Aracataca (Colombia)

Tim brought me into his tiny apartment. Front room > Hallway > Bedroom. The two rooms were tiny cubes with a tiny bathroom in between off the hallway.

There were a few odd things about the bathroom. The first was that there wasn’t any door on it. So Tim might walk by the bathroom as I was taking a poo. Another weird thing was that the water was on for only a few hours each day, so Tim had a garbage can underneath where the water trickled out – out of a faucet that was high up on the wall, like a shower head. But it was nothing like a shower head. Even when the water was on, I tried to turn the handle to get more flow, but it only trickled.

Tim said I could sleep in the front room on the concrete floor. I pulled out my sleeping pad and sheet – it was so hot, I didn’t need a sleeping bag.

I showered in his humble, door-less bathroom. I stood there, exposed, dipping a basin into the water bucket and pouring it over me.

There was no furniture in the front room except a white patio chair. I offered Tim the mangoes I picked up off the road earlier that day. We sat outside – Tim on the patio chair, me on a concrete block – eating mangoes and entertaining a couple of the local crazy people who came up and wanted to talk. One guy kept shouting a word, like “Tica! Tica!” which didn’t mean anything, and seemed to want Tim’s t-shirt.

We walked into the center of town, a couple of blocks away, and got some jugos naturales. The ones I got in Aracataca were probably the best I had in the entire trip, and they were $0.60. It was incredible. Tim and I sat there drinking the nectar of some weird fruits for a while. I treated him to seconds.

Tim had a plan for eating within a tiny budget – his money comes from tutoring English to a few students (definitely not in demand in Aracataca), and selling his poetry on the street. He brought me to a meat stand where they grilled weird cuts of meat. I ate some nasty shit. Some tough, weird-textured thing, like the lining of a stomach or something.

Tim told me I could stay as long as I liked. I got a sense that Tim was lonely in Aracataca. It was a really poor place, and most of the people were uneducated. He told me that there are places to rent there that cost only $25 per month. Although Tim was a little isolated, he planned to stay there until it became a huge tourist attraction. He believes that Aracataca, the birthplace of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the true Macondo, the fairytale place that Marquez wrote about in his books. Tim believes that heaps of tourists will visit and he’ll be able to give them tours, and start a hostel. I figure he’ll be waiting a long time.

Tim came out to Colombia from the Netherlands to start a trip through all of South America, but he spent a year in Santa Marta, and six months already in Aracataca. He’s really taking it slow, but figures he’ll get around to seeing other countries eventually. He hasn’t been home or seen his family for about two years. And he told me an interesting fact about the Netherlands. It’s not correct to call it “Holland” because Holland is a province within the Netherlands. A lot of the Dutch immigrants that came to the US seeking religious freedom were from the Holland province, so that’s how the misnomer evolved.

The following day, Sunday, he and his friend had plans to float down the river, not on a boat, or an inner tube – just float with your body. I joined them. We walked a few miles up the river, working up a sweat, and then we got in. It felt awesome. The river was really shallow though and we had to prop ourselves up over the rocks most of the time. It took us about two hours to float back to town. At that point, I was exhausted, and ready to get the hell out. As we approached our exit, there were crowds of families making soup on the banks of the river. Apparently it’s a Sunday custom.

When we got back to Tim’s place, we realized that we’d left his white patio chair outside when we left for the river. It was gone. His only chair. His only piece of furniture. He was pretty disappointed since he didn’t have the money to buy a new one. So now his only option for sitting was on the concrete block outside his place.

Tayrona to Aracataca (Colombia)

Stats: 78.83 miles, 13.6 avg mph, 37.2 max, 5:45 hours

As I was hiking out of Tayrona National Park, I was anxious to see if my bike was still at the guard’s station. I didn’t like leaving it there, but I had no other choice – I just had to trust it. When I arrived to the station, my bike was there, but not the pannier I had left. My heart sank, and I stumbled through trying to ask for my “bolsa.” After a few tense minutes of searching around, the guard found my pannier locked in a cabinet.

On my way back towards Santa Marta, the road was littered with mangoes. They lay in the gutter along the road, and no one seemed to want them. Starving for food after being in Tayrona for a couple of days, and with a big appreciation for mangoes as an exotic fruit, I stopped and loaded up with as many mangoes as I could fit in my panniers. I left with about fifteen.

I passed Santa Marta and got on the road towards Bogota.  580 miles to Bogota.

My goal that day was to get to Aracataca, the town where the famous writer of 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was born. While I was in Santa Marta, I had contacted a hostel through CouchSurfing in Aracataca that offered free camping to see if they’d be available to host. They hadn’t gotten back to me by the time I left for Tayrona, so I assumed it wasn’t going to work.

Late into the afternoon, a cyclist passed me going the other direction. A few minutes later, he caught up to me. He had turned around on his ride to cycle with me. Cristian was a 26-year-old psychologist who was living in Aracataca. He rode with me 10 or so miles, the rest of the way to Aracataca.

I suggested we get a drink, so he brought me to a restaurant that had a lot of photos and paraphernalia of “Gabo.” I was tired from the ride, and Cristian was frustrated with my poor Spanish. As we sat there, Cristian was discussing something with the owner about a Dutch guy in town who spoke English. The owner sent someone to get the English speaker.

