The last stretch

Breath in.  Breath out.  There are worse tragedies in the world.

But with my goldfish memory capacity, being cameraless in Cabo de la Vela renders my experience to something on par with going to see The Beach in theaters--I will vaguely remember the spectrum of blues from the sea to the sky and the faces of the people I met will be faded and blurry.  And that is sad to me. But I’m trying not to dwell on it.  Anyway it’s against my “religion” of present-mindedness.  

I never actually committed to coming up to Cabo de la Vela, but I mentioned it out loud three times in one day and before I could disclaim, “Just curiosity,” I found the forces of the traveller’s wind blowing me northward--the bus dropped me at a car that took me to a jeep that left me with a band of Australians in a tiny dessert village on the edge of a waveless ocean.  I did’t even have a chance to find an ATM or buy provisions, so I survived in the Colombian Outback on a packet of saltines, a bottle of water, and COP60.000.  Thankfully, one of the Ozzies was dating a Colombian, so at least I had a friend (for some reason I didn’t click with any of the other backpackers).  

To be honest, after a month of beach bumming, my eyes hardly glisten at the sight of watery horizons anymore.  But in spite of sunburns and bug bites, there were still a few moments worth relishing.  That afternoon I dropped my mango (which was my breakfast and lunch) in the sand.  I was not about to throw it away, so I washed it off in the water.  That’s when I decided I never want to eat a mango outside the ocean ever again.  The sticky juice on my face and arms was washed away by they waves.  The perfect combination of sweet and salty.  And there’s just something about eating while standing in water that feels forbiddenly delicious, like brushing your teeth in the shower. 

Later that day when the sun went down, we ate fish with our arms flailing like horses' tails to keep the flies away.  But at night I couldn’t help but feel a heart flutter staring out into the abyss of the night on the edge of the world.  The thumbnail crescent moon gleamed yellow and low.  It must have been hovering just above the ocean, but it was impossible to be sure becuase the blackness of the night rendered the earth in a state reminiscent of the day in creation before God had separated the sky and the waters.  

A paradise, without a doubt.  But I think I’m ready to go home.  I’ve been squeezing my travel toothpaste tube from the lip for several days.  My flip flops are on the brink of disintegrating into dust.  My hair is perpetually salty and my pores are clogged with sunscreen.  Sand grains seem to spill out of every article of clothing.  I miss mirrors and drawers.  

Lucky

I thought it would just be a little white lie, forgotten by the next morning.  But then Sadys went off and recounted the story four times before the night was over and I was smack in the lime light I was trying to avoid.

The problem is Sadys is generous.  Too generous.  There I was, sleeping in her house, eating her food, going out with her friends, and she wouldn’t let me pay for anything.  She’s a flautist with a combined weekly salary from her four jobs barely totaling $30 and she was paying for our taxis, ice cream, concert tickets, everything.  So when she went out to smoke a cigarette at the restaurant where we were drinking mojitos, I called over the waitress to pay the tab in advance, order two more, and instructed her to act as if the couple from the other table had paid for them so that Sadys wouldn’t put up a fight.

But apparently anonymous invitations aren’t common practice in Havana.  Sadys was so amazed that perfect strangers would buy us drinks (and the night before, some British guys had treated us to beers at the hotel where Sadys works), she broke the story to Regla, Yadira, Francie, and her mom as if it were headline news.  And that's when they all decided that I must be some sort of magical good luck charm.  

And, I suppose, to some extent they’re right.   I might not be the good luck charm, but I definitely have had an unfair share of good karma in my life.  I have no other explanation to offer them when they peruse the photos of my camera--Bogota, Santa Marta, Bucaramanga, Rinon del Mar, Cartagena, beaches, waterfalls, parties...  They smile half-heartedly, their eyes stretching out to the tiny screen as if the power of their stare might transform the images into a portal, a magic miror, to transport them somewhere far away.  When I say that I’m not sure where I’m going next when I fly back to Colombia, they nod silently and politely in a way that says, “Must be nice.”  

Luck is the allusive red balloon that floated to my doorstep and lifted me up and away to smell lovely roses and drink lovely wine.  Its shiny roundness forever looming above me--to the resentful envy of those who stand in its shadow. 

