Octobarch Break D. Day and Other Notes From Nowhere

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I lied, they're notes from Barranquilla, Colombia.

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I don't think I've mentioned this yet - currently, my school is on a week-long break. The students, anyway. The teachers have professional development all week, except Friday, which we're getting off in addition to Monday's holiday. Given the similarity of this week to Canada's March Break and also P.D. Days, I've termed the week "Octobarch Break D. Day". Hopefully it plays out more like your typical Octobarch Break than your typical D. Day.

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Since we have a 4-day weekend coming up, I'm probably gonna take off somewhere. Originally, K and E and I had planned to go to La Guajira, a coastal desert (oxymoron?) region not too far from here. However, one of the main draws of La Guajira at this time of year - flocks of thousands of pink flamingos - is being decimated by an unexpected shark attack. The regions where the flamingos can typically be viewed are shut down, and this really is an unexpected attack - apparently it's never happened before, or at least not on this scale. It's definitely disappointing, but also kind of hilarious, and ironically not the first time this blog has featured animals unexpectedly eating other animals.

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Today, for the first time, my iPod application that's just a pure white screen (i.e. a flashlight) came in handy when the power went out around 10PM. Stupidly, the first thing I did was use it to find my one candle before realizing that lighting said candle had become superfluous with the re-discovery of the App.

Also: this power outage illustrates another reason the wireless USB internet device I get my internet from is useful. I can't turn on a light, listen to the radio, or watch TV, but I can be on the internet. For about 10 minutes, anyway. My battery sucks so much. Sorry if this entry seems hastily thrown together, my impetus for writing it was the aforementioned lack of power, preventing me from doing what I was doing before (marking), and I'm trying to squeeze this in before my computer randomly shuts down at 56% battery, which actually only takes about 13 minutes to get to (I just calculated based on what's left).

Colombiana Part I

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This was one of my first ideas for a blog post when I started Colombia Blogging, and I thought it would become a frequent feature - a random collection of little differences I've noticed. It's not that there aren't tons of them, I guess I just a) keep forgetting to write them down, b) incorporate them into other posts or c) in certain area, like public transportation and technology, there are so many little differences that I'm going to eventually make them their own posts. Anyway, on a Monday after 7 days of intense Taganga Blogging, I didn't feel like putting much thought into the old Xlog, so I turned to a half-finished post. Here's hoping I can think of enough to finish the rest.

Without further ado, 10 peculiarities of Colombia! Or, at least, 10 things that seem peculiar after living in Canada for 22 years.

• In baseball broadcasts, they write a player's game-record backwards! I just saw "Melky Cabrera - Esta Noche - 3-0". 3 hits in no at bats... nice work, Melky.

• The website of the Colombian soccer league (which is called Copa Mustang, or Mustang Cup, sponsored by Mustang cigarettes - there are a couple interesting differences here, first that a major sports championship is named after a corporate sponsor, as opposed to the World Series or Stanley Cup, though I guess golf has the whole corporate sponsor thing going too, so it's not a huge difference, but secondly that the corporate sponsor is a tobacco company) requires you to enter your age. Apparently, you must be 18+ to view the standings, stats, etc... I have no idea why.

• The 2-L coke bottles are bigger! That sentence doesn't make any sense. The 2-L coke bottles are not bigger. There aren't any 2-L coke bottles. There are 2.5-L coke bottles though.

• Speaking of pop, apple pop is pretty common (it's red... other than that, no word on what type of apple is used). I've had apple pop before, it's just a lot more common here.

• There are a lot of mimes here. Or maybe there's just one who I see every day because he's always at the same intersection between my house and the bus stop. Also, there was one at school day for World Peace Day (umm, because if you can't talk, you can't fight?). But they're not really mimes: they have this weird little squeaky thing that sounds like a super fast forwarded voice, so they pretend to talk and then squeak instead. I've had a couple of squeaking conversations which have probably been better understood by both parties than most of my actual conversations around here.

• As I've blogged about before, there is no shortage of huge Wal-Mart like superstores (there are 2 in the mall 3 blocks from my apartment), and this is where I did most of my initial shopping, but as I've gotten to know the city better, I've discovered that there are smaller general stores, called tiendas, everywhere. And the great thing about tiendas (not that I've taken advantage of it) is that you can order anything for delivery, for about 3 bucks.

