Drop That Spoon !!!

Latin men have a certain reputation around the world as seducers and lovers.  Pauline met one in the gym.

She was just finishing her workout, and on her way out, she stepped on the scale.  He saw his opportunity, he made his move.

You see, between a month in Florida (including Thanksgiving) and her above-average height, Pauline weighs more than most 45-kilo stick-thin Colombianas.

So the passing Latin lover asked her, romantically, if she could please step back on the scale.  And don't forget to re-zero the scale, baby.  Casanovas of the world, watch and learn.

Upon seeing her weight, he turned up the charm, licked his lips, and told her she really should leave the spoon alone.  Oh yeah, he was in the groove now.  Like Wilt Chamberlain in his prime.

Pauline, somehow able to resist his charms, left the gym.  As if Pepe Le Pew could be deterred so easily. He followed the scent.

When Pauline veered toward the supermarket, he told her, his voice heavy with lust, Really, you don't need to go in there, it's full of food.  Sorry Don Juan, this one's mine.

Incredulously, she entered the supermarket.

He wandered off, wounded, wondering if he should change his tactics.  Just then, he figured it all out : she must be a dyke !  Then he eyed a women of above-average weight strolling out of the pizzeria.  "Don't worry baby, I'm on my way," he thought.

Djokovic enters the Albanian Open (The Coal Cup)

How about that Swedish mullet ?

I used to play tennis. ..When I was 13 years old. Back when Stefan Edberg was number one in the world. Remember him ?

So I was taken aback when, on my second day on the new job, one of the secretaries asked me, "Do you play tennis ?"  "Well, I used to pl... Yeah, I play," was my confident answer. 


You see I had spent the whole month in November in Florida.  A trip home to mom's, whether for a weekend or a month, usually involves overeating. So imagine a month that includes Thanksgiving. I had to be rolled onto the plane to Colombia. I needed exercise...so I was more than willing to get back on the hardcourts and grease up the ol' tennis elbows. You know, just to hit the ball back and forth... to ease into the sport.

Three days later, she visited my classroom to tell me that I had a match that night in the community's mixed doubles tournament. What ?! The tournament was called, like every other sports competition at Albania's mine, the Coal Cup (Copa de Carbon).

And she told me that my partner for the tournament would be Loogie.  Uh, I remember "Booger" from the Revenge of the Nerds films, who did his own personal bit of mining, but I'd never heard of anyone being called or calling themselves "Loogie". I was worried.

That evening, I indeed met Loogie, or as I later learned : Lugui, which is short for Luguarda. It made me feel better that her name was in no way related to mucus. She was in her 40's or 50's, with short curly hair, perhaps the only woman in Colombia with short hair. Her laugh, omnipresent and loud and closer to a cackling guffaw, came out at the end of every statement or question she made. She played like a 45-year old woman who plays at most once a week. She hit some good shots, some bad ones, too, and she couldn't care less if we won or lost. She was the perfect partner.

Then we met some of the other teams : generally a desperate housewife who swung an expensive racquet and owned a different color tennis skirt for each day of the week and her arthritic husband with a distended bariga.

I played poorly, every game. But I can run faster, jump higher, and move quicker than any old arthritic goat. So we won. By a lot. We finished the first round undefeated, then we won in the quarterfinals, too. When Lugui saw me in the halls, she'd yell, "Hey Djokovic !"  When she saw other tennis players pass by in the school, she'd tell them, "He's my partner, and I'm never trading him !"

She even christened herself Lugui Williams: Venus and Serena's younger sister. Lugui's very Caucasian.

But not even Djokovic can win them all. In the semis, we finally met a team that wasn't a overweight husband / desperate housewife combination. Both players were young, athletic, and had trained every day. We were the old goats now. They had me running this way and that in the burning heat of Northern Colombia. By the end of the game, I was bleeding out my arm in three places from diving for balls. And we had lost.  But only in a tie-break.

Overall, we were pretty pleased with our performance. This summer, I'll be buying a tennis racquet (I had borrowed one for the tournament) so that when then next tournament starts, the duo of Loogie and Djokovic will bring home the coveted cup of coal.

If you live in an ugly city...

A few years ago when I was traveling through Germany, I stopped for a night at a friend's place in Hannover.  Like many German cities, Hannover was completely razed during the war. Unfortunately, the rebuilding process was swift and lacking in imagination. It's not exactly an ugly city, but it's certainly charmless.

He told me, in his thick East German accent (he had moved from Dresden), that one nice thing about living in a city such as Hannover was that when people come to visit you, it's because they want to see you, not the city. Imagine you live in Paris, and your friends want to come see you every month. It's entirely possible that you are the only reason they are coming. Or perhaps not.

I was reminded of that as we traveled from city to city in Colombia and Venezuela. Colombia has its fair share of ugly and charmless cities, with Barranquilla claiming the top prize. Venezuela, on the other hand, has at least seven cities competing in the Ugliest City in the World Competition, every year...Maracaibo, San Felix, and Valencia come to mind. But during our time here, we've made lots of friends in every place we've visited, including in the above-named cities. So I'm hoping they realize that when we visit, they are the only reason we go.

