Barranquilla & Santa Marta, Colombia (Carnaval)

Sat 2/6 - Barranquilla, Colombia - Carnaval

Wake up on the bus a crack of dawn to two old Colombians talking and being loud sacks of shit. Arrive Barranquilla. Some dumb Swedish chick splits a cab with us but then tells us she doesn’t know where she is going so we drive around forever while all I can think is how I’d fuck a dog for breakfast. I don’t know how people like her have stayed alive this long just somehow expecting other people to figure out their shit for them. Arrive couchsurfing house. Swank big house with a bunch of people staying. Host is nice ass dude named Enrique who can get us directions, schedules, and drugs. Meet some German girls and another ham sandwich of a whiny shit American girl. Tired from bus so convince them all to miss the first parade the sounds like a cluster fuck. Finally eat. Rest. Led around by a local dude and shown the street parties. Street party one: Carnavalidad. Little stage with circus acts. Music on another stage. People packed for blocks. Dance with some cute girl but mostly gay dudes. Take out my phone like an idiot to meet some Tinder girl. As soon as I meet her I decide I don’t want to deal with this shit and leave her. Drink. More friends join our group. For some reason go to a club. No one is there. Drink anyway. Street party two: Tuya. General chaos. Everyone is wasted. Trash blowing in people's mouths. Meet some girl. Gospel soul singer from England. Talk of going to the beach with her. Go to park instead. Park is just median. Still drink on it. 5am. Everything is creepy. Taxi home. Pass out.

Sun 2/7

Wake up to fuck face Frenchy Thomas kicking me at 9am for breakfast. Instead of getting breakfast just gets into German girls bed and touches her boobs. Going to parade and then beach. Colombian tour guide gets us with Colombian time and shows up three hours late. Still catch parade. People decked in colorful costumes dancing, singing and celebrating their country. Little kids spraying people in the eyes with foam bottles. Lots of military. Back to house. Sit with Germans and real talk with Germans and Thomas about life and love. Go to street party. Street party one: Small neighborhood party. Brass band sets up outside of some shop and old and young clot the intersection with dancing. Colombian grandmas shaking their asses while drinking a beer in the middle of the street is the proof that the first world is lame. Street party two: Some club zone that sucked. Everyone is tired, except me. Go back to house. Buy bottle of rum first. Drink rum at house. Annoy Germans with Black Magic and Snaps games for like three hours. Germans hate that shit. 5am. Pass out.

I'm so terrible at remembering to take pictures

Mon 2/8

Wake up 9am. Zombie fucked mode. Plan to sneak into pool around noon. Girl we met who wanted to go to beach messages me. She is supposed to come at 1pm. Buy a bunch of beers for pool. Hours pass and I’m going fucking crazy waiting for mother fuckers. Ends up coming at 4pm. End up drinking all the beers before she gets there. Everyone is on Colombian time. She shows up. Everyone is too drunk and high to go to pool. I go to pool with girl. She thinks it is so crazy we are sneaking into a pool. I think it’s boring that she thinks it’s so cool. 

Return house. House is having party with nine DJs from 10pm to 10am. Fuck. First we go to street party. Head out with gaggle of French people. Dancing. Drinking. Pizza. Games to fuck with strangers. We are all blatantly hitting on a beer girl. Return house. House is packed with people. Half foreign, half rich attractive Colombians. Loud ass techno in the back yard. Pretty colors projected. Find MDMA immediately. Pressed UPS pills (I’ve only heard of these until now.) Eat half. Pretty sure it was mixed with a downer. Feeling crazy good but super slow and tired. Not possible to talk to people without being a weirdo. Meh. But swimming in the air with the sound. Hours pass of air swimming. Watching creepy dudes dance with girls, the girls clearly hating it, and then making out with them and hour later. Colombia is weird. Sun is coming up. Drugs wear off enough for me to speak. Decide who cares and it’s probably a good idea to just start talking to the girls in order of prettiest. Prettiest. Says a few things. Nice enough. Then just gets up and leaves. Next prettiest. Start talking about New York and fashion design. Seriously no less than half of girls I hook up with outside of the US are in fashion design… Says she loves the people of NYC. I immediately tell her they are all assholes. Luckily this goes over well. She tells me she doesn’t like Colombia. I tell her all the beautiful things about her country and she should be proud and because of the drugs I am on am literally stopping myself from crying. Trade talk some more bullshit. She tells me to come with her and her friends in a cab. I oblige.

