Muling 12,000$ Of Wine Across South America
While I was waiting for my blindness from Aconcagua to heal enough to travel, I recovered partial vision and didn't want to waste it. Even though I was in a bit of a rush to leave Argentina since the government demanded I pay them a couple thousand dollars within a matter of days and I didn't have it, I wasn't about to leave without first doing the one thing in Mendoza that everyone raves about: spectacular wine tours! I met a guy from Holland who was staying in the same hostel I was hiding out in who had the same goal, so we decided to go on a tour together.
In the short couple of days we hung out he got to know me well enough to declare “you are both the unluckiest and luckiest guy I have ever seen. Lucky to be alive, unlucky at everything else!”. Whether it was getting assaulted by bed bugs, picking the only broken chair on a bus, or having a restaurant run out of the thing I want right when I ordered it, he wasn't wrong. Also, I was still recovering from being blind and badly burned on a mountain where everything went wrong. At least he found humor in my devil's luck. We took off on a fancy Mendoza wine tour and met a guy from Norway. The three of us were fast friends, so we traveled together in Mendoza.
During our wine tour we came upon a niche winery that supposedly had a rare wine. It was said this wine was only made once, from the finest grapes, commissioned by the winery owner for his daughter's wedding. They said each bottle was valued in the states at around 3,000$US, but you couldn't get it there or anywhere else...legally. Because of the inability to get the wine anywhere but the winery, they were selling it for a crazy cheap rate per bottle. Shipping and importation were prohibitively expensive at thousands of dollars, and exportation was illegal anyway. I had a plan, and happened to have a few friend's weddings on the horizon. This was a perfect opportunity. I bought 4 bottles. A couple as gifts and at least one to sell at a fat profit. It was perfect: If the story was true, I would have phenomenal wedding gifts with a great story, and a great profit. If it wasn't true, the financial investment wasn't too great, so I would only really be out the energy of mueling them and smuggling them into the states. Of course, the carrying was going to be the problem. Since I couldn't ship them, I would need to physically transport them myself. I already had a flight to the states from Bogota Columbia leaving in 2 months and was confident that if I could get them there, that particular flight would be fine. The restrictions on inter-South American flights meant that I shouldn't try and fly anytime before that though, so I would be forced to travel overland from Argentina to Columbia. How hard could it be? I only needed to transport 4 large, heavy, breakable bottles of wine theoretically worth 12,000$ out of Argentina and through Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia where I would then smuggle them into the United Sates. Easy.
I told my plan to the Dutchman. “You? No way. One hundred percent chance those things are breaking, or getting stolen.” He likely was right, but I had to try. I bought the first bus ticket to Chile leaving the next morning. Whatever algorithm or database the bus company culls from listed my passport number as Canadian. Sure. No way my passport would be causing me problems. Again. Of course it did, but nothing that would stop me. The night I was to leave, the Dutchman, the Norwegian, and I met up with some of their dates they'd matched with online and we went drinking and socializing until the wee hours of the morning. I grabbed my now super heavy bag and went to the bus station. Tired from carrying the monster bag around I leaned against a wall for support... and knocked it over. Oops. So far I was not as inconspicuous as I'd hoped I would be, but maybe I was so overt I was covert?
I boarded the bus and crossed into Chile heading for Santiago. The buses in South America could teach the rest of the world a thing or two. They're frequently double deckers with actual toilets, meals, a minibar, and wide comfy seats. The border crossing was smooth enough, though it did take several hours for border and customs officials to search the vessel. I was just excited to get away from Argentina's constant barrage of dolche de leche and the threat of of going to a Patagonian jail. During the ride my 1,000$ tent was stolen off my bag in the cargo hold. Mountaineering gear goes for a premium there, so I'm sure it was spotted from some distance away. It was secured via 2 bag straps, a caribeener, and a mess of 550 paracord; it's absence was no accident. Not off to a great start, but the wine was still there. The tent was mostly destroyed anyway, and now the awkwardly heavy bag was a couple kg lighter, so I suppose there were worse things that could have happened. Plus, if I was able to sell the wine I could buy multiple new tents with money to spare.
