Out of My Mind

Photo: View from Pablo Escobar’s Resto-Bar, Guatapé, Colombia

View from the bar/restaurant at Pablo Escobar's bombed-out finca, Guatape, Antioquia, Colombia

Colombia

Colombia hasn’t been pure bliss. But growing never really is, is it? Growing pains. Colombia has been depression, it’s been anxiety, it’s been guilt, it’s been challenge, and sadness, and dancing, and drunkenness, and smiles and flowers and random greetings and friendly strangers and discomfort physical and mental and emotional and it’s been doubt and affirmation and generosity and richness of spirit and promise and rekindling passions and so much love. It’s been about what matters. It’s been about perspective. It’s been the self, personal, a lot of learning and my limits, the role I play and let others play in my own well-being. It’s been about the future and the past and a lot of the present. It’s been about friends. Other people. Everyone. Humanity. More love.

Love. Broad love in varied forms. Love has been my time here. Love in the form of friends, of helpful strangers, of questions on the street, of será usted por casualidad una reina? of we’re in this together, of let me treat you, of that is a bad decision but I’m not judging you, of I just met you but want you to have this, of thank you so much, of stay with me it’s nothing, of laughter and heart to hearts and health and real food and real dancing and real humanity. Love has been my time here.

Fear…endless fear, around each sharp corner in my mind, fear that would consume and deny and flatten the love. Fear has been my time here. Fear I recognized as what it is, an obstacle. Fear I recognized, eventually, as something that will not pass on its own. Fear that requires some action to eradicate. Fear has been my time here. Fear produced my anxiety that prevented so many positive interactions, negative interactions, interactions. I lament that, regret it, regret the power of fear to stunt growth. Fear whose familiar presence made me angry and guilty. How dare I be afraid here, of the people here, of the city. How dare I be so afraid. Nothing, nothing I could lose is worth as much as the real experience of a city like this. Like the Weepies said, it’s a mean town, but I don’t care, try and steal this. Can’t steal happiness.

I put fear in its place. I feel I did. I countered fear with love. I failed a few times but that’s life and struggle. Fear lost, I am filled with love.

Mad Trizzavel Plans

My birthday #24 is tomorrow, and as such I’ve dedicated this whole week to partying with my friends rather than writing blog entries about all the other cool stuff I’ve been up to. Check it out.

San Gil: Party in the corner store.

Back in Bogotá, dancing with the roommates!

Eatin' good in the neighborhood. Pascual Gaucho from Arca in Usaquen: plátano with chunks of sweet ham, corn, guacamole, cheese. All served with a cerveza michelada.

Dancing with roommates Tiffany and Melissa at InVitro Lounge in Chapinero, Bogotá. Check my sweet pit sweat.

Second amazing Colombian hamburger. They know their stuff here. This one from Burger Market in the Zona Rosa, Bogotá.

Sunday night I’m leaving on the trail to glory… and by trail to glory, I mean a two-week solo trip around Colombia; specifically, I’m going to Manizales, Salamina, Medellín, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Taganga, and Parque Tayrona before returning to Bogotá and flying back to Los Angeles.

I’ll be in Salamina, a small town in the eje cafetera (coffee growing region) for a few days this week for the sole purpose of working on this blog and doing some stuff for my boss (I managed to pick up a pretty sweet remote work sitch during the last month). Expect great things!

Change of Scenery: San Gil

I’m in San Gil, about 7 hours northeast of Bogota. This town only has about 42,000 inhabitants, but it’s quickly becoming a default stop on the backpacker trail due to the fact that it offers about every extreme sport known to man. Also, it’s between 70 and 80 degrees Farenheit year round.

The full moon was Saturday night. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes the few days before the full moon affect me negatively—I am overcome with anxiety and can’t bring myself to leave my room or socialize normally. That happened this week. My host has been on vacation in the States for two weeks, so I’ve spent a lot of time with no one to answer to, alone and missing my boyfriend. So after a couple of days of not leaving the apartment I decided I needed to do something fun.