So now we live in small village called Mushaisa, which, like Hannover, is certainly not ugly, but lacks a bit of charm and can get a bit boring.  But if you come visit this place, I'll know why you came.

Roraima Part 3 : Tony and the Lost Group

Here's part 1 of the story : Path to the Summit
Here's part 2 of the story : The Lost World

The morning came, the rain dried up, and we packed our things. After saying our goodbyes to James' group, we hopscotched from rock to rock in the direction of the flattish rocks to find Tony and our group.  The rocks were empty.  Our group, missing.  In our minds, there were three possibilities for their absence.  The first, the group, knowing that they were slow hikers, decided to start hiking down the afternoon before.  The second, the group, knowing that they were slow hikers, decided to leave very early that morning.  These two theories were immediately laughed at and rejected.  The third theory was that they had found a new, higher spot during the flood. We would certainly see them that night at the campsite.

So we started down the mountain in the midst of some heavy mist.  It was going to be a long day of hiking, needing to cover the two days' hiking distance (luckily, downhill) and needing to cross two rivers.  Pauline and I were two of the stronger hikers in the whole bunch...which included about one hundred hikers from Venezeula, Brazil, and some random Europeans.  With the exception of on top of Roraima, all hundred hikers camped in the same place each night.  By now, nearly every hiker knew Tony's name and face.  Pauline and I generally arrived early, then mingled with the others...the questions eventually arose : "Who's your guide ?",  "Where is he ?",  and "Seriously, it's been hours, are they walking backwards ?"


We arrived in the early afternoon. James, the sunburned Englishman was just behind us. We ate lunch, went swimming in the river, cleaned our clothes, then like usual, we found other groups to talk to us. We were the orphans of the camp.  No group, no guide, and now we didn't even have a tent.  We were homeless orphans.

From the camp, you could see the hikers come down a hill before crossing the river at the base of the camp. So we watched them come down for several hours.  Here come the Brazilians.  Now, here comes the large woman who leaves every morning a five am. Oh, here come the neck-to-ankle spandex group.  Wait a minute, is that Tony ?  No, no, false alarm, just a pudgy Venezuelan. The sun went down as the last hikers reached the top of the hill.  Every hiker had arrived by six o'clock.  Our guys, carrying our tent, didn't. We slept without our tent in our sleeping bags with the ants under a thatch roof pavilion.

In the morning, on our last day of hiking, we returned to the National Park outpost, where we waited to be taken by our 4x4 driver, who we had already paid.  He flatly refused to go without the group.  Without getting paid extra.  "Everything costs."  We tried to explain that our group was perhaps a full day behind us, but he wouldn't budge. Other drivers offered to take us down for exhoribtant rates as well.  We talked to everyone, pleaded even.

We stopped worrying about our own group started fretting about how to get home again. It was a long day's hot hike back down to San Francisco, and once there, we still had at least two or three days to cross the country and return to our little corner of Colombia. We continue pleading.  Finally it paid off:  the Brazilian group offered to leave us at San Francisco for no cost. Obrigado !

Once in San Francisco, our fretting continued, how were we going to get back North? The only busses headed North started on the Brazilian border and those busses were all full of the hundred hikers plus random travelers.  What to do ? So we hitched.  The first driver we met offered to take us the twelve hours in the back of his pickup truck along the scenic highway to Ciudad Guayana in the center of the country.  He even had a niece studying at the colegio where we worked !  We stayed the night in the city, and were lucky enough to get the last available seats on a bus to Maracaibo, cartographically millimeters from our home.  Seventy-two hours after finishing the hike, we had reached home again.


And we never saw Tony or the group again. (But a week later, we heard that they has survived !)

Roraima Part 2 : The Lost World

Here's part 1 of the story : Path to the Summit

The clouds cleared, the sun shone.  There we were, on top of a rock, billions of years old, just me, Pauline, Carlos, and James, the sunburned Englishman.  We saw a landscape unlike any other, at times jagged, at times smooth and rounded.  It remained, however, always rocky and generally soilless.  The few plants we saw were forced to etch out their existences in the poor soil of the cracks and depressions.  Many of the plants, unable to eek out an honest living solely with photosynthesis, supplemented their nutrient salary with some stray insects.


As the hours passed by on top, the other hikers trickled by.  We figured that we had better start looking for a campsite before they were all filled.  So Carlos and Pauline took the tents and went off to find a suitable spot.  I stayed behind to wait for our group.  Two hours later, Carlos and Pauline returned.  They had scouted two spots; one was on a flattish rock (quite rare up there) and the other was in a wedge under a ledge...too short to stand, too short to put up the tent, but just fine for sitting and sleeping.  Needless to say, when the returned from their expedition, they found me alone.  Still waiting.

Just after they arrived, the rain came down, increasing in intensity.  By five in the afternoon, it was torrential, and we all took refuge under some overhanging rocks.  We, meaning Pauline, Carlos, and I, and a few porters from other groups were the only ones there, hiding at the entrance to this Lost World.  All the other groups had arrived and moved on to their camping spots.