I arrived at the Santiago bus station lost. By chance, I happened to see an English couple, approximately the same age, with the same looks of confusion on their faces. I approached them, and we decided to share a cab to their hostel. I had nowhere in particular to go, so stayed at their place. That night the 3 of us went out to dinner and swapped stories. The next morning I tried to order breakfast, but none of the locals seem to comprehend that I didn't understand their version of Spanish. The English couple and I got back together and the three of us spent all day together traipsing over Santiago, and beginning a 12 hour pub crawl around 1pm. Unbeknownst to me, it was valentine's day, and I'm sure I must have ruined the couple's holiday. They didn't let on if that was the case though. Santiago itself seems to go all-in on valentine's day. The streets were clogged with heart shaped balloons everywhere, and it seemed as if every person out that day was carrying a rose. The outsides of shops and restaurants were plastered with valentine's decorations and the insides were coated with flower petals. The perfect atmosphere for a third-wheeling pub crawl.
The couple and I got back to the hostel at 2 in the morning. They went off to their nice private room, and I went to return to the wine cellar I was sleeping in, when I was confronted by the staff. Apparently they didn't know if I would be staying another night or not, so had dragged all my baggage up and left it in an unguarded pile in the foyer. This pissed me off. If they had been completely booked it would have been one thing, but this was not the case. I still had the key to the place, my bags were on the bed, and if anything they should have just charged a night for the bags taking up space. I was pissed at them handling my things in the manner they did, and pissed at their general lack of efficiency as a business. It was 2:30 in the morning and I just wanted to sleep and then get the hell out of there. After 15 minutes of repeating the same phrase and trying to pay to sleep, they finally took my money and let me be. I carried my heavy awkward bag back down the dark narrow spiral staircase. There was dirty laundry that wasn't mine on my bed. I threw it on the floor and went to sleep angry.
In the morning the English couple and I traded contact info and parted ways. They left for a flight, and I took off for the much better city of Valparaiso.
Valparaiso is a bohemian port town built on a series of hills and covered in murals. Almost every building, staircase, and structure has been painted a work of art. The whole city is a UNESCO world heritage site, and for great reason. The hostel I based out of was less of a hostel and more of just some guy's house. He was a nice guy though, and even gave me a map of the city and took the time to mark all the areas I was likely to be mugged,drugged, and raped. Maybe he was marking them so I could find them easier? For a few days I was the only one at his house, and it was a nice break from Santiago. I needed the relaxation anyway since I was still growing a new coat of face and recovering from Aconcagua. I spent several days touring the city before moving on. I made it a point to drink the staple drink of the area before leaving: Pisco sour. It's a drink made from the early stages of white whine, that tastes like a margarita. I also had the historical native drink made from the same white whine stock and herbs infused into it that tastes like a pine tree, and the official national drink “The Earthquake”. The Earthquake is again made from the white wine base, with added grenadine, pineapple, and vanilla ice cream. Any drink with ice cream is a good one in my book. On the day I was to leave Valparaiso I decided to treat myself to a nice breakfast, but found the restaurant on the top of the hill that I had my eye on was quite crowded. Someone there offered to share their table with me.
The generous stranger's name was Chris. Chris turned out to be a fascinating guy with stories to rival my own. He said we could sense our own kind. Chris was an older guy now from Colorado semi-retired, managing his own investments. He used to work in Hollywood as a higher up, and his friend is the publisher of “Outdoor” magazine. He's also got a rich friend who just retired and bought a Jet, and may be looking for some crazy person to lead adventurous expeditions. A guy with a plane? I could be that crazy person! We swapped stories and I filled him in on some of my crackpot lost treasure theories. We talked for several hours and I nearly missed my bus out of there, but it would have been worth it. We swapped contacts and I made sure to send him an email. I let him know to keep me in mind if he knows anyone who needs someone for a movie, magazine article, adventure, or expedition, I am always available. Who knows, maybe our meeting was serendipity? It could have been one of those chance encounters that fundamentally alters the course of your life.
