Peru Part 5: Trujillo, Huaraz and Lima

It was dark and long. Luckily a van driver pulled over and took me for free to the border post, because he told me it was too dangerous for me to stay there. We had to wait a really long time for a taxi to Tumbes on the other side. Some random guy got chatting with me and eventually we managed to get a car after staying by the police for protection. He accompanied me to the bus terminal (which I oddly remembered) and I got a ticket to Trujillo for that night. Last seat on the bus. I needed a shower, but I figured the next day I would finally be back on the road to new places. I got to watch a John Cena film where he is a cop chasing some Irish criminal and got really crap sleep on my way to Trujillo.

The morning film was 'Traitor' with Don Cheadle. Good film I saw in Houston. I arrived in the city of my earache smelling like wee. I walked a lot and got given shit directions. I finally found the bus station for Huaraz and it would be another night bus. Great. I used my credit card to draw money and after more shit directions I eventually found a laundrette to wash my clothes. They were fresh and I was rank, so I kept the older clothes on for now. I got a chip for my phone and the girl at the movistar counter was quite cute. Went to see 2012 at the cinema. I thought it was good. Made me cry a lot. Maybe I am getting sentimental a bit. I took the night bus to Huaraz. I was in all sorts of trouble. Had picked up that stomach infection again and could not sleep between visits to the toilet and head pains. Was a nasty night and left me wiped out after two shit nights of sleep.

I met an Irish girl and guy in the bus station and he had a hostel that was recommended to him so we went there. I got a shower, but I needed some shampoo. At least I did not smell of wee anymore. This hostel was called Caroline Lodging I think. Awesome place. Free breakfast, beds are decent, but the people are great. They went out and bought me medication for my stomach, they went and got my dinner for me and when I woke up late on the second day they did a special breakfast and tea just for me as I was ill. Best service I have ever had from a hostel. Very highly recommended place. We had arrived early so I went out to Chavin de Huantar ruins. Lonely Planet says its a two hour bus ride, but its 3.5 and over dangerous roads. I chatted with a guy all the way there in between sleeping. I wrote 'bit crap, missed entrance again, hate buses on mountain roads, useless people, crazy driver, tried not to shit myself.' Kind of sums up the trip succinctly. It was a bit of a waste of a journey and I have yet to see any impressive ruins in Peru. Everyone talks about them, but I fail to see it. Compared with Mexico and Guatemala they are shit. Hopefully Machu Pichu changes that. I literally did have to avoid shitting myself though. The gas kept building up and building up. I kept retaining it with more and more pain until we arrived thankfully just before I exploded. I was even considering shitting on the bus, such was the pain. Liverpool were happily knocked out of the Champions League. Hopefully we do that to them next season. The Irish guy had picked up diarroeia as well and all of us went to sleep early and I settled in for a long sleep. I had planned to visit the lakes, but that was always off the agenda once I got really sick.

Both myself and the Irish guy could not make it the next morning so we stayed behind and chatted all day. Interesting guy. Had spent time in the Irish army and had some good stories. We went out and grabbed coffee and figured we might meet up in Cuzco as he was going hiking and I was going down the coast for a few days. The Irish girl came back and she was not going to make the trek and was instead heading for Argentina, so she was setting off for Lima. I had booked another night bus (3 in 4 days in not smart) with the expensive company Cruz Del Sur. I was sick so needed it. Trekking looked beautiful up there in Huaraz but I had missed it due to being very very sick. Irish guy said his trek was shit. Don't know why yet. Huaraz the town looks in contrast like a victim of an air raid. Cute it is not. Kind of the same as Gracias in Honduras, which Lonely Planet also strangely likes. The bus was impressive as I tried to sleep, but watched 'Curious Case of Benjamin Button' again in Spanish. They had 'Beautiful Mind' somewhere. Maybe on the way to Ica. Anyway I was stuck next to another FPW (Fat Peruvian Wanker). These creatures ferquent buses and other small places, where they are really too large to go, before pissing you off with their persistant retardedness. Seemingly highly resistant to intelligence, they fall prey easily to their own innate stupidity. Avoid if possible and please don't feed. They´ve had enough already.

Two weeks later than originally planned I arrived in Lima. I was yet to see an impressive Peruvian city. Lima was that. Not amazing, but miles better than what I had seen before. Why do all travellers and Lonely Planet hate big cities. I can imagine Lonely Planey England now.

London: Avoid this city. Its dangerous. There is a distinct possibility that you could be exposed to culture and overwhelmed by choices of night life. It is therefore best to stay in the neighbourhood of Hackney (That way hopefully you will be attacked and hate big cities like us). We have demonstrated time and again our inordinate ability to never find good nightlife zones of a city so we will recommend Leicester Square. Avoid tourists in the National or Tate galleries and instead head to blind al's back alley gallery for some local culture. You can buy authentic indigenous clothing at a variety of adidad tracksuit centres and outside of football stadiums.ç

Watford: Visit this glorious traditional town. No mind if the locals are braindead and the city looks like a bomb site, its authentic and noone will be there until we write about it. You can sample a traditional wetherspoons and learn local dialect as you integrate with thew locals. Transport links are great and you can go hiking in UNESCO Cassiobury Park. Shop for local 'chav' merchandise in the Harlequin Centre and then partake in the traditional saturday night beat up the foreigner celebrations (beware of flaunting your tourist credentials). This town is picturesque and charming (read boring and uninteresting).

Fuck Lonely Planet. I have given up on them except for maps. I wrote here that Peruvian women are like Monet paintings. They look better the further away you get. Its true but a little harsh. After 3 weeks in this country I finally saw some that were good looking. Not amazing, but decent enough. The Pacific Ocean waterfront is really cool and the colonial old town has some nice buildings. They had a crap band playing at the palace and the main gallery was shut. I found and visited a small gallery of Italian art which was quite cool. Brenda had not answered her phone in the morning so I had checked into a hostel. I finally bought some long needed multivitimans and slept in the afternoon. Lima is a nice little city. There was a Canadian nurse who was a typical Canadian. We chatted for a fair bit. Then I went to Brenda's house, out to a bar and back again. I drank some beer and got numbness in my lips and tongue wherever it touched. That was worrying. They have a tiny cat. She had a German and some guys from Bahamas staying with her and the German guy came back hammered. I went back to my hostel.

In the morning I woke up feeling awful despite drinking only two glasses of beer. The Canadian nurse says it was from my allergy and I really need to stop drinking. Makes sense. It looks like it is getting quite dangerous now so I decided to give up for my health and so I don't die as she says it takes only 6 minutes to die from an attack. Nasty. I moved to Brenda's place and would stay there for the friday night. We all stayed in the house chatting. Was quite a big gathering. The guys from Bahamas, the German and me went for a cheap lunch. I told them I was friends with the American guy who had eaten the iguana there and they remembered it. I then went for coffee with one of the guys from the Bahamas. He told me he had been hunting with Mike Huckabee and he was as good a guy as he seemed. I like Huckabee. It would also be cool to go hunting with him and the guy from the Bahamas reckons its possible if I am in Arkansas. That night we went clubbing in a lot of shit bars. I don't think these guys knew where to go and they did not want to pay any entrance fees. That gyponess seems to run through a lot of Peruvians. So they end up in crap places. Eventually me and the guy from the Bahamas (only other person not drinking) went off on our own at 3am and found a few cool places. At 4.30am most places had shut and we headed for another bar. The guy in front was charged 15 soles. I said how much and they told me 30. Fuck them. I told him I heard him say 15 for the other guy and he said ok 20. Fuck these wankers. They always think they can fuck foreigners in the arse. We grabbed some food and headed back to the flat. I did not sleep as I had to get a bus just 1 hour later to Ica for the sandboarding competition.

Ecuador Part 6: Quito and Cuenca

I was still fucking ill. Was having lung and breathing problems. I had not quite twigged yet that my allergy was taking on a stronger proportion. Still no light so I had to walk all the way into the city centre to check my e-mail. I could not see Liz today, so I used the day to finish of my writing. Felt good to get my nlog up to date at last and I am now vowing and trying hard to keep the thing up to speed, with regular updates that I used to do. Currently its going well as I am about 10 days back here. I tried to go to a pub quiz with some Swedish couchsurfer for the evening, but I could not pick them out in the heavily Gringo packed bar. So I went online and that stupid bitch who me and Dom had failed to get rid of last time in Quito found me again somehow and kept tapping me with her rose. Puta.

No electricity again. Met Liz. The hotel wanted $5 more if she was staying for more than 20 minutes. Who the hell is going to have sex in under 20 minutes. The world's least energetic couple. Useless. She was on her period and for the first time I decided ah fuck it its not important. She ended up staying for 5 hours and the bed got covered in a fair bit of blood. The hotel staff never seemed to complain though, which was nice of them. I suppose the $5 covered the cleaning bill. We ended up sharing a shower to clean off the blood. Was fun, just a shame it limits what you can do as I am not a fan of the taste of blood. She left to study and I went and found pizz hut. Why I keep getting cravings for that place I don't know. I am always disappointed everytime I eat there and this time they burnt it. Fuckers. I had bought my first book in Spanish as well. Marqeuz's 'Chronicles of a Death Foretold.' Have yet to start it but hope it will imrpove my vocabulary knowledge. Algeria, Greece, Portugal (Hate Ronaldo), Slovenia, France (by the hand of Henry) and Uruguay completed the line up. The draw is this thursday. Will hopefully be back from Machu Pichu in time.

I met Liz again the next day and she came back to the hotel again. We just spent all our afternoons lounging around and having fun. I decided I would make a move on the saturday for Cuenca. I went out to meet some couchsurfers but ended up at the wrong coffee shop. When I eventually found them they took me to some weird dragstrip part of town where everyone hung around their cars, which were blaring out music. We went to a rock bar and played a lot of table football and pool, before ending the night chatting about global politics in Spanish. I am getting there slowly. I had not spoken any English since leaving Bogota as well and would not really speak it at all in Ecuador.

