Ambulando

I did not want to come to Thailand.

In January 2011, after a few misadventures of which I will not discuss here, I was left without job in Barcelona.
Being without job in Barcelona is definitely NOT a traumatic experience.
The company I worked for, gave me a consistent payout, Spanish unemployment benefits would have paid for my expenses for at least 12 months, and my landlord reduced my rent on virtue of my new status.
Cosimo’s bar was only 500 meters away and I did not need to wake me up in the early morning with a healthy body and mind.
Bier and Picon in appropriate serving would not be considered a dangerous drink, and Cosimo’s macerated rum at the end of the night, when only the usual bar flies stoically resisted inside, was a good way to avoid hangover the day after, or at least till the bar was open again.

But men cannot live just with picon and macerated rum, so I invented myself an adventure, of which I wrote in previous posts.
After a few months rambling around Asia, a few job interviews in Europe, a few weeks in Morocco, to stay in exercise, on the 7th of January 2012 I moved finally to Berlin. It was a dark and stormy night.
And temperature was way below zero.

In the last 4 years a lot happened: in order of drama, Cosimo closed his bar, Bea moved to Berlin, I changed another job, other friends left Barcelona too.
Gianmarco, my original flatmate in Barcelona, moved to London, David chose Zurich, Gepi replaced Catalunya with Sardinia (better, a Catalan with a Sardinian), others went back to their home country.
Alessia and Francisco went back to Colombia.

When Bea and I decided to take our yearly holiday in February instead of November, I already started to envision myself on a beach near Cartagena, or on the streets of Bogotà, sipping zumo de tomate de arbol in the morning, and rum in the night, possibly with a cigar, from Cuba, or a few kilometers away from Cartagena, in Providencia, an hammock, a young coconut and a grilled fish at Evaristo’s hut, 45 minutes away from the nearest town, 45 minutes of crazy ride behind a 100cc motorbike, no helmet, possibly no brakes, trying to manage the young driver in front of me (“slooow dooown, pleaaaase!!”) and my huge backpack on my back.
As motorbike driver myself, I make a bad passenger.
Or simply brewing coffee in Salento, Colombia.

I was counting on a South-american trip, after Sri Lanka and Cape Verde.

I had actually to atone for a previous trip to Mexico, good for me, disastrous for Bea, it seems.
We spent three weeks in the South, in buses, no internal flights, Army checkpoints in the middle of Chiapas, an Opinel nr. 8 hidden between Bea’s beauty cream, Maya ruins, beach ruins, huevos rancheros for breakfast, mezcal e chapulines, lucha libre and cuba libre.
I was accused of abuse because I forced my sweet half to cover in three weeks what I had covered, a few (lot of) years ago, more confortably in three months.
Actually in my three months adventure of few years before, I had covered more than just thee south, but there were no reasons against the inflexibility of a “no more travel like that”.
No more Mexican heroes anymore.
That trip was three years ago, and I was thinking I already had covered my head in ash and made amend of my faults.
Time was ripe again for a come back to a friend country, speaking a language I can understand and, above all, I can swear in, and not just broken English, a country were music is local and not imported reggae played on the Indian Ocean beaches by local wanna-be rasta men. And, most important, a country where I have friends I have not seen for years.

Alessia and Francisco went back to Colombia, and it was time for me to go back to Colombia too.

I was building bricks without straws. The most important straw being Bea.
While we have being discussing about pros and cons about heading east (Thailand and maybe Cambogia) or west (Colombia and maybe Brazil, via Amazon river, from Leticia to Manaus), she was preparing the coup de grace to put an end to my South-American plans.
The coup was blown a few days before booking a flight.
“It is fine, we can do as you wish. If you really want to go to Colombia, let’s go to Colombia, I will not mind”