I don’t like to flaunt it, but sometimes I am careless.  At Sadys apartment I said something about not having checked my email in several weeks and Sadys said, “Oh, and that’s a long time for you isn’t it?”  Then I remembered how she told me that she once waited four hours for a webpage to open.  Later, I mentioned something about sleeping in airport gates.  Her blank nod reminded me that she has never been in an airport gate. 

As I look out the window of the plane flying over the Caribbean, the worlds is a firey sapphire marble--the horizonless sunset above the clouds that I have seen so many times I almost forget to be breath-taken by its ethereal beauty. 

I think back to the night Sadys and I went to see the sunset from the top floor of the tallest building in Havana, 32 stories up.  Sadys wrote a poem on a napkin about the tranquility of being above all the chaos and gasoline fumes of the streets below.  Thirty-two stories might be as close as she ever gets to the clouds.

She told me that she’s heard of some flautists getting sponsored and chaperoned by the government to travel to Quito for international Cuban musical festivals.  I excitedly told her she should go for it and started asking more questions about when and how and for how long...
Her answers were short and unsure.  Her eyes grew distant and drifted upward above my head, fixated on the invisible red balloon. 

The good, the bad, and the ironic

There seem to be two species of foreigners in Havana--those who love Che Guevara, and those who don’t know who Che Guevara is.  The former come with camera lenses the size of traffic cones and leave with bags full of first edition contraband books.  The latter come with dinner reservations and leave with cigars and tan lines.

I didn’t have a plan, per se, as to which category I would fall into (or really much of a plan at all, considering I bought my tickets only a few days before my arrival).  I wasn’t particularly interested in museums of the revolution, but I wasn’t particularly interested in piña coladas by the pool either.  I just wanted to meet people and see things I’d never seen before (that, and return with my badge of Badass saying that I’d been to Cuba).  But despite the fact that I never intended to be The Tourist nor The Political Commentator, in my mini 8-day trip I ended up dipping my toes a little in both worlds.

The first day walking around town, I felt like a kid in a candy shop.  Ten inch pizza for 50 cents!  Coconut ice cream in a coconut shell for 40 cents!  A whole bag of churros for one dollar!  But after three days of nothing but sugar, oil, and bread, the novelty began to wear off.  I would have renounced pizza for a year in exchange for a fruit or a vegetable.  But in Havana, finding fresh produce is like finding a hamburger in New Delhi.  In fact, unless you’re at a restaurant with stemmed water glasses, you’re pretty much relegated to eating cheese and bread--in the form of a sandwich, or a pizza, or a pizza folded like a sandwich.

Once I rubbed the stardust of salsa dancing and palm trees out of my eyes, I began to notice other undeniable realities of life in Cuba.  Fruit isn’t the only endangered commodity: beef is actually illegal for most people, the “Supermercados” are practically empty--the bottles of rum and vegetable oil cast shadows on the sparse shelves.  Street vendors offer their art in exchange for soap or deodorant and Sadys (my host) had to ask her friend from Spain to bring her bandaids.  When one of the flautists in her quintet mentioned a Brazilian man had visited her, the other four gathered around like teenage girls at a sleepover, “What did he bring you??”  Their hands touched their hearts and the jaws opened dreamily when she told them of perfumes and CDs of portuguese music--products impossible to acquire for a local on the island. 

Cell phone calls are enormously expensive, one text message costs the equivalent of 25 loaves of bread, and the internet is a luxury--not to mention extremely slow.  In order for Says to get in touch with me, she has to give her email password to her sister in Argentina, who sifts through the junk, forwards the important emails to their mom, who then calls Sadys and reads the messages over the phone, and then types up her dictated responses.  

I have no credentials to speak to the political, economic or social merits of communism.  The teenager in me wants to give Cuba a high five for sticking it to the might-means-right war-mongering imperialists.  But in Havana I observed an ironic paradox in Fidel’s game plan.  It must be tricky to maintain a nation founded on the culture of Anti-Man when you become The Man.  There are more images of Che Guevara in Havana than of the Pope in the Vatican, but the people of Cuba seem to be burning for a new revolution.  Now that the Spaniards are out and the Yankees don’t have missiles aimed at their eyeballs, the spirit of rebellion boiling in Cuban blood is aiming its fury at its most present oppressor.  

