In Which Caitlin Arrives in Bogota and Is Stoked

Every wall in Bogota is covered in art. Stencils of the Notorious B.I.G. and machine guns turning into flowers. Sketches of faces done in one continuous line of pink spray paint. Long stretches of collaborative mural, looping colors bending back into themself and leaping cats and paint explosions and missives from the artists themselves... en fin, artes en todas partes.

I dig it here in a big way. Weve been hanging out in a neighborhood called El Chorro de Quevado, the boho enclave of the old city. Tight little cobblestoned alleys lined with chicha bars, a fermented corn drink served in a bowl with straws which tastes a lot like alcoholic kombucha. They play metal at typical ear splitting Colombian volumes and you sit at your tiny table packed in with your buddies and youve won at life for sure this time.

Bogota is way up in the mountains, so we are cold. It rains every day, which Im oddly stoked about. I guess you can take the girl out of the City of Roses, but you cant take the City of Roses out of the girl. Traded in my gringa shorts and flip flops for some city threads, new jeans and a tweed jacket. Feeling good, feeling great.

Last Sunday the citys museums were free to the general public so we partook of Museo Botero, Dali sculptures and French Impressionism startling my brain as always with the panoramic opportunity that is art. We wandered through the Plaza Mayor, past impressively massive governmental palaces. A battalion of riot police stalked around the lethargic llamas brought in as photo ops for clueless tourists, looking for all the world with their beating sticks and Plexiglass shields as though theyd been stood up by some previously scheduled uprising.

The city bustles. And theres a yoga studio slash vegetarian restaurant around the corner from the hostel. Perfect, as Im heading back into a meat free existence for the moment. Wish me luck, last time I tried this in a Latin country I nearly came to blows with an obtuse waiter in a restaurante. What, ham counts as meat? These gringos, I tell ya. Wish me luck, gang.

I remain
Yours,
CD

Salento, Colombia

I´m far enough into this trip that travel has ceased to be a vacation and has begun to be just a really, really awesome job.

I can breathe easy now. We´re up in the clean, high altitude air of the verdant Colombian mountains. I´m surrounded by the coffee farms and shockingly tall palm trees in the departmento of Quindio.

We came up here on a half-remembered tip from a fellow traveler and I´m not sure when we´re leaving. Uh oh, starting to feel that sucking feeling again.

We started out in Salento, a tiny town on the tip of a green summit with all the trappings of traditional Colombia- the tiny green plaza lined by a big white Catholic church and endless trucha, or trout restaurants. There´s a trout farm nearby and you would not believe the variety of ways Salentans have found to prepare the fish, ever-accompanied by a big, crispy patacon.

How am I talking about food again? Stop me next time. We got here for a puente, a three day bank holiday weekend, Salento´s reason for existence. We´re talking festivities in the street, vendors and artesans and rumba. Rumba. Rumba. Colombians love their rumba.

But we are being good (for the most part), and have contented ourselves with the mind-shift that is the natural world up here. We went hiking through the Valle de Corcora, where cow pastures give way to this jungle that´s like the jungles you see in your head, or maybe in the movie Fern Gully, or maybe just in the drawings of very, very creative people. We´re talking a lot of life. We´re also talking the first physical activity we´d done in a while, so we´re talking huffing and puffing up into the mountains of the cloud forest.

One rocky path took us up to a family-run reserva where we got served aguapanela con queso, a sweet, hot drink served with massive chunks of cheese culled from the neighbor´s sweetly obese cows. Sitting in a rustic palm-and-log shack, we caught our breath as the family´s pet chowed down in front of us. He was a raccoon, I think, but done crazy Colombian style with a long, anteater styled snout. I think they fed him the same bean soup we were eating.

So yeah, lots of hiking. There´s also a sick mountain biking community, who was good enough to lend my friend Krishna and I top of the line mounts for an afternoon out. We pedaled out to Don Elias´ coffee farm, where the Don himself showed us how they take that liquid gold from red or yellow bean to small perfect sipping cup. There was a odd little earthquake while we were in the bean-drying room, but Don Elias seemed took it in stride, barely interrupting his lecture on his work to tend to the gang of terrified grandkids that ran up for comfort.