After six o'clock, half of our group had reached the top.  Carlos shepherded them over the slippery rocks and through the ravines to the tents on the flattish rocks.  The flattish rocks were slightly concave and were starting to fill up with rainwater.  When Tony and the stragglers finally limped to the top, twenty minutes later, Pauline and I guided them to the tents, then decided that we felt much better sleeping under the ledge, without our tent.  Tony, unable to open his own tent in the downpour, was more than willing to squat ours.  Under the ledge, we found the group of James, the sunburned Englishman.  In addition to being a sunburned Englishman, James was also a beef cattle farmer.

James' motely group was mostly Venezuelan, plus the Pemon guide and his family, a hypochondriac French couple, and hardy James himself. The guide whispered to us the reason it was raining: someone had yelled on the mountain.  Yes, it's true, a few happy hikers had howled at the mid-afternoon clouds upon summitting. For the Pemon, this natural outburst of emotion sparks the daily downpours, in the the same way that noise can effect an avalanche.
I wonder how they explain this phenomenon; who is the God of the gaps, now that the Pemon have replaced the abandoned Pemon deities with a Seventh Day Adventist Yahweh...?


He then whispered all the places the group could go tomorrow...up to the highest point on the mountain, over to swimming hole, to the crystal valley, or all the way to the three-border point, connecting Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana.  This last trip would last eight hours and encompass all the other sites minus the highpoint.  James' group unanimously decided to hike the big hike.  We were envious.

In the morning we sought out our lazy group.  We were full of excitement to start exploring the plateau; they were full of aches and grumbles.  They had elected to have a calm day...just wandering in the vicinity of the campsite on the flattish rock.  We were aghast.  Disappointed, again.

Since our group wasn't interested in the big hike, we'd just find ourselves another group.  The guide of the first group we found agreed to take us...for a fee.  "Everything costs," he told us.  Rankled, we ignored the jackass and  continued our search for a sympathetic guide (walking in the direction of the triple point) when we stumbled upon sunburned James again and his whispering guide.  The group happily invited us in; the guide a bit more reluctantly so.  We were going to hike the big hike !  I would have yelled, but that probably would have upset the guide and god(s).



Off we went, passing incredibly incredible rock formations, slowly molded one grain at a time by the wind and water...each one more intricate and bizarre than the last.  After more than three hours, we reached the toilet bowl, which is probably not the Pemon word for it.  It was a hole in the rock, with a small cascade pouring into it, and down inside, a gently churning rusty lake.  My first question : "Can we go swimming in there?"  Yes, yes you can, right after lunch.  After lunch, the guide, his two daughters, and I bouldered along smooth boulders, vaulted across abysses, trudged through the mud, and squeezed through a slot canyon to reach the lake below.  It's a swimming hole that I'll remember for decades to come.


Soon after, we reached the triple point, which corresponded to the halfway marker of the hike.  We turned back through the valley of crystals, a small area littered in small quartz.  Just then, the clouds turned black and started approaching.  Did a new arrival just yell at the clouds ?  We sped up a bit, but to no avail, the rain hit us a few minutes later, and we spent the next three and a half hours drenched slogging through the puddles.  If there were amazing sights to be seen along this half of the route, we sure missed them.  Just before sundown, we reached our ledge again, wet, cold, and miserable.  It was well worth it.











And here part 3 of the story : Tony and the Lost Group

Roraima Part 1 : Path to the Summit

Between Christmas Eve and the second of January, we spent all but one night camping on some tropical beach along the Venezuelan coast or on a nearby island.  We had had our fill of R & R and were ready for some adventure.

We had previously been in contact with Selene, a friend of a friend, who lived in Maracay.  She was organizing a 6-day trek up and down Mount Roraima, way down on the Venezuelan border with Brazil and Guyana.  The mountain is a tepui (also spelled tepuy), which is how the local table mountains slash mesas slash plateaus are called.  These tables are so large and tall that several of the world's tallest waterfalls are found in this little corner of Venezuela.

And this little corner is full of tepuis, all of them of Sagan proportions in age, which makes them some of the oldest rocks on Earth.  And as the land between them eroded away, they formed little islands of rock within the savannah jungle.  And like on Hawaii or Madagascar, life on each rock island evolved in its own unique way...

So back to the story : We spent two days crossing Venezuela in buses, but most of the time we were standing in lines.  You see, in every bus station that we've entered in Venezuela, they tell us that tickets can't be purchased the day before your trip.  So if you want to catch the night bus from Ciudad Guayana to the Gran Sabana, you'd have to get in line in the morning.  So we lined up at 7h30, half an hour before the ticket vendors opened for the day.  At least two or three dozen others had arrived before us.  It was going to be close.  So we split up.  Venezuela, which has nationalized most industries, has for some reason left the chaotic bus industry to its own devices.  So you have nine bus companies all plying the same routes.  So I went off searching for another line with a high bus capacity/line length ratio.  But all the lines were long and sinuous.  And you never knew if the guy in front of you was traveling alone or bringing his brood of nine kids.  We crossed our fingers and waited.  When I was one place away from the window, Pauline came running over with a big smile, "Don't buy the tickets !  I got 'em."