Soon after leaving breakfast I was on a 24 hour bus ride to the driest desert in the world, Atacama. The ride was unremarkable, the desert itself is brown as far as the eye can see, interrupted every 5 minutes or so by the upside down burnt husk of a car that had met with a terrible fate. After what seemed an excruciatingly long time, I finally arrived at the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, the main tourist draw and nexus of things in the area. The moment I stepped out of the bus a thunder and lightning filled downpour hit the area. I was not impressed by the “driest desert in the world”'s dryness. The rain kept up intermittently for a few days. Upon arrival I tried to take a taxi because I didn't' want to deal with soaking my already heavy wine bag, but was informed the town had no taxis. Instead, I got directions from several locals to where I needed to go and began the sloppy wet clay trek to the hostel. The locales were wrong and I walked 2 miles in the wrong direction only to need to double back. It was a Spanish foreigner who finally told me the correct way to go. Also, it turned out there were taxis, though I didn't find one until after I'd hiked all the way to my destination.
San Pedro is an Adobe clay covered desert oasis bursting with tourists anxious to see the natural splendor of the area: Volcanoes, geysers, hot springs, gorges, and an immaculate southern hemisphere star scape. It's also triple the cost of already expensive Chile. For me it was on the way north to freedom and adventure, and a hopefully lucrative resell, but I wasn't going to pass up any opportunity for fun or sightseeing. After a couple days of getting settled and trying to wash and dry my clothes, unsuccessfully because of the rain, I hopped on some tours to get to the attractions. The first tour was to the geysers of El Tatio, which left at 4:30 in the morning to get to the area by sunrise. When we arrived there was ice and snow on the ground, despite the fact that there was water shooting in to the sky that would burn the flesh from your bones. After the sun rose it was quite pleasant, though some in the group suffered from altitude sickness. The geysers were over 4,000m above sea level, and when I bought the ticket the lady who sold it to me told me I needed closed toe shoes, a jacket, and not to eat meat or drink alcohol the night before. Lady, 2 weeks ago I was 7,000m up on the peak of the highest mountain outside the Himalaya. I'll be fine. After the geysers we went to the high altitude Andean wetlands, bird and camel watching, to a small village to eat some llama meat, and finally to a canyon full of hot springs. Atacama is a great area, but it's hard on the wallet and I was on a time table. I bought a bus ticket headed to Peru.
Waiting at the bus station I had another potentially fateful encounter. I met a man named Norm, who again shared my outlook on life. At 71 years old norm spent his time adventuring, though he didn't start until he was 40. Before that he was the world authority on water quality management and then founded his own company to become a world fly-fishing guide. Currently he was out living his life to the fullest, and even wrote a book: “Drink from the bucket”. He's got a ton of great stories and we spent the better part of a day swapping them, first on the bus leaving Chile, then in a shared taxi/babysitter across the Peruvian border. The border authorities confiscated my bananas and questioned me about the wine, but it was 4:30 in the morning, Peru time, so saying they were souvenirs for weddings was good enough. Once we got fully into south Peru, Norm and I wiled away the hours until our next buses by swapping tales at a cafe and then in the market. I was happy to hear that of his life lessons I am already living all of them. He's a very nice guy with a full life, so heading his words wouldn't be a bad idea. If I don't die soon, I should be on track to live as full of a life. During our conversations he shed light on the fact that it's not that I have a large comfort zone, it's that I have a very small discomfort zone. That's a great way to describe my outlook on things.
Norm's bus left first, so after he was gone I went back to the market. I had been on an almost all empinada diet the whole time I was in Chile, and was now feeling like soft garbage. I wanted some healthy food, so I stocked up on fruit for my next bus. I also drank a giant 2 pint serving of liquefied cactus which was said to cure almost all disease. I guess it works because it immediately cured me of NOT having diarrhea. I was hoping this next 24 hour bus had a working toilet.
