To San Gil to Eat the Ants and Swim in the Piscinas conchichi, the beautful and amazing Middle Magdalena Valley

This is view around Chicamocha National Park(look it up). The road through the Magdalena is treacherous and hot, people passing each other like crazy on a winding 2 lane highway and a sheer 600 or 700 foot cliff straight down to the valley floor. That would definately leave a mark. Previously in the last decade this area was controlled by the paramilitary/cocaine smugglers/mercenarios we all know of to some degreeI have no idea whats going on right now...

These are the asses of the queens of the giant leaf cutter ants. There are 41 species of leave foraging ants in Colombia, that's alotta culona. They are called hormigas culonas, which literally means big ass ants. They were an agricultural pest until some genius decided to gather up the Flying queens and munch on their bums. There is a some dubious rumor that they taste bad, but in fact quite a delicacy and I enjoyed them quite alot, they taste like perfumed unpopped popcorn. They have a floral flavor sort of...You only eat the butt not the whole ant...

They are pretty big and uniquely Santanderean. The look like some nasty roach pupae though. I will definately eat these nasty bleepers again...

Ok the comida tipica de Santander. Ok we have cassava frita (the white sticks), fried green plaintain(ick) it's like a sweet greasy tadpole in your mouth, the white stuff is nice salty rice, stewed peas on left, a beet salad called ensalada roja, at the meat is a smoke dired steak like stuff that has an amazing flavor but the texture of new tire...

The giant ant in the backround in a monument to the culona in San Gil. San Gil is the adventure capitol of Colombia nd here you can paraglide,whitewater raft, ride atvs...etc. The remnants of the tropical dry forest, or Magdalena Dry Forest to be exact are incrediible full of Ceibas and Mimosas. This road leads to the Parque Gallineral, and amazing forest park with a giant spring fed swimming pool...simply amazing!

This is the Pozo Azul a spring different pool, natural, there are fossils all over the rocks here and people like this place becuase it is cool and free, though the beer at the bar is over priced a bit... would paI mean who in their right mind would pay a dollar for a beer?!

These are the silly/gay ducks looking for food in the algae lining the chute that leads the pool. They were nice with that brown gravy...

Another view of said chute

This is the flower of a tree in the Mimosa subfamily of Fabaceae. It's silky like Archbishop Don Magic Juan...the green in for the money, the gold is for the hunnies...This is the genus Albizia I do believe

Another view of the upper falls...this place was crawling with nasty biting flies tiny nasty flies! and countless ants of numerous species...

Another view of the giant fiberglass ant...what a morsel

Julie and I before drinking a 50,000 bottle of whiskey...it was good but damn that's spendy...It should be noted that Julie is made of crab bits glued together.

The old drunk guys behind us couldn't remember their own name most of the time. The fish painting was rad. I wanted to buy it but Julie wouldn´t let me. :I

This was the central square in San Gil, just abunch on youngins tossin down the hooch.

A little spingfed steam that is clear and beautiful and surrounded by tiny biting flies that really suck alot

The entrance to Parque El Gallineral, a nature park thatis beautiful and full of amazing tree of flower species. There are also lotsa of brids flitting about....

Two squirells in el parque. they were very red and one had giant huevos.

This me most probably icthing fly bites...they itch forlike 5 days.

The treesin park have giant Spanish Moss, which is actually a bromeliad, aerial roots hanging down from all of the trees.

This is a lovely ginger plant: Zingiber

The Ceiba trees produce a ton of inedible green fruit, it falls from the trees and pops you in the head.

The Emperors Staff is a flower in the ginger familiy I do believe. It was imported from africa many moons ago.

This is the very cold spring fed pool at El Gallineral. It is amazingly refreshing and the water just flows through like a river...It´s 10 feet deep at one end and 3 feet deep on the other.

In this region instead of seagulls you have American Black Vultures. They are ominous and fly and hover and roost all over. They like to fight over various pieces of rotten crap.

San gil has steep streets and is pretty tranquiloooooo. I liked it here but is very small and I could see getting bored here quickly, back to my new job atFondo Ganadero. I´m organzing a planbt diversity study of therforest reserves on the rangeland owned by the company....should be interesting.