I needed the caffiene later for our ride back up to Salento, an hour´s ride of constant slope to the top of the mountain. I didn´t realize that Krishna, a native San Franciscan, is a seasoned hill climber and I nearly blew out my lungs before admitting his superior quad strength. It´s been awhile since the days me and the green monster climbed up Mt. Tabor.

So this places rocks. We relocated yesterday down the hill to Boquilla, a town just big enough for a chorizo and queso shop but not much else. A lovely old hippie named Jorge has adopted Erik and I into his campsite wonderland. My favorite bits of our new habitat include waterbeds in the ´luxury tents´and superior tropical bird watching. Check out this website- click on ´Hospedajes Exoticos´and tell me I don´t have it good on this earth...

http://www.campingmonteroca.com/

Again, feeling that riptide to chill for awhile. Jorge tells me not to worry, cuz in Colombia ¨No hay de nervios.¨ Amen to that.

Yours,
CD

Confessions of a Street Food Junkie

I know it´s bad for me. But I´m in Colombia, and it´s practically the national pastime. And so cheap! You can get it on any corner. Too bad it leaves you feeling like crap afterwards...

Colombian street food. My least healthy addiction to date.

You would not believe the amount of sales that go on in this country. There´s vendors on every corner, clogging up city center and posted out on the most secluded, lonely beach on the coast. Batteries, sports bras, pornos, cigarettes, beach balls, blenders- there is a stand or stall or card-table to satisfy your every desire. Once, a guy tried to sell me a wine glass out of his blazer. We are talking entrepreneurs here.

But the most ubiquitous street vendor of all is that of the street food hustlers. We are big on eating on the run here, particularly if it is cheese-filled and soaked in grease. I´ve assembled an overly comprehensive hit parade of these delicious nuggets so that those at home can be informed as to the state of my diet.

Jugos Naturales- fresh squeezed juice, whole fruits. Maracuya (passionfruit), tomate de arbol (tree tomato, no really), guayaba and lulo are a couple of the more distinctive flavors you´ll find here. The fruit in Colombia is wildly plentiful, probably the reason for the prevalence of the next item on the list.

Fruit Cups- Big cups of fruit. Popular choices include watermelon or mango, and in Medellin, strawberries. This is the end of anything on this list that can even loosely be called healthy.

Patacones- the shining star of street food. Fried plantains, smashed flat and fried again. Commonly used as a sort of luxurious food envelope for fillings like cheese or fish or ground beef. In Taganga, Courtney and I briefly considered interning at one master artesan´s beachside patacon stall.

Arepas- Cornmeal cakes, again, stuffed with cheese, again, deep fried to all hell. Smeared with butter too. These guys will vary from crispy thin shells like a pita to big old thick slabs, like biscuit-sized. You can tell the genuine deal when they´re wrapped in banana leaves and grilled. The boys are on an epic search for Colombia´s greatest arepa. Once they find that vendor, they´ll set up their tent and hammock and our backpacking days will be over.

Empanadas- Fried pockets of love. Can be stuffed with our friend, cheese, or beef or pork or chicken. Most delicious and most elusive of these is the potato empanada. Mmm.

Ice Cream- You think we love ice cream in the United States? You don´t even know. Colombians´ love for ice cream is seemingly unparalelled in the world. Ice cream men go the limit, too. Once we rock-climbed out to a gorgeous little jetty looking across the bay at Playa Grande, sliding down hills and along paths slung precariously close to cliff edges to get to the most isolated spit on the bay. When along comes an ice cream vendor who´d swum (flutter-kicked) from the main beach pushing an aquatic ice cream cart in front of him, yelling ¨Helados!¨ at the top of his lungs. Obviously, we bought some of his cones. C´mon, this man´s a go-getter.

Buñuelos- Surprisingly uncheese-filled, deep fried orbs of nugget. Hollow, a little like a popover, if you´re picking up what I´m laying down. Absolutely okay if there´s nothing with even token nutritional value is availiable.