The bus did have a toilet... you just couldn't poop in it. I was so far unimpressed by the buses in Peru. Places to poop aside, the whole bus process was frustratingly layered with red tape. When boarding the bus they took fingerprints of the passengers, and pictures of passports. All this for a service that limited it's passengers to 20kg of luggage and smashed the seats almost as close together as a Nepali bus, and the bus was stopped frequently by checkpoints to have their cargo holds inspected. Also they don't let you poop for a day, which is too bad because there's nearly nothing left to distract you from the incredibly baron desert. South Peru is an awe inspiring wasteland, with nothing but brown extending in every direction. Eventually the desert gives way to some greenery. In this greenery lies the reason most people go to Peru: Cuzco and the ruins people call “Machu Pichu”.
I arrived in Cuzco in the early AM. It was the middle of the rainy season and it lived up to the name, raining nearly the entire time I was there. I took the rain and made my way to a hostel to base out of then set out to explore. During my meanderings I came across a group of Japanese travelers. We got to talking and decided to go out for dinner and eat the traditional Peruvian food of giant Guinea pig. We had a difficult time getting it ordered because no one spoke good enough Spanish. Somehow Japanese worked well enough though. The cuyi was delicious, kind of similar to rabbit. It turns out everyone of us was planning to go to “Machu Pichu” as soon as possible, so we discussed strategies.
I'd heard getting to and into the ruins was expensive and convoluted so I thought I'd be proactive. You must buy tickets before getting to the ruins, as they don't sell them there. I found the government office that was selling tickets in Cusco. It had a huge line of people, so I made sure that I was in the right place before I got in. Almost an hour later I was at the counter. They wouldn't sell me a ticket because I hadn't first bought transportation to the area. Someone should communicate that this is necessary. This would be the first of many such incidences in my dealings with Machu Pichu. The trains were sold out and the buses were erratic; You need reliable transport because the ticket for the ruins is only valid for the day you specify you will be there. Frustrated, I looked around at various tour packages. I normally prefer to go it alone, but the deals were incredible. With a tour I could get a bus there and back, breakfast, lunch, dinner, admission, and a guide all for about what it would cost just for solo admission. I took the bait. The whole enterprise was a mess from the start.
The “bus”, which was actually a tiny van, picked me and a random assortment of travelers up at 7 in the morning. I am not shaped correctly for Peru's vehicles apparently. If the construction of the vehicles are to be trusted, everyone in Peru is shaped like a wind-up toy, or a Mr. Potato head: a torso and then straight to feet, no legs. I have legs, and they did not fit. I was crammed into the knee-breaking box on wheels for 8 hours, though there was s stop for our included lunch. Except my name was not on the list. I argued with the proprietors for a while, and after they made an extensive series of phone calls I was allowed to join the buffet. I got a plate and put a tiny bit of everything on it to sample the goods before I went in for the kill. I found what I wanted and went back, only to be stopped. “you only get one plate.” Again, no communication. No lunch for me after all! I got back in the van to finish the latter half of the painful ride across precarious flooded mountain roads and unguarded cliff sides. Finally we were dropped at Hydro Electrica, the start of a 3 hour hike into Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the Machu Pichu ruins. I would have gladly walked further to get out of that vehicle sooner. At the start of the hike there was a tour envoy to inform everyone where in town their accommodations where. Again, my name was not on the list. The guy just told me to make the hike into town, go to the square and “find my guide”. Who am I looking for!? Sure enough the 3 hour hike took 3 hours, and on arrival “my guide” wasn't anywhere to be found. Asking around and flashing the receipt for the tour, which by now I was pretty sure was fake, eventually got me to the hostel I was supposed to be staying in. I asked who I as to meet, where, and when, for this tour. The staff said they didn't know, but a guy was to come pick me up for my included dinner at 7pm and give me all the info. By 6 I had diarrhea and didn't want dinner; I just wanted the info so I could go to bed. Instead I was forced to miserably wait with stomach cramps until 8 when a guy showed up. I told him I didn't want dinner and just wanted info. He didn't have any. Instead I had to walk in the cold rain