Tops

Tim´s top performance

the top three nicest things people have done for us
1. even when confronted with utterly cretinous gringos incapable of distinguishing a 1,000 peso note from a 10,000 peso note, shopkeepers in across Colombia have, on occasions too numerous to enumerate, laughed off our pecuniary peculiarities, handing back the money with kind councel.
2. a taxi driver in Bogota picked us up after a suitably terrifying cable car ride to a mountain-top view over the sprawling city, or the patches of it that we could glimpse through thick mist, smog and gaspes of thin air. the taxi driver made an unlikely u-turn after an entirely mouth based gesticulatory exchange with a police man (pointing with one´s hand, is, apparently considered quite rude) and we found ourselves hurtling and swirving round pot holes towards one of the many deeply slanting shanty towns on the city´s eastern edge. tim´s back straightened, his voice tightened as we drove further and further in the opposite direction from that which we had come. after a long-short while of entertaining unsavoury premonitions about our impending destiny, the driver´s circuitous mystery tour miraculously brought us to the upper peaks of La Candelaria, where we were indeed staying. many misunderstandings about the exact location, and a baffling torrent of completely unrelated and incredibly enthusiastic words in english from the driver - ´queen elizabeth´... ´fish & chips´... ´trafalgar square´... ´horse´- later, and we found ourselves walking merrily, if shakily, on our way with the driver insisting on a 2,000 peso reduction of the agreed price of the journey.
3. on the night of the 30th december we wandered out into the hot thick Cartagena evening to have a lovely meal. the lovely meal materialised sporadically, with my drink only arriving after the bill, but who needs yet another pina colada, when you can have an exemplary of Colombian kindness instead. for reasons irrelevant to this category, (perhaps more on this in the next) i needed a pharmacy. i needed one bad. leaving tim to a lone intermitant dining experience, i set out. it was 10.30pm, the old town´s salsa clubs and cobbleside restaurants were just getting going. all the pharmasists had, apparently, gone. i approached various people asking if they new of a late night ´drogueria´. no such thing in this part of town they said. walking frantically further from drinkless dinner, a short grey haired man of about 75 came limping after me. he had an alarmingly scratchy voice which, combined with the intense panting from his eager pursuit, was, well, alarming. undettered by my coolness he grapsed my hot hand in his and explaining that he had heard of my plight and knew of a pharmacy which would be open, lead me, perplexed, mildly anxious, and incredibly grateful straight directly to it. when we arrived, he stopped, kissed my cheek, bowed, and went on his way. what a man.

the top three threats to our bodies
1. 4 hours of sleep snatched in a Bogota-based 4 star hotel (paid for by the airline who cancelled our flight at 2am after a prolonged series of delays) resulted in an impressive array of giant swolen welts all over our bodies. these mini-mountains of interminable itch harrassed us for four subsequent days and nights. potions purchased from two further pharmasists proved useless at lessening the torturous need to scratch or the embarrasingly disgusting network of oozing scabs visible down our legs. a brief amount of internet based research confirmed our fears, no mosquito bite i´ve ever seen looked like this. we´d been singled out as nutritous snacks by a family of famished bedbugs. a word of advice on bedbugs: do not, on any account, undertake a google image search of bedbug bites if you believe you have been bitten by one. stronger advice still, avoid with absolute certainty, the Wikipedia entry on the subject. it left me me certain that i would surely never recover from the bedbug induced psycosis it outlined.
2. 5 days after this near fatal attack, we arrived in Cali, tired and a litte broken. retiring early to bed on the first night, we awoke to find that, whilst we had eschewed the revelry of the famed feria in favour of a restorative sleep, our old friends the Cimex lectularius had again found it´s way to my body for a night time fiesta and feast of it´s own. through some innately doomed deliciousness of my blood, i had again been savaged by bedbugs, whilst tim´s skin remained entirely unpunctured. this attack was more ferocious than the first, leaving me scarred in every sense. luckily there have been no psycotic episodes to date. a note to concerned readers: i assure you that i will not bring bedbug bedlam to your lives on my return. we are, for the time being, safe.
3. the worst, however, may still be yet to come... the Lonely Planet entry for Cabo de la vela - a remote Wayuu fishing village in the eastern most tip of Colombia - to which we will shortly travel, has the following advice for visitors to El Faro, a small light-tower on the edge of a rocky promontory: "The view is indeed stunning - just watch out for langosta, massive flying beasts the size of model airplanes, named for their keen resemblance to lobster." eek.

and finally, an update on the more curious components of our diet
two days ago we spotted this entry on a menu: a pizza of chocolate, banana, strawberry and yes, you guessed it cheese. tempted, we opted for the more traditional coca cola rice and chicken.




























































Top of the morning. Breakfast.