My Colomb Column

So get this guys, we’re in South America. We’re almost 2 weeks down in Colombia and thus far have done Cartagena, Santa Marta, San Gil and Medellin. All of these places probably mean as blot to you as they did to me a fortnight ago. I can confirm though that they are all splendid.

Some notes on Columbia so far;

Cold Friggin’ Buses

So the temp in Colombia hasn’t dropped below about 20⁰C for us. Up on the northern coast where we spent our first week we were lucky to get anything below 30⁰C & 100% humidity overnight. PRO TIP: when it’s that hot, ask if your room has A/C prior to booking, as drowning in your own sweat makes for an embarrassing funeral.

You think that's water? — You think that’s water?

So we had a 10 hour overnight shuttle down to San Gil, and obviously bussing around in this sort of climate I popped on a smart pair of rolled up shorts and a fresh singlet to frame the pipes. But I couldn’t help but notice as more people got on that everyone had either a wad of blankets under the arm or were wearing a hoodie and trackie dacks (replete with pit and groinal sweat). Then the bus started.

It’s quite hard to describe the next 10 hours. It was almost an out of body experience – I was constantly shivering and constantly half asleep, so the trip felt as though it went for both 10 minutes and 10 days. As far as getting a celcius reading on what I was dealing with, I licked my finger and held it up to get a gauge but it turned black and fell off.

Spanglish T-Shirts;

The ONLY good thing about being a bloody Gringo English speaker in Colombia – and it’s a small perk – is you get the joy of Spanglish fashion. It’s almost always in the form of a tie-dye top with sparkly English wording, near enough to grammatically correct so that Colombians can’t tell, but wrong/weird enough for us to find it funny. Some examples spelt verbatim;

YOU ARE EXPIRED

PERMANET VACATION

PARENTAL DISCUSSION

YOU CANONLY BE AS GOOD AS YOU TASTE

It’s what I imagine a Frenchy feeling like when he/she walks down the perfume aisle at David Jones.

Where Are The Hot Ones;

Prior to getting here there was ONE THING I knew about the Colombian people. They are smokin’. They’re all perfectly formed, carved from marble, Mister and Miss Universe contestants in the making. I was quite prepared to paper-bag my face on arrival so as not to offend the local Greek Gods and Goddesses.

AS IT TURNS OUT, they’re not all that flash. The fact that they win Miss World every second year is, as far as I can tell, just down to a shitload of luck. Sure, you get your sharper looking cats every now and then, but they are most certainly the exception. And I realise it’s hard for me to call out peeps on hotness when I’m no Rembrandt, but we’re being sold a lie. On the upside it makes you focus on their personality more, which I’m sure would be beautiful if I could understand a fuckin’ word they said.