Racist Pinatas and Being a Proper Tourist

Guess what?! I just got back; from a leave the house, tourist style trip! 

The family decided to go and stay in their lake house, in a place called Prado. I nearly didn't go, as had arranged to meet a few people off couchsurfing, but at the last minute felt I had better attend, incase I missed out on some time in the car. 

 

Snide remarks aside, it was absolutely beautiful. It's a man made lake, about five hours (seven if you're not Latin-American) from Bogota. We arrived at night time, and the house is only accessible by a little motor boat. It was a beautiful clear night, with no moon, and the sky was an absolute blanket of stars. I cosied on my back in the front of the boat and lay looking up.  Felt genuinely at peace, which is one of the many benefits of looking at a night sky. Whether I'm at the end of the road in the Culswick valley or in the middle of nowhere in Colombia, a massive expanse full of gently peeping stars, always has the effect of making me feel curiously safe, and at home.

We got to the house after about half an hour, and as I have come to expect, it was a swatch. An open-plan, hammock filled and airy house, with lots of beds and breezy mosquito nets. We all launched into some fresh papaya and then went to bed, I fell asleep to the sound of crickets and the water gently lapping the shore.

I woke in the morning to lashing rain, which continued most of the morning. Proper rain though, the noisy, can't hear yourself think, jungle type, which abruptly stopped at about eleven, to be replaced by a roasting hot sun, the screech of parrots and the sound of all the motor boats, as people began to emerge. 

We went for a run in the boat, and I got to see where we were. I may not have mentioned it enough in my litany of navel gazing/whining, but this country is staggeringly beautiful.  The lake is surrounded by blue hills and dramatic sheer cliff rocks. The view is occasionally hindered by the odd ghastly (presumably nouveau riche!!) hacienda, but generally even the poshers seem to blend in tastefully with the palm trees.  There were scores of enormous butterflies skimming the water, and whilst everyone was smimming around the boat, a wierd creepy dog turned up and started scratching everyone. I was in the boat sweltering in tracksuit bottoms, and refusing to swim, so I kind of enjoyed that part.

 

After an hour or so, I was turning an alarming shade of puce, so we started back to the house. I spent the afternoon painting and reading, and generally feeling glad to be me, which was nice.  Oh how the feeling stopped come nightfall, when the beasties emerged from their foul secret day time hideaways and began to gnaw me to pieces.  Every time I would almost fall asleep, something small would land on my face and I'd have a mad screechy slap about, which I KNEW would be audible to the whole household. They already think I am a neurotic mental, so the midnight screaming doesn't help. At one point I went to the toilet and saw a furry spider the size of my fist (substantial), which almost made me greet. I normally like spiders, but not ones like this. There were also things banging about on the roof. In all likelihood birds or bats rather than indigenous demons, but I couldn't be sure. I got about twenty minutes sleep, but as the next day was spent reclining in a hammock with a bowl of mango, it was ok.  

We didn't really do much else. Peerie Wan spent most of the weekend in a pink tutu which was extremely cute, and we watched Harry Potter more than was healthy.  I saw a lot of excellent bugs and birds, and had a good afternoon cleaning to appalling hip hop (maybe the "cleaning" was actually inventing dance routines using a broom in place of a partner, but I can't really remember). 

We came back to Bogota after a few days, and since then I have been pottering about girding my loins for Medellin, which I leave for in a day or two (a mere fortnight after I planned...)

Is there a job you can do that just involves making substandard crafts? Because I want that one if there is. I have been going wild with the glitter and PVA since arriving here. Ostensibly to bond with PW but in really, only for myself. 

