Wed 1/13 - Santa Fe, Colombia
Wake up. Heading to old colonial Antigua town called Santa Fe for sober vacation. Taxi driver to bus terminal is talking to us movie style not looking at the road and swerving everywhere. Is blasting and singing along to 90s rock and Phil Collins. Arrive Santa Fe. Super cute cobble stone streets. Colorful brick plastered houses. Monkey Hostel. Taxis don’t know where it is. Walk toward where map says it is. Dirt road. Sit and drink beer at tienda for break. Lady says there is no Monkey hostel. Hitchhike pick up truck. He kicks us out after 100 meters because there is no hostel. Ask mototaxi - say there is no hostel. We still don’t believe local people because the internet can’t be wrong. Few miles later end up where shitty dot on google map is. There is nothing. Wait for death. Mototaxi picks us up and brings us back to town for free. Pass all the locals who we didn’t believe in shame. Find out hostel is seven miles or so in opposite direction. Guh.
Monkey Hostel. Another terrible name for a hostel. Middle of nowhere. Enter. Google “crazy Colombian techno pool party scene” to see what it looks like. Swim. Bat almost eats my head off. Teach gambling. Buy in cute french bartender. Russian dude feeds us shots and weed cigar. I’m high. Stumble around being a weirdo for a second. Pass out.
Thurs 1/14
Wake. Swim. Were going to go to Guatape - lakes town - but decide it’s too nice here and stay. Walk a bit down road. Lady with tienda selling about five things total. We buy eggs and rice and bread and tuna. Get her to sell us the onion and tomato out of her house because we are bad people. Breakfast. I ask the group of pool partying Colombians of we can eat the rest of their rice, of which all ten or so of them have joined the conversation, trying their best to understand what the fuck I’m asking them. French bartender volunteer buys us beers. Three volunteers from the hostel share our weird egg rice tuna soy sauce 1:30pm breakfast.
French bartender girl’s day off. The three of us go into Santa Fe together. Mototaxi ride to big old bridge. Cool or whatever. Back to town. Pizza and a bottle of wine. Cute cleaning girl who joins us. It’s only 7:30pm and there’s nothing to do in this tiny town, so we start drinking. Playing a great high school game brought by Frenchy called “perfect person” where you imagine “could you date the most perfect person, but they… (insert fault here.)” Girls immediately go to small dick. Good sign. Rock bar called shots. Karaoke night. Everyone except the dude who reggae raps is terrible. I lean into bar say hi to some tiny girl next to me. She asks where I’m from. I say United States. She freaks out and hyperventilates. Finally the recognition I deserve. Talking a million miles an hour. Frenchy calls her Pokemon. Guitar circle sing along outside of bar. Tiny red haired girl talking about playing drums. So stoked to be my facebook friend. So many Pokemon.
Return to hostel. Frenchy follows cute cleaning girl home. Rejected. Gets me out of bed. Join French girl by pool who we have been trying to get to swim naked like, all night. She says she would pool but boss is there. Boss leaves. Jumps in pool in all her clothes. Whatever. Lay in hammocks. Seemingly prude French girl then comes in with “So, these guys gave me three pills, I don’t know what they are, I think they are MDMA, should we take them?” To which I said, “Yes,” to which I then said “This is my sober vacation, no” to which I then said “Okay, let’s flip a coin.” Coin flipped. Lands on pill eating. 3:00am. Crack a beer. Eat the pills. Lay back in the hammock.
I ask for stories. French girl tells about her sleep paralysis and how she knows evil because of it. Good way to start. Feeling sort of heavy. Apathetic. Maybe just a pain killer. Take a piss. Shadows are maybe feeling a bit weird. Mostly nothing. French girl is saying she feels weird. I think she is imagining it. I’m a little nauseous. Things are starting to seem a little cartoony. French girl says “the rafters are moving.” I say “welp, we are on acid.” Frenchy girl says “I’ve never been on acid.” I say “well I’m so sorry you have to work at 9am tomorrow.”
In chronological acid order: I’m maniacally laughing. French girl is terrified of me. Go for walk around hostel. Frenchy Thomas joins. Everything is dark. Trucks drive by with moving colors. We realize we are dogs, yell “TRUCK” every time, chase the beautiful trucks. Being dogs we steal people drinks out of the fridge. Thomas and I get naked and jump in the pool. Circle pool making waves in front of my face for, maybe an hour. Realize I’m freezing and am shaking violently. Back in hammock with blanket. Phone music and spin off into acid land. We convince girl to hug us. Hugs are sooooo good. She’s freaked out by us or her or something and goes to bed. Frenchy and I sitting by pool talking about how terrible and beautiful everything is. Explosions in the Sky for sunrise. Everything is now in color. It’s like being able to see for the first time in your life. Rainbow jungle trees and fluorescent birds. Smoking infinite cigarettes. Realize we are alone, and there is a bar. Two dudes on acid + unguarded bar = more free beer. Everything is perfect. Everything is miserable. Everything is Dr. Seuss. Nobody loves us. Both watch an impossible bird fly from wire and grace the pool before returning to wire. The only things I wrote down were “... Or is time higher than I?” and “I'm not enough good to be sad.” Walk over to edge of property. Throwing coconuts at beautiful trees. On or off acid none of this is real. Pass out.
And here's a bunch of pictures I took on acid.
Fri 1/15 - Medellin II, Colombia
Wake up. Everything is dog shit. My face hurts from smiling for six hours. Coffee. I hate everything and everybody except for coffee. Some English guy is asking me stupid fucking questions. Walk to find food. It’s a billion degrees. Can only find eggs and bread. Have to make it and then clean up after myself. Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Give an apathetic goodbye and apology to everyone. Catch bus to Medellin.
