Bogotá, Colombia

Fri 1/22 - Bogotá, Colombia

Wake. Early rise nerd morning. Walk to veggie restaurant. Watch a fixy hipster skid stop show off down a hill before he eats shit. Everyone is cracking up. Feel pretty bad about laughing, but man it was funny. Three course veggie meal. Walk. Candelaria where I'm staying is a cute old historic type area. Walk. Just next to it is where the barrios meet and take off the hills. Trash blown colorless streets. Graffiti absolutely everywhere. Walk. Entire city views between tangled telephone wires and over piles of trash. Walk. I buy a donut bagel looking thing, for it she wants about .60 cents, I know I’m getting ripped off, but whatever. Misunderstanding left me with an entire shopping bag full of bagel donuts for .60 cents. Walk. Walking around eating pastries out of a shopping bag. Return hostel. Free salsa dance class. The loudest most obnoxious American taking up allll the space.

Original plan to meet Frenchy and our cute Cali drug dealer at “party.” In South America though “party” actually means “overpriced club with shitty music.” Walking around sad boy on a Friday looking for a place to drink. The problem being alone and tired and looking to party is you look sad which makes you sad and then no one wants to talk to you and the thought of this makes you sadder until you just sit on a curb pathetically outside a bar full of happy attractive tattooed people and spiral into a hole of sadness. Get a message a midnight. Tinder girl wants me to meet her at a party hostel. It’s a $3 dollar taxi ride though so I do a “she is probably actually ugly and still won’t have sex with me and I’ll just be drinking alone and have to spend a whole nother $3 to go home waaaahhh” thing and then get in a cab.

Party hostel. Entirely Colombian and Argentines. Tinder girl named Jennifer. Friends. Drinks. Pool. Dancing. Cigarettes. Talking. Beers. Dancing. Cigarettes. Talking. Beers. Friend of Jennifer is outside with me talking about how her three favorite things are “coffee, cigarettes, and dick.” There is a small pool of girls, including tinder girl, all piggybacking and expanding on this sentiment until the dudes hovering around are intimidated and unsure about how to get laid. Some Argentinian dude tries to tell me something like “we can go to his house but he’s got the tattooed girl (tinder)” to which I said something like “that’s cool bro but I seriously doubt we are the ones doing the choosing tonight.” The girls are now talking about orgies and the next hour is everyone outside trying to figure out a place to go. My Spanish is not at ‘drunk after party orgy planning’ level so I just sit back and contemplate running while I still have time before I’m stuck in a shitty motel outside the city with a bunch of dudes trying to fuck a few girls. Everyone is walking to taxi and I say “I think I’m going to go” to which an Argentine dude says “why it’s me you and these two girls” to which I say something like “Oh, okay.”

Taxi to “shitty motel.” Shitty motel lobby is actually posh hotel lobby complete with five people in suits helping us. We get a room for the Colombian equivalent of $300. Room has a sauna, hot tub, and not one - but two stripper poles. There’s a dildo magazine and a red light over the bed. The girls are blasting reggaeton and ordering beer, liquor, and condoms from the two poor 3am hotel ladies while me and Argentine are laughing like fourteen year olds trying to figure out how hot tub works. Me and Jennifer are watching her friend and Argentine strip each other against the stripper pole. They take off to the shower. Jennifer is a bit more hesitant so we lay on the single gigantic bed and talk about I don’t remember what for a bit. I enter shower and am spraying Jennifer friend’s pussy with one of two removable shower heads for a bit. Enter hot tub. Jennifer doesn’t like hot water or something. We sit and make bubble hats and clothes for a while. Jennifer and I go into sauna. Jennifer says “you know, I’m not really like her (friend).” To which I say something like “Oh?” To which she asks “Is it okay if we don’t, you know, do anything?” To which I say something like “Oh.” She then starts an uninformed political conversation about Colombia and the United States and I’m doing everything I possibly can to listen and not think about the others having sex in the other room or to stare at her boobs. Eventually we retire to the bedroom, she puts her clothes back on, and we lay down next to the passed out happy naked couple. I don’t have any other choice but, you know, to still try by kissing her eyelashes and shit. Soon her hand is down my pants and we’re back in the sauna fucking against a bunch of hot wooden boards. Return to bed. Pass out.

