Food and Drink

It is almost as difficult for me to find suitable food here in Colombia as it was in Spain. Almost. Thankfully I can positively identify chicharrón now, and stay far, far away.

Before coming here, I was expecting my fair share of rice and beans; I love rice and beans, and according to a vegetarian we met a few towns ago--rice and beans together make a complete protein. Awesome.

But did I find rice? Beans? Holy frijoles--no. Occasionally, on ordering a menu del dia (sort of like a blue plate special, but you know, Latin,) one of my sides will be rice. If I am really having a lucky day, there will be beans as well. Taylor will testify to the glee on my face when beans appear at our table. It´s an absurd sight to be sure.


Also included in your menu del dia, which will cost you about $4 USD, is:

-Soup (consistently the most enjoyable part--unless there are beans)

-A ´salad´of iceberg, carrot, and some sort of oil

- A variation on the fried corn fritter or arepa that is so popular in Latin America (yum as well, but honestly the fried food idea gets old quickly)

-Fried platano (like a plaintain or giant banana)

-A portion of chicken or beef or whatever the local delicacy is. In Salento, it was trout. Pink trout. It was rathter tasty, but we passed the trout farm on our hike around Cocora. Farmed trout? In Colombia? No, no thanks.

-Last but not least, the ever-present JUICE. Instead of a nice beer or glass of wine or tall drink of water with a meal, here they drink juice. Always. Gourmet cooking shows feature their final product on a stunning tablescape complete with lit candles, a scenic backdrop, and a tall glass of frothy JUICE. Usually mora, which is some kind of berry with a taste somewhere between raspberry and rhubarb. In addition to being hilarious, it is also delcious. I will miss this juice culture when I return home.


What else is odd about Colombian food and drink? Well, the very first thing I noticed on arrival was how drinks are sold in stores. Milk, water, juice, yogurt--all in bags. Yes, thin plastic bags. Pillow-sized pouches of drinking water, unrefridgerated milk tossed about in boxes dotting the grocery aisles, little colorful packs of juice concentrate, filled almost to bursting. BPA schmee-PA, right?

Currently, we are in Medellin. It´s cool, but lordy is it expensive. Also it seems to be harder to find a menu del dia in a bigger city like this. Thus far, Ive only had a pastel--something like an English pasty, or meat pie. When we get further north to the Carribean coast, I will be trying a lot of ceviche, some Cuban food, and all that lies between. Wish me luck.

Cali

Similar to it´s American cousin, Cali is loud, busy, and HOT. Beyond that, they differ quite substantially. Food, music, acceptable forms of dress... I would say that I don´t ever want to eat another empanada, but that would be a lie. Who doesnt love a good fried meat pie? It is a bit disconcerting, however, to compare the ammount of readily availible (and readily consumed) fried foods with the petite fit bodies of the people of Cali. Must be the dancing.

In the world of salsa dancing, it is said that out of the 3 capitals of salsa, all Cubans can sing, all Puerto Ricans can play an instrument, and all Calieños can dance. Lord can they dance. Thanks to the African polyrhythms that make the basis for all latin music, we gringos have an extremely difficult time adapting our standard 1-2 1-2 time to this. (Taylor totally cheats, being half Mexican. Boy, you should see those hips swivel!) But we still try, much to the amusement of Colombian onlookers.

Thursday night we went to a salsa club, Tin Tin Deo, named after a song of the same title. I have to admit I was rather terrified to go. I was envisioning a high celling over a well lit dance floor, cordoned off by shadowed onlookers--watching, always watching. It turned out to look like a lot of dive bars in Portland- low celling, low lighting, cheap beers, hokey wall decorations, LOUD music. It was perfect.

Friday night we went to a different club, much smaller. So small, in fact, that dancing couples spilled out to cover the sidewalk and even bled into the street. This was far more intimdating, due only to the ample lighting provided by the street lights.

Something I have noticed and admired about Colombians is how they ´party.´ Very rarely will you see someone out at a bar or club here that is so drunk they cannot stand, or getting belligerent and shouting just to convey the height of their merriment. People here don´t have to be drunk to have fun or talk to new people, they are at ease in general, allowing them more time to dance about the floor in dizzying displays of natural talent.

Combine all these things, and you have Cali. Hot, humid, busy and beautiful.

Up next- reports from Salento, the virtues of sports-bras while in transit, and a rundown of food and drink in Colombia.

Kara

Accordions, Exhaust, and--oh yes, FLYING

So Sunday was paragliding--not to be confused with parasailing, skydiving, or ...that other one where you´re basically strapped face down to a giant kite. You know when you see a hawk or a seagull just floating around on the wind currents without flapping a wing once? Picture that, but 2 humans strapped together, under a tissue-thin parachute, held up by strings thinner than shoestrings. All in rainbow colors of course.

To begin this stomach churning episode, we took a 40 minute bus ride up and up and up and up. Up past tobacco feilds, tobacco drying sheds, the odd white brahman bull or two, more drying sheds, and the occaisional unattended toddler. Sometimes overtaking cargo trucks, often times being overtaken ourselves by the odd taxi or one of the hundreds of motorcycles--but always speeding. That´s what they do here--speed like they´ve just escaped from hell, pass without a care, and often times make it on time and without a scratch. (Sometimes they don´t make it, but we won´t get into that, as I have quite a few more bus rides in my future.) All in all, it´s better if you don´t pay attention to the front of the bus or the traffic around you. Just enjoy the view and very odd selection of music the driver has picked for you that day.