I went to meet Liz by her university and then we went to the cheap Chinese place for lunch. They gave us these horribly bitter little mandarin things, that the old man/woman/thing spent all day peeling. Liz reckoned it was a gay man, I thought it was an old woman. Either way the mandarins were not pleasant. I maxed out my Nat West card. That was one card down and I would only touch my Nationwide cards from now on. We spent 7 hours together in the hotel for the last day we would have together. Being latin america and her being 19, she was never going to be able to stay the night. She was crying a lot when we separated and seemed genuine. I had figured she saw me as foreign meat, but I think maybe I had her wrong. She said the week was magical and hopefully I will see her again in Buenos Aires. She dances tango very well, so she said we should dance after I have lessons, but I figure I will be too low a standard lol. Some English girl invited me to a party, but I opted out because I wanted to get some sleep and was leaving early in the morning. Some weird taxi ended up stalking me over the pedestrian crossing. God Ecuador is dangerous at night. No people in the streets and no street lighting.

I had only $51.35 left. I hope my mum did the transfer. She had for 100 quid, but it would not arrive in time so I would have to start using the credit card. Taxi wanted $15 for the bus station. Fucking ladron. I ended up paying $10 to cross Quito and $10 to go all the way across Ecuador to Cuenca. Something is not right there. It was a big day for Spurs' rivals. I hate these high roads the buses go over. Especially with the drivers down here. Some of these people speak retard Spanish. I got to watch 'Taken' and 'Ironman' again. Great. Some bastard in the lunch restaurant insisted on speaking to me in English, even though I was consistently using Spanish. Idiot. I booked into a hotel near the terminal and was finally going to meet Gabriela after we missed each other last time. All the results went for us. Man City drew with Liverpool, Villa drew and Arsenal lost. I saw an old musician play in the park and then met Gabriela, her friend and a Yankee at the cathedral. She is very hot. You can only say that about Cuencans in this country. We went to the mirador which has a great view and afterwards for coffee in my old hostel from last time. Brought back great memories of being drunk and very sick on antibiotics and rum lol. She is coming to Buenos Aires in march so we will meet up for some tango and I went back to the hotel, avoided the fat prostitute and settled in to decide which of my two channels I would watch.

9-1. FUCK YEAH. That's how my day started off as Tottenham took full advantage of their rivals weaknesses to smash Wigan. Bring on Villa I wrote. That lifts the energy. Shame it was to be wasted on two back to back night buses. I watched a Dennis Quaid film called Pandorum or some such. I really enjoyed it, except when some idiot Ecuadorean stood in front of the tv for ages and the fact that they turned it off with 5 minutes still to play. God I hate this country. Bus was really quick and we passed through some shithole before we got to Machala. Then we entered Machala which is also a shithole. I remembered the town and grabbed a bus to the border where I ended up walking across into Peru. Woohoo. Out of Ecuador. Just a long and dangerous walk to the Peruvian checkpoint.

Ecuador Part 5: Tulcan and Quito

I was hailing a taxi, but the guy wanted $3.50. I only had $3 so would have to pass a cash machine. Then a woman from Medellin asked if she could share the taxi and chip in a bit. Was fine by me. Had only just crossed the border, but was already missing Colombian company. She persuaded me it was late to get a bus and I should stay in the town for the night. I stated it was probably a good idea and checked into a hotel before heading for dinner with her. We ended up heading out to sing some Karaoke. The place was full of drunks and she was a better singer than me, but the machine was an idiot and ranked my version of November Rain as 97%. Hmm maybe if Axl Rose needs replacing I'm their man, but somehow I doubt it. The machine seemed biased towards Spanish songs in general. She sold jewelry in the streets of Ecuador and Peru etc and was staying behind to work. We had a power cut in the night. This would be recurring. It seems that the Ecuadorean government does not have sufficient power for its country. What a surprise. I did not remember this happening last time, but everyday I was in Ecuador we would be without power of somekind.

International House were not helpful with the job application and my results had still not been sent. I asked Leonardo if he could look into it for me. I mised the girl from Medellin for breakfast, but we agreed to meet up again in Bolivia if we got the chance. It had taken me precisely two hours to hate Ecuador again. Never takes long. Stupid bastards were really unhelpful in the streets. Colombia had also got to the U-17 semi finals. They would be smashed 4-1 by eventual winners Switzerland. I went off to Quito to meet Liz. The film seemed to involve Segal, Trejo and some dreadlock criminals. Looked good. Any film with both Trejo and Segal must be golden. Its like a major scene from our never written film 'Fight House'. I arrived late, because even Ecuadorean buses are incompetent. I could not find the hotel the girl from Medellin recommended so settled for any hotel and got some rest as Liz could not make it.

I went off to the old town. Liz did not turn up. Well actually she did, but she was late. They had all the Miss Quito contestants in the square. Its then that you know this country is quite ugly. They were all ok, but Lina is better looking than all of them. I got my pass grade B for the CELTA. Class. Difficult to get that, but I figured I had an outside chance, especially after the last lesson was delivered in front of the moderator. Ekhaterina got an A. Always thought she had a good chance after a monster run of Above Standards. I spoke to both of my parents as it had been awhile. Met another Ecuadorean retard. They taunt me everywhere.

'How much is this?'
'Its a lemonade'
Fuckwit. Of course that took place in Spanish.

I ended up going out with Liz and her quasi boyfriend/not really boyfriend/dude from Cuenca. Take you pick what you want to call him. She had not told me how much the gig was, so I had to go back to the hotel again as I had only brought $21. Entrance was $15. I met her twin sister as well. Very sexy. Dom missed out here. Sitting down in an old abandoned theatre for an electronic gig is kind of weird. Normally you dance. Still it was fun. Not sure if I swapped drinks for a drink that was spiked as felt a huge surge of energy and a little light headed later. Ended up flirting with the sister as Liz was with quasi man, but all of them had to study and I went back on my own. Had a bar themed on the Simpsons near my hotel, but I never ended up going there. Thought about it many times.

I wrote 'NO FUCKING LIGHT EVER: THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.' Sums it up pretty well. Was frustrating that my district was not allowed light in the mornings. I spent all day writing and Egypt got some late drama scoring in the 95th minute to get a one off replay with Algeria for the World Cup. New Zealand, Cameroon and Nigeria qualified. All the big African sides will be there for their continent's showpiece. Looks like they can mount a challenge this time. How the fuck New Zealand got there is a joke. Beat some Pacific Islanders and Bahrain. They should scrap the Ocenia qualifying zone and shove them all in Asia and give Asia 5 places. Liz and the girl from Medellin never made it so I ended up drinking with a Belgian, Estonian and some Ecuadoreans in La Mariscal. The Estonian guy thought me being British would mean he can't practice his Spanish. I spoke better Spanish than both of the guys.

I got up on the sunday and Liz was still not available. She was studying law and had to revise for all of the upcoming exams. She had 2 every day of that week. I thought I should just leave, but figured I had a lot of writing still to do so I would give it one more day. Always go with your instincts. I think I am now travelling in a much more sensible manner, with pacing and decision making, but then I am a very different person to a year ago. May even be able to see this when you read my earlier stuff. Will have to go back to check. I wrote 4 more chapters and was getting there. Saints are still killing it. Every time I adopt an American team they start doing well. Redsocks won their first world series in ages the year after I adopted them and the Saits are now 10-0 the year after I adopted them. Watch them take that first superbowl. Would have been good to watch the New England game tomorrow. Still not sure how they managed to lose to the Colts. Idiot decision making. Maybe Bellichick had some Ecuadorean advisors. Yoana was considering coming down from Mexico for Patagonia. Need to write to her actually. I considered the Galapagos again, but again ruled it out. Was not really doing much in Quito. I walked off to the cinema only to find out that it was full and I could not see anything.

I wrote in the morning 'seeing Liz today, want to sleep with her.' Hmm funny how you hit your predictions sometimes. Its odd being back up on reasonable real time for the blog. Stops me from using hindsight which I think ruins entries. I met Liz and we went for a tour of the old town before I kissed her. Got some lunch and then she came back to the hostel. Had to sneak past the guard at the front desk as no guests allowed. Was funny as I had moved back to the hostel I had stayed with Dom last time. I had the same 6 bed room and had it to myself again. Ended up sleeping with her in Dom's old bed. I thought that was ironically funny. Bunkbeds are crap`for this sort of thing though as one person's head is always in danger of getting whacked. I said I would move back to a hotel in the following days. She left to revise and I went and did some more writing. Still no fucking light so I went to sleep.

Top 10: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and the Guyanas

Top 4 pick themselves, but could easily have changed places. All of them I would happily live in. 5 and 6 are stunning places and I could probably live there for 3 months due to the size. Its a pretty impressive zone for cities here.

1. Bogota (Colombia): Could so easily have been Caracas, but I had a great 3 months here and will always remember it fondly. Its also the first place I have lived abroad. Like London in the day, very good cultural scene, good nightlife, lots to do. Just a top class city.

2. Caracasc (Venezuela): Another top drawer city. Its like London at night. Has by far the best nightlife I have scene in the Americas and the women are stunning. I would live here as well if it was not for the idiot Chavez. Great cultural scene and the best art galleries in Latin America. Can't understand its panned reputation.

3. Cali (Colombia): The people here are awesome, the nightlife is superb and the women are stunning. After San Juan and Caracas they are the next best looking. Not much to do in the day here, which probably puts it after the other two, but fuck me what a nightlife. Considering here, Caracas or Manizales for after Buenos Aires.

4. Manizales (Colombia): Nicest and most intelligent people in Colombia and that's saying something. This city is a tad small, but is like a slice of Switzerland. The other Zona Cafetera cities are also class. Size keeps this place at number 4.

5. Cuenca (Ecuador): Its well documented how much I hate Ecuador, but this place is just different. From the Guanajuato league of beautiful cities, the people are freindly, good looking, intelligent and honest (All rare in Ecuador).

6. Paramaraibo (Surinam): I love this city as well. Shame its in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful meltingpot of a colonial city. Like Salem, mixed with Charleston, with some Asian fusion, left to simmer in an African pot on the coast of South America and leaves a spicey mix behind.

7. Parque Tayrona (Colombia): Not really a city but a superb place. Best beach place I have been to because of the jungles and the mountains.

8. Banos (Ecuador): Very touristy but its from the Santa Elena/Monteverde school of touristy and therefore beautiful and fun.