Discussions of the relative oddities of South American and Colombian customs as compared to those of The Union Of The United States of Americas

Okay this entry will be in the form of list/poem
mostly list
i think
ok
i love pan de yuca
On the topic of street customs:
1. Street food usually consists of something far less than 1 dollar
2. People sell movie DVDs like they are produce; also often around 1 dollar, I love this, I know someone who bought Sherlock Holmes the other day...They said it was seedy...like a pitihaya
3. The fresh fruit vendors yell out about their wares..."AGUACATE!" TAMARINDO!"
4. Buses are sales floors for many products, a gentleman or lady will offer some product for sale
ateach bus stop, these are not bus riders...They can be life savers on a 10 hour ride.
5. Private Security is everywhere and they carry not but a stick and whistle
6. These private security agents, when with whistle, continually walk their beat and blow such whistle;often
7. The whistle blowing is to scare off thieves
8. The security guard in our neighboorhood is like 60; I'm sure does know much kung foo and I'm almost certain can't run very fast, though he is a steadfast bicycler and whistle blower he has lungs like the Zeppelin.
9. You will be at some point referred as Mr Gringo, I prefer being called Dr. Gringo
10. Although it is 87 degrees everyone wears jeans and I can't say I'm getting used to it yet
11. Colombianos wear a clear plastic glove when eating fried or roasted chicken, it is funny.
12. YOU CANNOT FLUSH THE TP!
13. you cannot flush the TP!
14 There is this hombre who sells almojabanas(yuca bread with cheese) and bunuelos(doughnuts made with a yeasty tangy cheese) on his motor cycle he sings"ALLLLMOHA BANAS< BUN YOO_WEY_LOES!" it's quite good I will spy video it for you...Tinto and a song about bread!
15. The use of racial perjorative and those perjoratives that we might considers rude like "fatty" or "little blacky" or "meany" are often compliments, or at least non-perjorative.
16. The people of Colombia are extremely warm hearted and smile more than any people as a whole i have ever encountered.
17. I think people really like the cheeba...if you don't know what that is don't worry about it...and they like fried stuff...
18. It is perfectly socially acceptable(i hear that whistle again) to sell cold drinks like Kool-aid or fruit juices from an old aquarium, pictures to come...
19. Haggling is part of the custom, you must! Even for a bus ride...
20. In eveywhere I've been "rico" means delicious, it seems to mean cool here as well...i have't heard the word chevere in Buca.
21. I don't like shelled beans
22. When people beg for change they are old or infirmed in some way not some young punks who drink box wine all day. I always give, not to the drunk bums...
23. Lunch always comes with soup...this is called something that kicks ass...
24. The level of sanitation is the US is borderline rediculous, as is the use of high fructose corn syrup
25. They recycle glass bottle BY ACTUALLY REUSING THEM, and not just smashing them into dust...
26. The coca cola is made from cane sugar, is not canned, and is delicious. The coca cola in the US isn't fit to be served to little rats sitting at a tea party...

More Buca and the smell of hanging meat

As I write this the swifts are swooping all around me and making this crazy twittering sound...There is a shrill whistle that sounds at random times throughout the day and night and it drives me mad as Lou Ferigno as the Incredible Hulk, someone get me some gamma rays. If I could find the whistler or whistle I may have to cease the existance of at least the whistle. This whistle is like a fork on a chalkboard.

1/26

Today I decide I'm going to the plaza central, home of the central produce market, near the city center and the Parque Santander. This is across the citt about 80 blocks fortunatley it's not that hot because there is some nice cloud cover. I buy a cup of pineapple for breakfast for 1000 pesos and trek on my way to Mercado. I stop to get keys made at a small tienda and 2 of the 6 keys do not work. I stop in a gambling hall and watch this crazy Colombian roulette/craps combo game i guess they play here. It involves a giant board for placing roulette style bets and these giant 16 sided dice and this weird pool ball thing...I wanted to give it a shot but decided against it...

The sellers in the mercado are very very aggressive so I use their aggressiveness to get the best deals I can as an obvious gringo. Around the market is crazy hundreds of vendors selling anything you'd ever need. Alot of ropa(clothing) utside the market and alot of veggies fruits and meat(the meat floor made we want to hurl a couple times) along with freshwater fishes like tilapia and this giant freshwater catfish like thing with tiger stripes, I forgot the name. The market is dimly lit but vibrant in it's color contrast and the other floors do not smell that bad. The market has 3 produce floors, fruits, legumes, and meat/cheese/eegs and one dry goods floor that includes hot food vendors and some bars. I have 2 aguila which i mispronounce agui-yah, the correct is AHgee-lah. For 2 USD(there goes that goddamn whistle again and again again) I am served a hot meal of a caldo (goat meat soup with ground corn and cassava in this case) , the seco (chicken quarter with hot sauce, a quarter pound of delicious steamed cassava, 2 boiled papas(poh-tay-toes), 2 fried potato slices, salad of cabbage and green tomato with lime, a ball of rice with coconut milk, a pile of frijoles which I hate usually but these were good and a Jug of tamarind juice. Tamarind juice is good but takes a little getting used to because of much it tastes like tangy soy juice with lime or something.