And with tranquil minds, we spent the day in the city knowing we had a spot.  That night, we returned and hopped on the refrigerated bus that would finally deliver us to San Francisco, a small village 12 hours away, near the start of the trek.  Stepping off the bus, we met Tony, our Pemon guide, that Selene had independently contacted and contracted.  Most trekkers hire their guides and porters through expensive agencies and pay several times the price we did, so we were quite happy that Selene had found Tony.  We spent the day packing our sacks, awaiting the rest of the group, and visiting the village.

San Francisco is one hundred percent Pemon (the local indigenous group) and one hundred percent Seventh Day Adventist, at least in this village.  I had always thought that the SDAs were non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian Protestants (I have since read that this is more of a recommendation than a requirement).  My first impressions included lots of meat and cigarettes and murals of Pemon gods and legends.  Recommendation : considered and rejected !  But everyone had nice matching colorful houses, provided for by the SDA church.  It seemed to me that the missionaries here are trading houses for an underwhelming acceptance of their beliefs.  Yucca Christianity.

Later that day, we met the others in the group : Selene, Angelo, Ricardo, Carlos, Maru, and Luis, all friendly and young-ish and seemingly fit. Seemingly. The next morning, we were off in a 4x4 to the start of the trek, a National Park office far from the highway.


The first day's views were great, the hike unextraordinary; there were maybe one or two short inclines during the day.  Pauline and I reached the top of the biggest hill first.  Within 20 minutes, all but one or two of the group had reached that local summit.  Tony, the guide, had still not arrived and was probably helping Selene who must have been having difficulty.  But after another 20 minutes, we realized that Tony was no fitter than Selene, who was indeed struggling.  Tony, dragging his feet and hanging his head, looked near death.  Seconds after reaching the top, Tony lit a cigarette and filled his oxygen-starved lungs with smoke.  This was going to be a long hike.  For him.

After waiting on the tops of other small hills, we decided to stop waiting for our stragglers.  We walked straight to the campsite and set up our tent.  There we waited and waited.

It was here at the first camp that we learned what the other trekkers had paid for.  Porters were everywhere, busy as the local leaf-cutter ants, unloading the leaning towers of supplies on their backs....setting up tents, cooking food, and creating exclusive toilet tents.  And one by one, the other (not out group) trekkers moseyed into camp carrying a daypack full of water and snacks and a camera and found the tents assembled, the food cooked, and the shithole dug.

Our group arrived last of all, but I shouldn't blame them; they actually had to carry their own gear. So, logically enough, they then decided that they would all get an early start in the morning.  Good idea !  We (Pauline and I) were up by six with the sun, ready to go at seven.  Most of the group was still sleeping, and those that were awake were groggy, pajama-ed and far from ready.  So we waited.  By eight o'clock, we left impatiently.  The reason for our impatience was twofold.  The Southern Venezuelan sun is brutal at midday, and we wanted to get most of hiking done before then.  Also, the campsites were generally too small for all of the tents of all of the hikers.  A late arrival meant camping far from camp or next to the toilets or worse.

As we departed, we saw Tony's head just emerging from his tent, weak as a newborn baby.  The second day's hike was much much tougher ( = better), involved two river crossing, and the views only got better.  We made good time and arrived at the new campsite below the tepui's cliffs in the early afternoon.  Most of the other groups had left by seven or earlier, and many arrived before us.  There we waited another five to six hours before we recognized any of our gang.  The good part of it all was that we met lots of other groups in those six hours.  In a sense of hiker solidarity, all the other hikers also seemed to be waiting and rooting for Tony and the others, faithfully guiding us from the rear.

This time, they said, they're going to start early in the morning.  For real.  Carlos was the only who wasn't kidding.  He was ready by seven, and the three of us began the third day of hiking, which was the shortest but toughest, 100% ascent, often requiring the hands, passing under waterfalls, across shaky bridges, and within a shoe width of a vertical cliff shrouded in fog.

But before midday, we had made it.  We were on top with James, the sunburned Englishman, eating lunch with the sun shining on our faces.  For a few minutes we were the only four to have arrived.  And the sights were all ours.

Here's part 2 of the story : The Lost World

Say the Magic Words : I'm French

Within a couple of weeks of arriving at the school (this is in December now), we were on holiday again !  And not only that, winter holiday lasts a month at this school !

We had considered visiting Panama or Trinidad or Ecuador...you see, we had two reasons for traveling outside of Colombia : the first was of course to visit a new country, the other was to get Pauline's visa.  She wasn't able to get a partner visa while we were in the States because we weren't married.  So in December the school finally offered her her own position as a bilingual (English/Spanish) assistant in the Kindergarten.

But in the end we chose to return to Venezuela.  The Colombian consulate in Maracaibo was literally across the border from our new home, and we had many friends living in Maracaibo and elsewhere in Venezuela.  Furthermore, despite spending three months in the country, there remained lots to see and do...Roraima, for example, is a table mountain in the far southeast corner of the country that was especially alluring.