• The question of whether Colombia is significantly cheaper than Canada is trickier than you might think. Certain things, like rent (in my part of the city at least), utilities, fast food restaurants, and some groceries, are about the same, while others, like transportation, other groceries, and street food, are way cheaper.

• E already blogged about this, but you can pay bills at supermarkets.

• I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to you, but there is a most definite lack of recycling. You see it every now and then in modern-ish buildings, but there isn't any at my building, at the school, and certainly not on the street.

• Related to the last one, there is definitely no garbage limit (at my building, when you have garbage to rid yourself of, you just take it out to a huge dumpster outside which isn't even part of the building - just a public dumpster I guess), but despite this ability to put as much as you want in the designated garbage bins, there's still trash lying everywhere.

Okay, that's 10 I think! Sorry for the lack of witty commentary on most of these. I used my entire wit quota for the day during class today when I turned my triangle-shaped ruler into a gun and pretend-shot all my kids as they came in. It was awesome.

Taganga Episode VII: Wrap-Up

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This week is "Taganga Week" at Xave's Xlog. Check it out:

Taganga Episode I: The Trailer

Taganga Episode II: The Town

Taganga Episode III: Wildlife

Taganga Episode IV: Cacti

Taganga Episode V: Sunday

Taganga Episode VI: The Recovery

What a week at the old Xlog! How did I stretch one weekend out of town into 7 full days of blogging, you ask? Well, it takes a special talent. I just have a knack for finding the boring in everything. Anyway, today's post is devoted to mentioning smaller things that weren't worthy of their own full post.

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I don't eat fish. Or any seafood. The reason is simply that I don't like it. However, I've never liked seafood, so I eat it so rarely I don't even know what some things taste like. Therefore, I've made it my mission to try some seafood while I'm living on a coast. So, on Saturday night, I had this for dinner:

This is a very common meal 'round these parts: fish (I don't know what kind), with lime to squeeze on top, coconut rice, patacones (fried green plantains - green meaning they're not sweet plantains), and a salad consisting mostly of lettuce and onions.

And at the risk of sounding totally cliché, it wasn't that bad! I almost ate the whole fish. I probably ate parts I wasn't supposed to eat, too.

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Anticipating I would do some hiking while in Taganga, I brought my running shoes along in addition to my sandals. But I forgot to bring socks. Good work, Dave. So, as it turns out, climbing a steep foothill with no paths while wearing sandals isn't the greatest idea. There were several occasions in which I nearly became an avalanche. H

Speaking of avalanches, here's a formation I found which I assumed to be the work of avalanches.

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I had a fun time getting home on Sunday. First I took a small bus from Taganga to Santa Marta, followed by a moto-taxi to the bus terminal in Santa Marta, followed by an inter-city bus to Barranquilla. All of these things were documented yesterday.

That wasn't the end of the journey, though. After retrieving my iPod, I was determined to figure out how to take the bus back to my part of Barranquilla rather than paying for a more expensive taxi. This proved difficult, as I got wildly varying opinions from the locals.

After a cat and mouse game of seeing the bus go by on the other side of the street and going to that side only to watch a bus zip by where I had just been standing, I decided to see how much the moto would cost. The first guy I asked flat out refused to go to where I wanted to go. The second guy quoted a price that was almost as high as taking a cab. Soon, I somehow found myself among a group moto drivers, asking all of them simultaneously if they would take me where I wanted to go at the price I wanted to pay. This was an unproductive bargaining session, because I just kept saying my price, and I'm pretty sure their response was something completely incongruous. Here is how the conversation might have gone (honestly, I have no idea):

Me: I need to go to Buena Vista.

Them: We don't go to Buena Vista.

Me: How about 5000 (pesos)?

Them: That's way lower than we would accept, even if we did drive people to Buena Vista. Generally, if you're trying to convince someone to perform a service for you that is outside of their regular duties, it's not a good idea to make your offer less attractive in an attempt to convince them to perform said service.

Me: What if I paid you 5000?

Them: You already said that.

Me: 5000? Yes? No?

