The Most Magical Place in Colombia

Colombia is the country with the second most holidays in the world (after Argentina), which means at least once a month, sometimes twice, you get a day off. Additionally, these days almost always fall on Fridays or Mondays, so it's always a long weekend. When they don't, they, depending on where you work, often form a puente, which means bridge, as in we're just going to be build a little bridge of days off into the weekend because we have our priorities straight. This happened when I went to school in Spain as well, and I really think the US should get on this train as soon as possible. But with such consumerist phenomena as Black Friday, I'm not sure that's going to happen anytime soon.

Just cross this magical bridge to the weekend!

As you may have picked up from my past complaints, I'm a bit jaded toward Colombia. For all my complaining, I don't hate it. It has some really nice qualities, but I don't really buy into the magic that I think some of my cohorts do. There's frustrations, culture shock, annoyances, mistreatment, and other unpleasant things, and I keep it all in perspective. Complaining about it is a means for me to get it off my chest, to get past the stage of anger and move on to a place where I can start making peace with the reality of the situation. I don't feel any need to sell you on what a wonderful adventure this all is and how great every moment is supposed to be (according to... someone...); I'd much rather include you in on what's happening, of how difficult it can be adapt sometimes and how effortlessly it happens others. In short, I need to be real with you in order to be truthful to myself. After all, worthwhile adventures are often quite difficult, prone to moments of despair, and not always smiles and cholados. Meanwhile, mmmm cholados. More good Colombian food.

In any case, when I took advantage of this past long weekend to visit a city I had heard a lot about as being a magical, relaxing place called Villa de Leyva, I naturally was probably not the most receptive critic, but with Villa de Leyva, I absolutely fell in love! It's the first place I've been to in Colombia that I was just absolutely enthralled by. Villa de Leyva is not, on paper, a very impressive city. It's small, centered most around a main square, and there's little to see or do once you get a few blocks away from said square. But the scenery, the misty mountains, the colonial architecture, the bungalow style hostel I stayed in, the relaxed atmosphere and the extreme friendly, small-town people, were overwhelmingly delightful.

While I was there, I didn't do much. I met two girls in the hostel who were very friendly, Kati from Germany and Lauren from Texas, and a guy from Bogota and his friend who were in town for a film festival. I ended up seeing one film in the festival, Tierra en la lengua, which was good but very, um, independent. The grandfather protagonist, Don Silvio, however, is very interesting, alternating between comical and disgusting, and the changes in his character as his body betrays him are interesting to watch develop. The ending is sudden but fitting.

I also visited some small museums. My two favorite were one that was based around Antoni Nariño, known for translating The Declaration of the Rights of Man among other political and military feats, and the other was an art museum, where I played one of my favorite games in which I use pictures to free write short stories. Here's the one I liked the most of the two or three I wrote, which at the end, without my intending to, seemed to reflect the changes in the way children view their parents as they grow up.

Click to see a large view.

Beyond the festival and museums, I mostly sat in bars, enjoying the atmosphere, reading more of Cien años de soledad. But it was there that I met friendly, interesting people. One was a table of two older ladies who offered to buy me a coffee after I finished a meal, but I declined, and the other was two Colombian women who had come in from Bogota and wanted to know what I was reading with such interest. We talked for a while, and then I finished my canelazo (something like a Colombian hot toddy), and I went on my way. I hiked in the mountains, pausing in a moment of complete hipsterdom to practice my katakana among the trees. In short, I did nothing of any real consequence, and that's exactly what I wanted.

Throughout my time there, I kept thinking it would be the perfect place for a honeymoon or at least the start of one, and I dreamed of having the money to start a business, probably a small store that required little attention, while I stayed in that town, retreating from the world, translating some good literature and occasionally writing a little something of my own. It wouldn't be a bad life at all.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Hey, everyone. I decided to do something different this week. I finished a long translation project that got pretty grueling to do toward the end, and to partly celebrate and to partly remind myself what I like about translation (you know, so I keep doing it), I decided to translate a poem I've wanted to translate for a long time... Sólo por ganas.
It's a poem by San Juan de la Cruz, a mystic Catholic. Though I'm not really Catholic or Christian at all, I've alwayd found this poem touching. I translated it preserving some of the rhyming and keeping to a 5a,8b,5c,5d,8b scheme with a nice rhythm.

Actually, I made one error that I only noticed after I had recorded, so you better bet I'm going to just leave it to the intrepid reader to find rather than rerecord this shit.

No.

For how little time I had, I'm pretty happy with the results. I recorded an audio clip of me reading it if you'd like to hear the rhythm out loud.