We arrived in Maracaibo on the weekend.  First thing, we visited the consulate's website that insisted that we needed a reservation to apply for a visa.  Below, there was a little calendar with dates in black or red.  "Please reserve your appointment by clicking on the dates in green," read the Daltonian website.  What ?!?  After we and six other educated and computer-savvy people tried for a hour to make sense of the site and of that thoroughly unclickable calendar, we gave up and assumed that the site was still under construction and not yet functioning.

Come Monday, we were off to the consulate sans reservation.  At eight in the morning, there was a moderate line hanging out the front door, with the consulate bouncer emerging every few minutes to admit or refuse entry to an applicant, without apparent logic.  Watching and learning from the people around us in the line, we figured out that in order to get any answers you must aggressively pass in front of others and shout your query louder than the rest of the mob.  Pauline learned this lesson much better than I.  She finally convinced the bouncer to send someone out to speak with us, who informed us that we should please go home and make a reservation on the consulate website.  Yes, of course the website works.  She was as deaf to our pleas as the website was color-blind and dysfunctional.  And furthermore, they only process visas on Tuesdays and Thursday.  We slunk home, shoulders sunken.

We started recalculating our trip; instead of a few days in Maracaibo, a few weeks seemed more likely.  But we were determined, we decided to return on Tuesday, even earlier in the morning.  Our astonished yes met a line dangling from the door three times longer than the day before.  After nearly an hour, a woman came out and asked who was here for a visa.  Pauline and I and three others disengaged from various points in the line and rushed over to the woman.  "Who has an appointment," she asked ?  Uh, the applicants stared searchingly at one another, "but the website..."  This woman slowly started to believe us after hearing our desperate declarations.  Unfortunately, she was not in charge of visa applications; she ushered us inside, in the air conditioning, and told us to await the woman who would be in charge of our fates.

At nine o'clock, the moment of truth came and the group was summoned to meet Señorita Visa-Rejector in her office.  Unlike the woman before, she could not be swayed.  She knew that the website worked perfectly !  She dismissed the group with a wave of her hand.  Your visa application has been rejected, her hand told us.  And one man left, defeated.  A few minutes later, the young couple left, defeated.  Pauline would not be defeated, she persisted.

Having only Pauline to listen to, she asked a strange question, "Where are you from?"  From France, Pauline answered.  "But where do you live?"  France, she answered again...and then added the bit about us traveling in Colombia and being offered jobs and all that.

"Show me your papers," she said coolly.  We had arrived where few visa applicants had trod.  They were not worthy.  Most were stopped by the website, specially designed to weed out the weak-willed.  Then the long lines, the scorching heat, and finally the women who repeated, "no, no, no."  They were all tests.  We had passed them all.  Or maybe she was just a francophile.

Pauline showed her the documents, we paid the fee, and waited.  Within another hour, we emerged from the building, heads high.  The linear mob momentarily stopped their gesticulating and shouting, and turned their gazes upon us.  I may be mistaken, but I thought I heard the whisperings and murmurs of "They did it !" and "Look at them, they have earned the visa !" and finally "Look my son, more rare than Halley's Comet, a visa approval happens only once in a lifetime.  Savor this moment."  Then the shouting recommenced, "Hey, I've been waiting out here for hours, goddamnit !"

Flashback : Driver, Catch that Plane !

A short while back, we told the school that we'd stay for another year.  So immediately afterwards, we began planning and scheming our summer and winter holidays...and I'm happy to say that we just finished our ticket-buying.  So this summer, we're going to fly to Paris...then visit my grandmother, dad, and brother Christian in Stockholm, then head down to France again to visit Pauline's family.  This winter, we'll be in neighboring Panama where we'll meet Pauline's whole family and half of mine.  But with all these flights in the head, it reminded me of a flight a very nearly missed a few years ago.

Here's the story :

It was December 20, 2009.  My flight was to depart sometime in the afternoon on the 21st for Stockholm from Girona, a bit north of Barcelona.  I was working until 7 that night at the French-American Center.  Just before leaving, I figured it would be a good moment to check the exact time of departure.  You see, I was planning on hitchhiking, and I needed to factor in a margin of error.

So I visited Ryanair's website and searched for the flight's ETD.  I rubbed my eyes.  I refreshed the page.  Strange, it was showing that my flight's departure time was for 8h30 in the morning on the 21st...a little over 12 hours away.  Oh shit, I calmly thought to myself.  Looks like I'll have to take the train, I grumbled...that mistake's gonna cost me.

I searched the websites of France's and Spain's national lines.  Hmmm, no trains leaving Montpellier until the next morning at 6 o'clock.  And those won't even be close to arriving before the plane leaves.  Scratch that option.  Oh shit, I calmly thought to myself.  Back to plan A.

I called Pauline, "Pauline, please throw a pizza in the oven right now.  Yeah, seriously, right now, please !  I'll be home in 10 minutes and explain everything."  Eleven minutes later, I was packing my backpack with some of my warm clothes and I was wearing the rest.  Three minutes later the pizza was devoured, and I was out the door.  Pauline was shaking her head, not with disbelief, but sadly, with belief.

I took the tram to the edge of the city, then walked for 15 minutes until I arrived at the large peage, or toll plaza, for cars heading toward Barcelona and Toulouse.  It was colder than a witch's titty.  And the coldest was to come.

