whole time.This is where they sat/stood:


















And sometimes when Carlos was out, they helped with the procedure!



















Carlos called up his wife, Catalina, to see if she could come do the root canal. She said, "claro," and appeared within 15 mins. Catalina spoke English, well sort of, but good enough that she didn´t need the services of Lehe & Morrison Translations Unltd. As Lewis already mentioned, she was pretty hot for a 40-some year old. And she really knew what she was doing, she moved faster than any denist I´ve ever seen and I´ve seen a lot. Probably due to the nuns whipping her wrists at her Catholic University (i´m catholic so i can make that joke).

Here is her degree:



















The actual ´canaling of the root´ took about an hour. Oh, and the X-Ray equipment was really awesome. There was a computer screen that showed a live feed that I could watch, as if I was getting a sonogram. She told me that she´d send me my X-Rays via e-mail the next day. How awesome!

Here is my post-op xray. Notice the 4 rubber fillings now living in the space of my infected nerve roots.
















After it was all done, we chatted for awhile and we got a picture.




















In total, including the root canal, the subsequent crowning, and the antibiotic prescription it cost about $290. And they did it all in one day, after only calling about 12 hours ahead. According to wikipedia in the US this would have cost (without the prescription) between $500-$2000. Interesting eh? If anyone is considering serious dental work, think about taking a vacation to Colombia. It´s quite beautiful.



















from Catalina:

NEIL I HOPE YOU ARE FEELING BETTER, I AM SENDING YOU THE ITINIAL AND FINAL XRAY OF YOUR TREATMENT, HAVE A NICE TRIP ANYTHING YOU NEED YOU CAN CALL ME OK???
--
CATALINA MENDEZ DE LA ESPRIELLA
ENDODONCIA
PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA

Yesterday, we all took the transmillenio to northern bogota for Neil to have his root canal. My ultimate fantasy came true, and the dentist didn't speak english, so Ryan and I got to sit in and translate. We felt worldly wise and useful.

The root canal took place in three steps, carried out by the dentist and his endontist wife. Apparently, an endontist is a dental surgeon who only does root canals. First, the husband dentist examined Neil's teeth. Second, the wife endontist came over and did the root canal. Third, at five o'clock, we had to come back again and have the husband dentist put a crown on it.

While Ryan and I waited during the root canal, the husband dentist gave us two SoHo magazines to raed, which is Colombia's version of playboy. Ryan got the eco edition, which taught how to stay green and stay sexy at once. And I got the Mom and Daughter edition.

I know deep down in my heart of hearts that I have a gold mine on my hands. A reality tv show about this couple. They work in an office together, and even collaborate in the root canals, in such a way that the petite-and-unassuming wife suddenly lets the big dog out and orders her tall, commanding husband around to much comedic effect. They also have two children, who according to the mom, are a handful. The children leave room for all sorts of "Can they balance work and family?" action, with plenty of admiration for this supermom that can. Oh yeah, she is also a lecturer at an endontics college. Finally, the husband and wife are both super attractive. The wife is like a typical latina babe, 41 years old but still got it, with dyed purple-red hair. The husband is older, getting into silver fox territory. He looks like a dude in a Just For Men "Touch of Grey" commercial, with salty little tips. Mos tof the comedy in this reality show happens when backpackers look them up in lonely planet, so there are all sorts of zany characters from around the world in and out, and therefore lots of room for cultural misunderstandings.

The hardest part of the root canal was paying. Neil had to pay in cash. But he left his debit card at home, so he could only get out like $20 with his credit card. Ryan and I had to front him the rest. But we had to pay in two installments (after each operation), so it was back and forth to this atm accross the street. Neil now owes Ryan and I 123,000 pesos a piece ($60).

Last night Ryan and I played chess and hung out with this german and a croatian.

Hi-

Today we walked around a bit in the central and southern parts of Bogota. In the morning, I got up around 9:30 and went to a small store by the hostel to buy some fruit. I cooked up some greenbeans for breakfast, tasted pretty good. I introduced Neil and Lewis to grenadia, my favorite fruit.

Around 10 we walked to the Plaza Bolivar, the central plaza of the city, surrounded by the presidential palace, courthouse and some other government buildings. I´ve never seen so many pigeons and bird shit in one place before.

We spent about an hour trying to figure out how to use a cell phone, before deciding that the US embassy was the place to go if we wanted to learn, and find Neil a dentist. Unfortunately, the woman explained to us that the embassy did not offer dental services. We were too embarassed to ask about the phone.

We rode the transmilenio home, and I went and bought some more grenadia.

So most of my posts for awhile will probably just be rants. I haven´t had much luck so far in general. Let me tell you...
























I got a toothache this past Tuesday. My dentist told me on Thursday that I need a root canal, but he didn´t seem too concerned and said it would start feeling better once I take antibiotics. But it only got worse and has swollen to the point that people are giving me weird looks (maybe it´s giving me street cred?). Lewis already told ya´ll about our flight being canceled. Yesterday, within 1 hour of being in Colombia I dropped my new camera and broke the shutter button thingy. I have a stuffy nose, upset stomach, and insomnia. And today I´m venturing out into the city to find a dentist. This is going to be hilarious. I have three recommendations:

1) Dr. Catalina Mendez. According to the Lonley Planet travel guide she specializes in root canals. Her name sounds the most attractive so I might try her first (bow chicka bow wow)

2) Dr. Gustavo Ochoa. The only dentist on the US Embassy´s list who is described as a root canal specialist. The name Gustavo kind of scares me, but the US Embassy seems to be credible source?

3) Dr. Jackie Agudelo. Recommended from a travel guide writer on poorbuthappy.com. Her name sounds way too American, and if I wanted an American doctor I would have stayed in western PA. On the other hand, she sounds like she might be the easiest to communicate with.


I´m going to give them all a call and see what happens. The good news is that root canals cost a lot less here. Hopefully I can find a cheap camera before I go so I can document it all. But it really is frustrating; Shakira will never like me with a swollen face.

Last night, Saturday, our flight from la guardia to miami got cancelled, because the plane needed a new engine. We spent a few hours in the airport, and finally arranged for a flight to miami via dallas this morning. They even put us up for the night in a swanky hotel, although we only sleptfor four hours. At 6 this morning, we headed out in first class for dallas, and then flew first class to miami.

In Miami, we missed an opportunity. They called out, "If anyone will give up their seat on this flight to bogota until tomorrow, we´ll give a 400 dollar travel voucher and put you up tonight."Ryan had already, spookily, mentioned exactly what we should do in this situation, and it was take the offer. But somehow, when it came down to it, after all of our travel difficulties, we hesitated. And the moment slipped away. I walked up to claim the vouchers, and the man waved me away like I was Oliver Twist. We started to hate ourselves, then made a pact to never mention it, except for this blog post, of course.

We flew into bogota without a hitch. Now we are at a hostel. We have drank some beer and eaten delicious fajitas.

Tomorrrow, we are finding neil a dentist.

Neil needs a root canal and is taking vicadin, which derails all his trains of thought. He is like an old person.

...and I just realized we're flying out of LaGuardia, not Newark.

En route to Pgh to pick up L-dog. Then to Philadelphia for R-man. My tooth feels horrible. The worst pain I've felt in years. I'm loaded on vicodin but it's not helping. The dentist told my I need a root canal. I told him there's no time for that -- I'm on a search for Shakira.