9. Mompos (Colombia): Superb little slice of Mississippi. Beautiful and often overlooked by travellers.

10. Cartagena (Colombia): Much as I dislike Cartagena and Medellin for the people, there is no doubt the former city has to make the list, just by being an unbelievably stunning city. Its pretty beyond words, just a shame about the gringos and putas.

Bogota Week Thirteen

I decided to extend this through all of my remaining 9 days there, including the weekend away on the coast. This was basically the farewell to Colombia. I am very close now. Just took some time out to write to Dom and chat with Tom. Need to catch up a bit. Good to see my prediction of Brazil taking over from the States as number one country in the World seems to be coming to fruition. I predicted it not China would take number one. I will slap the prediction down now and explain why so I can gloat if it happens in my lifetime. Four economic reasons. Firstly the just struck oil deposits the same size as those in Norway. Secondly if biofuel kicks off they are pole position to be the World's leading supplier with sugar based ethanol. Thirdly if the Doha free trade talks ever work they can be the World's granary basket. Finally Ecuador is trying to pass a law that would mean countries have to pay other countries to maintain their eco systems. With the Amazon, Brazil would be the biggest beneficiary of this law. So take those four as a start. Then you have linguistics. Chinese is too complex. Portuguese is similar to Spanish. Spanish is the only language that can rival English and if the States becomes bilingual or even tips to Spanish then it can roll English back. Portuguese is close to Spanish and Brazil could easily emerge as the leader of a badly underperforming Latin America if it kicks into gear. Its a democracy. This leads to the crux of American power. America was not number one due to its economy or its military as some people think. The key to US power was culture. Obama understands this. America was number one and trounced the Soviet Union, because people wanted to be America. They loved American ideals and its lifestyle (from films, to sport, to television, to cars, to appliances etc). America dominated the global market. Think Nike, Coca Cola and Disney for only three things. Where the hell is China's cultural appeal. Represion, lack of freedom and bland conformity. Hmm attractive. No democracies will line up behind a non democracy. They did not with the Soviet Union and they won't with China. If China democratises it could be a different ballgame, but at the moment they aren't. So I will concede if anyone can tell me in what way Chinese culture is more atrractive than US? To throw the deciding punch how about Sex, Football and Samba. That's Brazil's culture. Who does not find that appealing? Brazil's whole culture and people are attractiveness personified. If they could just find some work ethic to go with it. Look at London. The world in a city and its being conquered by Brazilians. Many Brazilian clubs and bars, everyone wants to learn latin dancing and capoerinha has practically flawed the other cocktails, with the mojito right up its arse. Now I know salsa and mojitos are not Brazilian, but I foresee Brazil as the head of the Latin nations, like the US led the Anglo/European alliance. Now what Brazil is doing to London, will be what Brazil does to the World eventually. Now go on hit me with the persuasive argument that China can out do it? Oh and I ban you from using stats (that should prove why it won't work). What looks good in stats and on paper does not always translate. After all the US started as a backward outpost and I believe Britain once bet on it being so insignificant that its system of government was laughed at (democracy). Much like the Scandinavians can provide the future model for systems of government, Brazil will do it. In 1804 Napoleon said he sold the US the Louisiana Purchase to make a rival to the UK and that in 200 years it would be the global superpower. He was laughed at. He was right. This is my punt at a Napoleon moment.

Anyway I was late meeting Eduar at his hometown as I had gone to play him at tennis. Sadly it was clay courts and a proper clubhouse and I did not have the correct shoes. So we could not play. He had not told me he was number one in his club, so he would have wiped the floor with me anyway. Instead we played pool and I whipped him. Luckily the change os sports worked to my advantage. I finally ate good patacones. My God they do exist. Then again this clubhouse was quite special so it might be just due to that. Then I went to his house (nice place) before grabbing some lunch. I came back to Bogota and Lina stayed at mine. She was on her period. Then I planned my two part debate or at least began to set it up. Was a bank holiday weekend by the way.

Went into the British Council. Long day of study and then I prepared in the evening for the two parts of the debate. Another rocking day it seems. Gloria had calmed down a little bit by this time, but the relationship was still not on firm footing.

I taught my penultimate class. It went well but that damn 'above standard' was still alluding me. Fucking hell. This time my timing was tight as I wanted to set up all of the necessary vocabulary for the debate so my instructions were a little rushed. Dammit. Well I always thought lesson 8 would suffer for lesson 9. Got all my assignments back and I had passed all of them. Excellent. Was now free at the weekend as I only had one more class to teach. It was a good day overall for our team, with three very strong lessons. We were a well oiled machine at this point. Lina was supposed to stay at mine, but could not make it so I went out to Aguaspanelitas for the last time. I went with Angelica M and drunken Cesar. I was disappointed to see tramp Cesar. He did not have any of the clothes and had clearly not gone to Villavicencio. Dammit. Praveen had told me he would not do it. Shitty. Always crap when your gambles don't pay off, but I would do it again for such a small outlay. If he had taken the chance then it would have been 12,000 pesos well spent. We went out for drinks with a whole bunch of people. Was fun. Got quite mashed. Noone was up for clubbing. They wanted to go the next day. I was not going to go out the night before my last class. In the end I stayed out till 2am with a Swiss guy and his Korean girlfriend. Was a decent night, but I was too hammered for how good it was.

Francois' birthday and Guy Fawkes' night. Two years without the mental fireworks. I went in and we learnt some Arabic script that day. Leonardo already knew some. It was to give us an idea of how to teach people who had never seen a different type of script before. Was an interesting lesson. I think I want to spend at least one year in an Arabic country. I mostly got bored watching the others teach that day and then prepped my final class. I had designed everything myself and even set up a complex rule structure to get them to do what I want and use the language I want them to use. There had been a huge smash on the transmilenio and the road was covered with ambulances etc. Two buses had really mashed each other. Colombia were still somehow banging on in the U-17 World Cup as well and would end up coming a very surprising fourth. Switzerland of all countries won the thing. The other group had got its third below standard when Ben fell apart. Juan had missed a class as well so he could not pass. Megan had the other one, ut her young son had been sick so it really was not her fault. Our group in comparison was cruising. I spoke to Franny and Lina had gone out to an adidas party. She wanted me to go as well, but I could not. Had to teach. Nonetheless she rang me at 3.30 am to tell me she was drunk and tha party was great. Great. I need to sleep. Then she rang me at 4.30 am to tell me she had found an inflatable thing for the beach and they had an after party. Very nice, but I still needed to sleep lol. Thank God I had gone to bed early.

I took my class and I had to give mine along with Leonardo in front of the assessor. Debate went awesome. Assessor was very impressed. I think it was the best class given on the course. I said only about 10 lines in one hour for some minimalist teaching and the students spoke loads. I had been the first trainee to set them homework and they really worked hard at it before delivering an excellent lesson. I was smiling a bit as it was better than even I had hoped. A whole class of Colombians debated without interrupting, listened to each other, jousted and even used all of the target language I wanted them to use. 'The problem with your point of view is...', 'I am sorry to interrupt, but..' and similar. Cracking. Leonardo had technical issues again. The 8th lesson the cd player had just started to play what it felt like and speak when it felt like, sort of like the talking toaster from Red Dwarf. Then today the god damn cd player refused to play even after we had tested it before. Damn thing. I got a thumping 'above standard', but the best stamp approval was that Ekhaterina wanted to use my lesson to teach her class. She was the best of us, so that was encouraging. I was done and free. Thank fuck for that. Woohoo. Off to the coast. I met Lina at the airport. We ended up drinking a fair bit of wine before we left and had too much fun on the plane. I really have become too bold in public. Will be a problem when I am back in the UK I think. I am not sure what I wrote here. Must have been drunk, but we met her friend and her boyfriend from Barcelona. He had a cool flat on the 10th floor overlooking the old town of Cartagena. Very beautiful. He had broken a bottle of red wine before we got there and it looked like one of those random crime scenes. It was pissing down with rain. The others took some strange drug I had never heard of called Micropoint (something akin to acid I believe) and Lina then said she felt weird for the rest of the night. Horses? What the fuck. What was I drinking. We went out to the casinos of Bocagrande and we were due to stay at her friend's place. Lina instead decided we should get a hotel. At 3.30 am. In Cartagena. A Colombiana and an Estranjero. Good luck. There is only one thing the hotels are going to think if we turn up at that time, in that combination, without luggage. Prostitute and creepy foreigner. Unsurprisingly we were treated to a string of Bible style, no room in the inn, welcomes. Eventually the last place we tried let us have a room. It was the room of the guard himself. I did not know that at the time. Lina told me later. Now it was dingy and shitty. Lina said it was the worst place she had ever stayed in. Hmm I had been in worse, but I am a bit of a tramp. We had a great 2-3 hours of non sleeping, though I had left most of my stuff in her friend's house so we were falta more than one condom. Shitty. She did say she would like to keep my tongue though. Ah some prostitute bitch keeps tapping me on the neck with her rose in this cafe. Ah God. Its that stupid bint that me and Dom met last time and could not get rid of. Funny how you meet the same old people in the same old places 6 months later. Especially gringo hunting putas. They really have nothing better to do.

We left early with no sleep. Lina was now two nights without sleep after the adidas party. We grabbed our stuff from her friends and grabbed a bus to Santa Marta. It went about 2 hours and broke down. Fuck sake. The axle snapped. It took them over an hour to get a replacement us as we just lay by the side of the road with the crazy dog. We eventually got a second bus. It stayed nearly an hour in Barranquilla, drove for five minutes and broke down. Flooded engine. Two fucking buses in one day. Motherfuckers. We got a third bus. He went five minutes and then stopped to have lunch. Right. Enough. I could have gone out and murdered the bastard. Then we eventually got a bus to the Tayrona entrance, but the idiot missed it by 1km and we had to hike back. The company was Brasilia by the way. They deserved to be named and firebombed. Eventually we arrived and its still spectacularly beautiful. We stopped at the restaurant and it was too dark and dangerous to push on. There was also an almighty thunderstorm so we set up Eduar's tent using a flashlight that the bastard on reception eventually lent us. The floor was rock hard as we pitched it on concrete and in the middle of the night a bunch of people arrived to set up more tents. Lina got quite nervous with this, but I was not too worried, although one idiot did crash into our tent. I get the impression Colombians don't take risks that often as they are always scared of everything. Then again I probably have an unhealthily low fear level.