to get the dinner I didn't want, only to find out my name wasn't on the list when I got there. After much waiting and more phone calls I finally got the ticket to Machu Pichu I should have already had and the information that I wanted. I was to set out at 4:30am to climb to the top of Machu Pichu by 6:30 to meet a guide. Great. I got up at 3:30 to do my exercises and hit the road at 4:30. It was raining fairly hard and I walked in that rain for awhile until I hit a huge line of people. I waited in this line in the rain for another long time until I passed the inefficient checkpoint to get back to my climb. After what seemed like 2,000 rain soaked steep stone steps I made it to the top and found the person I was told to find. My name was not on the list. More phone calls. For awhile I was the only person in my English tour group, waiting until other people got there to fill it up so we could begin the tour. Then 14 Spanish speakers showed up, so it became a Spanish language tour. A waste of time and money. I tried to leave to go alone, but they wouldn't let me escape. We passed several actual English tours, and even a Japanese one. The tour didn't even go to the area hotspots! I did manage to glean that Inca messengers supposedly used to make the trip from Cusco to Lima in 12 hours on foot. It now takes about 24 hours by bus. A good metaphor for the state of efficiency in the area. I had to leave and come back later in the day to actually get to the good places, but I finally made it and climbed around to all the good spots. I got back to town at noon to ask when the van was picking me up because this too had not been communicated. 2 pm was the answer. I now had 2 hours to make the 3 hour hike back to the extraction point. I told the guy there was no way. He replied “If you go faster, you can make it in less time.” I know how speed works asshole! This is not the issue. I hot footed it back and barely made it in time. After 10 hours of hiking I now had a cramped 8 hour ride, except this time one of the wheels kept threatening to come off the van, so we had to keep stopping to resecure it. Travelers die of this very thing all the time, their grave markers strewn about the periphery of the cliff side roads. Arriving back in Cusco I was happy that I'd made it to Machu Pichu: Monsoon of inefficiency, but I was also glad world's worst tour was over.
After some recoup time and a much needed shower I took off for Lima, again by 24 hour bus. The guy who sold me the ticket assured me it was the nicest bus. Nice, or nice by Peruvian bus standards? Nice by Peruvian standards, but still an awful experience.
The seats on the bus reclined so far back that I had a guy's head in my lap, but I didn't find it comfortable to recline that far so I was stuck. Literally stuck because again my knees where wedged into the seat in front me, because apparently the bus was meant for Oompa-Loompas. Again the toilet was a no-pooping toilet. What was with Peru and not pooping? I decided I didn't care; if I had to shit on a 24 hour bus ride and there was some kind of toilet I was going to do it I was becoming increasingly intolerable to the whole situation, especially because there was no air circulation of any kind. It gets really hot on a Peruvian bus in the summer, jam-packed with people! The only breeze came from my own sighs of exasperation. The people on the bus where the worst part. They were the loudest, most obnoxious group of inconsiderate people I had come across in all of South America. Their kids ran around screaming and jumping on the chairs as the parents shout-talked at each other at all hours and blasted their phone volume all the way up with no headphones while listening to competing music and movies. The noise didn't stop if one of them managed to fall asleep either; They just began snoring at an almost satirically loud volume. I couldn't sleep, but I couldn't get up and move because they had all egregiously gone over their baggage allowance and some where openly transporting a massive amount of contraband fruit. Yes, I was smuggling as well, but had hidden my things and not clogged the passenger area with my crap. If that's how everyone on the bus was going to be, then I could shit in their toilet. That was the rational anyway, but by the time I made it to the bathroom the others had made it so disgusting there was no feasible way to use it on an unpredictably violently jostling bus. Touche terrible bus.
At least I got to see some of the mysterious Nazca lines along the way. The lines are giant glyphs carved in the desert, likely hundreds of years ago, that can only be seen from the sky. Their true purpose has so far been lost to time. They are simultaneously disappointing in their presentation and overwhelmingly mysterious in every way. I was just happy to see something besides regular sand, even if it was just sand that had been combed into giant shapes.