The propaganda billboards encourage the proletariat to unite against tyranny.  And so the artists flee to Madrid and Buenos Aires and send back satirical hymns of revolution. 

Havana

The classic Latin colonial plaza meets Marty McFly travels back to Hill Valley 1955.  That is Havana.

Yank tank Thunderbirds rumble down the cobblestone streets in front of towering gothic cathedrals.  Salsa music floats through the alleyways while lovebirds stroll hand in hand with chocolate ice cream cones.  Panaderías sit next to old school barber shops.  Big-booty black women walk alongside gangs of Danny Zukos with gelled hair and wife-beater tank tops.  

When I burst out of the salsa club with the flautists (my host and her friends) giggling with our elbows linked, a convertible Chevy Chevelle overflowing with people rolled up, and the guy leaning out asked us where we were going and why we didn’t hop in with them.  The next thing I expected was for everyone to burst out in choreographed dance and song about summer nights.   Instead we went to the boardwalk on the shore and listened to shirtless trovadores on acoustic guitars.  

Every day in front of the statue in the main plaza, the men gather to debate, fifteen at a time, arms waving, fingers jabbing, back hand clapping, forehead slapping, all shouting at the same time.  It looking like a typical South American machista pow wow, but they’re not fighting about soccer or women--they’re talking about baseball. 

The juxtapositions are endless...

Rincon del Mar

Iris' friend's sister's friend knew people who might have possibly been able to find us a place to stay in Rincon del Mar, a fisherman's town a couple hours south of Cartagena.  This opportunity, naturally, was not one to be passed up.  Sixteen dollars, one bus and two motorcycles later, we arrived at the entrance to Paradise... with one slight complication: the gatekeeper didn't want to let us in.  We tried to explain that we weren't just random foreigners, we were practically family with Martin--they guy who knows Claudia, the sister of our friend Eduardo, also known as El Mono (the blonde guy). "You know El Mono, right?" we pleaded. His eyes, a striking white contrast in a black raisin face, narrowed as grey smoke curled slowly upwards from his cigarette, as if it was a great effort to rise below the weight of the hot costal air.  It didn't help that neither of us speaks Co'teño, an S-less spanish spoken by Caribbean Colombians. "Y cómo e' que u'tede' vam pa' ya?" (What business do you have there?) Making ourselves understood was even more challenging.  Every sentence we spoke was met with another unconvinced look from the corner of his eyes and then a repetition of the same question.  Eventually, he warmed up enough to flag down a motorcyclist to take me to Martin who, by an amazing stroke of fortune, was more than happy to receive friends of El Mono, Claudia's brother. Within the hour we had reached heaven--drinking beers and eating fancy cheese, sitting in hammocks and rocking chairs on a marble patio discussing the tragedy of the impending development of the area.  In the stretches of white sand behind the house, dwarf palm trees fluttered in the sea breeze like the eyelashes of a flirtatious woman shyly blinking as if hiding a wonderful secret.  Beyond their shade, a bright aqua iris glistens, seductively, speechlessly luring onlookers into her light.  Emerging on the other side of the trees, the ocean is an illusion.  Is it there?  Or is it a blue-green tear welling up in the bottom of my eye, blinding me to everything below the middle of my vision? Martin, a Spanish-speaking Bill Murray, lounged shirtless on the white cushions of the sofa debating with his significantly younger Colombian lover about Idealism versus Realism.  "I was a dreamer all through my 40s," he said reminiscently, "And then I realized that some things in this life will simply never change."  He shrugged his shoulders.

Parents: Do not read.

The taxi driver didn't know where it was but he said we could ask for directions once we got closer.  But as we rolled slowly down the dark neighborhood avenues of Havana, the streets were as silent as a wax museum--not a soul in sight.

It was one o'clock in the morning and I was fresh off the plane--phoneless, nearly cashless, friendless, and hopelessly lost.  So I read again the address  I had scrawled in my notebook, as if the verbal repetition of the words would magically transport me to their destination, like Dorothy and her red slippers.  "There's no place like Calzado Aires, Numero 60, Apartamento 6."  Again.  Again.

"Tiene que estar por aquí, no?" (It has to be close to here, right?)
He didn't know.