Sat 1/23

Wake as if I ever really slept. Her and her friend are yelling about nothing and I have my face in her boobs telling her to shut up. Leave hotel room trashed with one or two used condoms laying about - poor, poor sex hotel employees. Breakfast. Finds out I’m vegetarian and asks me if I’m gay. This is the third or fourth time I’ve been asked if I’m gay in South America after having sex with that person. Go to find ATM to pay Argentine my share of the room. Three ATMs don’t work. Bank has suspended card. Coolest Argentine in the entire world with a total “Dude, I don’t care about anything at all right now because I was just banging all night” look on his face says “My treat.” Woooooord. Cab. Pass out at hostel.

Wake up. Hangs with South of Boston Molly I met in Quito. Meet at Mongolian place. Buy a bottle of cheap rum and mix it with fresh juice. Cool punk rock dude owns the place and is playing Dead Kennedy's and Misfits and Hank Williams. Cab to club called Asilo. 80’s synth beats with the shittiest Casio keyboard playing over it. Hipsters are out of control slightly swaying their torsos and heads. Some creepy dude takes out like an entire ziplock bag of Molly and passes it around. Guy asks me to buy him a drink. I say sure and walk out the door with Molly.

Arrive house party. House parties in Colombia are just about the same as ours: fridge full of beer, mystery liquor being passed about. The only difference is people STILL salsa dance everywhere. Molly kicks in, but is pretty light. Cute girl asks me if she can teach me to Salsa and I say “SURE.” Fridge beers. Mystery liquor. Molly and I are collapsed on couch being mostly anti-social because though most people here speak English if you can’t Salsa you basically can’t communicate. I explained earlier to Molly that I respect her too much to fuck her. I’m now drunk leaning on Molly, on Molly, hoping that my collapsed drug induced body weight will somehow convince her to have sex with me. Cab ride to hostel. Pass out.

Sun 1/24

Wake. Too many egg hangover breakfast with Molly. Bro says "down at the square there's a protest cops are looking all Halo and shit it's cool!" So I go. Presidential square. Full of kids in black clothes. Punk bands playing in the center. Circle pit. Signs against corruption, privatization, gods, masters - you know, etc. Speeches after band. "No police, more reggaeton - Colombia lives." Taken back by the amount of collective pride for a culture and country. People are crying. Girls are making out with each other. People give a shit, and the country responds. Wow.

Night. Frenchy Thomas got to town. Is hanging with the girl that sold us MDMA in Cali - Ivonne. Meet up. Buy a bottle of tequila. Finish bottle of tequila. Go to hostel with band jam thing. Couple of dudes with guitars. Ivonne goes up and sings. Very pretty soulish voice. We are loudly hitting on her from across the room. She, in a serious way, says “just know that at the end of the night - the answer is no.” I change my approach from playful hitting on to letting her know just how not special she is. Go to bar that is really just a tienda with a bunch of seats and a cheap jukebox and cheap beer. I ask her what the best way to hit on a girl is. She tells me, drunk and extremely serious, “all you have to make her know that she is the prettiest girl in the world, and that no one is prettier, and she is all yours.” I tell her “that’s depressing” and follow it with “well, there are a lot of people prettier than you, good luck.” Bar closes. Head to my hostel to drink more. Hostel bar closed. Hostel manager says “I know a place.” Hostel gringos follow him.