Before we finally arrive at our final destination--a grassy knoll on the top of a REAL BIG hill, Taylor turns to me and says, "Are we really doing this? What did we sign up for again?"

So at last we´ve made it to the tippity top of this teenage mountain. There are locals there, as well as a tiny snack shack. Seeing these locals is partly comforting and partly unsettling. Are they here to have fun too? Or are they here to watch the silly touristas like middle-Americans watch Nascar? Are they anticipating a crash?! That--I´ll never know for sure, but the locals did go up for rides. And of course they did so with extreme cool. One pair lands, swaps diaper-butt backpack with their friend, hands them the questionably thin helmet, and BAM takeoff. Just like that. Flying like an eagle, no big deal.

Upon arrival, they ask us our weight. I have no idea what my weight is in kilos, so while we are discussing the finer points of pound to kilo exchange rates, ("Is it times two? Or divided by two? This one time at the Frankfurt airport...") one of the adventura guys comes over and says the heavier people go when the wind is stronger (as the wind buffets our hair, faces, words away into the wind...) Thirty seconds later, a different staff guy comes over and points to me. "You first."

Thankfully I am not afforded the time necessary to consider the implications of this development. He puts a bmx helmet on my head (the bargain kind, without any padding of note,) and slings a large backpack looking contraption over my shoulders, barely tightening the straps.

After a little untangling, (okay, about 7 minutes of stomach churning anticipation,) he attaches himself to my diaper-butt backpack harness and flips the chute up with a few aides, and suddenly, we are floating. We start rising, and are soon a hundred feet above our takeoff point. He lets us rise a little further, then turns us into the wind, swinging us out over the vast expanse of the valley floor, many hundreds of feet below.

Now, at this point my body is in full blown revolt. I am basically hyperventilating to stave off the motion sickness that is threatening to decorate the lush Colombian countryside and fill the Chicamocha canyon with my fruit-and-questionable-pastry breakfast. My guide speaks about as much English as I do Spanish. Our conversation goes a little like this-

Guide-"WoooHOOOOO"

Kara- (Extreme heavy breathing)

Guide- "Crazy fly? You crazy fly?"

Kara- "NO. My stomach..."

Guide- "Ohh. Tu stomacho. Estas bien?"

Kara- (More heavy breathing) "Uhh. Mm. Si. Okay."

Aside from the nausea, death-gripped hands, and fight-or-flight symptoms, it was incredible. Suspended hundreds of feet in the air using only the power of the wind. Spread out below me was the chunky and abundant landscape typical to Colombia. Far off in the distance was the gaping maw of the Chicamocha canyon, and somewhere east of it the Andes hid behind brilliant clouds. In addition to a few other paragliders, we had some birds of prey as company. And, oh yes, the clouds. When you feel like you could actually reach out and touch cloud formation, while floating midair, you are probably pretty high up.

Later, watching from the safety of solid ground, I learned what ´crazy flying´entails--corkscrews toward the forest canopy, g-force turns, and horizontal chute-cuts through the turbulent air. My guide still did, despite my stomacho, maneuver some serious turns in the air whilist singing like a madman. "La-la-LA-lala," some vaguely familiar Italian opera tune... Crazy, crazy man.

Taylor did the corkscrews, but paid for it through the stomach for the next 24 hours. Crazy, crazy chica.

Now don´t get it twisted--it was amazing, beautiful, peaceful and a once in a lifetime experience, but I am unsure if I will ever do it again. Thinking about it still gives my stomach a turn. Pictures coming, someday.

Hasta la proxima vez.

The life and times of an extranjera (who may or may not know how to spell)

So, I made it. No plane crashes, bus pileups or issues of note.

What IS of note however:

1. I am not as tall or as pale as I originally thought I would be (by comparison, that is--I still have yet to procure a tan.)

2. People here are nice--once you start to talk to them.

3. I am a complete jackass for coming here without speaking even rudimentary Spanish.

4. There aren't single people here. EVERYONE is in love; age 9 to 90. And they´re not shy about expressing it either; vocally and... physically.

5. Things that are everywhere: ice cream (helado,) cellphone calls (minutos, a person--13 yearold or 80 yearold, doesn´t matter, has about 5 cellphones chained to their fannypack, and sells calls for 200 pesos) fruit (deserving of its own blog entry entirely... You have no idea the stuff that grows on trees around here,) puppies (mostly well cared for, and friendly,) Austrailians (no idea?) scooters/motorcycles (with a deathwish, you`d assume with the way people drive here, but since everyone is driving like maniacs and expecting all others to do the same, there are surprisingly few crashes) and buses. Oh the buses. Large ones, small ones, nice ones; I have yet to ride a bus with a chicken on it, but I`ve still got 2 months to go...

Currently, I am in San Gil, about 6 (okay, 9) hours outside Bogota. This is where we are staying. I may or may not be paragliding tomorrow... Don´t worry.

More to come.