1 to 5.

I figured out there`s a ratio of sun to rain here. You have one day of sun and you pay for it with five days of miserable wetness. I`ve been camping out in front of the fireplace in the house for the last few days, so Californians watch out -- I can build a fire now.
I realized I haven`t written much about the daily rigaramole of things here. I get up in the morning, around 11 or 12 nowadays (after recovering from the night before usually) and depending on where I need to go, I´ll hop on the above-ground subway called TransMilenio or even more convenient and with more routes, the busetas. Busetas are essentially buses, but oftentimes they`re just glorified minivans stuffed with people. The destinations are written on a black placard in bright stenciled letters and suctioned-cup to the passenger window. You flag them down when they pass. There are no official bus stops for these things, so they stop on a dime at a second`s notice. The TransMilenio is Bogota`s pride and joy, but it`s a bitch to figure out because instead of subway cars, the system comprises buses that run in their own lanes but share the street with passenger cars. There can be up to 6 buses that stop on the same platform. They all go the same route, but don`t stop at all the stations. So you really have to know which one you need to get on. And when the doors open, there`s no sense or organization to entering or leaving. Everyone just fights to get on and off at the same time. In other places, the people exiting usually get the right of way. Not here. Odd.
The other day Gabriel and I went to Carrefour, a market with French origins I think but services all types of gastronimical tastes. Think of it as a Wal-Mart or Target mixed with Ralph`s and Trader Joe`s. You can find real baguettes here as well as decent wine, and of course some international fare. We had taken the buseta to get there and had to cross a bridge to reach the market. It was around 7 p.m., so there were people around. As we were walking toward the bridge, I saw a woman shaking and what looked like two men holding her in a malicious arm hold. One was behind her and the other in front. I thought she was getting robbed. As soon as I stopped in my tracks, I realized she was having an epileptic seizure. Gabriel was totally oblivious to the situation and I pointed her out and asked if we could go help her. Gabriel, you see, is part Swiss and has to serve two weeks a year or pay his way out of it if he`s not in the country. Rather than being part of the armed guards, he asked to be put in a position where he wouldn`t have to deal with guns. So they trained him to be a medic. He`s already helped a kid with a neverending bloody nose and countless times has helped people through bad trips at clubs. We ran over to the group and Gabriel went to work, instructing the two men to lay the woman down on the ground on her side. He bust out a pair of disposable chopsticks from his pocket that he had picked up from an international food fair we went to the previous weekend. We all pried her mouth open. The woman was clearly suffocating. When we had first gotten to her and lay her on the ground, her face was purple and blue from the lack of oxygen, and her eyes were rolling back and forth. Gabriel stuck one of the chopsticks horizontally in her mouth, so it would prevent her from swallowing her tongue and was also a method to give her some air in her desperate state. After a minute of all of us freaking out and people coming to see what was going on, her seizures stopped and she came to.
So that was a day in a superhero`s life I guess. When we got to Carrefour and got over our excitement of all the food we could buy, I stopped by the lunch meat area. I wanted turkey. So get this -- turkey breast, the decent kind, was almost $5 U.S. for 4 slices. I was shocked. Even the low-rate kind cost a pretty penny. We put it back when we found out we didn`t bring enough money. Sigh.
We had another incident while walking back near our place. A wild taxi driver, impatient with the evening traffic (one lane, one way), cut out of line and sidled his car at an incredible speed near the curb. He drove by us and into a puddle. You don`t need to know physics to understand that we got splashed. It had been raining all day so I don`t even want to think about what was steeping in that water. I got so pissed off and chased the taxi up a block. When I finally caught up to him near an intersection, I started screaming at him. He flinched at first and put his hands up over his face (quite funny actually). I punched his half-rolled-down window and he flinched again. It was probably a funny scene, me screaming at him in Spanish and English and him so flabbergasted and confused. ``Que paso?`` he kept asking me. Gabriel by this time had caught up to me and told him why we were so mad. In the end, I`m sure the taxi driver had a good laugh about it too, but Gabriel warned me that taxi drivers here in Bogota carry guns. I`m an idiot about these things so it`s made me fearless.
We had a party yesterday at the house and when I finally woke up this morning to clean, I found white all fricking over the house. As if it had snowed inside the house. I swept and in the trash it all went.