Them (to each other): Maybe he means 5000 dollars? I wouldn't put it past this guy to actually pay us 5000 dollars.

Me: Do you go to Buena Vista? What about for 5000?

One of Them: okay, just get on, I'll take you to, umm, Buena Vista, yeah, haha, that's right. Cough.

Me: 5000, right?

That Guy: yeah, um, right.

So anyway, That Guy drove me a few blocks (for 2000 - $1), and then waited with me for, I assumed, a bus. Turned out he was waiting for a new form of transportation I hadn't even been on yet - a taxi with a little trailer on the back of it, and several people already in the taxi, so it was really carrying like 8 people. The moto guy said something to the driver, so I assumed I'd be taken to Buena Vista.

Nope. I got about halfway there, but not before one of the guys in the trailer almost got in a fight with the driver over, well, I have no idea, obviously. But I did exchange eye rolls with the guy beside me. Even if I didn't know what was going on, I played the social situation to a tee. Smooth, Dave.

Anyway, I had no idea where I was when the cab driver told me he wasn't going any farther (i.e. when he kicked me out), so I just found a cab, which was the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place.

In the end, in getting from door to door, I took a small bus, a moto, a big bus, another moto, a shared taxi, and a private taxi. 6 things! That's a lot.

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E and K (twice) both blogged about Taganga, so if you just haven't gotten enough over the past seven days and 8 million words here at XX, check them out. We didn't spend much time together over the weekend, so they have lots of different stuff.

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This isn't Taganga-related, but sometime in the last couple days, the little visitor counter on the right side (if you scroll down) crossed the 1000 mark! Sweet, thanks guys! (And that's just 1000 since I installed the counter, which was 3 or 4 weeks ago.) I'm sure most of those are mom and me though.

Also, after a 2 or 3 week absence, I finally got internet at home today. So that means lots more bloggggggg!

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Finally, here are some more pictures from Taganga.

Upon climbing the foothills beside Taganga, I was amazed to discover I could see Santa Marta. I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised since I knew it was only about 5km away, but I was so disoriented when we arrived I had no idea which direction we had come from, so suddenly seeing a huge city just over the hills was a pretty startling sight.

It thought this house looked like Lego.

A shot of Taganga from above.

A cool tree.

Triangle hills.

The School

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I visited the school I'm working at less than 24 hours after arriving in Colombia, which was about a month ago, and snapped some photos while there. Those pics have been idling on my computer since then, so I figured I should finally show them to you!

The school has a beautiful open-concept design, which I later learned is very common throughout Colombia (and presumably many other summer-year-round countries). It makes sense, just something I hadn't thought of. Note: we do get a fair amount of rain here, but as you can see in the above photo, the hallways are well-covered, and this coverage extends throughout the school, making it possible to reach any room (except the (outdoor, but covered) gym, if memory serves) without getting wet.

The spiky white stuff you see here is the roof of the cafeteria, where the two Lovely Ladies of Lunch (as I dubbed them mere seconds ago) serve their wonderful creations. Note: I don't know what they actually serve for lunch during the school year, but they some tasty food during training, so I can't imagine it isn't delicious.

Edit: I started writing this a couple weeks ago, and I have now figured out the lunch situation, but it deserves its own post - I'll try to snap some pics soon.

I liked this archway-rock face view that you first saw in the last picture, so I snapped a close-up. This rock face snakes along much of the back of the school, and there are some places where it's kind of tempting to try to jump across. Kind of a lot.

As you can probably guess, this was one of the days in which we got some rain. However, if my month of experience is any indication, the rain is always short-lived; no all-day drizzles, but so far no torrential downpours either. Usually a fairly short, volumetrically-average shower.

A view of the beautiful courtyard in front of the kindergarten/grade 1 wing (the far end).

This is the aforementioned open gym. Larger assemblies are held here, including last week's birthday celebration which E wrote about. (By the way, at said assembly, I dressed up like revolutionary Antonio Nariño, in a costume hastily thrown together out of construction paper by my class. I'll try to get a picture...)

The person you see stretching is a teacher, warming up for our regular Friday practice in preparation for the big teacher soccer tournament in Bogotá.

Here's a shot of the terrain just past the gym, which is the the North bookend of the school. All I remember from the north end of my high school was the smoking pit.