Eventually we found the street.  Numero 50, 52, no-number building, no-number building, 64, 70... We rolled backwards.  I looked out the window into the night, squinting up and down the shadowy concrede edifices.  No numbers.  But it had to be one of those two.  That is, if indeed I had written the correct address.  Which I had.  I was almost positive.  Right?

So I asked the driver to wait for me to go knock, praying that he would value the CUC15 I hadn't paid him more than all of the contents my backpack.  I walked slowly up the cement staircase that enshouded me with an eerie darkness and along a narrow balcony on the side of the building, passing door number 3, 4, 5, and then, the last door with a barely-visible metal number 6 nailed to the frame.

This is the part in the movie when the people in the theater start to shout, "Don't do it!  Go back now!"  I could almost hear the high pitched minor notes on the violin stretching out in climactic suspense.

I knocked on the door.

I immediately stepped back and to the side, so that when I saw the ax in the door crack when it opened I would at least have a head start.  After a few seconds of piercing silence, there was a shuffling inside.  Certainly the assassin readying the silencer on his handgun.  The doorknob clicked.

And there was Sadys--a little sleepy-eyed and nappy-headed, but undoubtedly the 25-year old girl I had been emailing.

After an introductory greeting of apology exchanges--me for arriving so late and her for falling asleep--I extended my hand: "Mucho gusto, soy Kata."  We brought up the backpack from the taxi driver that had miraculously not disappeared and she welcomed me into her markedly non-creepy apartment.

By the next morning, we could have been confused for biracial stepsisters--sipping sugary coffee in the kitchen, swapping ex-boyfriend stories in our PJs.

[Excerpt from journal in Panama Airport, 1/11/12]

I haven't been outside of the country for more than two hours and I already miss Colombia.

The Panama airport is so...America.  The iPads, bathrooms with toilet paper, $7 sandwiches, everyone minding their own business, stores that accept credit cards, people looking busy--completely disconnected from the present world and completely connected to a virtual one, and people of all shapes and sizes--little white kids tugging mini roller suitcases, fit middle-aged men with salt and pepper hair and a baseball cap to match their squeaky sneakers, busty latin women in impossible heels, tattoos, thick-framed glasses, stripy backpacks, English, Japanese, Portuguese...

It was such a human garden salad that not a single head turned for a second glance at my blonde hair.   Talk about culture shock.  I walked to the other side of the airport to spend $5 on a beer I didn't want just on the off chance of attracting some attention.

As I sat there loathing myself for the COP20.000 I had blown on three chocolate bars and a beer--completely violating the eating/spending fast I had vowed to in the morning--I realized my impending re-assimilation to the States might be harder than I thought.

$$

"It's not even about the money," she said defensively, "I just don't like being taken advantage of.  Iris and I were buying fruit from some teenagers on the dusty avenue (and only road) in Rincon del Mar.  She added matter-of-factly, "And that's not a sustainable way to develop a micro economy."

The pineapple, papaya and pomelo cost us COP10.000 ($5) and collectively weighed about ten pounds.  I've spent more on organic vegan granola bars that weighed ten grams. But it was the principle of the matter, because the fruit would have cost a non-Gringa COP6.000.

Even in canvass shoes and dirty t-shirts, our imperialism-laden blonde hair is reflected as two fat dollar signs in the eyes of the local vendors.  The scent of the First World emits from the pores of our white skin resulting in an average markup of about 30% on everything we buy.  Of course to us, the relative cost is usually negligible.  The extra expense of a product could quite easily be recovered by going one full day without buying alcohol or dessert--a taxing, but manageable sacrifice.  Whereas for our providers, the influx of capital we supply might be enough to feed their family for a few days. 

Hence my rolling eyes at Iris' indignation. 

I decided to make a New Years resolution to buy more things from people and for people--in other words shop local and be a better gift giver.**  But I must have jinxed myself by framing my intentions as a "resolution" because not two days later I found myself walking down the cobblestone streets of Cartagena with my default-mode tunnel vision.  The pedestrian alleyway swirled with the characteristic kaleidoscope of mangoes, sun hats, earrings, and arepas.  And I glide through the center, unphased and uninterested, too prideful to fall prey to the tourist scalpers.