I've been apportioning the days into blocks of time- units if you will- and craft seems to fill up lots of units. For example reading endless entries from Life and Style, on the Guardian website, may take up about 4 units a day. Facebook; 3.  Eating pulses and nutmeg; 17. That kind of thing. Well, I've found that not only do the units accumulate most during crafts, but occasionally they cease to exist at all, and I begin to think in GMT like a functioning member of society. Anyway. PW is really at the blop and smear stage, (unless food is involved, in which case she is extremely clinical to avoid wastage) so my anatomically correct clay figurines have been met with a hurtful lack of enthusiasm. As were the Aztec death masks (culture innit), replica bow and arrows made of sticks and feathers, and sand men with real carved sand faces (stood on DELIBERATELY no less). My most recent attempt however has proved even less successful. I decided to make an Afro-Caribbean woman piñata, which has managed to be simultaneously a bit racist and maybe sexist too. This is like using pure good (craft, featuring paper mâché and balloons) for evil, and doesn't sit well with me. However, my desire to execute the project to completion, or finalise my VISION if you will, outweighs my discomfort with the reality who is lolling on the table as we speak, looking like something Bernard Manning would have peen proud to have made in craft and design. I wanted to make a joyful replica of the glorious, coasteñas; chunky Afro Caribbean women we saw in Cartagena, with big bowls of fruit on their heads. Not this. And, as a project of engagement it's just made PW go radge because I used up her balloons. It's also gone a bit mouldy in the damp laundry room. I wonder if the spores are healthy for children? They are only going to smash it up anyway I suppose, but maybe that will only enliven the spores and make them find a host faster? I should probably throw it away but I feel like it could turn a corner at any point and be like a bonding thing, you know? I have a feeling- just a hunch really- that PW might be quite into the whole smashing up the piñata thing.. If not her, maybe the next Aupair? Who can say.

I have also been meeting people off couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a website where people offer their couch to travellers for free; usually in exchange for language lessons or just cos they're nice and want to meet different people. It's a really wonderful concept but I have to say I have found the reality somewhat less noble. Despite contacting what feels like lots of women, not a single Latino lady has responded, but I've been inundated with young men wanting to improve their English, and "get to know me good".  This would perhaps be flattering if this wasn't South America (where you could have a face like a wet ham sandwich and a personality to match, and STILL get loads of men chasing you, just because you have blue eyes) or great even, if I was looking for romance in my final two weeks, but I am not. I want to learn some Spanish, and am being too much of a stingebag to fork out for lessons. 

 

Anyway, I have met a couple of them and they have been vastly different and quite wonderful in completely opposite ways. The first one, lets call him Thomas (because it is his name) was a pocket sized lothario, who was actually quite funny, sometimes intentionally, mainly not. He was relaxingly confident and chatty, and apart from a really weird moment when I lost it and muttered "it's so nice to talk to someone my age" in an intense voice, whilst clutching his arm, the afternoon was really nice.

 

He spoke Spanish a lot, so i could practice but his English was perfect, which helped when I struggled. We had lunch next to a very glamorous lady who had gone to town on the silicone, and he barely listened to a word I said throughout the first ten minutes of sitting down, so distracted was he by her pneumonic breasts. It was bloody hilarious watching him try to remember what I said whilst he'd been ogling. I can't say we had much in common, but he was sort of nice and very generous with his time.

The second guy I met, Eduardo, couldn't have been more different. Really gentle and polite, and very focused on showing me Bogota and making sure I had a lovely time. He helped a lot with my Spanish and took note of my interests to ensure I was getting the most out of Bogota. He made me speak a lot and I was really encouraged by how much more Spanish I knew than I thought I did. I did get ahead of myself by trying to quote Michael Burke from a book on Africa, which is pretty unwise for someone who has mastered 6 verbs, and only in the present tense, but he was nice about it. I sadly talked about myself far too much which, whilst normal for me, is a bit of a shame in a language exchange. I'm not sure how much he got out of it, as his English was pretty perfect, but I taught him the word "gist" which seemed to chuff him.

I also went on a language exchange with an old man I met in the old folks home, where I pilfer wifi. He just came and sat down and then kind of forced me to go for coffee with him and then his wife. They were adorable. 

Meeting all these folk, I realised how long it is since I tried to be charming or try to make someone like me. I've been in a bit of a flump here (not that I've complained about it or anything) and I think I might have been a bit of a negative arse for everyone in my vicinity.  A change of scene, and new people, made me pull up my socks a little bit. You know;  smiling, asking questions, not looking suicidal. General stuff which yielded miraculous results to my own mental health if nothing else. 

Eduardo took me on a 8 hour stomp of Bogota yesterday. It's such a cool city. I've never been to Berlin, but from photos and rhapsodising friends I think it's possibly kind of similar. It's edgy and a bit grim in places (the tolerance zone for example, where prostitution is illegal, and apparently sweeping the street is not) but really cool, and full of students and arty sorts.  The historic centre or Candeleria, is beautiful. A riot of coloured colonial buildings with flags and hanging baskets nodding cheerily from the windows. All the street signs are written in a swishy calligraphy and there is fantastic graffiti on all the ugly walls. Its really hilly, with loads of hidden lanes and narrow alleys that lead to great little shops, or dodgy doorways reeking of pee. There are loads of street performers, market stalls selling tat and serious down and outs, swigging cheecha. This means if you sit on a bench you feel as if you're in some kind of gritty, Danny Boyle directed version of Alice in Wonderland, where a woman painted entirely gold is juggling with her feet, next to a man selling dolls heads and teddy bears, and all the while a grown up Mowgli from the amazon is rolling about the floor with his spindly bottom falling out the seat of his thousand year old breeks.  It has to be a top ten people watching city of all time, and it's definitely uncomfortable viewing at times, but a lot more exciting than Chia.  

