The coming mountains

Haero's "Bichi Sour." "Hold you in his arms, you can feel his disease."



The clothes dry in the sky.




Coffee, fruit. Red berries, very sour, perfect.





Bread pudding, before it was served to beautiful Colombian women.


This is where I cook my food. I have been here all my life.


This oven was modified to steam bread when it is not baking pizza. Two open courtyards vent heat.

This is my living room today. It has a very relaxed feel to it. I can sit on the couch and read and write.

This is my bicycle inside the hostel. I fixed the front fender today and raised the saddle. No front panniers.

A lake where motorcyclist relax and make love to their women.
A kitchen where pizza is made for a restaurant and where I cut and eat fruit.
A tree near a black family's residence.
A road for a bicycle, a motorbike, a car, a bus, a lorry
Hillside.
Sugarcane and mountains.

The ride was easy, as M had instructed. 60 or 70 kilometers, flat, plano, no hay montanas, they visited my vistas on either side of me, accompanied by sugar plants, my height yet growing in arm reaching dimension I cannot match. The nightlife of Cali was instructive, but too strong for me now. The women seem to lead their men; they are feminine and sexual with no hang ups.

On the rooftop in Cali, breakfast, then work with a slow internet connection. The bicycle required minor adjustments with the panniers--they may have been built in reverse by the bike shop; I will compare them to M's bicycle at Claudia's.

Yes, the ride showed me sugar cane and distant mountains. Many cheered me, one Mercedes SUV slowed down, the rich women wanted to know about my journey, damn the traffic they were holding up."Estas loco!" Perhaps, but not because of the bicycle. I am crazy to give my life to a cubicle. I am a sane man enriching his soul by my riding this bicycle in Columbia. I understand what M was getting at, I understand his anger and rage. And then I understand how quickly it must have dissipated for him, how as I complained about American women, he began to diminish in his observations: "I have no experience with them any more; I don't see Americans, there are no American tourists down here, there are no American women tourists."

And it is only my second day, yet I feel the freedom of Bulgaria, I feel the freedom of Budapest--I feel the freedom I do not feel in Europe and America. Understand I am stating feelings, accounting for them--I was free at these times and in these places, and I am aware of what the Bulgarian woman told me: "You can be free anywhere. I have been free everywhere." I understand this, and I accept this from this woman, this woman who took over her dead husband's trucking business in London. I won't here it from anyone else. I only discuss freedom with Bulgarian widowers. Others must listen to me in silence.

On the ride to Buga I considered how strange the ride of languages must have seemed for the first travelers. One's man's opinion, stated firmly, began as a difference in pronunciation. Later, he insisted his take, his shape on the world, be his reality. He did not compromise. He did not see the other person's perspective. He mother-fucking did not 'have an opinion,' as in the castrated qualification, 'in my opinion.' No, he had to shape the world, not because no one else would, but because he was compelled to shape the world. And so began his culture and language, and so too, war, so too conflict, so too the great creative beauty in killing other men. New ideas slaughter other men; there is blood in genius and creation, and no such man is 'confident.' Such a man feels dread his whole life.

Upon arrival in Buga, I found M's recommended outpost. There German was absent but the cook and the other owner were present. I went to the market, bought pineapple, kiwi, berries, and cut them in the kitchen and spoke with the chef of his art, his pizza, his oven, his sauce, dough, his feelings of Colombia. Two girls from Cali drank cocktails and beer, I practiced my Spanish for 30 minutes, they were sweet and shy and laughed and blushed and put pillows on their legs and held hands. They were out of place and I was shocked they were Calenas. Light skinned with striking innocence. It reminded me of the lost modesty I last saw in Bulgaria, it reminded me of R's restraint, her beauty, her innocence, her chastity. It reminded me of what I find special in women. Their names were exotic, but in my state of weary travel, all names leave me. I did not drink with them. I left them to themselves in their decent glow of unmolested beauty.

I have mountains ahead of me. It will only get tougher here. How can I ever return to America? What type of fucked up morality would call my attitude escapist, who on earth sees it their right to imprison me?