Spelunking.

This is b.s. You guys are suffering 90-plus heat in California while I suffer 45 degrees as soon as the sun goes down. I was in the boho neighborhood of La Macarena a few hours ago eating a mediocre hamburger (god, I miss In n Out) when it started pouring. As usual, I left my rain jacket at home. The restaurant called a taxi for me but the wait was too long, and by that time anyway the rain ceased. Screw this. I can`t stand the consistently overcast and cold weather here, but I can`t stand all-sun-all-year as well. Sao Paulo beckons louder. With the micro climate in La Candelaria, you are guaranteed sprinkles at least for a third of the day. I`m fighting depression because of this, and my melatonin is lacking more and more every day too. Yea, Chris, you`re right, I`m weak. I totally admit it.
OK, enough of the complaining about the weather. Growing up in California has made me into a spoiled brat. Now I understand why people who live through seasons of snowstorms and tornados are happier. You live in California too long, with all that bloody sun, and you take it for granted. You find stupid things to complain about, like what to do with your life. But when you don`t have el sol, you enjoy life all the more when it actually shows its face.
This morning I got up to the sound of squawking. The parrot was freaking out downstairs and I was trying to ignore it and pulled the covers over my head. Eventually I did get up and went outside to see why it was yelling so loud. The thing practically attacked me. I opened the door to the courtyard and he -- his name is Bonjour, believe it or not -- marched toward me, clipped wings and all. I told him to stop while I backed away. Bonjour hopped up onto the ledge that separates the inside of the house from the outside and before I could find something to swing at him, he was already inside the kitchen, squawking as if they were his last. ´´Hey, I don`t think you`re allowed in the house,`` I tried to reason with him. The dog and parrot in the house only understand French, and I couldn`t remember quick enough some words to keep the cantankerous bird at bay. Ah-ha, I thought, I bet he`s hungry. Bonjour`s main source of nutrition are salted peanuts, so I went on a hunt for the rotund bits. Couldn´t find them. Meanwhile, Bonjour looked poised to attack my feet. I led him outside and quickly shut the door while he looked awkwardly on. Finally, I found the nuts! Truimphant, I showed a few to Bonjour and he was immediately placated. Goddamn bird. If you`re a tropical bird whose wings are clipped and the weather is cold all the time, you`d sympathize with his manner.
Since we`ve moved into the house, we have visitors all day long. I don`t mind it so much, but I do miss a quiet night at home. Life here is much more social, and for an antisocial person like me, it gets hard sometimes to adapt. A really good thing though, that has come out of this besides making new friends -- my French is coming back to me. Some days I hear more French than Spanish.
Another great discovery I`ve made -- all the McDonald`s here carry the old apple pies. I can`t believe I have been traveling here for six months without knowing this until two days ago. You know, the ones with the bubbly crust they stopped making that way in the early ´90s. I have been eating 1 or 2 pies a day since. I`m sick of Americans who complain that they refuse to eat at McDonald`s because it goes against their ``ethics.`` McDonald`s wouldn`t be around if people didn´t spend their money on it. So rather than blaming McDonald`s, why not blame the people who patronize the business, right?
It´s going to be 5 soon, my favorite time of the day because it means it`s coffee and brownie time. I`ve found the best chocolate chip cookie at a place called Criterion -- one of my top 3 cookies I`d say, and I have moved my focus to brownies. Tea time gives me the excuse to experiment, for the sake of the public, of course. Imagine how many terrible brownies I`ve had to eat so far in the name of sharing with Bogota the place to get the best and most authentic brownie. I`ve had brownies that are actually cake in disguise, brownies that have the same chewiness as gum, brownies that have the flavor of plastic or some other melted, toxic, manmade product, brownies that crumble like brittle teeth because they`re so old and stale... all in the name of preserving the identity of the brownie. It`s a hard job, oh boy.

On the road to nowhere.