After so long in the desert proper, arriving in Lima was a bit overwhelming. It's a sprawling metropolis right in the middle of the desert. It took me a bit to get adjusted, but after a city tour and some time to wander I got the lay of the land. I spent a few days taking it in, but it's mostly just a big city like so many others, though an interesting one. While there I spent a day with another interesting character, Ellisa. Her father was a BBC correspondent and archaeologist. We had many interesting discussions. I rounded out my stay with a trip to the beach and then mossied on. I had intentions of heading to Ecuador, so I bought a bus ticket to Piura, 15 hours away, where I planned to transfer to a bus that would cross the border.
I wanted a nice bus after my string of terrible buses so I found the nicest one that was going to where I wanted. Again, it was awful. Peru was now zero for eight on buses, and I didn't want to push it further. The bus to Piura was an hour late and I wound up sandwiched between the least ergonomic bus wall I'd ever seen, ribbed for my displeasure, and a classically obese man. He was literally crushing me, taking up his seat and half a seat width in either direction. Another full day's worth of Peruvian bus misery. I arrived in Piura at the perfect time to catch the 9am bus to Ecuador... except they decided they weren't going to run it. I now had to wait an additional 4 hours for the 1pm bus, and the place wasn't exactly a hustle and bustle town. Due to the downtime I got some research done and then jumped on the bus. My seat was broken. It wouldn't lock into a reclined or upright position and just slapped me around for the duration of the bumpy journey. It also was the only seat with a pillar in front of it, so I had nowhere to put my legs. Again.
I'm thankful for the delay thatlead to my researching the area, because my original plan was to cross into Ecuador via Tumbes “The least friendly crossing in all of South America.” The area is known for really sticking it to travelers with the guards trying to extort everything they can from people. So rather than risk almost certainly losing my precocious cargo I opted to instead enter via “The most relaxed crossing into Ecuador.” They are not kidding around! There are almost no formalities at all, just a form that asks if you are stealing any artifacts. I circled “NO”, and that was that. They didn't' even do a luggage search! I arrived in Loja in the middle of the night and caught my transfer bus to Quito virtually as it was pulling away. I had made it with no seconds to spare. It was the first fully non-Peruvian bus I'd taken since leaving Peru, and not only was it comfy, it arrived 3 hours early!
I spent my time in Quito eating as much signature street food as possible and wandering the streets. I climbed to the top of the Basilica del Voto Nacional, a cathedral with unique architecture. It has Gothic spires but instead of gargoyles it has terrifying sculptures of armadillos, iguanas, boars, and other similar things. I also investigated the “El Panecillo”, a great religious statue on a hill over looking the city, supposedly the only giant statue of “the virgin” with wings. She's also got a dragon, for some reason. Quito has very interesting ambiance thanks to these types of buildings. As much as I was enjoying the architectural weirdness of the area, I was down to just 2 weeks until the rendezvous with my flight and I wanted to spend as long as possible on the Colombian coast, so I hopped a bus bound for the Colombian border.
At the bus station an obviously poor street vendor complimented my bracelet and asked to try it on. It was the single piece leather wrist band I picked up in Australia during the wilderness/leadership/survival training. I let him try it on. Then he tried to hand me a measly amount of money for it. I just reached out and took the bracelet off of him, telling him it wasn't for sale. He tried to bargain and I walked away. A few minuted later he ran up with a 5$ U.S. Bill. I told him no and he made his final offer: 10$. Even if he'd added a zero to that it wouldn't have been enough. The poor guy had no idea how in over his head he was. Further contributing to the 3rd world vibe, some lady's checked luggage on the bus was an entire bed! Mattress, frame, headboard, everything! She took up most of the cargo hold. Then a lady in front of me tried to ride the bus without a ticket and she and the bus driver yelled at each other until she finally got off the bus. Finally, a lady stole my seat even though we had clearly defined seats. Third world is as third world does.