Medellin. Sober vacation is now over. Check into new hostel called Garden of Blues. Long nap. Wake up. Take adderall to try to be normal people. Drinking beers. Drinking Colombian favorite Aguardiente out of a two dollar cardboard box while watching a group of dudes do parkor and acrobatics and break dancing and back flips and shit I'll never be able to do thought I tried in college because I'm a piece of shit and just drink and do drugs instead. Go to some dumb bars and clubs. Techno. Drink. Dance. Techno. Force myself to drink. Force myself to dance. Techno. Guhhhhhhh. Fuck. Pass out.
Sat 1/16
I don't remember. I do remember going to some "garage party" that was a bunch of 18 year olds listening to techno and doing cool stuff that i was way too old for. I do remember buying more acid from the sketchiest of chewing gum selling drug dealers. I do remember doing cocaine at a reggeaton club and not wanting to. I do remember spending a lot of money on beer and being arm in arm with some German girl who thought every brown person was discriminating against her tall blonde blue eyes because all the clubs were at capacity. I do remember she didn't have sex with me.
Sun 1/17
Must get the fuck out of Medellin. This fucking city is what every white person I met while traveling is absolutely in love with out of every city in all of South America. And the area they all stay in and love is a shitty expensive American strip mall with a park full of drug dealers and a bunch of other tourists they try to fuck. Really I’m just pissed because apparently after a week experiment of no tinder I realize I can’t get analogue laid in the city where everyone apparently (though they are totally lying, maybe,) gets laid. Going to Guatape. But first we have to sit around and talk to all of our friends we made, one of which knows Sam Russo and Claire, who texted me that she fucked some dude in the shower, until we realize it is too late to leave and we have to get a different hostel because ours is booked. And then we go out with some French Canadian girl and her boyfriend who plays in a pretty tight punk band and drink one beer and pass out.
Mon 1/18 - Guatape, Colombia
Wake early. Crazy Taxi himself drives us to terminal. Bus to Guatape. Guatape is a town of a million connected lakes and islands and an absolutely enormous rock that no one knows how got there that people used to worship. Hostel Kasa Kayam is far and peaceful and full of French hippies. Back to town. Buy fishing equipment to prepare for fishing and worshiping massive God rock on acid tomorrow. Mototaxi to rock. Climb seven hundred stairs. View is butt fuck crazy. Return to hostel. Fight annoying French hippies for kitchen. Pass out.
Tues 1/19
Most beautiful Colombian at breakfast.Real life Disney princess Jasmine face with unreal body. No sense. Trying to look at her and figure out what is going on without her dad seeing. Another world of human. Like seeing the face of God and being too damned to look upon it without turning to salt or something. A moment later Thomas is yelling in his thick French accent at a 9am gum ball machine "why you are not working?? I give you coin you give me ball!" Supplies for camping acid fishing. Hippy tells us he had to cut his dreads off because he "mixed" with another hippy that he knew had lice while giving us about 10 minutes of shitty directions to get to waterfall that's 40 minutes away. Walk up 15 foot cut out dried up river. An hour later we are a third of the way through the directions. Quit at absolutely beautiful pasture. Look for magic mushrooms but only find tiny ones. Find nice guy on horse tending to cattle - coolest job ever. Give up waterfall. Different path. Talk to most gorgeous flowing sun dress older Colombian with goats. Why, God. Dank Dollar fiddy sandwich. Return hostel. Practice popular reggaeton songs on guitar and ukulele. Note - and this is very very important - and I'm very serious about this - if you're gringo and can learn raggeaton acoustic songs and busk in South America you are God and everyone will give you money and places to stay and fuck you. Start a reggaeton cover band with me.
Wed 1/20 - Rio Claro, Colombia
Wake 7am. Bus to some town. Bus some town to Rio Claro. Rio Claro is a fucking bizarrely beautiful river on what we thought was a town. Turns out to be a gated resort. Camping is cheap but to get a room is about $30 per person (which is absurd for down here). Thomas is meeting the cleaning girl he met in Santa Fe. He told her he would pay for her. Didn't realize he would be paying sooo much. Check in. Leave shit. Swim. Meet girl. Swim more. I hike alone way up river looking for a place to camp. Jungle trees. Massive cliffs sandwich river. Rocks of bright white marble sit obscure. Rocks with jagged layered plates rise out of the water. Visible fish meters down cling to the flat emerald rock bed. I jump in and float back down river obviously looking for a place to masturbate.
Meet back up with Thomas and Santa Fe. Beers. Dinner. The vegetarian version of chicken potato and dressingless shredded iceberg lettuce is only potato and dressingless shredded iceberg lettuce. Return hotel. Thomas says something like "hey why don't you just climb over to the next open window and see if there is someone sleeping in there duh." Frenchy is a genius. I'm now laying in bed waiting for a family to check into their room and see me in me mostly naked and probably masturbating again.
Thurs 1/21
Wake in Rio Claro. Sneak back into Frenchy and Santa Fe window. Breakfast. Swim. Bus all day to Bogota. Arrive Hostel Musicology - the cheapest hostel in Bogota. Police out front. Explained police will shut down hostel if one more party. Room smells like a basement. The bar is six eight dirty people under shitty disco lights. This place is perfect! It’s like if the surfside bathroom was a hostel. Drink one beer. A punk couple tells me they knew the Goat Head in Denver. One shitty realistic dude explains to me I can't get into Venezuela because the borders are closed and even if I sneak in they will stop me on the bus a half dozen times to check my passport, and I don't have enough money to bribe that many cops, and I'm bummed about this because I set my tinder location to the nearest Venezuelan city and I've never talked to more gorgeous girls who want me to visit in real life or internet ever. Next time, Venezuela, next time. Pass out.
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