Meat Sticks- a total meal on a stick. Chicken, beef, sometimes a mini arepa on the end and a couple of potatoes to round out the deal. These, like vampires, appear only after dark on the streets of el barrio.

Pan de Queso- Bread filled with cheese. Can be anything from a deep fried twist item to a big loaf of bread. In Colombia, you can get anything filled with cheese. Anything.

So basically I´ve gained about twenty five thousand pounds. The normal routine is wake up, graze the streets for an hour or so, and then find something to do to kill time until we´re hungry again. You know, museums and cable cars and book stores and stuff like that. Repeat.

I can stop whenever I want, I swear.

***
So we in Medellin one more night enjoying this awesome, awesome city. I couldn´t believe how well run the place is- a fastidiously clean metro system, mind-blowing public libraries and world-class parks and community spaces. It gets my two thumbs up, it´s gonna be difficult to leave.

But leave we must, Erik and Courtney and I, tomorrow to Zona Cafetera, Colombia´s hilly coffee country. If, y´know, plans unfold as anticipated, which is never a given on this adventure. Hope all is well up north, missing my loved ones. And happy belated St. Patrick´s Day! We are all a little home sick for green beer.

Medellin

I´ve never seen a city like Medellin. A brick wonderland, cupped by a big, green valley where the slum barrios rise up on all sides of the wealthy central area, completly flaunting the way these things are usually organized. It´s the second biggest city in Colombia, and my Lonely Planet guide tells me it used to be the world´s cocaine trafficking capital. Kind of makes you wonder which lucky metropolis stole it´s crown.

Fernando Botero is from here. He´s a Colombian artist whose work you´ve no doubt seen without realizing it- his signature is obesity. Obese people, obese dogs, obese horses, even obese oranges and teapots in a world where everything is pleasantly plump. He donated a forest of fatness to the city in the form of massive bronze statues, and on our first day in the city we wandered through them en route to the Museo de Antioquia, chuckling at the tiny penis of the big, fat Roman soldier and the bizarre, round woman crouched with lion´s paws and cherub wings sprouting from her back.

We spent last night eating and drinking in the student district. Medellin has three major universities and five smaller schools, so there´s a lot of smart, young people roaming the streets. Courtney and I were delighted to find a plaza where a real, live botellon- a whole passel of folks drinking beer out of plastic cups, playing music and straight hangin´. It took us back to our own college days in Madrid and sank into the scene with relish.

The four of us cut quite a distinctive figure. So it was no surprise when a skinny guy in a wheelchair and his buddy wanted to take pictures of us on their camera phone- irritating, but not surprising. It wasn´t until a dude on a motercycle pulled up yelling excitedly that we realized the gimp had snatched my purse, right from underneath Erik and I´s legs. Devil!

The boys took off in the direction the dirty thieves had headed to frisk the crap out of our bewheeled friend while Court and I stared at each other. I slapped the side of my head over and over. Had I really just forgotten the first rule of botellon- watch out for thievery? My camera, my debit card, my money, Pat´s guidebook, Erik´s sunglasses... gone. Our knights in shining armor came back pissed and empty handed and a few minutes later the kid had the nerve to wheel back onto the plaza!

Mad fit to spit, I sicced two Colombian police officers on them and watched with ambivalent feelings as the kid got frisked for the second time in ten minutes. He´d already handed off the bag to his dirtbag friends, though, and the cops came back empty handed. Nothing to do about it, file a report at the station tomorrow. Which means that so far in my month in Colombia I´ve been jacked by foam-wielding ten year olds and a parapelegic.

Sigh. So I am heartbroken to inform my gentle readers that for the moment, Pura Caitlin must cease being a photo blog and become instead a mere blog. That was my third camera lost/injured/departed on this crazy Latin American ride and for the moment I can´t stomach paying for another photo taking machine. Truly, a blow to photojournalism and the art world in general. I guess I´ll just have to play with words for a little while. It all happens for a reason, right?

Cartagena and Playa Blanca

Cartagena is like a big box of watercolor paints. Plus, we are well protected from pirates.