How do I justify the distinction?  Why does my moral intuition accept being ripped off by teenage fruit vendors on the beach and not by dread-locked bracelet weavers downtown?  Is it appearance? Context? Circumstances?

In Cartagena, I stayed with a girl I met on a bus.  I felt extremely indebted to her for taking me, practically a complete stranger, into her home, introducing me to her friends, feeding me, and showing me around the city.  On my last night I wanted to get her a present and then take her out to a nice dinner (thinking, "New Years resolution. Be a good gift giver.").  That morning, I was buying some sunscreen and she caught me at the cash register and put a toothbrush on the conveyor belt.  She asked if I would get it and she would pay me back later but I told her I that I would just gift it to her.  I figured it was the least I could do.  Turns out it was a $7 toothbrush (the average toothbrush in that store costing about $0.50).  But she was very thankful. "Don't worry about it," I told her, "I was looking for a gift for you anyway."

After that we went walking downtown and suddenly every third window item was of immense interest to her.  "Wow!  Look at that handbag!" A $100 leather purse.  "Isn't it fabulous?"  From shoe store to bra store to hat store, she would longingly stroke the pretty things and then say with a sigh something about if only she could afford it... I know the act because it is identical to the one I performed for 18 years when I lived with my parents.  When you know someone wants to buy you things, you want to maximize the situation in your benefit, it's logical human nature.  She is not a bad person, but I did feel unease about being manipulated. 

I can't seem to figure out what my subconscious criteria is for when I feel someone "deserves" generosity.

The beggars on the streets, the musicians on the bus, the vendors on the beach, the kind waitress, the taxi driver, the black child, the white charity volunteer...

I don't know.

*Disclaimer: I have no intention of making an international economic policy out of my New Years resolution because, as has been explained to me, that is simply not how the world works and not a good strategy for improving depressed economies.  But I will strive for the personal satisfaction of less time spent in supermarkets. And that is all. 

Cartagena

I was by no means the first Gringa to arrive in Cartagena, awkwardly tottering down dusty streets under the weight of a bulging stripy backpack.  Cartagena is one of Colombia's tourist gems, renowned for its colonial architecture, idyllic beaches, and tenatious street vendors.  Surely the locals are used to seeing grungy blondes in sunglasses wandering around looking lost. 

Then why did I feel like ET deboarding the mothership when I got off the bus? (The women in the fruit stands waiting for my fingertips to start glowing, the men smoking on the corner ready to leave me a trail of empananadas so I would follow them home).  It turns out Cartagena is a zonal city.  

There's a commercial zone in the center where dancers perform in the plaza and sunburned backpackers buy artisnal bracelets.

There's a tourism zone on the beach with 20-story hotels and restaurants with pretty hostesses.

And then there are the barrios.  Our hostel was located in one called El Bosque (and by "hostel" I mean truckers lodging).  Something tells me that the residents of El Bosque aren't so accustomed to international visitors.  And, granted, Iris (my travel buddy) and I weren't exactly inconspicuous outsiders.  My morning jog was a blasphemy against the sacred religion of Slow that dominates coastal culture. At the store on the corner, curvy black women sat with their (from all appearances) unplanned babies eating rice and steak for breakfast while we, the flip-flipping white girls, straw sipped tall glasses of all-natural fruit juices sin azucar.

Despite the strange looks and the excessive flattery (or, to put it less euphemistically, mild verbal harassment in the streets), the costeños certainly live up to their reputation of Caribbean friendliness.  One woman left her kitchen (lit stove and crying baby) to walk barefoot with me for three blocks to show me the direction I needed to go.  The owner of the trucker motel gave us her cell phone number to call if we needed anything.  All the buses slow down for you when you're walking to ask you where you're going and if they can take you.  One driver (who might not have been completely sober) was going for the Guinness Record of passengers.  I was sitting on top of the metal registradora holding on to the pole and there were five people between me and the door.  Everyone was laughing and shouting for more people to get on and one woman started passing around a Gatorade bottle of Aguardiente and a ripe mango.  They all cheered when I took a shot and a big juicy bite of mango.  Whenever someone had to get off, the people pleaded, "No te vayas! (Don't go!)"  

All I could think of was, "This would never happen on a bus in New York."