We went to loads of places including a fantastic book shop in the Candeleria, which was enormous and dusty and full of treasures. Sadly most of it being in Spanish, the treasure was less glorious upon inspection, but it was wonderful nonetheless. They did have an English language classics section, so I've stocked up on lengthy tomes for the journey. I chose books I feel I should have read, but can never be arsed; Steinbeck, Kafka and a simpering isobelle Allende which I've read already and know is ok. I can turn to her if the Grapes of Czech Existentialism proves too much. In fact, it's partly her I have to blame for my vision of Latin America. She is the main reason why I thought by this point I would be living in a white-washed apartment, overlooking a parroty plaza, dressed in a floating cotton kimono with tuber roses in my hair. My handsome companion Juan-Andreas would be strumming on his guitar, whilst I painted, and idly munched mangos from the garden. Dinner would be cooking on the aga, for our intellectual and left leaning friends, and I would be fluent in Spanish and been transformed into a romantic and passionate femme fatale, who did not gag at the thought of poetry in my honour, or have a suspicion that its almost impossible to love the same person for ever. Thanks Isobelle.

Anyway, yes, the bookshop is great and not too expensive, which is usually a sad fact of travelling here. There are NO cheap bookshops, and the best you can hope for is an exchange in a hostel, or this place, where most of the books were about $7-14.  I would say it didn't really have much to write home about though (pun?) unless you read

Spanish. How selfish of them.  If one was coming here for a long time, I would advise them to bring a kindle.

After that we went up to a famous part of the city, called La Macarena. It was full of beautiful gay men and incredible flats, so I'm assuming it was the trendy bit. Lots of foreign restaurants, one of which is called La Jugueteria (the toyshop) which is one of the most famous restaurants in Bogota. I also happen to know it, because Claudia's brother owns it! It's kitsch, with hundreds of vintage toys everywhere and pretty waitresses dressed like nutcrackers (this may not be officially what they are dressed like, but its what they look like.) It's really whimsical and a bit creepy, but definitely unique. Some of the toys are amazing; those old metal ones that perform mechanical feats when you turn the key, and wonderful old puppets. Too many plastic babies dangling from the roof for my liking, and lots of horrid moth eaten monkeys too but definitely worth a peek, and there are lots of other amazing looking restaurants nearby too.  We went to some little private boutiques, because I had said to him I liked charity shops. They were the very antitheses of charity shops but beautiful nonetheless and very sweet of him to try.  I think the concept of second hand clothes is not popular here, though I have seen a few in chia actually.

The end of the afternoon found us in Usaquon, having icecream in Crepes and Waffles. Crepes and waffles is totally ubiquitous here and in Central America. It's a bit like Starbucks but does really nice icecreams and.... Crepes and waffles. It was started by this woman who gave all the waitressing jobs to single mothers and now it's a massive empire. She still only employs single mums, so its kind of an interesting social venture.  Politics aside, the coffee is really nice and the icecream fab too. Usaquon is in the words of Eduardo, a separate town that was eaten up by Bogota.  It's got a very distinct feel about it and a church square that everyone hangs about in. It's quite swish, and again, full of funky restaurants and nice little bars and cafes.  It's nice to wander about in, and apparently has an excellent artisan market on a Sunday.  

After we had stuffed our faces it was starting to get dark so we meandered back to Portal Norte station and I got my bus home. I had a really lovely day, and again marvelled at how much my mood lifts when I actually get out of my moany funk and do something. Ok, there are the terror stricken moments when a stranger babels to me in Spanish, or when I spend five minutes asking to buy a "letter" rather than a "travel card" from a hapless youth, but generally it's so much better to be brave and leave the compound. Could it be I have discovered this a little slowly? There is still two weeks here, and four months in Mexico, it might not be too late to Isabelle it up. More people like the nice old man, and Eduardo and it might be easier than I thought.