I fucked up my finger real bad on Saturday night. I was a little buzzed from brandy and rum at a much-too-crowded club in La Candelaria where there was decent house playing. There was only one bathroom for girls, so when I saw an opening in the boys` bathroom, I ducked inside and slammed the door. On my poor finger. Without being under the influence of alcohol I`m sure I would have screamed. But I pulled my flattened appendage from the doorway and watched it turn purple while people banged on the door. Today, it hurts like hell. War stories, war stories.
That night, I made a keen observation: Bogotaians can`t dance to electronic music. In fact, they dance pretty badly. They have the salsa thing on us, but when it comes to other music, they sort of adapt an abbreviated salsa dance to whatever music is on. It makes me kind of feel better knowing this, since gringos are notoriously bad salsa dancers.
Today I moved out of the bakery and am helping to house sit a gorgeous place up the street owned by a Swiss-French family. They`re going back to Europe for a month and have left the dog, parrot and their other valuables in our hands. I can`t even begin to describe this place -- there are two large patios with rooms surrounding a courtyard. Hardwood floors, two huge fireplaces and a real kitchen.
It makes staying here longer easier. I haven´t found a cheap enough flight home but I am fighting homesickness, plus a rapidly decreasing bank account. I aim to be home by August 4 if things work out...
Going ice skating now.

Life for oldies.

So this is what happens to me when I stay up way past my bedtime three nights in a row, accompanied by party aids such as drinks and Colombian white: I get sick, feverish and feel like hell. Wednesday night we went out for drinks with friends from the hostel, Chris, Mattias, a guy named Jay from NoCal, Natalia and Gabriel. I stuck with my usual brandy and got toasty right after only one shot of the brown heady stuff. Friday we went with a group of French-speaking Colombians and Swiss early to a reopening reception of a French hotel here in Bogota, where Natalia was showing some of her works. We were still feeling quite thirsty afterward so someone suggested heading to the Quebrada de Canto, a famous old salsa bar down the street that`s actually quite reminiscent, aesthetically and structurally, of the House of Blues. I tried to learn to dance, when I got my nerve up, but with two left feet and hips made of unrelenting bamboo, my dance partner could only laugh and suggest we try again another time. We all walked back together at 2 a.m. and bumped into a very drunk and gregarious (more than usual) Jay, who with full of drink seemed a little more sober than he is normally. He hadn`t carried his blunt sword with him that night, so we were worried he`d get mugged. After 20 minutes of straightening and restraightening him out, he left us to find another bar. I miss Jay. You`d miss him too if you met him, heavy Indian accent and all, a guy who talks a mile a minute and even faster once he gets excited about something. I wish I could have seen the sword in person.
But it was Friday night that did me in. We started in the north, to do some errands, and then headed out to Socorro to see Rodrigo, Gabriel`s best friend, also a DJ. Socorro has sort of become my second home already. It`s a two-level bar, chic on the ground floor but very much like a warehouse in the basement. I had just finished a wonderfully impressive meal at Wok -- their pad thai was as authentic as I`ve had it in Thai Town -- so all that energy needed to go somewhere. Unfortunately the music at Socorro that night left a lot to be desired, so we headed to a new bar down the street, a goth place that looked a bit like Sinister in L.A. In fact, the DJ there used to play at Sinister and was happy to share stories with me about his former life living in Brentwood (yea, what self-respecting goth would live in Brentwood and moreover, be happy about sharing the fact?). But the guy played good music, New Order included. Next door upstairs was a punk rock place, so kids with mohawks and army boots would come trampling down every few minutes.
Just when I was on my 50th yawn, we took a cab back to La Candelaria, to a club where Gabriel´s playing on Wednesday. We wanted to check it out and I dare say it`s actually a nice place, with a good sound system. That`s something hard to come by here. I met two guys, one from Venezuela and his friend from here, who were completely enthralled with me because I`m Asian (BIG yawn). I gotta say that I dont nearly get this type of attention in the states so yea, I gotta work it when I can, right? Gotta make up for all those times I`m openly harassed and stared at on the street for being slanty eyed.
After that party, we wanted more drinks so we ended up in this tiny apartment a few blocks away, completely dark and stuffy inside. In the main room was a giant bed --and nothing else -- on the floor with four people piled into it (all clothed, thank god). I was with a group of 6 others and we were all supposed to drink here? One of the guys I`d been introduced to a few times and we said hello. He always struck me as kind of odd, and I was confirmed that night. We stood around awkwardly for a few minutes and slowly left one by one -- we had walked into some a place with really weird vibes and really, it could have been a scene out of Trainspotting, small mirrors on the side of the bed and all.
Yea, so fast forward to the next day, when I woke up at 1 p.m. and felt like a knife was stuck into my head and held there. I went back to bed at 8 p.m. after backing out of a dinner invite too late and didnt wake up till 11 the next morning. I had afternoon plans already though -- after hitting the antique flea market here (a really good one in fact, in which you can find an antique dentist`s chair for only $50 U.S. but no dildos unlike some of the other ones in the city), a guy Gabriel met at the dinner party the night before took us to the notorious south, where he lives. The south of Bogota used to be very dangerous, but now it`s only relegated to the deep south of town. Juan works at a leather tanning factory where he has his own investment interests in the company, so he works a lot. He`s the only person I`ve met who has a car and was glad to take us on a tour around the city, and out of Bogota, to the nearby mountains where we could smell fresh air and be delighted by how even colder it is in the higher elevation. On the way back we stopped by a small roadside food/drink place so I could try canelazo, which is hot sugar water with a shot of aguardiente. Aguardiente is distinctly Colombian, a drink made with anise and sugarcane. It`s strong and doesnt taste so great to a foreign tongue like mine, but I was grateful for the warmth it brought. Inside we were novelties for the locals who stop by the place on their way home -- they wanted me to play rana, a game similar to skeeball in which you throw metal discs from a certain distance away into two frogs` mouths. If one of your disks make it in (and it`s a hard thing to make happen), the disks roll down into a random slot with a number at the end -- those are your points. I need more practice. One of the guys, an older mechanical engineer who was incarcarated for three years because he was accused of being a drug trafficker and now can`t come to the U.S. because of his record, insisted I try some homebrewed aguardiente, straight. Agh. Everyone was looking at me and in these situations, you have to do it or you`re seen as rude. I humbly held my head high and took the shot down as fast as I could. Smooth, ahhh, thank god. 10 minutes later, it was insisted that I take another shot. Really, I couldn`t say no. So down it went, and back up came a little of it. I was happy they didnt insist on making me drink more. That stuff doesnt taste like candy.
So now I`m here, sitting with sensitive teeth making me cringe every 10 minutes. I got my teeth whitened this morning for only the U.S. equivalent of $90. I am hoping my teeth won`t fall out tomorrow morning, but it will be what I deserve for this vanity.