I’d read about San Gil on various blogs and it sounded like the sunny, fun, not-giant-city kind of place I needed to be. I’ve been avoiding doing things alone because there are many warnings of danger coming from many places, and I don’t know which to believe. It is unfortunately my nature not to take risks, and although this trip is very much about learning to take some risks, I’m not sure risking getting kidnapped is on that list.

So, whatever the risk, real or perceived, I decided to say fuck it and go. It is my belief that the more fear you harbor, the more likely you are to be targeted by karma, so why the hell was I sitting around harboring boatloads of fear when the way back to good karma was to just ignore it and go? Fear is quite the Catch-22.

I woke up Sunday morning in a blaze of positivity and packed my stuff. I took a cab to the bus terminal and hopped a bus for Bucaramanga (stops in San Gil). I spent the 7-hour bus ride listening to music, ahh-ing over the gorgeous hilly farmland views and generally feeling awesome. Also I had two seats to myself. I arrived at El Dorado Hostel without incident and was promptly upgraded to a private room at no extra charge because they hadn’t actually had any dorm beds free even though I’d reserved one. Score!

Due to lack of actual physical movement yesterday, I didn’t sleep very well, but I did wake up bright and early this morning to explore. I found a cafe full of locals and ordered a desayuno santandereano, the typical breakfast meal in this region of Colombia. I read my Harry Potter in Spanish (yes, I am that nerdy) and assured a nice elderly couple that I am indeed sane despite traveling by myself.

Desayuno santandereano: egg soup, juice, coffee, arepa, bread, cheese. Yum.

What I like a lot so far (and I haven’t even done any extreme sports yet) is that the favorite pastime of the sangileños is hanging out in the park. After getting to the hostel around midnight last night I asked the employee, Miguel, if there was anywhere to go have a drink. He said no, that my best bet was going down to the park. Right on! …I didn’t go, but tonight I will.

San Gil, Colombia

Tomorrow the plan is to do a horseback riding trek to a sugar cane plantation. Wednesday the plan is to go rafting. Time to shake myself (quite literally) out of this stupid anxiety-ridden funk.

Cali, Colombia: New Friends and All the Sun You Can Handle

Colombia has been treating me well so far. Today is day 18 of the 56 days I will spend here and I feel like time has flown, I’ve been so busy.

Rush hour in Chapinero, Bogota.

My arrival in the country went smoothly. I caught up with my (fantastic, amazing, generous) friend and host Lauren, who I haven’t seen since 2007 when we studied in Buenos Aires together.

My friend and host Lauren. She rocks.

Four days later I was on my first 12-hour bus ride to the city of Cali with my new friend Andrea, who I met via Couchsurfing about a week before both of us were to arrive in the country.

Me and Andrea in Bogota with our buddy Jarra de Cerveza

We spent two days in Cali’s Barrio del Sur at her aunt Lida’s house enjoying home-cooked meals of lentil, potato and yucca soup, rice, meat, delicious beet salad and arepas, which are like corn pancakes and are a staple of the Colombian diet.

Vegan in Colombia: quite possible. And delicious.

Lida's front porch. Excellent reading spot! The open-air architecture style in Cali and on the coast was beautiful.

Andrea’s uncle and cousin took us to see the San Antonio neighborhood of Cali, which is where the town was founded and where the original chapel still stands. There wasn’t much else to do, however, as the hot weather seemed to have driven everyone inside, even the vendors who would normally be selling artisanal wares on the street.

Cali's Capilla

Cali, Colombia

Not a terrible view.

Cali sandal makers. Very impressive, and they were about the only people out in the heat!

We stopped for a cholado, which resembles a snow cone with a ton of tropical fruit inside and topped with white cheese and something called lechera, which might just be sweetened condensed milk. Yum.

