A Gringo’s Tale: First Days in Colombia.
Colombia…a Dangerous Place?
So what if the first time I stayed anywhere in Colombia, it was in “a really dangerous neighborhood”, it was a lovely experience!
We drove up to my Airbnb as my taxi driver — who had just charged me 40,000 more pesos than he should have, looked around wide-eyed, frantic, trying to find the right building, drop my ass off and book it out of there fast as he could. “Peligroso, muy peligroso amigo”, seemed to be the only words he was able to utter during our 10 minute drive together. Fun start to an adventure in such a foreign land.
The neighborhood looked bombed out. It looked like the walls of the edifices were pouring into the street as if they were candles and a flame lit atop was melting them from the top down.
Regardless, finally, a good looking Colombian woman in her 30s stepped out of her apartment and motioned me over. The taxi-driver launched my luggage out of the trunk and headed back to the airport fast as he could. Im not sure if it was more out of fright or the excitement to take advantage of another foolish gringo not yet accustomed to the currency exchange. It’s my fault for not doing my research before landing- lesson learned.
Thankfully, the inside of the building was much nicer than the outside.
My host apologized for the state of the building and explained that some serious renovations were going on. My Spanish was getting pretty good at this point, having just spent three months traveling all over Spain living family to family in work-stays. However, the Colombian accent was so different- it might as well have been another language at that point. Regardless, I did my best to put the pieces together.
The first night in a new bed never a good one, but I had just gotten off of a 10-hour flight from Madrid to Bogotá and I hadn’t slept a wink. Needless to say, I got a pretty damn good sleep that night.
Breakfast of Kings
I woke up to the sound of gunshots.
Just kidding! There will be gunshots in the course of this story, but those come much later.
I did wake up hungry though. With one more flight to my final destination, Pitalito, scheduled to take off in a few hours I made it a mission to get myself fed before the madness of that travel began. I asked my host if there were any cafes nearby, and of course there were. In a Colombian city like Bogotá, there is a cafe of sorts on nearly every corner.
I took to the street and headed off in the direction my host suggested, keeping my wits about me and remembering the taxi driver’s frantic warnings of danger from the night before.
I remember fondly the bright beating sun and warmth gently baking my skin that morning. It was so contrary to the “cold” that I was expecting that everyone had lamented of Bogotá. It was early January at that time and for me back home in New Jersey, I would be bearing blistering cold, wind, and snow — so the conditions in Bogota that day were idyllic by comparison. Perspective truly is everything.
The state of shambles of the surrounding infrastructure of this particular neighborhood was a shock as I walked down the main road that ran through my “treacherous” neighborhood. “You are not in Kansas anymore my friend”, I quipped to myself. I walked a block or two before I stumbled on a cafe.
Several characters were sat down enjoying their morning coffee and bread. My presence certainly came as a bit of a surprise. I felt like a stranger in a strange land — like I was a square peg jumping through a round hole into a moment I was never meant to partake in- but there I was ordering eggs and coffee in a cafe in the heart of one of Bogotá’s most dodgy neighborhoods.
I love that kind of thing- the finding of oneself in a situation you otherwise never would have guessed would be a reality. I see it as adding entropy and novelty to the universe, my own kind of personal butterfly-effect.
I sat down and enjoyed my cafe con leche, huevos, pan, yogurt, and jugo in silence and with great enjoyment. Everything was fresh, the coffee not as excellent as you would expect but still quite good- and quite large just the way I like it. I went to the woman behind the register to pay my bill… “10,000 pesos mi amor”. Quickly doing the conversion and figuring it came out to a little more than $2.
Pure shock.
“I could live like a king here”, was quite literally the first thought that popped into my head. I had sat down in a restaurant and eaten a full continental breakfast for the same amount of money that just driving to the damn place would have cost me in the states. “This is quite strange”, my thoughts mused as I walked out of the park not sure what I would do next.
The People and the Park.
I noticed a little park across the street with some workout equipment, “I haven’t worked out in weeks,” I thought. Colombia has built little outdoor gyms all over the cities in an effort to improve public health- I think it’s quite nice. The park was well put together too, and quite clean.
I did a set of pull-ups and plopped myself down on a bench to watch the people of the park and of the city go by. A crisp mountain breeze blew over me, cooling my skin as the sun seemingly gained strength by the second.
It was a blissful moment, one of my favorites along the journey.
I hope to return to that bench some day… It’s winter here in New Jersey, and I miss the sun.