Arrive rich fancy ass colonial marble apartment 8am. Four dudes. Two girls. Loud ass reggaeton. Cocaine is passed around in constant rotation. A huge bottle of Aguardiente is following. The girl I’m with - Adriana - is wearing a strap top and her boobs keep falling out and doesn’t seem to care. Girls are dancing. Dudes are dancing with girls. Dudes are touching girls. Maybe one of these guys is Adriana’s boyfriend? Maybe all these guys are Adriana’s boyfriend? Maybe grinding and touching your almost topless friends is just a Colombian thing? I’m dancing with Adriana. She is watching herself in a mirror and I’m dancing around her like one of those apathetic rap videos where the ugly dude is just rocking his crotch back and forth while checking out the hot girl who is just there to look hot - while also on ecstasy. This goes on for quite a while until finally Adriana is sort of in a collapsed ball against the couch and I’m supporting her head. I tell her to sit up so I can help her lay on the couch. Instead she takes me onto the couch and starts making out with me and making me touch her boobs and telling me she loves me. The dudes left but are back so we go to a walk in closet and she repeats every move and line and sounds and facial expression from every porn I’ve ever seen including licking her lips on her knees while pulling down my pants. Suddenly mid fucking there is a knock on the door and we are scrambling to put on clothes because someone, I don’t understand who, is here, and clearly they will not be happy. Some butch lady walks in. Adriana is not happy. Within the minutes her tension has turned into vicious rage and she is screaming and punching the lady. The dudes are holding them back while I am just sitting on the couch, 11am, drunk, high on cocaine and ecstasy, mouth wide open, trying to understand what the fuck anyone is saying, while also trying to figure out what a random gringos role is at party in Colombia that was just brought back to fuck. I did nothing for an hour but try to console her for a short time, with no idea how to console, because I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going or even who this person was, except for something about a lost cell phone.

Head outside of real life Jerry Springer scene to wait for a cab under a noon sun to go back to her place. Yes. Instead one of the dudes come along and we go to his place. No. His place is a tall luxury apartment complex and his floor is covered in dog piss and shit. She is crying again and talking to this dude about I don’t know what. I lay on the couch. Rest feels sooo good. Now his giant unstoppable poodle thing is furiously trying to fuck me so I can’t rest. I finally go up to her and say “So… I’m not sure what I should do. Maybe I should go home?” To which she replies, in tears, “Don’t you have a heart?” To which I as quickly and as best I possibly can defuse the situation of a crazy girl turning on you - to which I have some skills about by now. Finally we head to this dudes other room. More porn and probably “I’ve got something to prove to my dad” banging. Some Colombian bodies are unreal. I think her tits are fake, so literally as well. Pass out.

Tues 2/9

Wake up 6pm. The girl who told me she loves me and asked me if I have heart is gone with not even a note. I don’t have her contact. I’m not even totally sure of her first name at this point. I wait around in some stranger's bed I don’t know and try to figure out what to do for a while. Maybe she is just getting us breakfast? I’m really stupid. I decide to wake friend up to try to get her number. He rolls over, says no, and falls back asleep, because the feeling I get is that he hates me. I get ooouuut. I take a cab back to the house and lay around like a shitty zombie for the rest of the night. I get her number from a friend who I forgot I gave her number to. Message her. She is nice enough. Ask if she wants to hang again - half because I’d love a bed to sleep in and not a floor. No answer. Never talk again. Pass out.

Wed 2/10 - Santa Marta, Colombia

One of the French guys got the incredibly attractive girls Facebook that we harassed for beer. The dating world outside of my alt punk hipster friends that I’ve been raised in and known forever will never cease to completely baffle me in it’s subtle seemingly simple but vastly complex methodology. For a girl to be, or act, so annoyed/upset/disinterested and with enough whittling down by one or a group of guys whether it be casual hitting on or aggressively dancing with or general pestering - I simply do not understand. I can neither empathize or imagine what is going through a girl’s head for her to suddenly think “oh, actually, this drunk guy forcing his dick on my leg is quite charming” when her initial reaction is pure disgust. I feel like Dostoevsky, muddled and pouting in a stool in the corner of a bar, feeling above the rabble of the illusioned all dancing blindly trying to match steps, steps invented by someone or something so vastly distant that no one in the room but me can even point close to the direction of, a thing I can point at because I have the answers. Because I’ve read the feminist manifestos. Because I’ve studied the post-modern theories. Because I’ve had open horizontal consensus based discussions about rape culture. Because I…. ah fuck it. 

Thurs 2/11

Wake up in my private room that only costs four dollars per night, but none of the water works in the building. Cafe computer work for a while. Walk around a while. Take some pictures for a while. Go to a show. Don’t want to talk to anyone anymore. Santa Marta is like if the Spanish empire had a frat party in Miami and instead of anyone cleaning up in the morning people just left the trash to forever blow around into people’s mouths. Pass out.