One of my rules for hitchhiking is that you have to be seen.  If the cap covers your hair down to your eyes, and the scarf covers your neck up to your nose, and the rest of your body is covered in coats and gloves...well, then you'll have a harder time of it.

So off with the gloves and cap and scarf, unzip the coat, and...smile.

Another rule : pity helps.  I got my teeth a-chattering and my body a-shivering.

Nine minutes later, a young film director from the Cote Azur picked me up.  He was heading toward Toulouse, not Barcelona.  Not a problem, "just please drop me off in Narbonne, where the highway forks."  He missed the exit.  Problem.  He dropped me off at a highway rest area near Carcassonne, 30 - 40 minutes too far.  We got there at about 10 o'clock.  By midnight, I had seen just three drivers enter and leave...all in the direction of Toulouse.  Zut !

At midnight, I found a kind young couple driving back toward Montpellier.  Hmmm, dilemma.  Do I return to the starting line, where I'll surely find more cars, many of which going to Spain or thereabouts.  But it'd cost me at least two hours.  I gambled on Narbonne, a much smaller, but closer peage.

After freezing my thumbs off for two hours in Narbonne, I abandoned hope and hope abandoned me.  I looked for a place to sleep...in the roundabout before the toll plaza, in the city on a park bench, in the McDonald's playplace.  But with the chill, the wind, and hard surface, I never got even close to sleep.  I returned to the peage at 4h30.  two hours passed; two cars passed by.  I was so cold.  I wanted to cry.  At 6 o'clock, a man offered to take me to Perpignan, only 30 minutes down the road, but decidedly in the direction of Barcelona.  "Yes, please !"

6h30 in Perpignan, 2 hours before my flight.  The muscles in my torso hurt from shivering all night.  The joints in my thumbs were numb from extended moments of extension.  My face froze from the cold and the forzen smile I kept.

I sent telepathic signals to each and every driver.  At 7h07 it worked.  A French bird-watcher was going to Figueres, a city north and short of my destination.  I was worried about hitchhiking in Spain, from experience I know it's harder to find a car and easier to get insults from passing drivers.  But I didn't have the luxury to say no.

Another of my rules for hitchhiking : Talk to the drivers.  Be interested in them.  Make them glad they picked you up.

I briefly told him of my plight, then I dozed.  Hard.  I woke up at 8 sharp.  I looked around through fuzzy vision.  Wait a tic...I'm at the airport !  The bird-watching gentleman took me 20 minutes out of his way (plus another 20 to get back to Figueres).  I thanked him profusely, offered to pay for his gasoline.  He was happy to help, and I was happy to make my flight.  It was about at this time, I remembered that I had missed my birthday.  I was 30 years old.

Welcome to Florida ! What's up your anus ?

After signing the contract to work at the school in the Guajira, the school sent us to Florida to finish the paperwork and to gather everything we'd need for the coming year or two.  You see, after six months of traveling, the only clothes I owned included six dirty pit-stained t-shirts, some steadily unraveling jeans and shorts, and socks that allowed my big toes to breathe.  In addition, while there, we planned to get enough books and peanut butter to last.

So when we arrived in Orlando, Florida, we were full of enthusiasm.  We would soon be moving to a new continent, starting new jobs, and very importantly indeed, we were going to see and spend time with my family for the month of November.

Then we reached passport control.  His name was José or Juan or some such name.

- "Coming from Colombia, eh ?  Looks like you spent quite a lot of time there."  This came off as an accusation more than an observation.

- "Yeah, about three months, and it was amazing.  Can't wait to go back !"

- "Uh, did you say you were returning ?  To Colombia ?"  His eyes focused sharply on us now.

He was well-versed in Colombian culture; he had seen the films Blow, Maria Full of Grace, Love in the time of Cholera, Clear and Present Danger, and Romancing the Stone. He knew what comes off of planes from Colombia: cocaine (up nostrils and anuses), communicable diseases, terrorists, and crocodiles.

- "Yeah, we found jobs down there while traveling."

- "And those jobs pay better than in France or Sweden ?," he asked while glancing at our passports.  He knew all about jobs opportunities for foreigners in Colombia...drug-running, emerald-hunting, exotic-animal-and-plant-exporting, and mercenarying.  He just had to figure out which one we were up to.

- "Actually, yeah, they do pay better. We'll be working in the la Guajira."

- "I see..."  Suspicions confirmed !  A few beads of sweat were gathering on his brow and his finger started inching across his desk to the panic button.  Clearly he was outnumbered by these two mercenary terrorist mules flaunting their cocaine-filled anuses.  He was going to need back-up.

- "So, uh, what kind of jobs did you find ?," cracked his voice...he was stalling until back-up arrived.

- "Well, I'll be teaching biology and Pauline will probably work in the library or assist with the little children in kindergarten.  It's an international school."

- "Oh," he breathed, and a wave a relief swept across his body and his panicked finger recoiled a few inches. He grabbed his stamp and stamped our passports and said, "You may go."