A tall, Dutch guy in his mid-twenties with a shag of blond hair showed up. Tim seemed really spaced out, but he spoke English really well. “I think you contacted me a few days ago, and if you like, you can stay with me. It’s not a problem.” He was the CouchSurfer I had contacted!! The only English-speaker in town, and the only CouchSurfer in town. I guess the odds were good.

Agua Pluma

Every time I would stop to fill up my water bottles, I would have to go through the same routine. I wanted to know that the tap water was okay to drink, and I had to explain that I didn’t want to buy bottled water.

“El agua esta bueno para tomar?” – The water is good to drink?
“No, no quiero agua para comprar. Solo agua regular” – No, I don’t want water to buy. Only regular water.

Many times it was slow to get my point across. I needed a key word.  I needed the word for “tap water.”

On my way up the mountains to Tayrona National Park, I stopped at a roadside snack shop and got a Pepsi. While I was there, I wanted to get my bottles filled up with water, so I went through the same routine. The lady didn’t understand that I didn’t want to buy water, but I had noticed a hose that was giving them a constant flow of water from the mountain, so I pointed to that. “Ahhhh, agua pluma!”  Agua Pluma!!  That was the word.  After confirming that it was good to drink, I filled up.

Tayrona Camping Meal

When I got back, I really wanted to eat my pasta, but I didn’t have a stove. I asked a couple of guys who were walking by if they had one. They were two jovial American guys, Matt and Tim. They said they had a stove, so they invited me to come over to their campsite later.

When I arrived, I found Matt and Tim on top of a huge rock playing guitar and singing. I joined them on top, and Matt offered me an Argentine tea drink. We laughed a lot and got into some deep discussions about our hopes and dreams.

Claire and Jose were Matt and Tim’s neighbors at the campsite who were going to make dinner too, so we decided to combine forces. Jose was from Argentina and he was dating Clair who was from England. I hate English people. Jose started a fire, and Clair wanted to know what we were going to cook. I had my two small bags of pasta. “Oh,” she said, “I was going to cook pasta too, but if we’re already cooking two bags, it’s probably more than enough for five of us, right?” I told her that I was really hungry and I could probably eat a whole bag myself. So a compromise was struck: “Well let’s cook your pasta and if we want more at the end of it, we can cook up my bag.” I knew this wouldn’t happen. After cooking over a fire, and eating, no one’s going to want to start the whole process over. And I couldn’t stake claim on her bag of pasta for myself if I was the only one who was still hungry. Claire knew she would win. “Oh, and you have sauce too. Great.”

We sat around the fire drinking cheap rum as we cooked the pasta. The most notable point in conversation was when Matt asked Jose if he noticed a difference between American and UK English. I don’t even remember if Jose was able to answer. I just remember Claire jumping in to say that American English is incorrect and difficult to understand, and that Jose was learning “proper” English. She was saying this to an American audience – Matt, Tim, and I. I personally hate the sound of an English voice. Most English accents are ugly, and a few non-native English speakers have told me that it’s difficult for them to understand the UK English accent. But I wouldn’t have told Claire that because I know it’s rude.

Tayrona National Park

Even before I got to Colombia, I heard a lot about the Lost City (Ciudad Perdida) hike in the Sierra Nevada near Santa Marta. It was a 6-day, supported hike through rivers and jungle, and up and down mountains. It cost about $300 and would take too much time, so I decided against it.

Instead, I went to Tayrona National Park. After entering the park ($17 entrance fee), I left my bike at the guard station because the trail to the campsites and beach had sections that were narrow, muddy, or rocky.

I hiked 45 minutes on the trail with one pannier and my tent. It sucked to hike with my Ortlieb pannier – the strap was digging into my shoulder. I took off my shirt because I would have just soaked through my shirt.  It remained off for most of the rest of my time at Tayrona.  Natural one.

The campsite I got was $4 a night. After setting up, I went to visit all the beaches that were divided up by patches of jungle. The beaches were great, but beaches are supposed to be enjoyed with friends; the pleasure dies quickly when you’re alone.

All the food that was sold at the park was really expensive. I had heard reports of this from other travelers before I arrived, so I brought a bunch of food in with me: bread, pasta, fruit, and cookies. It was extremely boring, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t give in. So I kept chewing on my plain bread.

The main thing to do at Tayrona, besides the beach, was the 90-minute hike up to El Pueblito, which is a site similar to the Lost City. I went with my water bottle and a few packs of cookies. Shirtless and wearing my short red swimming shorts, I scampered up the rocks dripping sweat, and passing old people, and school children. When I got to the top, it was pretty disappointing. The only thatched hut there was a snack stand. There was a large group of kids on a school trip sitting around eating their lunch. As I approached them in skimpy shorts with my pale, white chest exposed, they all tried to disguise their laughter. Odd, gay tourist.

With unsteady legs, I ran back down the trail, and dipped into the Caribbean.

Losing Things

I had forgot my wallet in Costa Rica, and then I lost my USB drive somewhere else along the way. It’s not like me to be so careless. But the bad streak continued.

In Santa Marta, I went to read my Spanish-English parallel-text book of short stories out by some rocks by the water. I brought my coin purse and added a $5 bill so that I’d have enough to get something to eat on the way back. I found a good rock to sit on, placed my coin purse on a rock next to me, and then started reading. It was a windy day, so I checked on my coin purse every once in a while. But then one time as I checked, it was gone. An empty feeling struck me instantly. I searched the rocks below, and in all the crevices, but I didn’t see my orange Guatemalan coin purse anywhere. Then I got in the water, and scoured the sand systematically with my toes, walking back and forth in lines as if I was in a search party. A couple of teenagers came by and asked what I had lost. They helped me for a few minutes, and then wished me good luck as they left. I never found it.

