Buenos Dias Colombia, Buenos Dias 32

My birthday was extended by jumping on a plane to Colombia, where, much to my disappointment the coke I ordered with my birthday dinner at the local bus station came black, wet and in a bottle.

I bussed to Medellin, one time hometown of Pablo Escobar ... of drug cartel fame, not to be confused with the Escobar of "execution due to own goal" fame. Fortunately the cartels have been suppressed or moved elsewhere, as has the guerrilla activity, leaving Medellin and surrounds to be enjoyed by locals and the pleasantly small number of tourists. Less famously, but more importantly, Medellin is also the hometown of Catalina, a friend from WA, who together with herextended family made me feel welcome and showed me around the city and region.

The plan was to spend a month in Medellin, establishing a foundation for the spanish which I will develop over the rest of my trip. The mountains, however, were more inviting that the classroom so I signed up for a paragliding course - thereby putting the spanish on hold ... or so I thought. With the main instructor bound for Europe, I was introduced to Antonio the instructor who would take me for the majority of the course: "Hi Antonio, Chris, nice to meet you" ... "Yo no habla inglese" ... huh? ... "no inglese,no ingleeees" ... shite. There is no motivator quite like fear and I was almost scared enough to stop procrastinating and learn spanish.

Each day Antonio and I turned up to the flying site dictionaries in hand hoping I could decipher simple spanish phrases such as "turn left", "brake" and "watch out for that parked car" (or, as the case was, "watch out for the carnival of children armed with scooters, quad bikes, horses and kites that swarm the landing paddock at twilight").

Somehow we managed and I ended up with a paragliding license with no undue damage to legs, cows, children or cars ... although it is fortunate I hate manual labor as my rearranged back may ensure I am limited to desk jobs.

Beauty is currency in Medellin, but the market is flooded - nice for the boys, not so for the gals many of whom resort to not so subtle attempts to be noticed amidst a stunning crowd. One of the consequences is that Colombia's as one of the highest rates of plastic surgury in the world, and going under the knife is cheap ... although I think this is because the majority of girls choose soccer balls as an alternative to silicone. Even the mannequins would make dolly parton blush.

Fortunately my visit coincided with a world cup qualifying fixture - a must win home game for Colombia against Ecuador for which we secured cheap scalped tickets, still a bargain at twice the face value. The cheap tickets planted us perfectly behind the goals with the vocal riff raff. Unfortunately the players weren't as inspired as the crowd for much of the first half leaving me wishing I had bought a Valderama moustache and wig and wondering if I could get killed for watching an own goal. Colombia decided to start playing in the second half though struggled to capitalise. The swell of anticipation and tension compounded until the deadlock was broken in the 82nd minute - a trigger for the crowd to go nuts and a local to make my camera his. Only after grabbing the camera from around my neck did he tell me to hand it over. Without taking the opportunity to discover what he had jammed into my kidneys I gave a falsetto "fuck off", employed the wriggle and run combo taught to me by my mother and returned to my friends losing nothing but gaining a few scratches. The perpetrator seemed content to remain glaring at me with Satan's signature on his face leaving me to watch the remainder of the game shaken, stirred and with the neck of a budgerigar. Colombia scored a second, the party rolled into the streets and somewhere in the ensuing celebrations a grenade exploded killing one and injuring 17. For a short while Colombia felt grittier than I needed it to.

I left Colombia for Bolivia feeling damn lazy after meeting a pack a day smoker cycling from southern Argentina to Alaska. My spanish had developed to the minimalistic form of a morse code message - albeit with none of the efficacy. With Dad's spanish vocabulary stretched at "si" and "pescado", it would be up to Rick to fill in the gaping gaps.

(To try to remain somewhat current, I have skipped a few countries in the blog, ill possibly fill in the gaps over the coming months ... possibly not. If your interested in what happened on the Croatian coast, and why wouldn't you be, time has been found in Dirk and Ben's busy schedules and my empty one to have something posted. See May 30, 2009)