Sunday

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Pre-Script: this was supposed to be posted on Sunday night, but I haven't had internet at my house - an issue which has been solved in a theoretical sense but not a practical one (i.e. I know what the problem is, I just haven't been able to fix it yet). So, sorry for the lack of bloggage - and put yourself in the mindset of "Sunday night" when you're reading this.

Today was a weird day.

I woke up with a brutally sore throat, which came as a total shock. Usually, I can feel a sore throat coming several days in advance; it starts as a tickle in the back of my throat, and gets progressively worse until the 3rd or 4th day when it reaches an apex. In other cases (particularly after nights when beer is on the menu), I wake up with a sore throat that gradually dissipates throughout the day, never to be heard from again. Today's seems to be the natural, non-alcohol-induced kind (I did have some beer over at J's house on Friday night, but I've never encountered any sort of delayed alcohol-induced sore throat, that seems unlikely), but there was no lead-up.

I suppose it could have been something I ate - I ate a lot of crackers yesterday, maybe the salt? It's not like I ate a whole package, though. I had sushi for dinner, and at the end I had a couple bites of straight wasabi, because I love the wasabi spiciness - the brief but powerful rush of tingling in your mouth and nose, and the fact that it doesn't linger like "regular" spiciness - so I suppose that could have been it. Maybe the salt of the soy sauce contributed too. But that's never happened with sushi before, so I'm skeptical.

(By the way, side note about sushi last night. The entrance to the sushi restaurant was inside the deli next door. When we arrived, they didn't have any tables, but they had extra tables set up inside the deli. So for the first 20 minutes or so, we sat there at our plastic table and chairs, studying the menu as customers filed in and out, picking up their groceries, before being ushered into the very posh sushi restaurant.)

It's no Sushi Kan... Deli Kan?

So, as is often the case when I feel even the slightest bit sick, I resolved to stay home and take it easy today. I tell myself this is so that I can nip whatever may be coming in the bud, but in reality it's just an easy excuse to be lazy.

Of course, this led me to stay home all day, and aside from stepping onto my balcony for a few brief moments, I haven't been outside. This is something I've been trying not to do while in Colombia, so hopefully I'll at least muster the energy to take the garbage out to keep the streak going (ed: I didn't. The streak is over). But so far, most of what I've seen today has been the inside of my apartment, and since I'm nicely settled in and used to the place (pictures soon, I promise), when I'm inside it doesn't feel like I'm in some exotic new country.

At some point today, I decided to listen to an album by the Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (that's the one with Do You Realize on it). I hadn't listened to it much before; I just downloaded it shortly before leaving the other continent, so apart from the aforementioned state song of Louisiana (or Oklahoma? I forget), I wasn't particularly familiar with the music. But as I was sitting at my desk, either doing some schoolwork or reading, the music made me stop what I was doing, close my eyes, and enjoy the moment. This is not a common occurrence for me; even though I'm constantly listening to or playing music, it's not often that I get totally absorbed in it. I think this has something to do with the logical and mathematical nature of my brain; whether I try to or not, I'm always simultaneously listening to the music and analyzing it. Concerts are never the superlative, life-changing experiences they seem to be for other people. But it does happen every now and then.

Sometime in the evening I started getting hungry (this, on the other hand, is a common occurrence), and I decided to make something large for dinner so I could take the rest for lunch tomorrow. Since my fridge isn't yet fully re-stocked, and I'm still accumulating kitchen equipment, my cooking possibilities for this type of meal are limited: basically, rice or pasta. Last time I made rice, so I went the pasta route, and the sauce was a very traditional (for me) mix of onions, green peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and a bit of tomato sauce.

So it was that I sat down to dinner, excitedly awaiting the first bite of a nostalgic dish, listening to the same Flaming Lips album (it had been put on repeat by this point). And it seems like all of these things - the mild sickness-induced drowsiness, the lack of outside reality, the tastes-like-home food, the affective music - conflated to sweep me away in a wave of emotion. What emotion that was, I cannot tell you. I wouldn't call it homesickness, because I wasn't particularly sad. And also, as mentioned, I feel at home here. Maybe home-wistfulness?

