Cock-A-Doodle Don't

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So, back to Medellin. So much for just staying another night. I made it out a week later. Can't remember if I said but unless you take advantage of the Monday/Tuesday window's relative calm, you just accept you'll be there for another week.

Rather amusingly, all the caners who'd arrived there long before I first did were not only still there but were so sick of the excess that they'd cleaned their acts right up. They were jogging and swimming like nobody's business so each afternoon I'd join them and actually started getting my arse in shape. And each evening I'd go out and spend some more money I haven't got carefully undoing all the hard work in the pool that afternoon.

One day, a load of us went to visit La Piedra. It's a massive rock two hours' bus ride away that you can walk up. And then back down again when you've had enough (that's pretty much how that one works). Views from the top were beautiful: clusters of islands sticking out of sweeping lakes. During the climb I met a couple of Colombian sisters who gave me the perfect chance to ditch the group and visit Guatape, a town another ten minutes away. It was nice to spend time with the girls and an ok little place but ultimately it was also quite dull and I think I was in bed by 9 o'clock. Ditching gringoes... I guess sometimes you eat the bar and, well, sometimes he eats you.

Next day, though, I returned to Medellin with a long list of nice things to do there as I'd been ruing my own laziness throughout my first stay in the city to the girls. My heart pounded as they spoke passionately of gorgeous parks, fascinating museums and theatres and world-class exhibitions. My mind was buzzing; I felt positively lifted... I went back to Medellin running on pure adrenaline knowing that the whole world was just waiting for me to conquer it. How much of the list did I bother with that week? No comment.

But Saturday night was cool! We went out to Mango's, the city's most famous club. It's like something straight out of Ibiza. Massive, with crazy shit adorning all the walls. Stages everywhere host may-as-well-be-naked sweaty girls and guys dancing away. A few minutes later and you'd have a Michael Jackson impersonator strutting his stuff. Later still, lines of stripping midgets wooed the crowds! Gangsters and beautiful women were everywhere and the place was packed.

I lost a camera that night. I'd got a bit complacent over the previous weeks and didn't think not to take it out, despite the fact that I was well on my way to being far too drunk to be anywhere other than bed. So I have absolutely no sympathy for myself. With it went 500mB of photos which wasn't ideal so I've borrowed some here and there to try and patch things together!

And before I knew it, it was Monday! Go go go, get out of there! I'd been asking around for more places to visit that were devoid of foreigners. I jumped (well probably stepped casually while trying not to fall over with my bags or look too sweaty is a more accurate description) onto a nightbus and got dumped in Turbo at about five in the morning.

Looking at a map, Turbo's just to the east of Panama. Incidentally, until the turn of the last century Panama used to be part of Colombia until some greedy Americans took advantage of Colombia's internal strife to convince the part that is Panama successfully to push for independence. Once that was done, the US put in a big fat canal and made an awful lot of money out of it with ownership being handed to the Panamanians only as recently as 1999.

Anyway, this means that Turbo's all of about 15 miles from the dense jungle of The Darién Gap, the only break in the Alaska - Southern Patagonia Pan-American Highway and the only place that should be up there with Iraq on the "Places I Really Shouldn't Visit For Now" list you might have in your head. Unless you're Iraqi of course, in which case, umm, sorry for offending you and thanks for reading. Errr, hang on in there, things might get better one day...

Where was I? Like the vast majority of other towns and cities in Colombia today, though, Turbo's perfectly safe to visit. The only problem with it was there really wasn't much to do there. I think I might have been the first person from outside the place ever to have set foot there. Got another insight into Colombian living though, as the town's quite poor and I made friends with one of the its less fortunate citizens. He was a nice guy but in a bad situation with no way out. For work he'd rent a motorbike and be one of the hundreds of mototaxis circling around all day, struggling to ferry enough passengers about to pay for the bike's rental. He lived with his wife in a shed behind her parents' makeshift house. He would have loved it if there'd been anything I could have done to have helped him out (No, you can't come to England with me!) but really the best I could do was take him out for drinks the nights I was there and let him show me his town. The last night I left the hotel and slept on his floor. Slightly the worse for wear he burst into tears, ashamed that he couldn't offer me more. (My take on the situation was that he really had nothing to be ashamed of because he'd offered me all he could). It was a tough situation for anyone to be in and I wish him all the best.

