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Published: December 12th 2010
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Hola de Colombia!!!
The first few days involved me getting over some crazy tiredness...unfortunately no cool stories involved there, the tiredness was only jet lag. I arrived at the most amazing hostel in which the hammocks, wood fired stove and insanely well kept garden added to its general hippie atmosphere.
Within a few hours I realised what my favorite phrase in Spanish was; "habla despacio, por favor" or speak slowly please. There may have been some problems with the translation there as peoples responses involve saying "Si, Claro" painfully slowly and then continuing with their incoherrent (only according to me) verbal diarrhea. Frank made me feel especially good when she got to Bogota when she turned to me and said, "Wow, they speak really clearly here." Thanks...bitch.
The pictures i have posted here of Bogota, although only the views surrounding the hotel, speak for themselves, so there is not much point talking about them. What is worth noting however, is our bicycle tour with a Colombiano named Fernando. As he was fanscinated by politics and history, he proceeded to tell us about the former governments (apologies, I dont know how to type apostrophies here!) corruption and ruthless crackdowns.
Alvaro Uribe, the immediate former President, was largely elected on the basis that he would crush the left wing guerrilla group FARC. Amid this tide of excitement, on the very first day of his Presidency, FARC rebels launched rockets at the Presidential Palace in an attempted assination. Both rockets missed. As our guide explained, one of the rockets missed by five blocks (dont ask me how they can be that retarded), and smashed a large settlement of slums killing more than 300 hundred quote unquote "garbage people." I found it a tad bizarre watching Fernando smile as if this was something amusing, Frank and I felt awkward...bit not the funny awkward one experiences while watching The Office.
Following this, the President, outraged that "Garbage People" were living in slums only 5 blocks from the Palace, sent in the army to move the people to the countryside, where they would be trained and given jobs. Apparently this was a euphamism for being shot in the head...hundreds if not thousands were murdered, and keep in mind, this is in 2002 under a democratically elected government.
Because of his relentless drive to crush the guerrillas, partly due to the fact they
had murdered his father, Uribe initiated a policy to give incentives to soldiers to kill as many guerrillas as possible. According to this policy, soldiers had to kill at least three guerrillas a week, if they killed more they would receive a "bonus..." and we think bankers bonuses are sick. This policy, which I call no bullet left behind, of course meant that soldiers killed many innocent campesinos and later dressed them as rebels, in order to recieve their "incentive payments."
Next stop...San Gil. We got here at about three in the morning to arrive at "Macondo Guesthouse." For anyone thinking of staying there as it is recommended in the bible (Lonely Planet), dont. Its not terrible, but its not amazing either. The dorms are incredibly hot and have no windows and the place is a bit dirty. You can get much better accomodation elsewhere...we settled for a place called Santander Aleman, which is located literally across the road. The prices for accomodation are exactly the same, regardless of Santander Alemans obvious superiority, perhaps because Macondo is run by an Aussie.
The near imposible for gringos to pronounce "Parque Natural El Gallineral," was absolutely amazing. We arrived and
had the best coffee evvvaaaaa. I think the fresher the coffee the bigger the caffeine hit...as I was buzzing like a 2 year old who had just eaten much more than his fair share of fruit loops. While we were drinking our coffee, this girl approached us and asked if we would like a tour. "Cuanto Cuesta?" I asked and she said in English, "a voluntary contribution." To me this is good and bad...the potential for it to be awkward is high, how much is enough...how much is too much? Moving on from my Larry David inspired neuroticism, the park tour was fascinating, although I probably missed a lot of it due to my squinting and learning in to try and understand what the girl was saying, I did pretty well I thought. Even though I felt like kissing her anyway because I could understand her Spanish and she knew what "slowly" meant, I think i was in love for this girl for a bit. That is untill she began to tell us about how she saw this beautiful romantic comedy which made her crave the love the pair had in the movie. So she decided to pray for the
kind of love in the movie....this turned her Christian. I have always thought that a hot christian was gods way of saying to all prospective heathens, F*** you.
San Gil beats Bogota.
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Zoe F
non-member comment
Ah-mazing
Jez I love this blog! I'm shot-gunning your number one fan! The photos are beautiful, looks (and sounds) like you're having a lovely time, such a gorgeous place too :) Love lots be safe! xx