Or maybe it was simply living on another continent setting in. I've been in Colombia for three and a half weeks now, and I've bathed in a mud volcano, eaten lots of interesting, new food, and been immersed in a totally different culture, but I never got an overwhelming sense of I'm here now. Now, I didn't really get that sense tonight, either, but it was something close. Something like the feeling you get on a cold autumn night - a general warmth and sleepiness, the summer over and a long winter about to set in.

I don't know what that means, since the closest thing I'm getting to winter around here are the trade winds that come around in November for a few months, and give the 32˚ air a bit of a breeze to cool us off. Not exactly snowball fight weather. I suppose the significance is that it was something that felt like home, a feeling I've had every year of my life up til now. But this is home - for the next 10 months, at least.

Sorry to get all meditative on you guys. It's back to silliness and things being lost in translation tomorrow, I promise. Maybe I'll even get around to posting pictures of the school and my apartment.

Notes From Friday

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I usually try to focus these blog posts on a single topic/story, but sometimes there are just a few tidbits here and there I want to pass along. So, without further ado, here are some of said tidbits.

*****

I've mentioned this once before, but it was just a quick aside buried deep in a mostly-unrelated story, so I thought I'd mention it again: last week, a teacher band was formed for the purpose of playing at the school's first mass. I played (play? Not sure what our future is yet...) drums in said band. I'm telling you this because my colleague E wrote a blog post about the mass, so check it out! And check out the rest of her blog while you're at it!

*****

Another reason I wanted to mention the teacher band is because one of its members is a new friend of mine, and he's involved in both of the other two tidbits of today's post. This new friend's xlog-name is M, and he plays electric guitar and bass in the teacher band. He's one of the two music teachers at school.

And last night, M and I almost got arrested!

Okay, not really. But we could have been, because we were doing something illegal. Namely: we were men and we were outside.

I'm serious! This sounds like something you might read on Ian's Blog (I am just linking all over the place today), but in Colombia? What's the deal?

Apparently, last night was some sort of women's night in Barranquilla. At first I thought this meant men couldn't go to bars, but in actuality it was much more wide-spread than that; we weren't even allowed to be on the street! Obviously, I had a lot of questions about this, but M didn't know much more than I. This is not a regular event; last night was the first one, ever. M's understanding was that it was some sort of social experiment to see if nightlife-related violence was reduced, but he also brought up the very good (and also hilarious) point that of course nightlife-related violence would be reduced, since nightlife-related violence is usually alcohol-fueled, and without men, who would be buying the women drinks?

Anyway, last night M and I went over to J's apartment for the evening (if you don't feel like clicking the link, J is a displaced Canadian who I met on the bus this week. I also found out last night I am J's 3rd replacement at my school - meaning he taught the same classes as me 3 teachers ago), and even though it was only about a 10 minute walk (more like 25 on the way back...), we were terrified! Okay, we weren't terrified. What were they gonna do? Give us a stern lecture? I would have just pulled the gringo card, and I would have got out of even that. (by the way, maybe this is common knowledge, but I just found out last night that gringo refers specifically to Americans, so I'm not one - as someone who is often, and wrongly, referred to as a gringo, J was sure to make this point very clear.)

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Before venturing out into the wild unknown of no-men-allowed Barranquilla, M and I had been hanging out at my apartment. I had invited M over because we take the same bus and we were thirsty, and I had drinks.

We were thirsty because yesterday after school the teachers had a Friday soccer game, which I believe is a regular thing (there was one 2 weeks ago which I had to miss because I had to go get my blood taken or some other moving-related administrative thing (by the way, I'm O negative, which I already knew, but I guess they won't let you just tell them your blood type), and then last week it was raining), though I didn't find out until yesterday that these Friday matches aren't so much games as training sessions (they're effectively the same thing, I guess it's just the motivation that's different).

Training sessions for what, you ask? Well, as I just found out yesterday (I found out a lot of things yesterday) the teachers are going to a soccer tournament soon. It's a tournament for all Colombian SACS Schools - SACS is some kind of accreditation that allows students to receive both a Colombian and American high school diploma, and my school just got accredited last year.