The Ecuadorian border control line was ridiculously long. It wound through the building, then outside, wrapping around the building and then around the compound. It took 4 hours to get through the line. I hear some people wait upwards of 8 or 12 hours. This was due to the border being flooded by Venezuelan refugees. The Colombian side of border control was mere minutes, and though the police presence is very strong, no one searched my bag. Finally in to the home stretch! Arriving in Columbia I got in a cab to take me to the Ipialis bus station. The driver wouldn't move for over 10 minutes. I kept telling him where I wanted to go, and to go, but he just kept babbling. Finally I pulled some guy off the street to translate the driver's mumbly Spanish. He was telling me I would need to pay him when we got to the station. That's what he was saying for 10 minutes!? I know how taxis work! Again, I made it to the bus with zero extra seconds, and thanks to weirdo the cabbie I had no time to buy rations for my 24 hour bus ride. At least I had tried to get the nicest bus. The nicest bus wasn't great. I was cramped in every direction, but at last it had a toilet... which I was sat in front of. It might have been just fine, but my personal location ruined it. The combined smells of collective poop, disinfectant, and diesel where so strong they managed to do what a 7,000m peak, living on a boat, and constant street food couldn't: It made me nauseous. The smell was enough to keep me from getting a continuous sleep, but at least I could be awake for the many police “stop and search”s that the bus went through. These weren't just searches of the cargo hold; they searched the passengers as well. The passengers had their ID's checked, and their personals bags searched. Thankfully, they just searched my day bag. Even though we got searched multiple times over the course of the ride, they didn't seem interested in me at all. Actually, it seemed as if they were looking for someone specific. I wasn't smuggling people, armaments, or narcotics, so they could not have cared less about me. On arrival at the bus terminal in Bogota my passport was checked again, but it seemed more to just make sure I had a passport of any kind. They gave it a quick glance and waved me on. No wonder the country was rife with undocumented travelers for so long!
The bus terminal at Bogota has a handy taxi terminal that prints out the address you're going to and gives it to the driver so you don't need to talk or do anything; the perfect system for someone like me, in theory. However, the driver I got was super old, blind, and deaf. He couldn't read the ticket, or hear people answer when he asked them for directions. It took a very long time to get where I was going, but I made it by eventually resorting to getting out and walking.
I spent most of my time in Bogota just taking in the big city's amazing street art and working out in a hilltop park. I did really want to go to the gold museum before I left though. I decided to go on my final day there, a Monday. The museum is only closed on Mondays. Figures. I was leaving to spend time on the Caribbean coast in the colonial Spanish city of Cartagena, so I planned to go to the museum when I returned. I jumped on another 24 bus to Cartagena, and aside from frequent security checks and arriving two hours late, the ride was actually fine.
I got to Cartagena and got in a taxi towards the place I was planning to stay. The driver had no idea what he was doing and the locals couldn't understand him. Again. Due to driving conditions I couldn't even relax in the cab while the driver failed to get me to my destination. The traffic in south America isn't exceptionally dangerous per se, the ride will usually get everyone from A to B, but it is extremely inelegant and ungraceful. Everyone drives in a very jerky start-stop fashion that makes being in a vehicle very uncomfortable. After about 30 minutes of the driver being unable to find my hostel I just decided to get out and do it myself. Turns out the major reason he couldn't find it was because it was gone. It had moved all the way out of the city and in it's place was a pizza shop. It was late at night so I just decided to stay at the first reasonable sounding place I came across.
The hostel I found was terrible. The whole place reeked of unventilated paint fumes, the mattress was full of holes and stains and stray hairs with no cover or pillow case, and the bathroom sink was full of ants. They also had no security, and I didn't want my cargo moving odyssey to be for naught because someone couldn't be bothered to do their job. I stayed there for the night, begrudgingly, and made it my mission to transfer to a new place first thing in the morning.