In the morning we got up and hiked to the mirador and then hiked through the jungle to the Arecifes beach. She indulged in some topless sunbathing as the beach was nearly deserted while I got some breakfast. She believed foreigners were less likely to perve on someone than Colombians. I said I doubted it and there were many perverts in Europe as well. We spent all of the morning lounging on the beach, getting burnt and swimming in the sea that is apparently dangerous. I don't think so really. We had to leave the park and get a bus back to Barranquilla. We only just made it back in time, but I did manage to get her to cum on the us. Was an interesting us ride. We landed back in Bogota. I fucking hate flying. I am not getting in a plane until I leave this continent if I can help it, with the honorable exception of the Nazca Lines. Kind of need it for there. Lina came and stayed at mine that night.

It was now my penultimate day in Bogota. Would be sad to leave. Had some good morning fun before I headed into the British Council. Mondays classes were uneventful. Paola got mugged that night as she was going to join me at some point. People could not make it after class so I ended up drinking at some shit ar on my own. Oh yeah Spurs had beaten Sunderland 2-0 despite being battered. Liverpool somehow drew with Birmingham and we were back up into fourth for now. We had beaten Everton 2-0 in the league cup as well and were rewarded with a quarter final away at Man U. Should be rough. Lina, Sofia, David, Angelica M, Alice and Justin joined me for a farewell drinking session. We moved bars and had a fun time with some really good conversation before I left. It was some bastard Spanglish conversation. Lina stayed at mine. She was really sick with some sort of fever and that may have been what was dogging me for the last week or so. Wow I have really caught my own tail here. It was a really good last night and she left early as she hates goodbyes. I am not brilliant at them myself.

I went to classes and we wrapped up the lessons. I felt that an A for me was impossible, but Ekhaterina may get one (she did), but that the last lesson had made a B a possibility. They had promised to e-mail me my results but would forget until I reminded them. I got my B in the end and I believe I pretty much graduated in 3rd place. Not bad as I was probably 12th after lesson one. Everyone passed except for Juan and not sure what he is going to do now. We had some good goodbyes as it had been an intense four weeks together. Then I went home, packed up everything that was important before leaving an almighty mess of everything else behind. Was supposed to meet Jennifer for a leaving coffee, but she did not show up. I took a taxi to a station and ended up with a 23 hour bus journey to the border. It was touch and go if I was going to be able to cross while my visa was still valid. I wrote to the International Houses in Buenos Aires for jobs, but they are not looking to recruit yet. Dammit. Agus gave me a list of institutions to contact and may do that tomorrow after I create my CV. My money was slowly dying on me. Would have to call on the reinforcements soon.

Woke up on the bus and this was D-DAY for leaving. This journey is forever. The bus was painfully slow and there was a serious danger I would not make it. Then it got stuck with an accident. Shit. Nobody on the bus knew when the frontier was going to close. Shit and I had not enough money to get across. In the end I made it with one hour to spare, but that was mighty close to a nasty fine or worse. I was ack in Ecuador. Shit. I was going to miss Colombia. I had crossed the border for 5 seconds and I already missed it, but help was at hand.

Bogota Week Twelve

I had to leave really early the next day, because the psycho ex had rang her and was coming over. Felt like one of those real fast film style exits lol. I got into school and found out I had passed assignment 4. Not sure why they don't number them in order. We had another long day of observations and then I had to prepare another 20 minute lesson. After teaching for an hour, these lessons seemed somewhat pointless. I sorted the problems out with Iranis and had just begun them with Gloria. It did not look like I was going to Tayrona with Lina.

Nope I was wrong. She changed her mind. Colombians have a real problem making definitive decisions or making plans. They change them on a whim. The English on the contrary will attend something they have agreed to even if they are about to drop dead. I suppose its one of the best qualities from my country. Tuesday we all taught a small 20 minute lesson, so it was my last disjointed one. I prepared a class on stereotypes between men and women for the next day. The elementary class did not like their new tutors. They wanted to have us back. The intermediate group was also responding top us and did not want to switch back. I believe the elementary students said that Rebecca was the only good teacher from the others and lots of them had told me that they were not going to go back to their classes.

I woke up very sick with a bowel infection of worms. Nasty. I was really struggling and looking green apparently. I taught my lesson and got my best marks yet. Almost an above standard. I would stay up at that level for the remainder of the course except for the last lesson. My instructions cost me on this one. Dammit. It would be something small from now on it, but I started to get confident in my ability as a teacher, even if the nerves were getting steadily worse with every lesson. Lina came over that night and I cooked dinner. She was allergic to spicy stuff so I did a sweet spaghetti bolognaise with Teriyaki and Soy. Came out really good. She ended up tidying my room while I worked on assignment two in the morning.

After Lina tidied my room and I had studied some more, we set off for college. My bowels were getting progressively worse. I took Rebecca and Meagan's advice and went to buy some medication they recommended. It seemed to do the job. We watched the classes. Paola's went really bad that day but she avoided a below standard and that was the closest our group got to one. We observed classes that afternoon and the schedule was taking its toll. So many days were from 6am until 11pm, but at least I was keeping my weekends free. I finished assignment 2 and then prepared my class. I was going to adapt Washington Irving's Legend of Sleep Hollow and get them to write ghost stories, while Ekhaterina was going to a listening on Nightmare Before Christmas' 'This is Halloween.' With Anita as well, we were really starting to deliver high quality lessons and themed as well. Each person backing the other one up. I booked the flights for the coast and we would have to go via Cartagena. She had an ex there and a lot of friends so no problems for somewhere to stay. It does feel like sacrilege adapting Washington Irving with my own pen, but then maybe one day I will make it as a writer as well.

I got up early and finished off my version of the story. I taught a very good lesson. Saved myself time at the beginning and used that to elicit story structure. I should not really have done that as time was tight. It meant my lesson overran, but it was a really good lesson. Tom was finally impressed for the last lesson of mine her observed. Timing cost me though. Cost all of us that day really. Yovanna won the competition for the writing. I went to Lina's house after class and met a lot of her friends. She was going out for a halloween party. I needed a rest first. I could not wake up though and after going home I slept all night long. She rang me at 3am to say she was drunk and the party was great. At this point I was totally destroyed and we only chatted for a bit.

Halloween. Went into the British Council to do assignment 3. Did assignment 1B in ten minutes while I thought of a topic and I had then finished all of the assignments. Just two classes to go and I had in mind to do a debate and stage it over two lessons. Should solve my timing issue and allow me to use one class to tee up the other one. We got mashed 3-0 by Arsenal and conceded two goals in 17 seconds. That was depressing. We may be on the slide again. Need to get some good results in the next few weeks. I have almost caught my tail here and we only played twice more before now. There were some superb costumes around Centro Commercial Andino. One kid was dressed up as Optimus Prime in a ridiculously eleborate costume. They take this festival seriously here and some of the families spend way too much money. My cock is bigger than yours competitions with their kids. Little sad really, but spectacular nonetheless. Liverpool lost to a beach ball. Awesome. I went to meet Alice and her friends in a bar. Katzo had a truly cool turtles costume and then David came and joined us. I wanted to go to Vinacure as it would have been awesome that night, but nobody wanted to pay 50,000 pesos to get in. We went to a gay bar called La Oficina. Great music. David being a blonde gringo was attracting more attention than he was comfortable with his. His Washington State small town did not prepare him the same way that London had prepped me and Alice. Afterwards we went to Changos but the queue was too long. We were drinking in some shit salsa bar when Lina rang me and invited me to a party at some fat American's house. He worked for the US embassy, but apparently spoke no Spanish. Very odd. Lina reckoned he was a perro. It was odd having a very old American dude and lots of young Colombians. There was really good food and some truly impressive costumes. The three of us had not bothered. There was even a guy and a girl who were just in body paint and nothing else. Had a good time there and then Lina left for her flat. Alice, David and I decided to go and join my coursemate Anita. We met three random Colombians in the street, but they opted not to join us. Got to Anita's and she was there with her friend Alice, Paola and Rachel. Everyone was a little steamed. It was around 4am or 5am. We ended up having discussions about which students we would sleep with. They told me I could not pick Lina, so I said Camila. Paola chose Eric (a fat student), because he was quiet and James (an old business man) due to his dress sense. Rachel was surprised and then Anita was saying ah yeah Mr James is quite smart. Rachel by this point was 'what the fuck' and everyone was laughing. We would spend the last week and a half fucking about in class quite a lot and that night was always in my mind whenever we were teaching. I left and got breakfast with Alice before heading back to the flat around 8am. The others had called Benjamin and they ended up partying all through the next day.

November 1st. 4 MONTHS TO GO. Then I actually have to work. Ridiculous eh. After 19 months of not working, you don't really feel like it. Man City drew. Good for us. I ate in Khalifa (the Arabic place) and missed Praveen as we always ate there. I went all the way to Portal 80 to join Angelica for the cinema. We missed the first performance so we went back to her place and got some hot chocolate. Her and David are really nice people. Shame they never got together. She did have a really good time with a French dude though and I am pleased for her. We went and watched Inglorious Bastards. Quite funny, but not amazing. The German guy is just awesome. I got a taxi back. I had planned to go to Alice's for some films, but it was too late and I racked up 239 on the taxi metre. A new PB and 20,000 pesos. Nice.

Bogota Week Eleven

Fucking Ecuadoreans. This woman is leaning on my shoulder while I try to type so I just shrugged her off. There was another bitch in the shop this morning. She tried to charge me $1.20 for a Colomiana. I could travel to Colombia, buy one and come back for less than that. Then she wanted $0.80 for a can of coke. Bitch. I have always paid $0.50 or maximum $0.70 in that same shop.

Hmm October 19th must have been an amazingly exciting day. Here is the full diary entry. 'Up and into class. Watched lessons and prepped until 11.30pm.' Quite possibly it might be the dullest day of my trip according to that entry. Certainly the shortest I believe. Next year I will have an October 19th memorial dullness session.