So anyway, there's this SACS soccer tournament in October. As far as I know, that's all it is. Maybe there's some sort of educational conference component to it, but I haven't heard about that. Oh yeah, and the tournament is in Bogotá! I don't know yet if I'll get to go, since, as mentioned, I just found out about it yesterday, but that would be amazing, obviously.

*****

One last note: yesterday I got my Cedula, which is the Colombian everything card - it's like a combination driver's license/SIN card/probably everything else? The most important result of this is I can now open a bank account and consequently receive a pay cheque. Things are coming up Dave.

Connections

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Connections are great. I'm speaking of people-connections: the kind that get you free stuff because of who you know. At my age, these usually take the form of friends' parents. Some of my better connections in the past include: a family member of a family-run microbrewery, who would bring cases of beer to band practice, a fellow sports fan whose father could get good tickets to Leafs games, and restaurant tickets to Jays games, and my sister who, being a musician, has been able to sneak me onto guest lists for various concerts through her music friends. One of these concerts was even a fairly well-known band, Islands.

And let me tell you, if this past Friday was any indication, living in Colombia is going to have its perks.

Allow me to explain. After talking music with some teachers last week, a couple mentioned they were going to something called the "Miche Rock Festival" on Friday, and invited E, K and I to go with. The Festival was basically a battle of the bands, mostly local bands with a couple coming in from other parts of Colombia, including Cartagena and Bogotá. (I just learned how to easily do accents! It's so much easier than I thought! Just option-E and then the letter you want the accent to be over. On Macs, anyway.)

Well, it turned out that one of said teachers (who we will call K2, like the mountain, since there's already a K) was able to get us in to the VIP area, since her boyfriend is in a band which has played at the festival before. Sweet! There's our first connection. I don't know if this is how all concerts work in Colombia, but VIP area simply meant the best spot. Front and centre. Also, there were dudes constantly wandering through, selling beer for a dollar and plantain chips for 50 cents (though that was probably the same in the commoners area).

And you know what, the bands were pretty good! I wasn't sure what to expect, since it was a rock festival, and all of the music I'd heard so far down here had been exactly what I had expected: salsa, merengue, tropicalia, latin pop, etc. I hadn't heard the faintest hint of rock. But there were some very solid bands, and only really 2 that I genuinely wasn't interested in, and in both cases this was because they played some serious death metal, with growling and everything.

(Aside: whenever one of the heavier bands played, and there were 3 or 4 that fit this description, a fairly large section of the commoners area turned into a sort of rotating mosh pit. People just ran around in a circle, like that game where you get a bunch of people in a pool and run around the outside until the current is strong enough that you can just float along. They were relentless. Between the 3 or 4 bands, they must have been running in a circle for more than an hour. I kept expecting the circle to start levitating, like a gyroscope.

More aside: During the second-last band's set, the VIP area, which had been fairly tame compared to the revolutionary commoners, became a hockey style mosh pit. This is the type where people run at each other from several meters away, ultimately ending in a body check. The funniest part was when the male host of the event, an energetic and engaging radio-DJ type, came down and started hockey mosh pitting with 4 10 year olds, getting them all to team up on him. They loved it.)

The best band of the evening by far was a sort of reggie-ska group, who had, in addition to the standard band set-up, a trumpet, flute and congas. They played a Bob Marley cover (all bands were required to play one cover), and a couple of their own songs, which weren't as reggae, but in the same sort of vein (I'd describe it better, but I don't remember all that well). Also, when the radio started blasting through the loudspeakers right in the middle of one of their songs, they just shrugged it off and started the song over, which was a stark contrast to one of the growlers, who had walked off the stage after their own sound problems.

At some point, I asked K2 what "Miche" was. She told me it's a local music store, owned by a guy who is coincidentally named Miche. Good to know - I've been wanting to get a guitar, now I know at least one place where such a transaction may be possible.

Oh yeah, and Miche is a parent at my school.

After Miche Rock wrapped up, we headed over to a latin jazz bar which we had been invited to by M2, another teacher. M2 also happens to have lived in the U.S. for many years, after growing up in Barranquilla, and has been tasked with taking care of us North American teachers. In the last week, she helped us get cell phones, internet, and apply for our Cedula, which, from what I've gathered so far, is sort of like a SIN number with a photo ID, and is necessary for doing almost anything around here.