My 15 minutes.

I was on Colombian TV yesterday. I haven`t seen the clip yet, but I apologize to all North Americans now because I am quite confident that as a result of this interview, I further honed the outside world`s opinions that North Americans are dumb. I wasn`t asked about anything important, really, just about why foreigners are attracted to La Candelaria. I had come back to the French pasteleria with a couple of friends from the Platypus hostel in tow. They wanted to check out my new digs and I`m always quite happy to show it off, smells and all. When we walked in, a bare-bones TV crew comprised of a newscaster and her cameraman were filming the bakery. Gabriel and Natalia, the daughter of the owner of the bakery, grabbed us and sat us around a table, with drinks and pastries set up all over the table. We ate and did our part while they interviewed one of the members of our crew, a Norweigian named Mattias, in Spanish. Quick and clean, very easy. Then I was singled out to speak, but being the gringa I am, I insisted on responding in English. Everything came out blub blub blub. I can forget any chances of starring in my own Colombian telenovela I guess.
Tonight Natalia is showing her art as part of a reopening reception for a French hotel nearby called El Virrey. I don`t have anything nice to wear, so I hope I don`t embarass the people I`m going with. It is absolutely freezing here at night -- ok, not quite, but about 45 degrees. For a weak Californian like me, that spells out an impossibility of moving here, ever.
I have a change in plans. Found out a ticket to Buenos Aires costs $650 U.S. dollars from here. It`s a sad thing I cant go back before I come home because I made some new friends there and didnt finish sightseeing the city. I`ll be flying home from Bogota instead. I can`t believe I am already talking about coming home. Time flies, yea?