So we walked to the nearest bathroom, where we quickly removed the pellets of cocaine we'd been carrying up our asses the past eight hours.

Sucker...




Just kidding !!!!  Ha !

Everybody Hurts, So Let's Go Dancing !

As you leave the cities behind, the music scene becomes decidedly more and more local.  I mean, they listen to salsa and vallenato and cumbia in Colombian cities, but at least they are also aware of other music.  They probably know who Lady Gaga or the Beatles are.  But in the villages of the back-country, the musical tastes are as narrow as their gyrating waists.

Pretty sure this isn't the song I'm hearing on the radio...
but apparently every Latin singer has sung a song
called Baila Baila at one point or another

And the themes of said music are even narrower.  Some of the songs we've heard repeatedly on busses, in homes, or in bars have titles (or refrains, can't tell which) such as Baila, baila, baila ! or Feliiiiz, feliiiiiz, feliiiiiz.  Everything you hear is upbeat, about love or dancing or, even, the love of dancing.  And they play to it the eleven, 24 hours a day.

And so I wonder if there are any songs made or listened to here that are sad or depressing.  Are there any that are angry or absurd or funny ?

I'm pretty sure Everybody Hurts by REM would be a major commercial and critical failure here...unless they change the beat and called it Everybody Hurts, So Let's Go Dancing !  If the Colombian counterpart of  Thom Yorke sang the song Exit Music, he most certainly would not "hope that you choke."  That is, unless 'the Choke' is the newest dance craze sweeping discotheques from Cali to Barranquilla.  Perhaps a cross between Merengue and the Hustle.

Even the Beatles, who may have been applauded for the themes in their songs I Want To Hold Your Hand and I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, would have been met with raised eyebrows when Norwegian Wood was released and absolute horror at the first listening of Eleanor Rigby....bu' bu' but, she's lonely...she's not even dancing !  I'm guessing these Colombians stopped listening before ever getting to I Am The Walrus.

I'm sure that if I dig, that one day I'll find some great Colombian songs with something of a raaaange of emotions.  And like Elton John said, ironically without a tear of sadness or sigh of melancholy, "sad songs, they say so much." So turn them on, Colombia.

Career Opportunities

I was always planning on finding a job during our trip in South America.  I just wasn't expecting it to happen like this.  Thought it'd be for a hiatus somewhere in Peru or Bolivia in the (geographic) middle of our trip or perhaps a longer stint toward the end of our trip in Chile or Argentina.  And since this is a new adventure, I was hoping for new experiences.  I had made a short list.

The first thought that entered my head was as mountain guide, leading the tourists up the mountains, down the valleys.  Or at the very least I could be a porter or sherpa, carrying the hikers' tents and food.  In both cases, I would get lots of exercise, get to know the Andes, and meet other hikers from far-away lands.  The problem with plan A is that, after several treks in Colombia and Venezuela, I realize that my body is none too happy above 4000m...without fail I start getting light-headed and heavy-stomached and nauseated.  So for the moment, I'd say I needed more experience in the big mountains before finding employment.

And besides, jobs in the-middle-of-nowhere nature are few and far between. Most jobs are to be found in the cities. Driving around any city, you'll see a dread-locked Argentinian couple juggling or riding a unicycle at every major intersection, 35 seconds at a time. I'm certainly qualified for that job. I don't even need an interview or to dress up for the job. And walking around the city, you'll see hundreds and hundreds of people selling every conceivable knick and knack.  And apparently all of them, vendors, jugglers, and dancers, are able to make a living doing it. Why not me ? If I don't juggle, I could at least can bake and sell cakes and/or Swedish nigger balls. We've already tried selling our baked goods with success in two Venezuelan towns. But the problem is that, in most cities, the days are hot and the roads are hotter. I'd be afraid my juggling balls or nigger balls would melt.

Teaching French would still be teaching, but something I haven't done before. And it'd most likely be indoors, possible even air-conditioned.  My accent sticks out, but at least I don't have that abrasive American accent.  And I know enough to teach a basic level.

In the end, we did find jobs in South America, six months into our trip, in the first country we visited, Colombia, in the last place we expected, in a colorful house in a tiny village near Medellin.  The job was neither in the mountains, nor selling baked goods, not juggling, not teaching French...

Here's the story...

After too long on the Caribbean coast, we finally returned to the mountains of Medellin.  There we stayed with Remi, a French friend, and his girlfriend Yanid. Remi worked for an NGO in Medellin.

The family of Remi's boss had a family house in a small colorful village outside of the city, where the family often got together. Remi told us of his intention to visit Guatape and the Franco family for the upcoming weekend and asked us if we'd like to join in.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Colombia, in the desertic region of the Guajira, Gerardo Franco was receiving phone calls from his mother. "Gerardo, sweetie, your aunt Susanna, uncle Alvaro, and cousin Manuel wanna come to Guatape this weekend. It'll be nice to see them again, won't it?"

"Yeah it will, mom, but let's just keep it small this weekend. I'm bringing my new boss, and I don't want the house too crowded."

"Of course dear."

Fifteen minutes later...

"Gerardo, sweetie, now your other uncle wants to visit, says he's gonna bring his new wife.  And the dog."