Had to get up at 5.30am as I had observation sessions with Leonardo. They thought we were a couple of Colombian students. We must look very teacher like. So tired. My first tutorial with Rosie went well. Was ticking over ok after the first two lessons. Would change over to Tom after this and I don't think he liked my teaching style much, but then everyone seems to have felt that. Went out for lunch and spent the afternoon trying not to fall asleep. My lesson went ok. It was not very well themed but they enjoyed it. I think it was the lesson I used road runner to elicit past tenses and then did charades of some sort. Lina had said that it was just to be me and her that weekend as we were heading to Villeta, her hometown. It was Praveen's last night so his girlfriend and Alice came over for a farewell meal. I then wrote assignment one. I passed all of my assignments first time and comfortably except for the grammar based one. Everyone had to repeat that except for Rebecca and I was the next closest with two minor faults. None of them took me very long, but I am a very fast and accurate writer. I mean I wrote my 13,000 word masters dissertation in just one day, with no editing and no rewrites and got the top grade.

I slept in a bit after saying goodbye to Praveen. As I said earlier, the flat was a lot quieter after he left. It had been a pretty good time in the flat. Will see him again in Porto Alegre and its his duty to throw a party for me down there to end my trip lol. I went to study and there was a problem with the shitty transmilenio due to an accident. It was a good morning for Bob Dylan. Enjoyed walking along calle 76 listening to Oxford Town. I took all evening to prepare the next lesson plan and I was doing a reading class based around the times that Praveen was attacked in Bogota. Made for some interesting stories.

I went to the classes and was nearly killed in the toilets by some industrial strength cleaner. I had just enough breath to make it through my piss, but afterwards I was struggling to breath and coughin a lot from the fumes. At least I knew I had fumigated my lungs. Lina was upset and had to leave early in my class. I found out later it was due to an argument she had had with her ex boyfriend. The class went fairly well for a class that I had prepared myself, but I still had not convinced I could put a coherent lesson together and I was now four lessons down, five to go. I stayed behind with Rachel afterwards to do assignment four for the next day. That was easier for the intermediate group as they had more activities to choose from. I met a drunken Fernando in the transmilenio and chatted for a while before ending up in an argument with Gloria as to my plans for the weekend.

I was up early for observation classes. Juan went AWOL that day so even though we weren't supposed to teach, Leonardo and I had to cover an hour spot with games and generally just fucking about with the class. We had moved over to the intermediate classes and had a new group. They had one cute girl called Camila but she lacked some oomph. She asked me how long I was here for lol. I love Colombians. I went for drink after class with Lina and Victoria. David joined us as well and then Lina had to go home early. Had assumed she was not that interested at this point. David and me grabbed some food. I was a little pissed from drinking almost alone and went to join Alice and Sofia and some Peruvian girl. We went to the crappy reggae bar and I fell asleep because I was completely knackered. I started to get some weird messages from Iranis now as well. I did not think it was her though, because the English was so awful. It turned out someone hacked her account and then read her e-mails and was intent on grilling me for information. She rang me to apologise and this person then wrote to Gloria. Caused a massive, mental ruckus ontop of the fight that was going to come from this weekend. I had to spend the first half of the next week dealing with these two problems, while also juggling my lessons. Nightmare.

I got up and watched online Tottenham batter Stoke into submission and then somehow lose 1-0. How the hell did we do that. Fuck sake. We were slipping a bit. It was Gloria's birthday. I sent her a happy birthday message and then went and met Lina to go to Villeta. We ended up kissing on the bus on the way there which was somewhat unexpected after the night before. Villeta is a nice, small, warm town. Her family have a beautiful house and she wants to open up a bar on the hill when she gets back from London. We went drinking with her friends and sister in the town. Asolutely smacking it down with rain. Afterwards we ended up having some strange fun on the stairs leading from the road to her house. She was always a little too preoccupied though. I used to call her 'preoccupada.'

The next day we slept in. Well I did. She sunbathed on the roof. Then we ended up lounging in a paddling pool on the roof for the afternoon before going to see some nearby waterfalls. Loads of soldiers were having competitions to see who could kill themselves the fastest by jumping off the top of the waterfall. Insane. Came back and played the 'boo' game with her nephew. He went mental. Afterwards we took a us back to Bogota and I went and stayed at her flat. Her psycho ex boyfriend kind of stalks her. Jealousy is a whole other level down here. So we had to turn off all the lights in case he was around. Fun times.

Bogota Week Ten

Hmm for the second week in a row that's a weird place to break it, but I can't help it. Its the way this system of mine works. I slept for about 3 hours and then got up early and hiked down the finca mountain, along the motorway, down another road and to the junction for buses to Medellin. Was a bit worried I may not make it back for my course and I was a bit stupid, because I was taking risks and not getting enough sleep before I started it. One of the other trainees Rachel had been in Medellin and Blue that weekend but we did not know each other then so there is no real recollection. I took a bus to Medellin, had to wait ages for a bus back to Bogota and then sat in for yet another long bus ride. I was quite knackered at this point, but for some strange reason I decided it was a good idea to watch Dance Flick and GI Joe again. I now had dodgy bowels as well. I had missed reading the course outline, because I was stupid and I went to McDonalds and then to sleep. Was really nervous for the course in the morning.



I wrote 'D-Day as I start my course today.' Rare for the nerves to get to me. I was up early and really nervous. Praveen was trying to reassure me that I would be fine. I think he had had woman number five over the weekend I was away. Also Manuel was breaking bits of the apartment and blaming them on me and Praveen. The drunken landlady pointed out that I was not actually there and she had known Praveen for ages. We did a lot of admin. It was not as intense as I was fearing, but it was still going to be a solid slog. We had to learn Welsh on the first day. Bore da. Thats for you Tim. It was to experience what its like to learn a language you have absolutely no familiarity with. We were introduced to the students and I wrote that one of them was very good looking. Foreshadowing again lol. All the students for elementary seem nice people. I had to make a lesson plan on the first night for my first teaching session. I wrote it should be challenging. The groups ended up being horribly unbalanced. We had Leonardo (10 years experience) and Ekhaterina (6 years experience) who helped our group of six all the way through. Our group posted 7 Above Standards, 7 Almost Above Standards and 0 Below Standards (which is very rare). The other group got 2 Above Standards, a few Almost Above Standards and 3 Below Standards. Admittedly Ekhaterina posted 4 of those Above Standards but still.



I slept very very badly. I was cripplingly nervous. Don't remember the last time my nerves got hold of me like that. We went through the morning sessions including charades, which I love. Its a good learning curve. Had my first teaching session. I followed Leonardo and he just blew them out of the water. Fuck. Following that shot me to pieces and my first ten minutes were a disaster. The following ten I brought it back a bit, but it was definitely the worst performance. I would end up graduating with the 3rd best marks, but there and then I was 12th from 12. Apparently I had the biggest improvement ark of all the teachers, but then if you start with the worst lesson of 12 teachers and deliver maybe the best lesson to finish the course, you can't really get much wider. I passed with a standard. I think we get allowances for the first one. I spoke to Gloria again. Argentina qualified thank god and so did Honduras which is nice for Wilson Palacios the Spurs boy. I got some needed sleep and passed on Praveen's invitation to go to Quiebra Canto.

I did not have to teach on the thursday which was good. I missed my stop for calle 76 as I was not paying attention and went all the way to calle 127 before I could come back again. Damn transmilenion, but I think this time it was my fault for daydreaming. It almost made me late. I needed the loo and they had the world's tiniest toilet. What the hell is that? Only later did I find out that they taught kids at weekends. I had assumed they built it for Colombians in general and I thought they are smaller, but not that small. Had my morning classes and then observed the other teachers. This was kind of my week for the next few weeks. Up at 6am and work until 11pm and then sleep. Jesus. Life as an actual teacher will hopefully be a lot easier. We prepped a questionaire for one of our assignments. I spoke to Luisa and Fernando after class about going for drinks on friday and then I spent the rest of the evening planning my lesson.

Up early to work on the last few parts. I taught my lesson. It went better. I think it was to do with food and I ran out of time and had to drop loads of things. Timing, instructions, ICQ's (Instruction checking questions), grading language and planning coherent thematic lessons were my weakest areas. I managed to eradicate them all in the end, but the dogged bastard that is instruction giving clung on until the very last lesson before I killed the bastard. Not actually sure its dead. I just said very little in my last lesson. Ah yes I got them playing pictionary and drawing their breakfasts. Even got Eduar to teach a bit of the lesson (he was the best of my students). We went for drinks after class and after a tough first week I drank for the first time in ages. Now I am back on the road I have to be careful to not fall back into the trap of drinking every night. It was fucking Heineken. What a way to break a drought. I ended up flirting with Lina (the good looking student) that night. Her and Fernando joined us and we all spoke mainly Spanish. Leonardo said I was more latin than English and it will be hard for me to readjust back into England afterwards. Most felt I spoke too fast in Spanish as well. It was a fun night until the end. Pilar (one of the profs) cornered Lina in the toilets and accused her of being on the course just to pull a professor and that she had kissed me. This was not true. Then Fernando made Anita cry (I had to go and check if she was ok) and then we ended up with a phantom bill. I mean it is 33,000 Pesos for 1.5 litres of Heineken. 11 pounds. You could get at least 2.5 litres in London for that price and I normally pay 2,200 pesos for a half litre in my local. I hate the zona rosa. Its like a small slice of Medellin's plastic people in Bogota. Somehow we had a bill for 600,000 pesos. Lina ended up paying 120,000 including 50,000 for Fernando even though he had drunk nothing from our jars. I paid 70,000. There was 160,000 left behind by other people. That makes 350,000 from just a few people. There were about another 10 people there. Everyone reckons they paid between 50,000 and 70,000. That leaves a lot of unaccounted for money. If I was not trying to sort out the other two problems from above I would have turned my maths teaching ability to the bill. Fuck me. Everyone in this internet cafe is always smoking. Bastards. Someone went home very rich and the rest of us paid a ridiculous amount of money for Heineken. Lina went home insulted, Fernando went home pissed off. Everyone else scattered and I had no phone credit so I could not join Praveen etc. Instead I went home and nearly killed myself and my landlady. I had come in and put some eggs on the stove. Then I fell asleep. They cooked for one hour before they eventually shot out of the pan like cannonballs and hit three different areas of the kitchen. Did not know they could do that. Meanwhile the bottom of the metal pot had melted through and released a stream of carbon monoxide in the flat. It would have killed me if the landlady had not woken up. She claims she had a premonition in her dreams. Thank God she's mental. She continued to tell me stories all saturday of people who had died from carbon monoxide, but I just kept laughing imagining the rocket launcher eggs.