Croissants and company.

So you`ll never believe my luck: I`m staying inside a French bakery here in Bogota. Yea, staying as in sleeping just steps away from fresh-baked croissants (not filled with cheese and ham, thank god) and chocolate and fruit tartlettes. There are a ton of French people here in the city, so a place like this is a neccessity to keep the foreigners happy. Unfortunately, there is a bad side to all of this: All that butter from those pastries has already melted into my thighs. I`m doomed. The owner is a Colombian woman formerly married to a French baker, and their beautiful daughter is an artist already getting exhibits at her young age. The first night she let me stay in her loft next door, a beautiful building with strong, hot water and hardwood floors. Because she has to work, she then moved me into the bakery. I`m hardly complaining. Each morning my routine consists of getting up and stumbling bleary eyed into a chair on the inside patio and ordering my standard croissant and cafe con leche. How I love being on vacation.
I also got a cell phone here because I am having enough of a spark in my social life with the locals to require a number where I can be reached. Bought it off the black market but am now having problems making outgoing calls. Despite that though, this is one step closer to my permanence here...
My friend from northern Colombia, the Swiss Colombian Gabriel, arrived in town last week and he`s been rediscovering La Candelaria. It`s obviously changed since he moved away 10 years ago, but he sees the changes as all positive. Bogota is quickly catching up in design and art, and I`m thinking about even doing something with T-shirts here (Carlos, are you reading this?). I went to a Bjork concert/Medulla videos screening at a theater north of here yesterday; this type of stuff is getting more and more common in Bogota. President Uribe has really made Colombia a somewhat safer place, but it`s been at a controversial cost. The foreigners keep arriving by planeload.
I`ve been working on my alcholism but still am having a hard time staying up past midnight. Gabriel played a down and dirty drum n bass set with a ``breakcore`` Venezuelan DJ named Jimmy Flamante yesterday night in a former strip club in Chapinero, or Chapingay as the locals call it because it`s sort of the equivalent of West Hollywood of Bogota. The Colombian white didnt do much to help me stay awake, but I was able to keep the brandy down this time. Yesssss!

Back in Bogota.

My roommate, Peter from Holland, got robbed right around the corner from the hostel yesterday on a street full of people making their way home. It`s practically a daily occurence here among us backpackers, getting mugged -- I`ve been lucky but staying on Gringo Row isn`t really encouraging. Peter was walking back to the hostel around 8 p.m. when a couple of guys pinned him to the wall and put a knife to his throat. Suddenly more guys rushed toward him to partake in gringo gold and they emptied his pockets, which luckily only held his glasses and $5 worth of dinero. The whole time they kept telling him to remain calm, relax. How thoughtful, huh? He`s pissed off about the glasses, because he doesn`t have an extra pair, but the experience has really confirmed his ideas about Bogota. True, there is a sinister feeling here, everywhere you go in Colombia actually, but in Bogota, you have a population trying to live normal life amongst it. It breeds a strange atmosphere, a fascinating one that`s keeping me here. Last week, an American girl got cut when she wouldn`t give up her backpack to a belligerent, precocious group of Colombian teen thugs. But I have to ask, why the hell was she caring her backpack around the city? Things like that invite trouble and it`s something you learn quickly when traveling. I have also found walking down the middle of the street is always a much safer option than using the sidewalks, despite the cars...
I`ve decided to skip Peru for now and stay here another two weeks. There are just so many restaurants and hole-in-the-wall bars to try out. Forget the thin, boyish figure I`ve been maintaining. I`m working on building a pouch underneath my stomach worthy of shelter for any newborn marsupial. I didn`t have a decent meal in the north. When I got back to Bogota a few days ago, I felt at home. It was great to see Chris again, even though he later disappointed me with a mediocre cookie experience. Yesterday we went out with a group of people from our hostel to an ´80s metal bar down the street and worked on a list of possible projects I could keep busy with (I`m easily bored) during the day while I`m here, one of which is to work on my alcoholism... or rather, as it is now, changing my lack of. Drunks always have more fun, right?
Speaking of the `80s, they`re alive and hardly gasping for air down here in S.A. In Bogota, you`d be hard pressed to hear anything beyond AC/DC or Depeche Mode. Metal bars abound, which makes me excited because I don`t feel so out of place in my Axl Rose shirt I picked up in Brazil, but I miss hearing all the new albums out in the states and rambling to anyone who will listen about how there are no good bands out there anymore. One of my other priorities here is to get burned copies of all the music I lost when my casette tapes melted/disappeared/were eaten by my car`s tape deck. Requests, anyone?
You`ll never believe this, because I didn`t myself when I first found out: There`s a Vietnamese Australian guy staying in my hostel. I am not alone!
I forgot to write in my last entry about the chickens in the zoo. They were bona fide exhibits, with their own sign and everything, just like the other animals. I hear that there`s a cage of squirrels in the Bogota zoo, and it`s a weird and wacky enough idea that I am going to check it out.