I realize it wasn’t a big loss. It had some change and that $5 bill, so maybe $7 in all, but that purse had sentimental value – a token from Guatemala – and that money could have bought me something – a couple of meals, or even two nights stay at the hostel.

Sex and Drugs in Santa Marta

Hostel Miramar was a good find.  I stayed in the 5-bed dorm room, which was pretty dingy and really hot, but it was only $3.50 per night.  The backpackers who were staying in the same room saw my bike parked by my bed and asked me about it.  When I told them the story, they were impressed and I remember the English girl saying, “I have, like, mad respect for you.”  It’s nice to have people be impressed by what you’re doing, but I try to be careful in that hostel setting.  I didn’t want to succumb to that annoying, typical, hostel battle of who’s travel experience is more raw and exciting.

The first night in Santa Marta, I wandered around the waterfront, and sat down outside a convenience store where they served drinks.  After having a Coke and a beer by myself, and getting up to leave, two Colombian guys, who were drinking next to me, asked me where I was from and invited me to sit down with them.  They bought me a lot of beer; I think I had six by the end of it.  Arturo and Eduardo were both lawyers, married, and in their forties, but they were passionate in telling me about the whorehouses in the area.  They instructed me that “putas” in the whorehouses are safe (and great fun), but that the prostitutes on the street probably have HIV, or else they’ll try to drug and rob you.  Apparently, some street putas put a chemical on their nipples that’ll put you to sleep.

Is this what you’d see at a Colombian whorehouse?

My lawyer friends urged me to visit one of the whorehouses.  Arturo even offered to take me to one.  I was drunk, and so I was thinking, “When in Rome …,” but it would have been weird.  Although it seems that whorehouses and prostitution are an acceptable part of the culture in Colombia, I explained to my friends that it’s strange and taboo in the US.  In the end, I decided against cultural immersion.

… or would you see this?

Arturo gushed about Colombian cocaine – top quality and great prices.  As Arturo raved about it and made sniffing gestures, Eduardo sat back, disinterested.  Eduardo was obviously not a drug user, but Arturo was passionate about it.

When Eduardo left for the airport, Arturo and I joined his friend at another table.  Rene was an old, fat man who carried a cane.  He spoke good English.  As Rene explained, it was because he had lived in the US for some years.  However, Arturo told me that Rene had spent five years in jail in the US because of his involvement in the drug trade – that’s why he spoke good English.

Near Death in Santa Marta

Stats: 67.15 miles, 13.4 avg, 5 hours

The whole day I had been very alone on my ride as I was passing through undeveloped marshland.  But as I turned off the highway and got into the outskirts of Santa Marta, it got really different.  Motorcycles were everywhere.  They slipped in between cars, and at red lights, they swarmed around me.  I’m used to city riding, so I just held my line, and tried to avoid any obstacles in front of me.

But at one point, I veered to the right as I was going through an intersection to give myself more space before having to merge again.  As I was returning to merge, I crossed a seam in the road and got caught.  I felt myself losing balance – that tipping sensation – and falling to the left, into traffic.  But by the Hand of God, or some other miraculous mechanism (maybe there’s a built-in “no death” feature in my Surly), I regained balance.  At the same moment, a truck was passing me closely.  If my left pannier had been a little heavier, or I had run through that seam in the road a little harder, I think I would have been dead.  I imagined my head going under the wheel of the truck and getting crushed.  There was no time for the truck to react if I had fallen.

College Days: Norfolk Southern Interview

Towards the end of Spring 2004, as I was searching out internships for the Summer, I was invited to attend a testing session for Norfolk Southern. Although Norfolk Southern is a big and prosperous company, it’s a railroad company. Railroads are boring. However, I was pretty desperate for an internship so I figured it was worth a shot.

The testing session was going to be on a Monday at 8:30 AM at the Holiday Inn up by the Perimeter. This was a problem for a few reasons. One is that I don’t like to miss class. The other, more important problem is that I don’t have a car, and the Holiday Inn is pretty far away from Georgia Tech. Being industrious, and with the help of Mapquest, I figured out a way to get to the Holiday Inn by way of MARTA and my bicycle. It was going to be a three mile journey from the closest MARTA train station.

My first adult bike that I got from the Salvation Army auction for $10

On the morning of the testing session, I woke up early and headed out on time. Although I had to wait 10 minutes for the northbound train, my major delay occurred in following mapquest’s directions too closely. Mapquest directed me to take a left. I took a left, but mapquest’s mistaken directions, along with my faulty estimation of distance, caused me to travel over a mile in the wrong direction, instead of the 0.3 miles listed for that section of the journey. As I returned to the MARTA station from where I came, I considered giving up and returning home since it was already 8:30 AM, the testing session had started. However, there was a fire inside me that prodded me to carry on. I have an iron will! I headed off with a new spirit and took the right direction this time, encountering many hills, broken sidewalk, and other obstacles along the way.

When I reached the Holiday Inn, it was 9:00 AM, 30 minutes after the testing session was scheduled to start. I had dressed for biking — jeans, t-shirt, and bookbag — and I wasn’t planning on changing since it was only a testing session. The humidity and the exertion from the trek, along with the bookbag had caused my back to become drenched in sweat. I found the room for Norfolk Southern. 30 minutes late, I walked into a room full of suits, severely under-dressed, and sweaty. The testing session had apparently not begun as the presenter was talking about the Norfolk Southern retirement plan to a group of possible summer interns! I sat down and poured myself many glasses of water from the complimentary pitcher.