Enjoying a refreshing cholado in hot, hot Cali

Following the rather quiet Cali visit was our trip to Ladrilleros. After three shower-free days in overwhelming humidity, insane rainstorms, and clothing options ranging from damp to damp and smelly, we were more than ready to head back to the relative comfort of the city. It took me about 20 hours to get from the island back to Bogota, but luckily I slept through most of the overnight bus ride from Cali.

Get us off this sticky island!

I am super happy to have met a travel partner as cool as Andrea by chance. I’ve upped my Couchsurfing game as a consequence. I already knew CS was a great resource to find out about things to do and meetups in different cities, but it’s become something of a life saver for me, since during the last week I’ve been alone in Bogota with precious few people to hang out with. So far, my impression is that generally, Couchsurfers are a pretty flippin’ cool bunch, and I can’t wait to make some more connections.

Photo: Big World

Me having a stroll on the beach in Ladrilleros, Colombia

Jungle Rumba: Ladrilleros, Colombia

A Coco Loco is half a coconut, drained and refilled with a mind-boggling assortment of liquors. On the beach in the tiny island town of Ladrilleros, Colombia, they go for roughly $8 each. My travel buddy Andrea and I were drawn to Ladrilleros by descriptions of black sand beaches, abundant whale sightings and rum-filled coconuts; but alas, Cocos Locos were not in the books for us—instead, we managed to end up stuck on the island without food or accommodation and a total of $6 between the two of us.

Las Cabanas Yulethsy...

Not a terrible place to spend the night

Yup. We spent the first night luxuriating in a private cabana a short walk from the beach, drinking beers and reading in our hammock. Soon, however, we realized that the place was too cool to leave after the planned day and a half. A friend we’d made around a beach bonfire shortly after arriving on the island told us about a house in the middle of the jungle where we could stay for less than half the price of our cabana.

The beach at Ladrilleros

Mar y Monte jungle house, with cats

Great decision: the owner of Mar y Monte house, Hector, is an ex-philosophy professor from Bogotá. Three years ago, after a near-fatal heart attack, he quit his job to move to the jungle and start work on the novel he’d always meant to write but never got around to. To make ends meet, he hosts travelers (and about eight semi-feral cats) in his two-story, open-air wooden jungle house. Hector, aside from being an incredibly sweet and intelligent person, turned out to be a great friend as well. He was full of interesting stories about the region that he’d learned from the inhabitants of the island, the overwhelming majority of whom are descendents of the African slaves brought to the region during colonial times.

Apart from Hector, two other people stayed at the house: Yulian and Darwin. Yulian, a native of nearby Buenaventura, is studying to be an architect and recently moved away from home for the first time. He’s been in Ladrilleros for about a month trying to find out what life is all about. Yulian helped me and Andrea out without us asking, and he refused to accept anything in return. His generosity and sweetness were overshadowed only by his intense way of speaking, which included so much slang that we understood very little of what he said. I did learn a few good jergas bonaventurenses from him, though.

We got a bed, but you get the idea.

Darwin, part-time eco-tour guide and part-time garden pruner, is from Cali, about three hours east of Buenaventura. He was the first person to approach me and Andrea after we arrived, to invite us to the beach bonfire. Darwin, who for some reason is nicknamed Pollo/Chicken—not to be confused with his rap name, FlowHumo—facilitated our exploration of the jungle. He took us to a tiny hidden cove below the house and later rented a boat to row through the manglares (mangroves) in order to bring us to the nearby piscinas naturales, natural swimming pools.

Darwin leads us to the dock

The docks at Ladrilleros

Manglares. Me and Andrea ready to go swimming. Mosquito bitten!

