Presidente Uribe

I met up with a couchsurfer from Cartagena named Rosi who is also visiting Bogotá for coffee and a little Spanish practice and, surprise surprise, she's also against Uribe. It's got to be an age thing, all the old people love him and all the young people hate him. According to her, he's trying to privatize all the public universities (including hers) saying there isn't enough funding for them. Of course whenever someone says there isn't enough funding for something, what they mean is that they'd rather fund something else, but I'm not so sure he's as bad as she thinks. She also claimed the country didn't get safer during his administration which is definitely not true.

Alvaro Uribe Vélez was born in 1952 to a wealthy paisa rancher, got a law degree, and started working in government. He was the Mayor of Medellín, then a Senator, then a Governor, then President. He's one of the best liked politians in Latin American history, with consistent approval ratings of above 70%, probably due to the increase in security. He was so popular that he was able to get a constitutional amendment allowing him a second term. It passed not long after the AUC, a terrorist paramilitary organization, was disbanded and sent to rehabilitation programs.

However Uribe's also been involved in several scandals. He's been accused of involvement with narcotrafficking several times, including by Pablo Escobar's former lover Virginia Vallejo and by a declassified American intelligence reports. More recently, links were reported between his whole family and paramilitary groups; he was even accused of helping orchestrate a massacre and it's been dubbed the parapolitics scandal. Furthermore, congresswoman Yidis Medina stepped forward just a few months ago accusing him of bribing her to vote for the amendment allowing his re-election. On the whole though I haven't yet seen any real proof so far.

Feliz Cumpleaños

It was Teresa's birthday and everyone went out to a Viva Brazil to celebrate. I forgot to bring my camera so this photo is actually from the internet but it looks similar. It's a Brazillian thing, they come around with big skewers of a bajillion different types of meat and slice about a slaughterhouse worth onto your plate. My digestive tract actually begged me for mercy. I ate maybe half of what was served and still felt sick. It is just not a good idea to eat multiple pounds of meat in one sitting, I do not understand the appeal. They even had a skewer of chicken hearts (must've been like 50 of them on that thing), but I was only able to force down one. If it'd been my birthday, I would've been so pissed.

Colombian Dancing

I met up with Rosa and a group of her friends to go clubbing and accidentally got sloshed on aguardiente. Aguardiente is a sugary, anise flavored liqueur that's extremely cheap and extremely Colombian. It's the most potent liqueur I've ever encountered (probably 55 proof).

I think it helped me learn how to dance like a Colombian though; I asked for lessons from the girls and apparently wasn't bad. Colombian dancing is actually a lot like frotteurism. You bend your knees a little and straddle your partner's thigh so your groin is right up in their business, then you sort of gyrate from the hips in a manner which all too closely resembles dry humping.

fourth of July

What? Oh, right, I mean yeah, happy birthday, nation....No, I can't make the party this year either, I won't be around....A present? Uh, I mean, not exactly but I'll bring you something when I get back....Yeah but this time I will though....Oh come on don't be like that it's not like I completely forgot.

It's the fourth of July (lowercase f) and, just like last year in India, nobody gives a damn. If I hadn't gotten facebook invitations I might really have forgotten. At least this year it's on a Friday so people will be partying anyway. Here Independence Day is the Twentieth of July, but of course I'll have left Colombia by then.

Ladrones

I needed to see the nightlife here in Bogotá so met up with some people from couchsurfing. It turned out to be Silke's birthday, a German couchsurfer in town for the week (she's the one with the cake). After singing Happy Birthday to her in both English and Spanish we went clubbing in La Candelaria.

I compulsively my pockets to make sure I have my everything so it didn't take long after we got to the club for me to realize something had gone missing. This same thing happened last year. Why do I bother having a cell phone? It never works anyway, it's just one more thing for people to steal. It's true the dance floor was crowded but I'm still impressed they got it out of my FRONT pocket without me noticing.

Mi Casa Propia

Juan and I went to a CieloMamá (Mother Sky) concert and I think they played the best song I've heard here. The band is from Bogotá but apparently their style is very Pacific coast. They do a fantastic live show and their big hit is called Mi Casa Propia (My Own House). It's a really fun, energetic song, Here's the music video. Start the player at 1:45 to skip the interview if you don't speak Spanish. I also took a short clip of the concert to show their enthusiasm, but the video quality is pretty terrible.

Freed Hostages

Big deal news just broke here in Colombia. Every single news channel here has been looping the footage. The guerrillas just lost fifteen hostages, including their four high profile bargaining chips: French citizen and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, and three American military contractors. the other eleven people were Colombian military and police. The military announced the rescue on TV.