See, back in the day Cartagena de la Indias was the plunder point for the conquistadors, where they stashed all their ill-gotten gains stolen from the indigenous folks around here. I suppose what goes around comes around, because once Sir Francis Drake and his pirate ilk got word of all the easy booty, Cartagena was besieged by swashbuckling, cutlass-swinging piratas. They built a huge wall around the city and like I said, the thing works and Cartagena has held onto it´s treasures ever since.



I´ve been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez recently, Colombia´s most shining literary light, and Cartagena syncs nicely into the magical realism vibe. I half expect the winged horses guarding the harbor to take off and soar over the seafood cocktail stands and Technicolor colonial arquitecture, wouldn´t surprise me with some of the crazy things I´ve seen out here.



We´re staying on the main hooker throughfare, we landed during a famous film festival and we got to chew on coca leaves at the Guillermo Pineres Botanical Garden. They made our mouths numb. And finally, finally I saw a macaw. Three of them in fact, pets of the bot gar. They had potbellies and hung upside-down by one leg for us, silly billies.



We also put the daypacks back on for a bit of beach camping this week, two nights at Playa Blanca. White sand, turquoise waters and little hammock hostels and restaurants popping up everywhere in a most low tech, Colombian way. Lots of time in the sun and Aguardiente-fish dinners.



Next stop, Medellin!

On Being A Badass

And so it was that I shouldered my carry on bag and headed into the jungle. Parque Nacional Tayrona, as you may have deciphered from my last entry, was way too photogenic for just a day trip. Courtney, Erik, Pat and I stored 90% of our belongings at our hostel in Taganga, stocked up on water and strode into the wilderness for a few days this week to experience what more we could of this big, jungle-y, beachy wonderland. We had little more than hammocks and peanut butter and we felt blessed.

It was amazing to use my body after so much time in physical hibernation. The paths there were like video games, made challenging enough by all the logs and rocks to cross that my mind couldnt click into autodrive. I fell in the mud and didnt have a change of clothes for the next two days and it felt good.

We walked by this.

And this.

We were feeling, in a word, badass. So we did the badass thing and set up our camp on a secluded beach, up on a wooded hillock above the sand. We figured wed call the bluff of all the people who said we had to camp in the predetermined ¨campsites¨, who said the police patrolled for squatters at night. I mean, a national park in Colombia, really?

Perfect spot it was, covered yet breezy. For two hours we had the best time. And then, clearly, we got busted. A whole flashlight cartel, we realized looking out into the inky night, was making its way down the deserted beach straight for our camp.

We tore down the most visible parts of our home and extinguished all lights. I held my breath and every scary myth about Colombia and its people in uniform sent my heartrate skyrocketing.

The flashlights finally reached our hillock. I wondered if theyd have guns. They passed over the hammock in front of my and stopped. I heard a hssst and then a cavalcade of Colombians in beach wear bounded up the path to our camp screaming ¨Policia! Policia! ¨ One guy had on a 50 Cent shirt.

There were no guns. They all looked younger than twenty. I regained composure and strode up to them.

After a few rounds of questioning, it appeared that these men and boys were not police at all, but employed by the land owner- bizarre, as we were in a national park. Despite the vagaries in their story, they said they´d like it if we´d leave and not light fires anymore in Tayrona. We acquiesed but asked if we could finish our dinner and would they like some. This might have been their first dinner invite from campers they had evicted and they were understandably a little confused. But, mealtime being somewhat of a sacred rite in Latin America, they allowed us time for food. Quite the tableau, the four of us eating carrots and noodles out of a single cooking pot with our fingers while the Colombians watched us like we were zoo animals. During this period they twittered around, sussing out our woefully truncated temporary home and, as was discovered later, stole my headlamp. Jerks.

50 Cent led us back to Camp Cabo, where we had recieved the warning about camping on the beach a few hours before. We were embarassed. And sad about losing our set up:

Sometimes, you cant call their bluff. Meh.

But needless to say, it didnt end the chapter. We flipped backwards off rocks that looked like seals and stumbled across ominous blue spiders with leg spans as long as a cigarette. More importantly, I got back to nature after a long time in the city. And some exercise. And a new story. Well, that´s a given.

Love, Colombia- I mean, Caitlin.