Just another day in the life...

Quiet day in Medellin. I´m glad to have come here, to see that its past as a raging city full of open drug dealing and as Pablo Escobar´s former ground zero for operations has given way to more important business for the paisanos, such as haggling with local fruit vendors and buying illegally copied CDs and DVDs to pass the time (I picked up The Cure´s Disintegration, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and a collection of Bjork vids for less than $8. Deal!). But this kind sentiment I´ve taken to Medellin was actually quite the opposite a few days ago, when no less than 3 hours did I want to GTFO (my new acronym for Get the Fuck Out). I had checked into my hotel after a grueling 16-hour bus ride in a vehicle more accurately designed to ship chickens, where I unfortunately got to know my neighbor on a very intimate basis due to the alloted amount of leg and armroom -- the kind I would even be embarassed for my mother to witness despite the innocent circumstances. I walked out onto the busy street and was followed, one after another, by perverts with an Asian fetish. I couldn´t take it anymore.
My fragile state had been as a result of an incident from the day before that happened immediately after I wrote my last post complaining about the sexual harassment that accompanies women, especially gringas, and more specifically Asian women, here. As I was walking back to my hotel, a young guy on my left passed me, grabbed my cheek and pulled his face up close to mine, his foul lips puckered in a kiss. It happened so quick that before I could even pull away he had let go. I swirled around and stared at him, I was so shocked. What could I have done? I considered chasing him, but he looked like the type of guy who would punch me out. As all of this was happening, another guy came up and made kissing noises right in my ear. All of this in a day as bright as your bare ass when it comes into the world from your mother´s hole. To deal with the verbal insinuations was one thing, but now this harassment was turning physical... I was about to burst into tears.
So after my first night here in Medellin, I opted to wear sunglasses the rest of the time, as a sort of experiment. I´ve had several people remark I could pass as Colombian (or at least Latina) with dark shades on. On they went. And so disappeared the filthy comments. I was at peace once again.
Medellin on the whole is interesting, for about 2 days. There´s a large sculpture garden featuring Botero´s bronze works in front of the Museo de Antiquoia, which houses some impressive works by Colombian artists I´ve never heard of. The zoo, which I visited today, is a sad affair as you could expect, with people ignoring warnings not to feed the animals and kids mustering all their might to find as many different ways as possible to annoy the poor prisoners. I left the place elated I´d seen so many animals I never knew existed, but depressed about the creatures. I will say, though, the monkeys seemed fine.
I´m heading back to Bogota tonight for a weeklong respite, where I hope to build my alcohol tolerance (Chris, you´re right, what kind of writer am I if I can´t drink like one?) and remember what it´s like to feel cold. A Colombian friend I made in Cartagena, Gabriel, is coming toward the end of the week -- turns out he´s a drum n bass DJ and is working to combine cumbia and other Colombian traditional rhythms into the music the same way DJ Marky and Patife did with bossa nova and samba and d&b -- and I´m sure I´ll gain some further insight into the city´s nightlife and residents.
Anyone know where I can find some brass knuckles in Bogota?