Unfortunately for the terrible hostel, the best hostel in the city just happened to be right down the street. I switched over and got to work wandering the town. Priority one was finding something to do pull ups on, that wasn't a clay roof tile. I wandered Cartagena until I came to a free standing pull up bar placed in the ground in the outskirts of a rough neighborhood. Like everyone else in town, the locals that were lying in the shade of a tree tried to sell me cocaine and marijuana. They didn't seem to mind that I turned them down. They went back to lying around and I got on with my pull ups. During my workout one of them was rifling around in a dumpster, when suddenly a crack head ran up on him and hit him with a bat. As one would expect, an altercation broke out, and the crack head grabbed a large rock, threatening to smash the other guy's head open. The crack head glanced back at me to see if I would be any trouble. I just kept doing pull ups. That must have been enough to keep him from messing with me, because he never did. Eventually the cops showed up and quelled the whole thing; They responded as if this happened all the time, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
After my entertaining workout I went back to the hostel and got to talking to the people staying there. We all decided to go out to eat together, and somehow along the way we wound up going to a super expensive ceviche place. It was supposedly one of the best in the world, which I would believe based on the price and presentation. Of course it was tasty, but I would have been just as happy eating street meat off of a stick. The hostel group and I decided to go on a pub crawl, and we were out drinking until 3am, even though I had to be up by 6:45am to catch the bus to Playa Blanco, the white sand beach.
I spend the whole day at Playa Blanco running, swimming, napping, and enjoying the touristy beach atmosphere I felt I'd earned from months of slogging contraband. When my fun in the sun was done I went back to the Cartagena old town to find that it was now time for American spring break and a massive lot of university students had flooded the place. I now had plenty of people to pal around with. I split my time between salsa dancing, cultural learning tours about all the times Sir Frances Drake kept trying to destroy the city, and pub crawls.
I did find it fascinating that Sir Francis Drake and Henry Morgan were viewed as both historical heroes or unscrupulous pirates depending on what country is telling the story. Neither side is wrong either. History is all in perspective. The same thing goes on even today: “One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.” Food for thought.
After an obscenely relaxing week in Cartagena it was time for me to return to Bogota and get on with the finale of my wine mueling. My original timetable would have put me back in Bogota with just enough time to get to the gold museum … except it was Monday again! I decided to leave half a day early because the buses are known to be unreliable, and if I missed my flight I would be screwed. The bus was an underwhelming climax to my bus tour. It must have been “Bring your giant toddler on the bus”day. If your kid is old enough to take 4 unsupported steps, it needs it's own seat. There was now way more people on this bus than it was ever intended to hold. If your kid is crazy loud all the time, don't bring it into a public confined space. Period. My bus arrived 3 hours late, and the gold Museum was closed. I made my way to a Hostel and Spent the night talking with people at the rooftop bar.
At the bar I had made new friends with an English Boxer and we spent the next day together climbing to the highest point in Bogota. In the evening I sorted all my gear and took a taxi to the airport. Arriving at the airport I prepared to sleep on the cold marble floor until my early morning flight. The only problem was that the police refused to let anyone sleep. If they saw someone sleeping they would go and wake them up, by any means necessary. I managed to steal away a couple cumulative hours of rest, but it was hardly enough.
At long last it was go time. I made my way through a sloppy Colombian version of U.S. Customs, not declaring anything and my cargo very firmly packed to mitigate destructive baggage handlers. The bottles were covered in thick mountaineering socks, then compressed into a box, wrapped in a hard foam sleeping mat, wrapped in an arctic sleeping bag, and compressed in a bag cushioned with my clothes. I had done all I could, the rest was literally in someone else's hands. After several plane changes and a baggage delay I made it to the center of the lower U.S. The wine had made it as well. An inconvenient and somewhat grueling series of eight 24-hour bus rides over the course of a couple months, spanning almost 6,000 miles across the South American continent, had not been for nothing! I was already on my way somewhere else, and I needed the money from the whine more than I knew at the time. It was time to canvas the buyers and get back to being an “independent unlicensed import/export agent”.
-NASH