Spurs won 2-1 away to Portsmouth. Good result considering Defoe got himself stupidly sent off. We were still hanging around the top 4 at this point and still are at this moment. I went to the Arabic place for lunch. Some Bogota band was shooting a music video in the streets but we just scooted on by. I met drunken Cesar for drinks with Praveen. It was Alice's birthday and Praveen's leaving do. I was about to lose another good friend after Gloria had gone. It was a fun night. Someone had brought along balloons and we were playing with them in the club. I met Praveen's quasi costena girlfriend. Lina could not make it. This guy called Danny from Valledupar got everyone dancing and was impressed with my spazzy hip hop dancing. Oh yeah we had gone to Candelario as I forgot to mention that. Afterwards a big bunch of us went back to Danny's rooftop apartment. Really cool place. He seemed like a nice enough guy. David came back to our flat after some 24 hour food hunting in the shitty sandwich place on calle 19. He fell asleep in the chair around 6am and everyone went to bed before he left.

I got up at 3pm as I needed to sleep off the night before and went to McDonalds with Praveen. We met Cesar the tramp (I had forgotten to give him his clothes the week before because it was a thunderstorm) and Praveen's girlfriend. Cesar said he was off to Villavicencio so I gave him 12,000 for bus fair. Me and Praveen gave him clothes, toothpaste, a razor, mouthwash, socks and shampoo so he could tidy himself up. He was smart enough to work. He guessed I was capricorn from my eyes. Scary stuff. I was hoping he would kick start his life and it did not cost us much to give him a shot. Then we all went to have dinner with Alice near her place for her birthday. I had met a few of her friends the night before. A cool Colombian guy, a German girl and a Japanese guy named Katzo. I had to translate a lot for Praveen and his girlfriend as they had no common language except for body language. The dinner was nice and then we took a taxi back to the flat and I did some work. I assume it was on one of the assignments but I don't really remember. Maybe I just read a bit.

Bogota Week Nine

Here we go again. I am somewhat very sick. Like some synus style infection/flu hybrid. I really need to sleep this off at some point. Still had a kick arse afternoon today. More of that in later blog entries. I really am half dead. At least I have found a computer that has youtube, but is missing messenger. Every internet cafe in this city has to be missing something. Oh well. Better get used to it. I am here for 3 or 4 more days. Best laid plans and all. I have Rhianna for company today, so this blog may veer all over the place. Got locked into an internet cafe yesterday, but somehow managed to watch the Colts come back from the dead to beat the Patriots by one point, thanks to the Patriots unbelievabel stupidity. Still if it had come off they would say he was a genius.

We woke up early in Cucuta. Stayed in bed till lunch. Went to Carrefour and picked up some food. Came back and slept in the afternoon. Did not really do much in Cucuta. There is not actually loads to see. Had hot dogs again and the vender woman felt I had a cute accent in Spanish. I have been told I have the accent of a Frenchman rather than an Englishman. Probably for the best. We missed some random telenovela due to time zone problems and then just stayed in.

I decided against leaving early as was still knackered and could just get a night bus for the DAS (which I had forgotten I needed to see). Gloria had a problem with something in Argentina, but at this point I did not know what. She said she wanted to me to come online to chat about it, which I did but she was not online at that time. Something happened in Argentina. Liverpool lost and Man City and Villa drew. Good weekend for us. There was too much Vallenato in Cucuta and we said goodbye at the bus station. I took a night bus to Bogota. Too many buses in too short a period of time really.

Arrived in Bogota and Gloria rang me. We chatted for a fair bit about different things and then I met Alice outside the DAS. Police had stopped me on the highway to demand why I was over my visa limit. I wasn't but I realised I only had around 1 day left and had to get to the DAS. I ended up having to argue and fight with the DAS. The stupid bitch on the counter had said I could have the 33 days I wanted so I paid. They took my finger prints. Then they informed me I was only entitled to have 30 days. Fuck them. They said its the rules. I said I had paid on a different assumption. I refused to leave until they gave me 33 days. Eventually they consented and I had my passage secure to complete the course. We then went for lunch and I headed back to the flat. Praveen had apparently been missing me in my absence and I went away the next weekend as well. I am back in Bogota, so at least the headings make sense, though this week is probably the least valid of the name. I was less than one week away from starting my course. Manuel had invited some woman around with her kid and the kid kept trying to come into the shower with me. I know they take a more liberal attitude to parenting down here, but this was surely too dodgy. Damn locks. I went out for Aguaspanelitas and offered one of the tramps (Cesar) that I would give him some used clothes the next week. Went out for drinks afterwards in just Spanish. We managed to find some dickhead Yank who went off hunting women with Praveen in Quiebra Canto. I just sat chatting away and the club was shit as normal.

Got up early. God know why. I had no dry clothes apparently. I took a bus to Pereira. I told you none of this week was in Bogota. There was a really talkative old woman on the bus. This weekend would be almost exclusively in Spanish for me. Kind of like now. She was actually sick on the bus as the bends took it out of her. It was a very long bus ride. I did not think through all these buses. Anyway it was priming me for being back on the road again. Started to read for my course as it was less than a week away and I was warming up my brain after it had been dormant for a long time. Pereira looked like a nice enough city. Had a wander around. I thought that I was quite close to Medellin for the football and Liliana said she could get me a spare ticket if I came up, so I decided to go to Medellin for the weekend. I met Tatiana for drinks and she was too knackered to go clubbing. So was I really. So I headed back to the hotel, got accosted by a prostitute, politely told her to fuck off and went to sleep.

I slept in a very long time I was very tired. I met Isabel for a long lunch and a tour of the city. Lots of young kids smashed on some serious drugs. Gave one of them a sandwich which he took after he realised we weren't about to attack him. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Not quite sure how he managed that, but the opposing arguments on CNN were quite fiery. I ended up spending the rest of the evening undertaking all of the pre-course tasks for the CELTA. Was quite gruelling but it felt good to have it out of the way. Everyone was unavailable in the night so I opted to go for a walk around the town alone. I hate solo drinking so I just ended up back at the hotel. Still don't know how Franny does it.

I got up and grabbed a bus for Medellin. It was going to be tight to find somewhere to stay and then get to the football match. Apparently the bus seems to be populated by Pingu. I can only assume that the Pereira accent sounds like Pingu or that our bus was invaded by penguins. I will let you pick. It was a crucial day all round for World Cup qualifiers on this weekend. Colombia were at home to Chile. All the hostels were sold out. Shit. I ended up grabbing a hotel in what was apparently the red light district of Medellin. Hard to tell. Hotel Conquistador. Nice name and I actually quite liked the place. Did the job. I finally met Liliana a good five months or more after we first chatted. Very beautiful and cool girl. A load of us (An englishman, a yank, a canuck, an aussie, a dane and some others) went to the game and watched Colombia lose 4-2. They had been 1-0 up and then conceded two goals in one minute. Rubbish. They were out. Shitty. At least Argentina just about won and even better Ecuador lost. The football was of abysmal quality but at least there were goals. A lot of rain. They say Medellin has good weather but I have had rain for all 8 days I have ever been there. We went to La Octavia and Blue and were joined by a Dutch guy. We had a fun time dancing all night long. Well at least I danced all night long. Everyone else was trying to hook up with someone, but I was just loving being in a club without salsa even if I gathered somewhat of an audience. I got on well with the Yankee but he sadly left early. Sander and Chris were invited with me to spend sunday night out at a finca. I figured why not. One Colombian girl, Sander and me got some late night food and were surrounded by the usual Medellin prepagos. Putas.

I was knackered on sunday from not much sleep. Went off to the Colombians house to grab a lift to the finca. We ended up buying a mountain of meat for the barbecue. We had gone on Sander's measurements not realising half the people don't really eat and the other half are vegetarians. It ended up with 3 of us trying to polish off an abertoire of meat (Chris, Sander and me). We got a ride there and there was some sort of giant dildo thing that became the source for some unintelligable Spanish jokes. I have realised that my Spanish has accelerated a lot in the last month. The time in Bogota was well spent. More fucking rain. The finca was absolutely huge. I mean the size of about 6 of our English houses. They had an out house with disco, bar, pool table and billiards table. We played a bit. I cained everyone at pool as normal, but got my arse handed to me at billiards. Chris was given barbecue duties, while Sander went with two of the girls to Penon. I had been before so stayed behind. The Paisa girls were asking me if I found Medellin girls the best. I said that Bogota girls and girls from Manizales were more intelligent and nicer people. They said Bogota girls were ugly. I said Cali girls are better looking than the girls in Medellin. They said they were bitches. I said the Medellin girls were mannequins, dolls, plastic people, cold and not that great. I know two exceptions (Liliana and the girl I met at the frontier a few days ago). That did not go down to well with the Paisas. Reminds me of the joke from a restaurant on Cartagena. It was called the lying Paisas and had ten things they always say. Quite funny if you know Colombia. I found out chatting with Chris that we had pulled the same girl in Nicaragua. Random. He slept with her though. Too much meat I wrote. We played some weird Colombian games and then danced a lot. I refused the salsa and the photos are awesome from this night, but for some reason Sander has made them private. We pretended to be babies, danced various styles, Chris and I treated them to Morris dancing, we did the thriller video, I had a hip hop off with the Yankee guy David and everyone had a blast. Real good fun. I still don't know why the photos are private. Ah one of the Colombian girls treated us to some Arabic dancing as well.

Bogota Week Eight

Jennifer cancelled our lesson again. She really needs to take a break as she is always knackering her health from pushing herself too hard. I had lunch with Angelica. Then I left for the language meeting. The owner was absolutely hammered today. I mean she is often drunk, but she could not even walk straight and had to have a lot of assistance to get back into the apartment. I had bumped into Angelica M in an internet cafe earlier as well so we chatted a bit. Alice had been away to the coast for over a week so it was good to catch up with her now she was back. We spent a lot of the meeting swapping stories from the coast. Gloria got a little emotional saying goodbye to everyone. Praveen had not come and ended up chatting up some random girl in the pizza place and getting her number. Ridiculous. Sometimes he was having more success not speaking Spanish than speaking it, because people had to help him out. That was one of the main reasons he said he never bothered to learn it.