I took the test, which was retarded — analogies, basic arithmetic, and over 300 behavioral questions — and I interviewed. I knew i had totally no chance at the internship, but I decided to go through with all the screening procedures anyway. I was totally right too; I didn’t get the job, or even a call, but I had made an impression. A big impressions. Two friends who attended the session properly dressed, got a second interview with a hiring manager at the company. They told me that the hiring manager started off the interview telling them about a certain applicant who appeared at the testing session late and under-dressed. The hiring manager was blown away by the lack of respect and etiquette. Unacceptable!

The important thing is that I created a memory for everyone involved.

Restaurante Mona

Once I got outside of Barranquilla, on my way to Santa Marta, the landscape turned to barren marshland. For about three hours, and in blazing heat, it was a straight, flat, never-ending road. No sign of life. I was getting hungry, but I hadn’t seen a restaurant, or even a village, for hours.

Then I saw some guys stopped to do some surveying or something. I asked them where the closest restaurant was. They told me there was a good place that was cheap up ahead past the toll called Restaurante Mona. Twelve miles up the road.

About forty minutes later, I passed through the toll, and saw a lonely strip of tire repair places, snack and drink stands, and restaurants. Then I found Restaurante Mona.

It was a fish place with open-air seating. There was a big, fat woman in the kitchen tending to some big pots that were sitting over a fire. I assumed that was Mona. I asked Mona what she was serving. Fish. One option. Colombian meals usually come with a soup, so I asked about that. Fish also. I asked what they had to drink. I made it a habit to ask if they had some homebrewed juice available since those were always great, and dirt-cheap; actually, many times, if they had a juice, it would be included with the meal with no extra charge. All they had was Coca-Cola. Restaurante Mona was full of options.

While I was waiting for my food, I asked a young guy, who was probably Mona’s son, if they had water that was good to drink. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t want to *buy* the water, but he ran into the store across the street, and diligently brought back some bags of water for me – yeah, water is sold in BAGS!! I thanked him for his efforts, but I turned down the bags. Once they understood that I just wanted some regular water, they let me fill up my bottles out of a bucket of water they kept in the kitchen.

I got my fish soup. It was tasty, but it was a drag to have to pull all the bones out of my mouth after taking a spoonful.

I wanted to tell the young guy about how boring that stretch from Barranquilla was, but once I started talking to him, everyone turned their attention to me. I was sitting at my table, and I talked across the room to this guy, and immediately, everyone turned around and stopped what they were doing. They heard a retarded-voice struggling to be understood. I imagine it was a sort of morbid curiosity.

“El camino de baranquilla a aqui estuvo muy … abburido.” I wasn’t too sure about how to say “boring” – it was a new word for me – but it was something like “abburido.” They didn’t understand. I repeated it in different variations: aburito? abburido? abburrado? They were still confused. Then I made some “boring” gestures – charades. Mona’s face lit up, “Ahhhh, abburrrrrrrrido.” The rolling R. We all burst out laughing, and I tried copying the rolling R to show them how much I sucked at it. They enjoyed it.

They really warmed to me, as I was a smiling, self-effacing, friendly gringo. I didn’t mind making fun of my shitty Spanish either. It’s much easier than taking it all seriously, which ends up making you feel shitty about speaking so badly.

My Dad’s Commando Car Rescue

My dad’s got a fleet of cars.  Junk cars.  His primary car is a 1990 Mercury Sable wagon that he inherited after his dad passed away, but he’s been keeping a 1985 Dodge Aries in storage for years.  Turning the ignition with a screwdriver is one of the many cosmetic and functional problems with that car.  He also had a 1980s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera that my sister and I called “robocar” since it was basically down to scrap metal.  The insides were stripped, there were no rear seats, and weeds were growing through it.  Miraculously, someone stole robocar.  I don’t know how, or why, but it relieved my dad from his monthly payment for storing robocar.  He was disappointed because the car had sentimental value.

Low Lifes

My dad was working in a walk-in clinic in Fort Myers for a while.  Although he left to go to law school at the University of Florida in Gainesville, a few of his patients kept calling him to get my dad to write prescriptions for strong pain killers, like Roxicodone, for their back pain.  Two of these guys, Jason and Doug, who I would characterize as “low lifes,” have some criminal history, and the drug they wanted prescribed happened to have a high resale value on the street.  They both work with cars, so they setup a bartering agreement with my dad:  car service in exchange for prescriptions.

About a year ago, Jason told my dad that he would give him a $400 early 1990s Saturn station wagon.  Jason was on probation for a DUI, so he couldn’t drive anyway.  I went down to Fort Myers with my dad to pick it up, but it was a piece of junk.  I refused to drive it because it was unsafe.  My dad discovered problems with it, so he left it with Jason to fix.

Jason kept working on it, and delaying as he reported other mechanical problems.  Months and months.  But Jason kept getting prescriptions from my dad.  My dad gives these guys the benefit of the doubt.  Then, as my dad reported to me,

Jason was driving another car on his suspended license and his buddy was with him.  To avoid a charge, they switched identities but the officer who stopped him compared the license of the buddy to Jason’s appearance and the buddy’s appearance, detected the ruse and arrested them both for lying to a law-enforcement officer.  The officer searched the car Jason was driving and found considerable cash, so he suspected that Jason was selling the Roxicodone that I had prescribed him.  He has remained in custody ever since.