Days 1-2

On the flight from Houston to Bogota, I met Andreas, a 25-year-old Colombian-born Canadian living in Edmonton, on his way to Cartegena, then to the North, where he is to visit his 22-year old Colombian girlfriend, Andrea. He was a tall rugby player who currently was sufering from three broken ribs, along with a deep affection for his Colombian girlfriend. As a profession, Andreas is a mechanical engineer, and his girlfriend is in the medical sciences, still a student. Andreas came to Canada at age 12 and learned perfect English, repleat with a Canadian accent and the commensurate 'ehs.' He was extraordinarily forthcoming and helpful in advice about travel in Colombia, mostly pointing out that I needed to learn how to dance if I wanted any chance with Colombian women. He was deeply in love with his girlfriend; this was his forth visit in a year. He spoke of various Colombian cultural events, such as the quinienta, the 15th birthday of a girl, where she must dance with 15 boys. He warned me of the prepago. He told me of Colombian simm cards, that any city in Colombia is a one hour flight from Bogota, and that a 200k bus journey could well take 6 hours. When we arrived in Bogota, he helped me through customs and baggage re-check. He told me a story of freezing in relatively cool weather while waiting for an Avancia flight in an open-air waiting center in Bogota; I quickly understod his point as in my shorts and t-shirt as I waited for 20 minutes.We exchanged emails and I gave Andreas the website of this blog. Much thanks, amigo, for your kindness and advice.

Of course, I refused to follow instructions and went to the wrong gate, where a series of hilarious walkie-talkie instructions eventually led me to the bus that eventually took me to my plane where I was seated in an emergency aisle, which, of course, required I speak perfect Spanish, which I insisted was in my capabilities. I fell asleep quickly, picked up my begs without problems, determined there was no bus to Buga from the airport, caught a cab to downtown with no name of my destination except a hastily jotted intersection. The cab driver drove one of his family's three cabs--they rotate them 24 hours. This must be good income for Colombians; they are not cheap--48,000 pesos is the fixed rate, $24. The cheap hostel was only 2 blocks away for 10 dollars--my cab driver coul only find a $60 hotel. It was fine, not a bad result for such poor preparation.

After 3 hours of sleep, I ran up the mountain to Los Tres Cruces, a steep hike and trail run which is comparative to the Manitou Cog in difficulty. Verily, I hiked the latter portions, and, indeed, I considered giving up as the trail transformed into rocky, narrow, eroded river beds. But God's three crosses, for each of his Jesuses, The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit, led me in strength, and when I arrived, I lifted weights with three local men--concrete and steel and wood contraptions--biceps, abdominal incline crunches, pectorals, triceps, pullups. They local men did not say much, but there was respect for my run and my weight lifting. As I was about to depart, a Caucasian man approached me asking me is I spoke English. Rasmus #1 and Rasmus #2, Danes, had taken a cab to the top of the the mountain. I showed them the very top, the weight area, instructed them to buy frozen fruit popsicles and water, and then led them down the trail in their flipflops. We spoke of our prior travels, women, cycling, Bjarne Riis, et al.. I gave my email to Rasmus #1, then went off to a supermarket for tuna, yoghurt, papaya, apples, and peanuts, the majority which I consumed while walking.

After a thorough assembly of the bike, Facebook contact with Claudia, Miguel, and Alejandro (whom I also telephoned, and will see at the end of the trip back in Cali), I hit the streets at 12:30 for beer, chorizo, some fried meat, friend potatoes, and the Colombian version of pao com quejo. Disco buses, filled with dancing locals--basically, moving discos, roamed the streets next to salsa clubs packed to the gills with young men and women. I do not feel the negative energy of a big city here, despite its 3.5 million residents. Women wear the sexuality and femininity in a direct manner, and the mix of food, aguardiente, beer, sex, music, mountains, and dance puts Cali as a place that the world follows as an example of natural and unaffected sensuality and enjoyment. There is no fronting, there is no fraud.