They are saying the guerrilla group was infiltrated and possibly bribed (lower level guerrilla members have killed their own leaders for rewards before, and desertions are more and more common). John McCain happens to be visiting Colombia right now and says he's been speaking to President Uribe about the American contractors, making him seem awfully presidential. That won't be hard for his campaign to spin well.

Malpensante Festival

A dance troupe came to perform from Tlaxcala city, the state capital of Tlaxcala in Mexico, for a cultural festival. I didn't get much video because people kept walking in front of my camera but I was able to catch this short clip. It's an interesting style, they sort of model it after courtship and later actually danced a marriage ceremony or something. The other women wore big colorful dresses which they flapped and spun around in to create visual effects. The men danced primarily with their legs, almost Riverdance style at times. The music, however, is very distinctly Mexican.

Politicking

I met up with a guy from CS Bogotá named Juan (left) and went out for drinks with him and two of his pals, David and Diego(middle and right). Juan was a history major here in Bogotá and had an alternate perspective on the current administration in Colombia. You see, there are two types of terrorist groups in Colombia, communist guerrillas which came first, and right wing paramilitaries who originally formed as mercenaries offering protection to wealthy farmers. Both became narcotraffickers, but the guerillas control empty jungle whereas the paramilitaries control rural areas with voters who can be used to take seats in the senate.

As a result, the conservative senate passed a bill allowing paramilitary soldiers to reintegrate rather easily while aggressively prosecuting guerrilla fighters. Juan's father was a political activist working for a leftist senator at the time and he wrote the version of the bill which did not get passed. For this and probably other reasons which remain unknown, he was kidnapped and murdered. What is really scary though is that the only way the paramilitaries could've pulled it off is by collaborating with governmental intelligence agencies. I'm really impressed with Juan for being so pulled together despite having lived through that.

Bribes

Teresa got a 600.000,00 peso ticket (roughly $400) for passing a car over double solid yellow lines. This is an outlandish amount of money and it's safe to say the policeman's intention was to extract a bribe. Unfortunately for him, Teresa is both loaded and ballsy so rather than encourage extortion she's going to pay the ticket. Though proud of Teresa, I was disappointed to finally see real evidence of police corruption here in Colombia. To be fair, moving violation bribes are fairly minor and happen all over the world, but it shatters the honorable protector image of the Colombian military/police force that the propaganda on the billboards here is designed to cultivate.

Carne Carne Carne

It's difficult not to like the food here given how deliciously deep fried everything is but I sometimes wonder how there are people who haven't had heart attacks yet on this diet of meat, grease, and arepa. Nowhere else will you find deep fried steak served with sausage and fried plantain.

I never get to use all these vegetable names I memorized while studying vocabulary. The only vegetable I ever see is the potato, which of course is fried. Sometimes they have salads but they are usually pathetic. The first one I saw here was just onions with some lettuce and a few slices of cucumber, topped with tiny french fries.

Here's a picture of a dish Teresa described as "muy típico." It's a heaping plate of various types of meat with a couple of small fried potatoes and arepas thrown in for good measure. Underneath it all there's a little bit of popcorn too.

Fairy Tales

The other person on the hike I subjected to my terrible Spanish was the tour guide, a 21 year old Villa Leyvana who's been giving tours of the area for four years but is not yet bored of the waterfalls. We started talking about legends, of which there are many in Colombia thanks to the indigenous population. I explained the myth about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to her she responded with a WAY COOLER myth about the waterfalls.

During certain times of year the water flows so rapidly that whirlpools are formed and block off openings in the rock. It is said that these openings are magical entrances and witches conjure the whirlpools for protection while they have their orgies.

Okay, Maybe a Few Niños

We went for a tour around the waterfalls outside Villa de Layva and some of Teresa's colleagues came too, along with their adorable niño Sebastián. He was probably the most polite, well behaved eight year old I've ever encountered and after chatting with him a little I think I have to change my hard-line no niños stance. Children are basically learning a new language too so they've got smaller vocabularies and can relate even when you don't know the meanings of relatively simple words. Plus they're cute!

Villa De Leyva

I'm in the Williamsburg of Colombia, Villa De Layva. It's about 3 hours from the capital and it's done completely in the Spanish colonial style. The streets are cobblestone (easily tripped on) and there are lots of people riding horses (which of course you can rent since the place is super touristy). We're staying in a fancy hotel done up in the same style---hand made indigenous looking furniture, whitewashed walls, ancient looking fountains, the works.

At night they have contadors, or storytellers, who gather big crowds at the Plaza Mayor in the center of town. My Spanish still isn't good enough to really understand the stories, but they're so animated that it's entertaining anyway. In the morning we're getting a guide to take us through the hills. Should be pretty tight.