Swimming in the piscinas

Darwin was also fascinated by American rap and I had to repeatedly disappoint him with my spotty knowledge of Nelly and Ja Rule lyrics, while he in turn freestyled in Spanish and introduced Andrea and myself to viche, an artesanal bootleggy sugar cane liquor made by the natives on the Pacific coastal region of Colombia. According to Hector: “If the bottle’s got a label, it ain’t viche.” Viche, to say it plainly, is delicious. Hector loved telling us about it—apparently viche’s unique characteristic is that a person inebriated by viche retains consciousness of what he or she does and says, regardless of the amount imbibed. As a result, someone having drunk a shitload of viche tends to end up stumbling around “like someone herding chickens” and remembering it the next morning. Indeed, countless viche victims have amanecer-ed to crystal-clear memories of the previous night’s (mis)adventures, no matter how shameful or ridiculous they were. At this point I asked him if he was sure this mental clarity is a good thing. Personally, I’m glad I stop remembering certain nights beyond a certain point of inebriation. Anyone else with me on this?

So, the first night in the open-air jungle hut, the five of us had a party (local parlance: “vamos a rumbear!”) with viche, rum, and an interesting meal consisting mostly of pasta and rice. (Yeah, we’re poor, but at least we know where our nutritional priorities lie!) There was some ridiculous American rap music and some less ridiculous Colombian music. There was salsa-ing and rumba-ing and lots of uproarious laughter. At one point we all just ran outside to dance in the tropical rain. I think for me, though, the best part of the night was reaching a point where I began to think in Spanish and didn’t have to concentrate to speak or understand it. That’s the first time (hopefully of many) that that’s happened during my trip, and definitely made me feel as though I was accomplishing something besides getting wasted with a bunch of people I just met.

A little rumba. Andrea, Yulian, me (the red one), Hector.

Dinner party at Mar y Monte. Andrea, Darwin and me. Viche activated.

We’d planned on leaving the next afternoon, but due to stormy weather no mainland-bound boats were leaving the island that day, and we found ourselves standing stranded at the moto-taxi station in Ladrilleros, disheartened and a little worried. Our new friends were our only hope. But of course, Yulian appeared almost immediately. He had half expected us to come back due to weather. He gauged the situation, pooled his money with ours and made it clear to us that we were all in it together. We traipsed through the mud and jungle back to Hector’s place to figure things out. The final deal: ten thousand pesos ($6) and Yulian’s super nice mosquito net in exchange for three beds that night.

Next morning Andrea and I made it safely back to Buenaventura with its blessed cash machines, but not before Yulian surprised us by buying us a delicious coconut, complete with two straws. Not quite a Coco Loco, but the kindness and generosity of spirit shown to us were more than enough to complete the picture.

Finally got our Coco

Summer Snows: Mammoth Lakes

A couple of weeks ago I tagged along on my boyfriend’s family vacation—Genghis’s brother Wilder lives in Mammoth Lakes, California, not far from Yosemite National Park, and his parents flew there from Minneapolis for the Fourth of July. Or, more accurately, his mom flew there, while his dad flew to San Francisco and drove himself, Genghis, me, and Coffee Bean to Mammoth.

Me and Bean took the backseat to G's wild driving

The drive is five hours through gold-rush country. It was neat as hell (despite me screwing up the drive with bad directions) because I’d just finished a book about women in the gold rush, and here we were driving through tiny towns that were founded as lawless miner camps before California even became a state, around 1850.

Sonora Pass, about halfway to Mammoth

The rolling yellow hills interrupted by the occasional oak tree disappearing behind us as the sun set, driving toward the forested mountains, I was in awe of the fact that so much nature still exists untouched in California. A few of the towns looked as though they hadn’t changed much at all in the last 150 years.

Mammoth on the Map

Mammoth Lakes is a beautiful town, but not because of anything man-made. It lies nestled in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains at about 9,000 feet above sea level and for most of the year has a 20-foot pile of snow on it. It’s a skiing and snowboarding hub right next to Yosemite National Park. In the summer you can hike, bike, fish, boat, raft, soak in natural hot springs, and generally enjoy the (surprisingly strong) sunlight and hot weather. Oh, and unlike most of the country, there’s no open container law, so you can stroll around town sipping on your alcoholic beverage of choice, something of which we took ample advantage.