In the morning I went to the British Council and signed up for my id as well as renting out the three books I would need for my pre-course work. I maybe should have read more to really hit the ground running, but I had a stuttering start, but I won't jump the gun with this thing yet. I met Gloria outside and we spent all day at my place as she flew the next day. We listened to a lot of music and shared a really good time. At one point Praveen entered saw we were busy and left again. Was a classic comedy moment sketch and still makes me laugh. Then the three of us went for a meal at her friend Angelica's house. It was a nice time except for her psycho friend. I set up new year for Buenos Aires the year after next and started inviting people for it. Her friend was quite drunk. I can't even remember her name, but its the only friend of Gloria's I did not like. She started off asking me who my next project was. Gloria thought she was interested in me. I clearly pointed out she was ugly and a bitch so there was no threat. Also she ended up hating me. Praveen was practicing salsa again. She was then asking us what we thought of love and quoting all sorts of philosophers. I love these well read people. They spout shit they have read, but never actually think for themselves. They also never have a point. She gave me two positions and said what do I think. What do I think aout what? You need a question to have an answer. If she meant the two points, then they are pretty quotes but divorced from context. She did talk an enormous amount of shit and even Praveen became frustrated at her pointlessness. Though he did take her number and at one point I thought he was going to sleep with her. Thank god he didn't. I question his taste sometimes, but then he questions mine as well so we are even.

In the morning I met Sylvia at her university and did an interview in Spanish about Pax Americana. I had to defend the usual anti-Americanism you encounter while travelling. Many Colombians don't want American bases in their country. They are idiots. Their main argument is that it would make them a colony of the US and provoke Chavez. Both are rubbish. Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea and many countries have American bases. We have nuclear ones. We are not colonies but allies of the US and we use their protection wisely. No country will attack a country with US bases, because those are the only countries that the US will definitely defend. Even Russia knows this. It is the reason why Eastern European countries like Poland and Czech Republic are crying out for bases. Protection. Its the reason Ukraine and Georgia want to be members of NATO. Protection. Look at the lack of support Georgia got for its war with Russia and also Estonia when it was attacked on the internet. Do you think Russia would be so bold with England or Germany. No. Obviously. So Colombia would become part of a network of Democratic alliances. Why would you not want that, unless you were an idiot. Chavez is also less likely to attack now. He is stupid, but he is not that stupid. The US want an excuse to knock him out and if he attacks Colombia he gives them that excuse. Anyway. I met Alice and Praveen for lunch in the Arabic place afterwards.I went to Olympia to buy some stuff for dinner that day and it was the day of the retards. Every retard in the world was in my queue. First there were the people buying apples with credit cards, then the woman with 200o questions and finally the idiot man who could not count properly what he needed to pay. I felt like grabbing him and counting it for him or just paying for him so he could get the fuck out of my way. I was fourth in the queue and I saw people enter while I was in the queue, get their shopping, pay and leave while I was still in the queue. For fuck sake. Angelica M was too late for dinner in the end, so we went out and did Aguaspanelitas. I think this was the first time I participated in that activity. We go out and give aguapanela (a sweet Colombian drink) and bread to the tramps for two hours around the area I live in. In fact it starts in front of my house so there really no excuses for me not participating. Gloria had gone out for dinner with her family and I was waiting for her call to come over to her place. I kept buying special ham and cheese croissants for the tramps as I felt that the other breads were a little dry and they might prefer something more exciting. Eventually Gloria rang me and I went off to her place. Man BBC Radio 2 is a bit wank. Need to change this. There is a guy with a really annoying voice next to me. He has been here as long as elbow mouse man. Will they never leave. Fuck there is not much choice. Soul it is. Anyway we had fun in the lounge before Gloria left and we spent our last time together there. Neither of us slept and then we went to the airport. She got her luggage wrapped up in that useless plastic stuff. Not sure why. Seems a waste of money. Then again I have been travelling forever and never had anything stolen. It was an emotional goodbye for everyone and it would feel very strange afterwards. I had spent a lot of time with her and had many good memories and now she would no longer be there. It would be similar when Praveen went. The flat kind of felt empty. Weird how you develop attachements to people fast, but strange that it was this time they were leaving me and I was staying behind. I came back from the airport half dead and very tired. Praveen had been in Quiebra Canto and met a girl from the coast. They ended up having a quasi relationship, even though she spoke no English and he spoke no Spanish. Indeed he invited Alice to one of their dates to work as a translator.

I was very tired from the airport and slept a fair bit. Spoke to Gloria now she was in Buenos Aires, my future home. Both me and Praveen were very tired. I cooked lunch for me, him and Manuel. I wrote that I don't think I did very much. There was nothing on at the cinema so I just stayed in and slept

The next day we went to Jennifer's class and Praveen taught Hinduism. He was pretty good at it to be fair and had to teach for at least an hour. He had a translator but always gave him way too much to cover. While he was teaching, Jennifer and I were chatting at the back as we had not seen each other in a while. Aires and Avianca are crap and useless. You can't book flights with a credit card from Europe, which is retarded as a lot of their customers will be from there. Stupid people. Actually Aires were ok, but I could not fly to the border. Angelica M came to meet me to do some shopping, but somehow got lost and then never answered her phone. We met some random weirdos in the shit bar as normal as Praveen insisted on sitting with these two girls for drinks. Daniella, Diego and David joined us for drinks afterwards. I went to the toilet and some perra ended up shouting at David. He got shook up and went home. Praveen was still injured from nearly being killed and went back to the flat. Possibly for a tryst. No idea. Of all the girls he had stuff with I only ever met one. The quasi girlfriend. His one night rendezvous' were always secret affairs. The remaining three of us went to Vinacure for the night. Great club. I wanted to go to the Medellin one but after being burnt by Mangos we never went. This one was carnival themed with a stage show every 50 minutes for 10 minutes. The first one was based on little red riding hood and the second on Michael Jackson´s thriller. There was hardly anyone in it, which is a shame. Lot of space to dance. The people were all Colombian though which was a bonus and there were a lot of good looking people too. There was a large group of girls who got approached by three wanker guys who ended up surrounding them and penning them in like an episode of one man and his dog. They did not seem to realise at any point that the girls thought they were repulsive and they had no chance in hell. Took a taxi back home afterwards.

Spurs drew 2-2 with Bolton, coming from behind twice. United almost lost to Sunderland at home though and had to rely on a last minute equaliser. I met the Mexican girl from Cali who had written to me. Had lunch with her and Alice in Kokoriko and then we went to the couchsurfing picnic. We ended up in Parque Virrey in the end. We had some food and mingled as normal with the Bogota core group of couchsurfing (ie we did not mingle at all). Drunken Cesar joined us and Praveen and I had realised he was probably our only proper male friend in Bogota who was actually Colombian. A dog came by and sat down on the bottle of water. I am still laughing, hearing Alice go 'oh no it touched his willy.' So English. But the dog had rubbed its cock on the bottle of water. We were then rather childishly offering this to people and drunken Cesar ended up drinking from it. We played football and somehow one of the guys managed to kick it into the sewage they call a river. Cesar had already fallen in their going for a piss and now it was my turn to fall in while going for a ball I never kicked in there. Dammit. I smelt of sewage and I was off to Cucuta that night on a night bus. We renamed Drunken Cesar as Gollum for hoarding the mate and I think he must hate our nicknames for him lol. I finally confirmed that mora was blackberry in English after months of confusement as to whether it was blackcurrant or blackberry. We met a few more people at the barbecue and then I had cut my finger climbing out of the river bank as well. I took a night bus to Cucuta to meet Iranis and watched the film Taken. It got panned in the reviews but I thought it was a pretty good film. Spoke to my notions of pride and fighting for what you believe in. Watched it in Spanish without subtitles and understood everything. My Spanish was getting there.

I got intermittent sleep on the refrigerator that this bus always is. Why do they think this is the only bus to leave Bogota, where people want to take the freezing cold climate with them. Strange. I arrived earlier than expected in Cucuta. It seems full of strip clubs. Typical border town. The internet girl was phenomenally stunning and there are a lot of good looking girls on the border. Not too smart I think though and they are certainly not used to foreigners down there. Found out that Praveen had slept with some Yankee we had met in the party up in the mountains and that some other Colombian had stayed in my room and complained all the time. Pampered bitch. You should not moan when someone gives you hospitality. Ungrateful. I had missed another party and Praveen was reinforcing his theory lol. I arrived at the hotel and was interrogated as to whether I was who I said I was for Iranis' security. She had arrived before me and it was good to catch up after not seeing each other for 4 months. She had even said she was worried I would not make it and that she had taken comfort from Chavez even though she hates him, because he is Venezuelan and she was alone there. We chatted a lot about different things and walked around town a bit. She helped fix my back with some chiropractic techniques and some reflexology. Was really useful. We ended up sleeping together even though neither of us had planned it. It was a good night, if somewhat unexpected. I am aware this blog is entitled Bogota and I was away in Cucuta, but I would be away for 4 weekends of my last 6 in Bogota in general.

Bogota Week Seven

Hmm this thing is becoming a monster. I will be close to 100 posts soon, but I feel I have the basis for a book. Maybe cut the chapters into regional sectors. On an aside, why do none of the computers in the fastest internet cafe in the zone have Adobe Flash Player. Do people not like music. One of them did not even have Messenger. Also the fat Ecuadorean with a dodgy moustache next to me keeps touching my elbow with his mouse. He needs to stick to his zone.