After three nights there I moved an hour or so along the coast to Necocli which was a smaller and nicer place. The plan that had formed was for me to work my way along the coast until I got at least as far as Cartagena, each time asking about for what a nice onward destination might be. A pleasant relaxed little place, I got taken out by the hotel owner's nephew that night. His father used to be in the military and a few years ago rebels burst into their hotel while he was off-duty and gunned him down in front of his son.

If you came to Colombia today and spent time in the towns and cities without involving yourself with the locals (which would actually be quite hard since they're so outgoing and friendly) you'd completely lose sight of the violent history that has beleaguered this country for so long. The people's kind nature belies the realities of life here over the years and I've yet to find anyone untouched by the wars and the killings; anyone who's not lost friends and relatives throughout Colombia's turbulent past. Although the figures are better than they've been since La Violencia began in the 1940's, the country still endures kidnap, extortion and murder rates unprecedented virtually everywhere else in the world. And while talk about figures, rates and ideologies makes it convenient for observers to pigeonhole the situation as they please, to decide on good guys, bad guys and speculative solutions, the simple reality is that this place's past is just so fucked up and all the wars here fought so dirtily that there is virtually no unambiguity and almost nothing is clear-cut.

A few days spent in Necocli later and I moved onto Arboletes, a bumpy four hour dirt track ride further north along the coast, where I spent a couple of nights. None of these places really had much to do that was noteworthy and in all cases there were no tourists at all, be them nationals or foreigners. I passed the time here with a few guys from one of the restaurants and an old, weird crazy guy, going out to neighbouring towns and villages that were just about as sleepy.

Next up was Isla Fuerte, a large enough island a few hours away. This is more of a tourist destination but, again, at this time of year the locals and I had the place to ourselves. In total the island holds 2,000 locals, dotted about all over the place. Tracks for roads, livestock for traffic and electricity whenever you used a generator. The people were massively laid-back and the pace of life unbelieeeevabley slow. Here I had the cheapest day of my whole trip when accommodation, meals, a packet of cigarettes and a drink came to all of US$7. However, you don't get anything in this life for free and I had to work hard on not getting bored, lounging around, smoking cigarettes, writing, being shown around. Not a bad day but a third night there would have been too much.

Oh, and the fucking livestock at night. Outside of Colombia's bigger towns and cities most families keep their own animals; often found in gardens or just roaming the streets; pigs, donkeys, chickens, roosters: basically anything to be gobbled up at a later date.

And the roosters are the fucking worst. Every small village, every night it's the same. Yesteryear's Kellogg's adverts led me to believe that they don't start squawking until sunrise but now it's abundantly clear to me that those little marketing swines just wanted to brainwash me into thinking everything was golden and perfect and so let's all buy fucking cornflakes. Bullshit! It kicks off around midnight if you're lucky. One of them, over one side of the village will start it off. Cock-a-doodle-doooooo! Nothing. Just leave it at that and go back to sleep. Nobody's interested and what exactly would you talk about anyway? Pecking seeds? Whether the missus enjoys laying eggs? Whether she enjoys having sex with cocks? Cock-a-doodle-doooooooooooooooooooo! Same rooster. And you know he won't stop until he's woken the others. The anticipation... Fuck. Suddenly they all go mental. And once they've started, they don't stop until every one of their stupid little brains happens to black out at once and they all completely forget what they were doing. Give them two minutes and they'll be at it again. Next time you get the chance, pay close attention to the noise they make; we're talking Chewbacca with Down's Syndrome on helium. I tell you, the only comfort I clung to during those long dark nights was the certain knowledge that each and every one of their wives, mothers and daughters will one day have its head torn off, be cooked, eaten and turned into poo. CHICKENS, YOU WILL NEVER WIN!!!

I've had enough. I'm off to Cartagena...

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Photos

Midgets in Mango's
Little people everywhere! It's like being back in Bolivia! Now GET back to school!

Medellin
from the top of a cable car

La Piedra
from the bus...

Comments

[bozo perkins]

a joke for you
Q: What do you call a rooster who wakes you up every morning? A: An alarm cluck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!