I jumped on Genghis's Bud wagon for the trip

Besides hanging out drinking, playing pool, and barbecuing at the cushy residence halls where we stayed, we also made plenty of outings into town and the mountains beyond. We woke up before sunrise to go trout fishing at Lake George.

Sunrise from home base

Don't gape too long, fish are waitin'! Lake Mary.

My truchitas. They were so tasty.

Wilder took us off-roading in his Pathfinder on the way to another lake, but the road became so treacherous that we turned back. It was a good photo op, though. Check out the tiny truck in the right bottom corner.

Halfway up a mountain, not too psyched to go back down

We went hiking from Devil’s Postpile to Rainbow Falls.

Rainbow Falls. Yes, there were two rainbows. Missing: Unicorn.

Then, on our last night in Mammoth, three of us couples went to a natural hot spring in the middle of nowhere (on which someone had installed a temperature regulator, AWESOME) and gazed at the ridiculous blanket of stars.

Think night. Think fungus-enhanced. Think stars.

I had a fun time, and lots more happened that I haven’t described here—good and bad. This vacation came at a somewhat stressful time for more than one person involved, myself included. There was drama that I participated in and helped create and this tainted the whole trip for me. The scenery was gorgeous and the people were generous and friendly (Genghis’s father and our lovely hostess Cat, in particular, were amazing), yet I had trouble enjoying myself because I was too busy worrying and feeling ashamed of myself.

The trip was, more than anything, a reminder of just how much what’s going on in one’s head and heart affects and influences the events and interactions in one’s life. It was a reminder for me of just how far I’ve come not only in the last few months, but the last few years—and it was shameful to be back there for a moment, listening to fear and anxiety instead of love and rationality. I arrived back home to Fourth of July fireworks and a feeling of gratitude for my promising future, because the one thing I always know is that it will get better. Sometimes we need a humbling experience as a lesson, a point of reference to look back on even as we keep moving forward.

That said, I sure am excited to go back to Mammoth when the planets are aligned in my favor!

Post Datum: Things I learned or was reminded of in Mammoth

1. I need to learn to trust people when they are driving
2. I can’t handle any combination of cheap wine/liquor/beer/sugar, esp. under stress
3. I liked learning pool by the actual rules (a better way to measure skill than “slop pool”)
4. I need new female friends, ones who are loyal and like-minded
5. Early rising is good on more than one level.

5 Goals for My South-American Summer

1. Act Without Fear

Too often it happens that in times of transition I set goals for myself and fall sadly short of achieving them. The main culprit? Fear. I let fear and insecurity prevent me from doing what I know makes me happy.

I’m aware of it this time—so there is no excuse. I’m tackling this issue head-on. If I say I’m going to hang out on the marina in Santa Marta and ask people for boat lessons, I’m going to do it no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. This is how, to sound cliche, character is built, and how people broaden their horizons.

I know several people (only several, not many) who are comfortable in their skin no matter what situation life puts them in. I strive to be one of these people eventually. And oddly enough, the saying “Fake it till you make it” …works.

2. Think Ahead & Beyond

Don’t get caught in the moment… well, do, but not too much. Remember where I come from and where I’m headed, and make this trip count in that storyline. Make it worth something. Make it work for me, work toward my ultimate goals.

In Argentina I had trouble with this one. Only a few weeks after arriving I decided I couldn’t take eight months of a foreign country and slashed my trip length in half. Bad decision—the weeks before I left I hated myself for it, wanting nothing more than to stay.

This trip, I will be wary of the converse, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to want to stay longer than two months. However, I will need to keep in mind that I have plans and responsibilities here, and should return to begin planning my next move.