I had a Pan Au Chocolat for breakfast and then cooked a vergetarian pasta for lunch. Jennifer came over and joined Praveen and me for lunch. Then we spent the whole afternoon chatting rather than actually teaching any English. Oops an online radio started playing and then this wanker computer decided it did not like Indie music and shut it down. It was a little American middle of the road but still. Hmm trying a rock channel. Anyway Jennifer and me made a deal to go to Australia and New Zealand together and possibly to get married in ten years if both of us are single. Being an evangelical christian she does not want relationships with anyone she might not marry, so we had a fun time talking over future possibilities, but she wants to live in London eventually. We both want to go to Australia and New Zealand around the same time so we figured we could probably go and live there. After the Olympìcs I do want to nail down some French though and go and live in Paris for a year. Maybe road trip a bit of Europe and Africa as well while I am there. Praveen spent the lesson taking the piss out of us, until Jennifer called him a 'sapo'. His Spanish is a bit sucky so they ended up taking the piss out of each other in jest even though they don't have a common language. She recruited Praveen to teach Hinduism to her university class. It was kind of a very serious and very humorous conversation at the same time. Her self confidence is a little low though (which is surprisingly common in Latin America. I think it stems from the lack of trust) so I sent her a message with all of her strong qualities. I don't actually believe she has any negative ones really. Praveen picked up his third woman of six, though I think it was over the weekend. He got depressed, went out, got smashed and found an obliging perra in a bar. That night I went to the language meeting and had the only major argument I had with Gloria. Well in my time in Colombia anyway. She accused me of lying to some degree (which always pisses me off more than anything else) and then said she had read my notebook for this trip the day before and that was why she was pissed off. So that was the reason she was annoyed. She thought I had been seeing other people, which I hadn't. It pissed me off a lot. Not the reading of the book as I put up honestly on here what I am thinking anyway, but the fact that she had lied to me about there being nothing on her mind the day before. That's a major problem with this blog actually. You dredge up old emotions that you thought were dead at the time. Ah music and its guns'n'roses Rocket Queen. Good choice random radio station. Distracted lol. Still trying to persuade Yoana to come down here for a visit. I hate lying. It leaves you with a doubt over everything that person says in the future and is the reason why I won't have people around me who lie in any form. Anyway. We had a disagreement and she was upset and I was pissed. She said that was the day she realised I did not lie. I would have thought my answer to the Mayra question would have given that away. Anyway we argued a bit and I went back and out with Praveen to the shit bar for some soft drinks as neither of us were drinking then. Still felt odd. Like England, but I would be with Tim, Franny or Dan or someone with a pint in Bodegas. The usual place for therapy. Well that and it has some of the best looking barmaids in Watford (which admittedly is not saying much). Anyway he chatted with me for a bit. He said I should either end what we had there and then or continue as normal, but not leave it halfway. Was goodish advice though I ignored it and went with a middle option. I texted Gloria later that night and said don't worry about it and I would still go to hers the next night. Was still a little fuming, but Praveen at least put some of the fire out.

The next day I went for a brunch with Sylvia, from Manuel's university and then met a bunch of her friends for coffee. Was really struggling with the Bucaramanga accent after you get used to the clarity of Bogota. The league cup results came in and I believe this was the day that we beat Doncaster 5-1 or maybe it was the other 5-1 win we had over Preston (I think it was Preston). Either way we beat two shit teams in the cup. I should go to Ibague apparently. I never did. I have written 'how come children can see through bullshit but not adults.' Very true and a worthy question. I assume it was focused on the fact that children and animals can always tell if someone is a good person or not. Yet most adults are retarded when it comes to that. I went to Gloria's house in the evening and we did a photo shoot with her friends and family. Felt a little awkward there as I was not a close enough member of the family group to really be there. Still some Englishness in me no matter how much I try to kill it. They got one of the nephews to dress up in a Star Wars costume, but I think he was a little uncomfortable with it. Yet his mum insisted on getting him to perform for the cameras. He kept running for his dad though. The other nephew was clearly put out by it, because he had dressed up similar before and now he no longer had attention. I think the neice felt a little out of it as well when she had the cloak taken from her. It was when I noticed how good a person Mariann is. She noticed this and worked on cheering up the younger nephew. I tried to chat with the older one and it lightened their mood a little. I think she will make a great mum and had a great character. That's evident by the way she looks after the kids and the way they respond to her. One of the nicer people I have met. Gloria and all of her friends (with that one exception) are all really good people. It is funny though that when I asked her how many men she knew who were always loyal with their girlfriends her answer was one. Pathetic really and then men of Latin America do treat their women really shitly, even if a fair few of them are perras. I went back home and showed Praveen how to play poker in anticipation of a poker session that never happened.

Did not meet Sylvia for breakfast ion the end and Jennifer did not turn up for lessons. Typical Colombia. Many plans. Many cancellations. They don't know the meaning of keeping appointments here and yet sadly its better than most countries. Fucking hell. Now elbow mans girlfriend is leaning her jaw on my shoulder. I feel like shrugging my shoulders. Spurs beat Preston 5-1 so it was the third round. Another good performance and back to winning ways after two defeats. I have cautious optimism now, nearly 2 months later, but then I was flying with confidence for Spurs. We are still fourth. Soon I will have caught my own tail and then it won't be a problem as I can predict without hindsight. This radio is very stop start. Apparently I spent too much money on food. That's the story of my life so hardly needs mentioning. I went to Usaquen to a blues night (which was really soft rock). We talked about her father and the fact that she never got to say goodbye. That's a really shitty position to be in. She had a rough few months. I tried to persuade her that she should go to Australia to carry on the promise she made to him and to live out his dreams for her. It must be hard not to say goodbye. I rang both of my parents the day after, but I still have only had one relative die. I never got to say anything to them either. Hmm feeling melancholy now. This blog is taking my on a rollercoaster of emotions, because I am compressing 3 months of my life into 2-3 days of writing. Very surreal. Will be interesting reading this back in the future and it should provide many people with a solid insight into what kind of person I am and how I think. I ended up in an expensive taxi via Gloria's house and she had written me a letter than my Spanish was not good enough to read. I speak fine, but really can't read or write. That was uncomfortable as I am not good with sentimentality and I don't like owning possession for the simple freedom of not having to worry about losing them. Yet if it is a momento from someone else you have the added pressure of looking after it on a journey where many things get stolen and lost, because it means so more than the general things you carry with you. After this meal I went to Quiebra Canto as Praveen had summoned me and I had the only good night I have ever had there. I met him and David in the club. David agreed with me that it was full of passport hunting bitches. It is by far the worst place in Bogota for these perras. Daniela from Cali and Diego were there as well. They have a strange relationship. I don't think we ever worked out if they were together or not. Its sort of like a strange brother and sister relationship. Something slightly hinting of incest even though they are not related. Both really nice people. Daniella is quite cute and Diego is a nice guy. I would meet them a few more times in Bogota. We danced strangely (well I did) for all of the night and Alexandra turned up, looking and acting very differently. She would end up hooking up with Greg. I don't know why. He was not a great Yankee and more evidence that the coasts (excepting New York and the Pacific Northwest) suck in comparison to the areas in the middle of the US. Praveen got me to ask a dentist to dance as his Spanish still sucked. Seems odd. The night was good fun as we avoided the other people and then we went back home.

Radio is good, but inconsistent. Bit like Aaron Lennon. I had four hours of sleep and then I went to Jennifer's class on religious wars and the history of Protestantism. I could contribute bits and understood all. Being a specialist historian by nature I could offer many opinions and I was trying to get Carolina or Angelica to articulate them for me. Was a good lesson. Then the four of us went out for coffee. It was a fun discussion on religion and protestantism in particular given half the partcicipants were evangelical and the other half Catholic. We got talking on honesty. Jennifer asked if I trusted Angelica. I said yes. Then her. I said yes. Then Carolina. I said I did not know her enough to make that judgment. Angelica said it was a perfect example of my honesty when most people would just have said yes in order not to be awkward. Carolina and Angelica left and then I went for lunch in the Arabic place with Jennifer. We talked a long time about religion, children, marriage and her church. Was a good lunch and very interesting. Then I came back and taught Praveen some more poker. I was a bit knackered so we did not end up going out that night.

I had brunch with Maria as I had not seen her for a while. We went to the Arabic place again as I think I did four straight lunches in that place. Fernanda cancelled that night for a party so we ended up just going for afternoon drinks in the Zona Rosa. We chatted for a fair bit, but she expected me to pay for the cocktails again. Perras. Damn them they are everywhere so I never bothered meeting her again. I came back and all of our five different options were torpedoed in a blaze of cancellations. Impossible you would think. If you were in England you would be right. So Praveen and me played poker and watched Black Adder. Not the most tradtionally exciting of friday nights.

Spurs annihilated Burnley 5-0 at home. Good result and we were back up and charging up the table. Not far off the leaders at this point. Both Chelski and Villa lost which was even better. Liverpool were really beginning to flag at this point and its looking like them, us, Villa and Man City will be battling for the positions from number 4 down to number 7. Top 3 look safe enough, though only Chelsea look locked on after Van Persie got crushed playing for Holland yesterday. I slept in the afternoon. Not sure why. Had not been doing anything. I don't recall going to a dance show. Ah no it was the one opposite my flat which was a breakbeats and breakdancing competition and not bad. I had been having cravings for Pizza Hut (man I miss Nandos) and so we went all the way up north to have some and then met Angelica M for her birthday in Parque 93. Then we went to Candelario for the night. It was a fun night of dancing until we were moved by the bouncer. Praveen asked why but they speak no English, I asked why and did not understand. Then Angelica M asked why and did not understand. Then they said it was because someone said we smelt of sweat. What utter bollocks. We did not smell at all and it made sense why I had not understood what they had said. Fucking idiots. We were clearly moved because some guys took offense that the girls they were with were watching mine and Praveen's dancing than paying attention to them. Oh well. Praveen wanted to go back but instead we ended up dancing elsewhere. We went back to the flat and Angelica M was scared when two guys approached us, but they were clearly tiny and realised the mismatch and their mistake when they got closer.

England cricket success. I believe this was in their ridiculously good run in the ICC trophy despite being total bollocks. Somerset just missed out on the sunday league title. Does anyone have a gun? There is some fuckwit outside making duck noises and he needs to be put out of his misery. I went to Mariann's house and cooked everyone English breakfast with Colombian ingredients. It bore more of a resemblence to Bandeja de Paisa. Gloria, Mariann and some others had gone to visit her dad's ashes in the morning and some bastard had stolen one of the trees they had planted. Some people have no class. The breakfast went really well in general. Was surprised considering I had to cook eight ingredients. I had picked up a head cold somewhere and Gloria came round for the rest of the afternoon. We did not have loads of time together now so were spending a lot of it together. Praveen had to prepare for his interview for the AISEIC position in Porto Alegre and the week was rounded off in a sad note when Tim told me that our friend Karen had drowned in a boating accident off the coast of Vietnam. They were on a cycling trip around the world to raise money for charity. Where is the karma in that one.