If there was a generic sketchy red flag bad situation checklist you could print out on the internet, the next thirty minutes would have blacked out the entire page. Late night empty dark streets of Bogota - check. Guy you don’t know moving from plan A to B to C - check. Random dudes coming from the shadows saying “I know where the party is” - check. Shadow dudes fighting over the gringos to bring them to there place - check. I’m drunk yelling “we’re going to die” etc. Arrive some dirty room with pillows and tables. Drugs. We have no part in the drugs. Only beers. Hostel owner explains he was a civil something lawyer in the US and would do cost benefit analysis and recommend to companies like Chucky Cheese “no you don’t need to replace that safety feature it will cost more than us paying the medical bills for the injured kids.” His wife left him. Sex talk with Ivonne. Ivonne says something like “I don’t know why guys give head it doesn’t do anything for women.” I tell her she is pretty but she is dumb. Blah blah blah blah blah pass out.

Mon 1/25

Found out all of my money in my bank account has been stolen by a bunch of American Eagle and Aeropostale charges in Kentucky and I have no more debit card. Figure that out.

Tues 1/26

More bank shit morning. Graffiti walking tour. Two and a half hour tour looking at different pieces around city, history, artists, crews, methods. Talks about how property owners want huge murals on their buildings because it seals the facade of the building, it increases the property value if it’s a known artist, and people won’t scribble a bunch of tags on their shit (so art fucking eveeerryyywhere in this city. Cool.) Subversive political murals and the significance. A story about Justin Beiber doing a piece and crews rushing over to cover it up as soon as he was done. Prettttyyyy cool tour.

Burrito with a million different sauces made of chilies imported from Mexico. Thomas and Ivonne Rum in plaza. Call girl that messaged me on OKCupid. Colombian conceptual artist into radical theory, collectives, that sort of shit named Maria. Drink. Go to fancy jazz bar. Make out a bunch. Go to tienda bar. Make out a bunch more. Suddenly feel sick. Run to bathroom. Can’t find light. Sit on toilet seat which is soaked in piss. No toilet paper. Use bank receipt to wipe my ass and a Colombian dollar to wipe my soaking piss ass. Make out a bunch more. Ruining everyone's salsa putting Top 40's on the seven cent play Jukebox. Shouting to Beyonce while explaining to feminist Maria and her feminist French friend that Beyonce has done more for woman than their permaculture community gardens ever have.

Meet musicians from Jazz jam thing. Party at their house. Taxi chaos. Massive apartment building. Drowning ourselves in rum. Ivonne has been making fun of me for how little I’ve been drinking all night so I’m dumping rum down her throat trying to make her twenty-one year old self puke while she is half collapsed in the corner. Neighbors and security keep knocking on door. Making out more with Maria. Maria’s French friend is getting pissed because she is supposed to be sleeping in Maria’s bed and Maria is totally ignoring her to make out with me. Hit streets. Looking for cab. I’m following them. Maria’s friend is crying. Maria tells me she has to go back with her. And it’s at her parents house. And it’s very far. And I can’t come. Thomas and Ivonne have already gotten in a cab. Maria and French get in cab. I’m left on empty 4am Bogota streets, alone. Finally get cab. Pass out.  

Wed 1/27

Wake. Message on OKC. Respond, even though I’m meeting Darly whose flight is getting in at 6pm. Some girl who just visited Salem, MA and thinks it’s soooo cool that I’m from around there. Invites me to her place in the afternoon. I think... maybe there’s a chance? Turns out “her place” in Spanish just means “her neighborhood.” sit and drink beer and coffee and talk about shit I’m going to forget in about another week. Meet Darly. Renting her friends big nice ass apartment. Went to EDM clubs. Actually sort of had fun dancing to drum and bass shit. Sweet girl boy who like each other shit. Boring for stories. Pass out.

Thurs 1/28

Were supposed to leave to a small climbing town called Suesca today, but Darly had errands to do, which turned into sleeping until 1pm and getting none of her things done. A taxi driver chooses which emogie to send after girlfriend sends him a picture of her eating an apple. More sweet girl boy boring for story shit. Pass out.