La noche oscura del alma De San Juan de la Cruz   Canciones del alma que se goza de haber llegado al alto estado de la perfección, que es la unión con Dios, por el camino de la negación espiritual.	The Dark Night of the Soul By San Juan de la Cruz Translated by Adam Wier Songs of a soul joyful for having reached the highest level of perfection, union with God, through spiritual negation
En una noche escura con ansias en amores inflamada, ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada estando ya mi casa sosegada. A escuras y segura por la secreta escala, disfrazada, ¡oh dichosa ventura!, a escuras y en celada, estando ya mi casa sosegada. En la noche dichosa, en secreto que nadie me veía ni yo miraba cosa sin otra luz y guía sino la que en el corazón ardía. Aquesta me guiaba más cierto que la luz de mediodía adonde me esperaba quien yo bien me sabía en parte donde nadie parecía. ¡Oh noche, que guiaste! ¡Oh noche amable más que el alborada! ¡Oh noche que juntaste Amado con amada, amada en el Amado transformada! En mi pecho florido, que entero para él solo se guardaba allí quedó dormido y yo le regalaba y el ventalle de cedros aire daba. El aire del almena cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía, con su mano serena en mi cuello hería y todos mis sentidos suspendía. Quedéme y olvidéme; el rostro recliné sobre el Amado; cesó todo, y dejéme dejando mi cuidado entre las azucenas olvidado.	On the darkest night With amorous longing inflamed, (O blessed fortune!) I left unnoticed, My house now having been tamed. Darkly yet safely, Slipped down the ladder unespied (oh blessed fortune!) Darkly, cunningly, My house now being pacified. In the blessed night, In secret, completely unseen, And seeing nothing With no light to guide But the one that in my heart gleamed. It's what guided me Yet truer than the midday light To where awaits me One I knew so well, To where no one appeared in sight. O night guiding me! O night kindlier than the morn! O night who joined both Lover, beloved, Beloved in Lover reborn! My bosom, whose flow'r That only for him is it kept, Is where I stroked him And the cedar boughs Blew cool air as he lay and slept. The wind through crenels As gently his hair I did comb, And his hand serene Wounding my collar, Shook all my senses to the bone. I stayed, I forgot, My face on the Lover reposed, All stopped, I let go Of cares and of woes That in the lilies laid disposed.

Adam and Alexis Do Nirvana

Last week I had an adventure in nature with my favorite partner in crime, Alexis, here in Colombia. You might remember from a previous entry about one of the best parties in Cali, which, as luck would have it, is having a repeat this Halloween weekend. We went to a nature reserve called, fittingly, Nirvana.

Alexis lives in Palmira, which is a city right outside of Cali. I'd never been to Palmira. It's not mentioned in my guidebook, so I didn't have high expectations, but like I've mentioned before, it's not always in big cities that you'll find adventure. And I think that's especially true for Colombia. Nature here is, in all its mega-biodiversity (that's an industry term), amazing.

All the nature!!!

On the way, I read a little bit of Cien años de soledad (A Hundred Years of Solitude). This is literally the fifth or sixth time I have started this book over. Something has always interrupted me and stopped me from ever continuing again: School assignments, moving apartments, ambulance sirens, shiny objects, food. But I'm determined to finish it this time. All 450-ish pages. It's a gesture to the Colombian gods to show them that I'm making an effort in hopes that they'll bless me with more vegetarian food options or less crowded rides on the MIO buses or drivers who give the right-of-way to pedestrians.

Once in Palmira, I met up with Alexis, and we went into a small corner shop for some food. I tried to order a papa aborrajada, and it went something like this:

"Buenas tardes."
"Buenas tardes, me gustaría una aborrajada."

"¿Qué?"

"Una aborrajada."

"¿Qué?"

That's when I turn to Alexis with helplessness in my eyes, and he orders for me. She tells us to hold on a minute.

"Why doesn't she understand me?"
"I don't know."

But yeah, I do know. It's because I'm foreign, and I don't speak Colombian Spanish... Or maybe she was just a fucking idiot. 

I guess that was a little mean. If I say "just saying" at the end, does it sound less mean?.. That woman was a fucking idiot.... just saying...

Okay. Maybe with a smiley?... That woman was a fucking idiot... just saying... J

Good enough.

"¿Usted es de aquí?"

"No."

"¿De dónde es?"

Should I tell her the truth? Should I tell her I was from Jupiter? Should I pretend I like I don't understand?

"Es un secreto." 

And then I smiled diabolically as I locked eyes with her and took my potato.

It turned out to be a good potato, so she was safe... for now...

After that, we took a gypsy cab to somewhere outside of Palmira and began a long, uphill walk to the nature reserve. It took us around two hours in the midday sun, but it was worth it because... BUTTERFLY GARDEN!

They were everywhere! All sorts! All sizes! Even chrysalises! It was wonderful, but as I was marveling over the butterflies, especially this big blue one that was intent on playing with us for a while, something was chilling me to the bone: the call of some apparently large bird. Birds are psychotic creatures and are not to be trusted under any circumstances. Take it from me. I learned the hard way.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to face my fears. I had to. The butterflies were watching, and I'd never live it down. It turned out there were caged parrots near by, and we even exchanged a few words together. And though they seemed friendly and I almost believed they might have even been well-intentioned, benevolent birds, I knew that deep down, under those rainbow feathers, lied a heart of darkness filled with an ancient evil that dates back millions of years. How else do you think all the dinosaurs went extinct? Some say meteors, but I know what really happened. Murdered. By pecking. I've seen the truth in their beady, emotionless eyes. The eyes of a killer.

Need I say more?

After that, we hiked through all sorts of stuff. Hobbit-like, earthy underpasses, narrow paths on the sides of mountains, and a little native hut that someone built and put cardboard cut outs of indigenous people inside looking upset with their lot in life. And who can blame them really? I mean, I'd probably be pretty depressed if my people were massacred too. I got upset for a week when a rain storm destroyed some potted plants I had put outside for some sun once. That's about the same thing in my book.

And after about five hours of hiking, we had climbed high into the mountains, and the view was amazing, and for a moment, the woman who made me feel ridiculous, the failed attempts at reading Cien años, the suicidal drivers, the rude people pushing me on the MIO, the wickedness of all avian-kind didn't matter. There was just this great expanse of green and blue, clouds and dirt, animals and plants. Life. Without the bullshit.