The city is new to me now. I see it as a place and people, not a history, not a context, not a country. I am a Colombian set free in a fancy place--fancy on its own terms, organized, mostly gringo. "Hay mucho gringo," that's how the cop in San Agustin said it.
So Chrome and his entourage hit up the Garage and CB just ran the fucking show there, classed up the joint, chargin fewer pesos than is even reasonable, which always wins him a proprio grande.
Everyone was there, one of Moraline's Amazing Nights. A fellow asked if he could borrow the cognac glass for a sample he had picked up at a tasting, and he emptied most of his tasting in the cognac bottle and generously provided the rest to me.
I went to follow Chrome's entourage to PT, but then realized the beautiful blonde who had passed me an hour earlier and told me to ride with her in the night. I followed the night's skyline to the capital where thousands of riders rode in parade formation. I rode with them, my left hand steering and braking the only working brake and my right hand with my camera.
I stopped for some cognac off Speer and we rode for miles, all of us, I weaved through pueblos and ciudades and pueblitos, and everyone was different, all formed villages that lasted for minutes or hours or seconds, I crossed and passed and waited and rode with thousands, and the brown hair blew and the blonde hair was swept into my face the the dark black curly hair made it across her shoulders and over to her neck and then across her face again, some voices sweet, some tired, it was now 1:15, but the day was beginning. Near Vine and 17th I had picked up a flask of Jim Beam and shared it with riders as we weaved through the streets--the same course I race in many races, it was a homecoming, and Jim Beam refreshes everyone.
Eventually time disappeared, people called my name, I spoke to them, many I knew, some were new, I danced on the pedals through the crowd and into the night and carried my bicycle on my shoulder, up my stairs, into my new hotel, knowing to check my maps in the morning in this new city, in this foreign land that has welcomed me.