"Okay, mom, but no one else please.  My boss doesn't speak Spanish, and I don't want him to feel overwhelmed."

"Of course dear."

Fifteen minutes later...

"Gerardo, sweetie, it's your cousins Mariela and Juan David. They're asking if they can come. You know it's been a long time since we saw them."

"Yeah, I know mom," said Gerardo, feeling the inevitable unstoppable force of family. He counted the number of people coming, then the number of beds in the house. "Sure, mom, we still have space for my cousins."

Fifteen minutes later...

"Gerardo, sweetie, you remember Remi, he works with your brother here in Medellin. He'd like to come this weekend with his girlfriend, too. Surely they can come, can't they ? He's such a sweet boy."

"Yeah, he is mom. They can come, but no more mom. Seriously, the house is full and I want my boss to feel comfortable."

Two minutes later...

"Oh, I forgot, sweetie, Remi has two friends staying with him, a French girl and a Swedish boy, or what it Swiss, I never get those two straight. What do you say ? Friends of Remi's are welcome here aren't they, sweetie ?"

His cause lost, "Of course, mom, they all can come. See you on Saturday."

We arrived on Saturday, before lunch, and spent a few hours getting to know the family, taking a tour of the village, and eating some of mother Franco's cooking. In the early afternoon, Gerardo and his boss, Edward, showed up at the door. In the evening, we got to the family and Gerardo and Edward even better, made crepes for everyone, and took the night tour of the village.

The next day, Gerardo suggested that we walk past the big rock, up to the monastery on the hill. On the way, we talked even more, told jokes and riddles, and finally they asked me what did professionally, before the big trip around South America. "Well, I was an English teacher in France, but in the states I taught mathematics and biology." Gerardo and Edward exchanges glances and shared a knowing scheme telepathically.  "And you're certified to teach ?" "In Florida, yeah." Their eyes widened.

An hour later, Edward told me the school was desperate for a biology teacher and that he would hire me on the spot, right there, in Guatape. He filled me about the school, my salary, the perks, and the school would even fly us out there so that we could check it out and meet the staff and the students. I know I said that I didn't want to do a job I've already tried...but, damn, this one was just too good to refuse.



So when the contract is up, in June 2013 or later, we will have spent more than two years in South America, without getting any closer to our "destination" of Argentina or Chile.

The Colombian Tourist Board's current catchy slogan is, "The only risk is wanting to stay."  Got that right.

From Murder Capital to Metro Cable

For much of the 80's and 90's, Colombia had the dubious honor of having the highest murder rate of any country in the world.  And the city of Medellin led by example.  The violence was fueled by the war between Pablo Escobar's cartel and the nearby Cali cartel.  From what I've read and heard, Colombians were afraid, or at least hesitant, to explore their own country.

But since Pablo's death, Medellin's safety record has improved by leaps and bounds.  And just like in the 80's and 90's, the rest of Colombia's cities soon followed.  These days, Colombians are getting reacquainted with their homeland, and they talk about neighboring Venezuela as a crime-ridden place where thieves, murderers, and rapists are waiting for you to let your guard down.  Indeed, Venezuela currently competes with Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Brazil for the country with the most violent crime in, at least the Western hemisphere, if not the world.

But, make no mistake, Colombia is neither Japan nor Switzerland.  There are criminals, there is crime there.  Common sense is a must : be careful at night, be careful (or avoid altogether) in some of the poorer barrios, don't flaunt your valuables.

Nowadays the city of Medellin has such an irresistable charm and livability.  In fact, of all the cities I've explored in Venezuela and Colombia, Medellin would be my first choice for a home.  The city's tucked away in an Andean valley, and thus has a perfect and constant springtime temperature.  You want the other seasons ? You don't have to wait months, like in Europe : Climb the nearby mountains for winter, descend a couple of hours toward the coast for the summer heat.



But, like in Europe, parks, plazas, and museums are in abundance.  My two favorite places include 1) a plaza and museum dedicated to Colombia most famous artist (no, not Shakira) Fernando Botero, famous for his paintings and sculptures of fat, uh, voluminous characters and 2) the Barefoot Park, where visitors are expected to take the shoes off and let their toes explore all the different sensations available.

Medellin is a thoroughly modern city.  The metro is first rate, and, even better, they have what's called a metro cable, meaning at the end of the metro, you change from a car to a telepherique and a cable pulls you up the mountain high above the barrios below.  In fact, one of the metro cables will take you for an hour until you reach the Park Arvi, an enormous and lush reserve perched high above the city and crisscrossed by hiking trails and streams and wandering fauna.  We liked it so much we visited twice, camping the second time around.

In most places around the world, the people you meet are the city's best attribute, and Medellin is no expection.  Within five minutes of arriving, we had been approached, greeted, and invited home by a complete stranger.  In the coming weeks, people seemed very at ease approaching us to ask where we were from, what we're doing in Colombia, and how we like it.

So if you ever get make the opportunity to go to Colombia, go !  And Medellin better be on your itinerary.  Just make sure you forget every newspaper clipping and Hollywood depiction you've ever seen.