3. Live Minimally & True to Myself

It’s fun to try to fit in with the locals. It’s also tempting to recreate a semblance of a comfort zone in a foreign situation. Both these things can be achieved through consumption. I will avoid doing both of these.

Tying into one of the first declarations I made on this blog about the virtue of industry, I need to work to stay true to who I know I am and want to be, despite outside influences and pressures, whether real or perceived. Like much of the substance of my goals for this summer, it involves learning to be comfortable as myself wherever I am.

Instead, I will forge new friendships, gain valuable new experiences, and otherwise act as an agent for my own interests. I will keep those with whom these sentiments resonate around, and will shed those with whom they clash without regret. It’s all working toward living life to the fullest, which I define as the least worry, the least unnecessary responsibility, the least assumption and judgment toward others. And along with this, the fewest possessions possible. I am bringing my flute, though.

4. Sail

Helloooo—I can’t rely on my boyfriend to teach me everything about boats. Why not make some new friends in the quest for learning? Hence my plan to hang out in Santa Marta soliciting sailing lessons in exchange for language or labor. It would be super helpful to know how to say things like “tack” and “jibe” in Spanish, eh?

5. Develop Spiritually

Okay, this goal really ties into all of the others in some way, but it is also the cornerstone of the trip. This is why I bought the plane ticket back in February—to figure out why I’m here, what I want to do with my life, to become who I truly am, devoid of social conditioning. It will also probably involve some hallucinogenic drugs. Hooray!

And I have no doubt that the above goals will help me achieve this last.

June: It’s Summertime, Baby

So, I realized a few days ago that I haven’t posted on my site in weeks! Not a great thing to do when trying to start a blog. But I have a pretty good excuse, mainly involving me not being on the computer much and also spending loads of time out and about, trying to make ends meet. And not taking photos, dammit.

Anyway, let me get to the first of my June adventures:

My boyfriend’s birthday was May 31. I rented a car and ran errands with him all day. Boring, but it’s what he wanted to do, so we did. At 4pm, errands accomplished, we decided on a whim to drive to Santa Cruz, a surf town about an hour and a half south of the Bay.

Highway 1 down the California coast

The drive was GORGEOUS. If you’ve ever seen or been to Big Sur, that scenery abounds basically the whole way: cliffs and ocean to the west, farmland and green hills to the east. For the most part, it’s all totally uninhabited, which seems impossible for a place so close to San Francisco. Plus, we went the hour before sunset, which is easily the best time to be driving along the west coast of anywhere.

We stopped at Half-Moon Bay, maybe half of the way to Santa Cruz, for a beer and looked at the boats. Half-Moon Bay has a quiet little marina with a brewery and seemingly, very few people. It was lovely.

Another view of Highway 1

Neither of us had ever been to Santa Cruz, so before we left, we researched a bit of what to do online. Genghis RANDOMLY had a new Facebook message from a childhood friend of his wishing him happy birthday, asking how he was, and oh, he lives in Santa Cruz now, maybe they could meet up sometime?

Um, what?!?! Just a ridiculous coincidence. These guys are from Minnesota, hadn’t spoken in years, and the minute we start planning our Santa Cruz jaunt, we find a friend there.

This awesome coincidence was compounded when we arrived at his friend Dave’s house, and Dave’s grandparents were visiting . . . his grandparents, who had been my boyfriend’s neighbors during his whole childhood.

So I spent a couple hours watching the little reunion and listening to the reminiscing, laughing at “how big” Genghis has apparently gotten. Then Dave took us to the bar, which was much more laid back than San Francisco or even Oakland (!) bars, played great music, allowed smoking inside (a huge plus for Genghis) and had both pool AND darts. Basically the Santa Cruz go-to. It’s called Double Oh Seven apparently. Ha.

Dave was nice enough to buy us a ton of beers then let us crash on his couch. I drove us back to Oakland at 6am next morning and slept all day. A day of obnoxious errands made up for with a great coastal adventure. Thank goodness for City CarShare!