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.