At that point, Doug, one of the other patients receiving the same prescriptions, took custody of the Saturn.  Doug expressed relief that my dad was finally through having to deal with Jason, and assumed responsibility for fixing the car.  After finishing a brake job, he reported problems with the transmission, and told my dad it would take two weeks.  The two weeks passed, and when my dad finally got a hold of him, he learned that

[Doug] was driving the Saturn when a policewoman stopped him for a traffic-violation.  She found my prescription for Roxicodone and that raised a red flag, even though he had the duly authorized labeling on the container, so she searched the car.  She found a baggie of heroine, which is contraband, so she arrested and incarcerated Peavey and had a towing company take the Saturn.  He later blamed Jason’s associates for leaving the heroine or planting it in the car … He also said that he’d lost his own car to the repo-man because he hadn’t kept up his payments, so he had to take public transport to work or depend on his brother to drive him … Because Peavey’s car had been repossessed, I assumed that he wanted to continue to retain the Saturn so he could serve his own convenience by commuting with it.

Commando Dad

So my dad drove down to Fort Myers in his Mercury Sable wagon and bailed the Saturn out for $500.

After I bailed the Saturn out, I leapfrogged the Mercury and the Saturn from the towing company northward to the what I learned was the hearest large parking lot, associated with TJ Maxx in Cape Coral.  It was a distance of about two miles.  That meant that I had to walk or run in the sweltering heat the entire two miles.  I left the car in the large parking lot.

Doug took possession of the car again because he promised to get a locksmith out to do some work.  “He also claimed that the transmission was having trouble again with slipping.  By that time, I’d driven it and had found no trouble with the transmission, so it seemed proof that he was BSing.”

On Sunday, my dad tried to get in contact with him to pickup the Saturn, but Doug wouldn’t answer.  So my dad decided he would have to take it by force!

I parked around the corner and returned, hoping to start it and seize it in a commando-operation.  It was still dead.  It was parked with cars around it in the driveway, boxed in on three sides.  The only escape-route was across the lawn.  I rang the doorbell, expecting I’d have to abandon my commando-raid but nobody answered, so I executed commando-plan B.  I pulled the Mercury onto the lawn to jump the Saturn.  I got it started, left it running and pulled away with the Mercury.  I returned to the Saturn and took it across the lawn and down the road a piece.  I leapfrogged the two cars about a mile in the sweltering heat, leaving the Saturn running the whole time, since I couldn’t start it again, if I’d turned it off.   A difficulty in Cape Coral, as in Fort Myers, is the absence of permissible parking at the sides of roads, so I parked on the grassy median as I leapfrogged the cars.  That was probably illegal, but I saw no signs against it.

Finally, I got a call from Peavey.  He was shouting.  “What am I gonna tell my brother?!!!  You tore up his lawn!!!”  I denied it.  I’d only disturbed a few blades of grass.  I told him not to exaggerate.

Most of Sunday afternoon, I was drenched in sweat from running and walking in the heat.  The guy who was about to check my battery at Advanced Auto asked if I’d been running in the rain.  I said in the heat; this is what Floridians all looked like before air conditioning came in.

Barranquilla, Colombia – Shakira’s City

The bus took me about 20 miles, and dropped me in the center of the city just before sundown. I had had no idea how far Barranquilla was from Cartagena, but I realized that I would have been riding through the dark and the wind (or maybe camping out in the barren countryside) if I hadn’t taken that bus.

Community Outreach Project: Find Gringo a Hotel

A couple of people who got off the bus with me took a big interest in my safety and my needs. I told them I wanted to find a cheap place to stay, around 10,000 pesos ($5). They gave me some directions pointing me back up the main road (I understood their hand signals more than their words), but they had looks of deep concern for me. I was urged to take a taxi as it was getting dark, and I guess that’s when all the thieves and ghouls come out to play. Other people who were passing by joined the group to be my advisers. I looked like such an outsider that they treated me like a child who’d lost his parents. It was a community giving-back event to help this gringo find a place to stay for the night, and to get him there safely. I assured my caretakers that I would be fine biking it, but they just thought I was naive. Innocent whitey would get a hard lesson about this cruel world.

Unrelated photos from the Barranquilla Carnival

But it was fine, although the traffic was bad . It was an insane rush hour. Dirty-bus congested and obstacle riddled. People pushing carts of fruit, cars constantly switching lanes to get around the buses, and a harmless foreigner with a loaded bike, a large helmet, and probably lots of cash trying to get through it all. It made me appreciate the emissions laws in the US – I would hold my breath as the buses would puff lots of black.

I found the hotel that was recommended to me, but there were no vacancies, so the lady pointed me somewhere else. When I got there, once again, there were no vacancies. Juan, an older black guy who was there, knew of a place, and he escorted me. They had rooms available, and it cost $7.50 for private room with TV and bathroom. I was happy.

Tipping Gone Wild

Juan got me a cup of tinto, coffee without milk but with lots of sugar, and we shook hands, smiled, and he told me “Welcome to Colombia.” I wasn’t sure of his place at this hotel. Did he work there? Was he getting a kick-back from the place when he’d bring a guest?  I felt he should be tipped for his help. I appreciated it.