Anyway, this jazz bar is a favourite spot of M2's, and on Friday it was her sister's birthday, so they had a big crowd of people there. It's a really nice bar (no 1.00 beers, that's for sure), and is completely hidden from the street - there's absolutely no way anyone would know anything was happening inside this building without already being in the know. In addition, M told me this is where the musicians from Barranquijazz (Barranquilla's upcoming jazz festival) will be hanging out after their shows - and there are actually a couple of pretty big names, namely Ahmad Jamal and Joao Bosco.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the owner of the bar is M's dad? Good old connections.

The Hammer

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This is not a story about me; it is a story about my new colleague E. In fact, I wasn't even there. However, it's such a good story I had to pass it along.

Unlike mine, E's apartment was ready upon her arrival here in Barranquilla last week. Consequently, she had some time to get settled in and organized before our training started this week. However, that didn't stop her from locking herself out of her apartment within the first few days.

But it's an apartment building, with guys at the desk 24/7. So, no problem, right? Just show the guys some ID and they'll let you back in.

Wrong.

Apparently, E's apartment building doesn't have spare keys. So, several minutes after informing the front desk, one of the guys showed up with a bunch of tools, and spent about half an hour attempting to break in. Yes, that was the only way to get back into the apartment. Doesn't exactly scream safety when anyone with a few tools and some free time can just waltz into your apartment!

Anyway, eventually he succeeded, by creating a bunch of holes in the door frame near the lock, and then using the old credit card trick. Not bad, front desk guy.

Oh yeah, did I mention the "hammer" was an unloaded gun? After the successful B&E, the hammer was promptly re-loaded.

The Volcano

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After arriving in Colombia on Wednesday and then spending Thursday meeting some school people, touring the school and seeing a bit of the city, the school set us (and when I say 'us', I mean the two other North American teachers, who we will refer to as K and E, K's mom C, who is visiting for the first week or two, and me) up with a trip to Cartagena, the 5th largest city in Colombia (right behind my hometown Barranquilla), and is about 100 km west, along the Caribbean coast. Cartagena (Carta-hay-na) is known for its old city, which dates back to the 1500s, and was the target of several famous pirate attacks!

I'm not going to tell you about Cartagena today, though - rather, I'd like to tell you about something we did on the way. Namely, we bathed in a volcano.

There's the volcano! Okay, it's not that impressive as far as volcanoes go.

There were literally no other tourists at this place when we got there, even though there were something lke 30 or 40 employees ('employees' is a loose term - lots of them were just hanging out, and somehow I doubt there was any sort of pay structure, employment insurance or union).

So we had the place to ourselves. As soon as we had figured out how to pay, we changed, and started up the rickety staircase. Soon enough, I was climbing down into the hot, molten lava.



Wait, actually I forgot, we weren't bathing in hot, molten lava. It was a mud volcano.

And it was so weird.

It was the most buoyant substance I've ever been in, so when we lay down we were actually lying on top of the mud. The funniest part was when the guys organized us into a row of mud people; they first oriented us correctly, and then slid each one of us into our proper slot, like they were parking us. Being the last one of the four in, I had the privilege of seeing this process in action. Below is the result.



After we were shuttled into our places, the three guys spent about half an hour giving us massages. They also had to periodically wipe mud out of our ears and eyes. It was probably more effective than trying to hop on one leg, though given the density of the mud (the guys weren't standing on anything), we probably could actually have hopped.

About halfway through, we were flipped over so that the dudes could work our backs...

Lower... lower... too low! Lower...

After the dudes finished with the massages, we got to play around for a while. I spelled my name and drew pictures on the surface, a testament to how thick that stuff was. When upright, we came to equilibrium when the mud was about at our belly buttons, and it was almost impossible to go down any further without someone pushing us down. Not that there wasn't anywhere to go; apparently, the thing is 2300 meters deep!

Eventually we were forced out because the next group arrived.

Um, they had a lot of people.

Whereas we spent more than 30 minutes getting massaged and generally frolicking, they got about 5 minutes, if that. And many of them didn't get massages. Also, there were at least as many people waiting in line as you can see in that picture.

The early bird gets the mud volcano massage, I guess.