So, I got a bill out — I think it was only 2000 pesos ($1) – and readied myself. When Juan walked by, I stopped him, told him thank you, shook his hand, and extended the bill. When he saw it, he stepped back and waved his hands in refusal. Juan only wanted to help me; he wasn’t doing it for money. I felt like shit because I was putting a monetary value on his good works, and it was a shitty monetary value. I didn’t read it properly.

After changing and cleaning up, I stepped out to walk around a little bit. Barranquilla is a gritty place. Shakira is from there. Lots of weather-beaten, hardened-looking prostitutes tried getting my attention for some business as I strolled by, trying not to notice them.  As in Cartagena, I was offered cocaine, or “Anything you want, amigo,” – these guys knew the key English phrases. I think I ended up just eating some fried chicken and fries, which is extremely popular in Colombia.

Wet Dream

Sleeping was a sweaty experience. To my surprise, the mattress and pillows were vinyl with only thin cotton covers over them. I would have to reposition myself when a pool of sweat started gathering under me.

Cartagena to Barranquilla

Stats: 60. 18 miles, 10.6 avg, 5:40 hours

Although I got off to a rough start leaving Cartagena because my steering column was out of tune, riding along the coast was great.  It had also been a while since my last ride, since I had been relaxing in the resort Rancho de Caldera and then preparing to get to Colombia when I was in Panama City.  But now I was on my first ride in South America.

There was a strong wind the whole day, and the heat was way up, but I didn’t mind too much at the start since I was riding right along the Caribbean.  But then the road took me inland, and once I got past the outskirts of Cartagena, boring hit me hard.  Man, it was boring.  Words won’t do it justice.  I was too bored to stop to take a photo, and it wouldn’t have been worth stopping for such a boring photo.  I just trudged on – into the wind, in the heat – with a lot of swampy plains and almost no civilization.

I had been riding for over five hours, but Barranquilla was still a long way off.  The night before, I had looked at a map in the hostel showing Cartagena and Barranquilla as two small dots very close together along the coast.  I know about scale and legends on a map, but riding it made me realize how immense Colombia really is.

Tourist building built to look like the famous Costena hats from that region.

After 60 miles, my legs were giving in. In had been going about 10 mph the whole day, and now my calves were cramping up.  I was already mentally exhausted from the nothingness I’d been riding through.  I wanted to hitchhike, but it was risky to waste time since I only had an hour of sun; I didn’t want to get stuck out there, barren and dark.

I heard a Chicken Bus coming behind me (it’s easy — they’re loud), so I signaled to it.  It stopped and I asked how much it would be to Barranquilla.  3500 pesos –  about $1.75.  I unclipped my two panniers and loaded everything through the rear door, as the driver and his attendant were yelling at me to hurry up – these Chicken Buses are always in a rush.  As I stepped on board, the bus took off, so I was swaying around trying to manage my bags and my bike and maneuvering around to get a seat.  The other passengers were helpful – holding my bike, picking up my bags after they went sliding around, and giving me looks of empathy and interest in what I was doing.

Boxing Your Bike and Reassembling It

When I was in Panama City, I went to a bike shop to get a cardboard bike box and get my pedals taken off.  The bike shop had a box and told me that they’d box it for $5.  Since it’s a pain in the ass, and it’s an operation a bike shop in the US would probably charge at least $30 for, I let them do it.

When your bike isn’t being used to travel, lugging it around is a burden.  It’s big, awkward, and expensive when you need to take it on an airplane.  Flying on Aires airlines from Panama City to Cartagena, they charged me $4 per kg, which cost me $84.  I paid about $80 for my ticket.  The bike cost the same as a human passenger!

It was pretty easy to put the bike back together.  There were only two issues:

• Pedals: Hand-threading them back on the cranks is the safest thing to do, since by-hand, you’re less likely to thread it on at an angle, which would screw up the crank threading.  However, I only had a short-handled crescent wrench to tighten them down.  The good part is that pedaling tightens the pedals to the cranks.  But, I remember it happened to me before on another bike, a couple of days after putting on some pedals, my pedal started coming lose as I was riding — I hadn’t tightened it down enough, or it was threaded on at an angle — and it ended up destroying the threading in my crank arm.  Nightmare.  I really wanted a pedal wrench to tighten the pedal onto the crank, but I did my best, and I didn’t have any issues.

• Threadless Headset: Getting my steering column back to normal was the biggest challenge.  I tightened the top cap first, and then the pinch bolts, but when I rode, I felt like I was going to tip over.  The slightest thing wrong in the headset causes major steering upset.  I got a sense of the bike flexing from side to side, a strange feeling.  So I loosened the top cap and pinch bolts a little, and then changed the order of tightening, trying the pinch bolts first, then the top cap.  It was still bad, but slightly better.  So I kept loosening and tightening, and after many iterations, the steering column got back to normal.

Loneliness

When I arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, I felt really lonely. I don’t know why, really. But I had a lot of hopes for Colombia. People I met along the way in Central America had been telling me how great it is in Colombia – so much to do, so much to see, the people are great, the women are beautiful, it’s cheap. Colombia was by far the most raved-about country.

It was definitely a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side thing. Maybe I was expecting something really different since I was now in South America. Maybe I thought Spanish would come naturally, being in this new continent, and everyone would be my friend.

Walking around Cartagena alone was odd and sort of depressing. It’s one of the most romantic cities in the world.* You’re not supposed to be alone there.

Although Cartagena is one of the great highlights of Colombia, I wanted to get on my bike and leave the next day. I wanted to escape the loneliness, and take shelter in the Zen of riding.

But until then, I had to kill time. And hanging out in a hostel dorm room for the evening would have made me feel like the ultimate loser. People would come into the room to change before going out again to have fun, and I’d be the weird guy hanging out on his bunk, being self-conscious.

It’s weird though. If you don’t do something at night, especially on Friday or Saturday, you feel like you’re failing. There’s that extra pressure to have fun at night and at the weekend. And there’s even more pressure when you’re traveling. And even more when you’re in a party city, like Cartagena. (I was offered cocaine multiple times as I was walking around – “I can get you whatever you want.”)

But there’s also the human need to have social contact. I remember going a few days without hanging out with anybody. I would talk to people in shops and ask directions, but that was it. After a few days without decent social contact, I started feeling like shit. But then when I’d get into a conversation with somebody, or even better, an English conversation, I’d feel refreshed. It wouldn’t even have to be a good interaction. I just needed something to get myself out of the funk.

So as the evening approached in Cartagena, I was anxious to find something to do. And guess who bailed me out? A German! I met Patrick the night before since we came in on the same flight from Panama City, and happened to stay in the same hostel. As I strolled around town looking for something to do, I bumped into him as he was waiting on some friends. It ended up being eight of us: German, Australian, two Israelis, Dutch, English, Swiss, and an American (me). We had dinner, and then followed the two girls in the group around, as they browsed for trinkets in all the street stalls. It was an unremarkable evening, but I felt better after the social contact, and it got me out of the hostel.

*When I visited Venice, popularly thought to be the most romantic city in the world, I was traveling solo, and walking around alone, taking in all the sites, alone. But that was different. Venice is total bullshit. Empty shell of a city existing only for tourists.

Cartagena, Colombia

I got a cheap flight from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia.  I didn’t want to miss Colombia’s top tourist attraction — this colonial walled city — and starting out from here would allow me to travel along the coast before cutting inland on my way to Bogota.

Cartagena is historically significant for its port.  Additionally, Wikipedia offers that, “The city was one of the first sanctuaries of freed African slaves in the Americas and is currently populated by an ethnic mix representative of Colombia’s own variety.”  I remember seeing a lot of black people in Cartagena.  There were fewer as I moved along the coast, and seeing black people was rare when I got inland.

It’s appropriate to go for a romantic stroll in Cartagena’s old town with its colonial architecture and winding streets.

It’s also extremely hot.  It was in the high 90s and low 100s when I was there.  As I was eating in a restaurant, I dripped sweat as I ate.  Sweat beads were running down my chest and bled through the front of my shirt.  It was weird looking like I had just come off playing pickup basketball, and all I did was sit and chew.

Here I am taking a self-timed photo at the wall of the city.  And this is some typical Colombian food.  $3.

Cartagena would probably make a great place for a honeymoon — it’s romantic, historic, exotic, cheap, and it’s got beaches.  I’ve heard the beaches aren’t great though, but that you can take a boat to Playa Blanca, which is a much better, cleaner beach.  Cartagena definitely has variety.  And you’ll have access to lots of cocaine at reasonable prices.

Panama City

I think Panama City must have been built on a swamp. The heat was oppressive. I wandered around Miguel’s apartment shirtless and slick with sweat. Getting up from the couch, I felt bad for leaving a puddle of sweat behind me.

If you ever want to open up a hostel, do it in Panama City. The city holds you captive. Not in the magical sense either. It’s physical captivation. The road ends here, and the only way across is to get a boat or fly. The time travelers have to waste in arranging this, especially the boat option, will make a hostel owner rich.

Lucky for me, I had a CouchSurfing host. Unlucky for me, he was hosting an English guy.

Front-Seat Battles

His name was Ross. Although I’ve disliked most of the English travelers I’ve met, I started fresh with him – open-minded and friendly.

On our first outing together in Miguel’s truck, I conceded the front seat to Ross. I wanted to establish a sharing spirit among us, and show Ross I had no sense of ownership on the front seat. Unfortunately, he was English.

I let Ross take the front seat a few more times, especially when stopping at the passenger-seat door would have impeded the flow. But then it happened. Ross stopped short at the passenger-seat door, blocking me, and making me step around him to get to the back seat. At this point it was obvious he didn’t want to give up rights to the passenger seat. It was important to him to get that artificial sense of higher value. And it was important to me to foil his ass.

So in our next face-off, although I feigned a comfortable, lazy gait, I moved to the truck with purpose as I monitored Ross’ movements. I made a casual arrival at the passenger-seat door, this time blocking Ross, who was behind me. Ross lingered behind me a few moments too long. Although I didn’t turn around to look at him because I didn’t want to draw attention to my feat, he must have felt stumped. I think he thought lining up behind me was going to indicate to me that I was in the wrong place. I got in and sat in my throne. He descended silently to the back seat.

It was war. An unspoken battle for the front seat each time we strode through the parking lot. I let him win shotgun a lot of times; I just wanted it to be equitable. But stupid English bastard never conceded it to me. He never willingly moved to the back seat; I had to take it from him.

Clown Fetish

Miguel, an internet fiend, was all over my facebook, and asked me about the photos from the John Mark clown video I had made. I explained that I was acting as a character who had a fetish for clowns. But he and Ross didn’t get it, although they enjoyed their own stupid comments and questions. This became a big interest for them. Miguel wanted to see the video and asked me where he could find it. I stalled on it because I didn’t want to expose it to them. But that didn’t stop Miguel. He hunkered down in his internet power search mode and creeped through everything he could find that was linked with me.

And eventually he found it. But, it had been taken down for copyright infringement. So they stayed up late watching almost every other video in our extensive catalog. The next few days were peppered with annoying comments.

“So if we go to the circus, and you see a clown, will you get really excited? Would we have to hold you back?”

I laughed along, although it was a struggle. These guys didn’t get it. I was especially irritated by the plain, English, boring guy. You’re too boring to understand this dude.

Then, as we were driving around, we passed a guy doing some Zen kind of Chi power-stance. From the back seat, Ross quips, “It’s like a scene out of your wanking video,” and then busts out laughing. I was pissed. I turned around and coldly asked, “How?” How, dude?! It’s frustrating when you’re getting cut down with material that’s not even good. How do you defend against it? It’s like trying to make fun of children who have an undeveloped sense of humor. Even if you get them good, they won’t get it, and then they’ll “zing” you with something that doesn’t even make sense.

Crossing the Darien Gap

The Darien Gap makes you appreciate roads.

The Gap is the infamous area between Panama and Colombia that’s impassable, unless you’re hardy enough to hike through dense jungle over mountains and through rivers. There are no trails. I’ve heard about people doing this, but some have gotten kidnapped or held at gunpoint. Apparently it’s a hot spot for drug trafficking.

Having had a hard time traveling with my bicycle on a dirt and rock road for a few miles, I held no illusions about overland travel through the Gap. But as I was considering all the other options, I yelled out in frustration a few times, “I wish there was a damn road.”

1. Sailboat:
There are boats that cart backpackers between Panama City and Cartagena, but they’re expensive. It’s a 5 or 6 day trip with a stop in the beautiful San Blas islands. $375. I considered this option because it would mean I wouldn’t have to break down my bike for boxing, but what got me was when I heard they’d charge me $50 more for bringing my bike on-board.
Here’s a list of the sailboats on one of the primary hostel sites in Panama City. I’ve read many good reviews about the “Stahlratte” boat from my extensive research.

2. Airplane:

This is the option I took. Aires Airlines is the way to go. It’s a deep-bargain Colombian airline that flies from Panama City to Cartagena, and many other places. I got my flight for $127 (after taxes), but then I had to pay $84 more for my bike ($4 per kg) and a $10 tourist entrance fee into Colombia.

So I saved a lot of time and about $200 by flying instead of taking a boat, although I missed the sailing experience and the stop in San Blas. Oh well, I was really more interested in getting to Colombia quickly.

3. Combination:
You can get creative and do as the locals do by traveling along the coast in lanchas, which are small, short-distance, motor boats.  The only problem is that you have to get a flight out to Panama’s Caribbean coast close to Colombia.

Flight: Panama City – Tubal (Panama): $65: TACA flight leaves from Albrook (Regional) airport Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at 10:00 AM. and arrives at 11:00 AM to Tubal.
Boat: Tubal – Obaldia: $25: 1 hour
Boat: Obaldia – Capurgana (Colombia): $12: 1.5 hours
Boat: Capurgana – Turbo: $24: 2 hours

Total Cost: $126

My Colombian cyclist friend, Alex, crossed the Gap this way, and that’s how I got the information.  He told me that after he got off the plane at 11:00 AM, he immediately got on a boat to Obaldia.  Then, there was a boat leaving Obaldia at 12:30 PM.  Alex stayed the night in Capurgana.  I’ve heard from many people that Capurgana has nice beaches and is a good place to stay.

Germans vs English

When you’re traveling, you’re not only exposed to the locals in the country you’re visiting, you’re also likely to meet travelers from other countries. You can get a feel for a country’s culture by meeting a sample of its citizens. After my travel in Eastern Europe and Central America, I got a definite feel for who I liked and disliked.

Best: Germans

Every German I’ve met has been free of personality defects. They’ve been mild-mannered, generous, charismatic, responsible, well-educated, unselfish, and generally socially adept. My personal experience stands in stark contrast to the stereotype of Nazi-style, harsh Germans. I have tended to feel a kinship with the Germans I’ve met, and once I start hosting CouchSurfers, I will be biased in accepting German requests.

Worst: English

The English people I’ve met have been a disaster, and it’s been a burden to be in their company. Their typical characteristics are to be smug, selfish, cocky, and boring. Their accents annoy me, and it makes it worse that they think that British English is “better” than American English. I have met a few English people who were pretty cool, but they were the exception.

Panama Canal

While I was in Panama City, I was able to visit the Panama Canal.  It was a lot different from what I had expected.  I was under the impression that the canal was just a simple cut through the land, but in fact, it’s complicated and a major feat in engineering.

The French were the first to try to create a canal through Panama, and they had my idea — to just keep digging until water could flow freely from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  But they failed.  So, the US took over, and the chief engineer realized they needed a system that would take into account all the mountains in the interior of the country.  There were also complications with differences between the Atlantic and the Pacific, like tides and stuff.  So they built locks.  Here’s the description from wikipedia.

A lock is a device for raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber whose water level can be varied.

Locks are used to make a river more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to take a reasonably direct line across country that is not level.

It was interesting seeing these locks in action.  One chamber of water would drain, and another would fill, so that these huge cargo ships could be raised up to be transported through Panama’s interior, and then lowered back to sea level.