I walk back through the market buying and bargaining for produce.

When I'm done I wander back across town a ways before getting a cab because I have walked about 120 blocks. The cab driver brings we back to La Florest and does not change for the 20,000 peso note so I walk into the panaderia and buy some almojabana, yuca bread baked with tangy cheese, and give a piece to the driver along with his 5000 pesos for the ride. He smiles and looks at the bread like it is a long lost lover.

Later on I prepare dinner for when Julie gets back first I make juice from the market fruit, carmabola and maracuya with lime. Carambola is starfruit, native to SE Asia but abundant and cheap here. Maracuya is a giant passionfruit which is amazingly delicious.

I the make the main dish of cracked rice, used for dogfood but my favorite rice, with stirfried red peppers, grilled pineapple and ajo (garlic). This is combined in a pan with 2 eggs to make a sort of stir fry. It is delicious.

bucaramangering!

Sunrise over Central America, I think. This is hour 12 of our 16 hour ride from Portland to Medellin. The plane does land and we do not crash and burn, the wine is free...Chilean! This Juan Gabriel our couchsurfing host in Medellin, the other guy is me, note that I haven't slept in three days. Juan Gabriel is a great guy, a computer programmer and engineering student. He lives above a rock bar and 24 hour copy shop so night 2 brings no sleep.

This is Medellin, Escobar is gone and so to is Pepe his hippopatomus who escaped to the Rio Medellin (a large concrete torrent) and was murdered by the government. Look it up! Medellin is clean for a South American city and bears reminders eveywhere that the people of Medellin are concerned with the environment. The people are so friendly and the weather is like being in a sauna. The midday sun grinds upon me like cassava upon a tin grater.

This is a view from the Metro. The Metro is a light rail very similar to the max. It costs 1500 pesos to ride. 75 cents roughly The metro zooming by. In these stops there are auxillary police, 16-17 year old young men with batons who keep order but by no means are menacing. This gives jobs and other to otherwise wayward youth. The force is quite large. One of them told me to get my feet off a concrete block, I obeyed as to not be met by his truncheon.

This is an image a giant space worm

Along with the growing environmental conciousness, there is a growing sense of community and well being and the government holds free fitness classes throughout the city. We saw three going on and one was quite large with several hundred people rhythmically moving their hips to electro beats.

You can translate this yourself! Tomas was a muy famoso colombian poet.

"Happiness, so long as we create it, is not outside, it's inside ourselves, sensory or however you call it. We must be quiet as so not to scare it, as it's a bird that flies away at the slightest noise. Let it repose within us, so that it might emerge when we least expect it. It's true that happiness that does not always rest in any soul, but the souls have their summers, and the swallows return; they have their spring and the roses open."

The graffiti is rad. There are alot of octupus themed diddies and as some you might now that is sort of my mascot. Viva cephelopa! This one seems to have "problemas con su pelo."

Holy shit! This is our apartment in Bucaramanga, la ciudad bonita. It is really, really nice. 2 bedrooms lotsa furniture. I don't own furniture, some of you may also be aware of my furniture phobia. I own no furniture of any merit, I am proud of this fact. I do enjoy having a couch looking out over the city though. The apartment is really sweet and i feel very fortunate to have it as most people here struggle to make 500,000 (250 bucks) pesos a month and live in communal situations with extended families. I am insanely fortunate to be so free, I thank the universe for my current prosperity. This reminds me of how much educated,intelligent, free people owe to the other billions. We have a different debt, maybe two, discovering the nature of our debt (not monetary) and finding the bravery to begin to repay.

This next image is the leaf cutter and which seem to really like red flowers to chop up and grow their fungus on. They are ubiquitous.

These are crazy little pollinating wasps. They come back to the paper-tube hive in a manner that looks like they are being sucked in the hive. You can see the pollen on their legs as they come back, they are not bees.

A main street in Buca, lotsa trees and hot as hell down in the center of the city.

Up near La Floresta (paradise) in the hills there are many tall condo buildings and huge arboreteum that called La Flora , it's like a big maze...

Your host with the most.

Making jugo de pina from fresh pineapple and drinking Aguila cervesa. The pineapple was 1.50 US and was amazingly sweet and fresh. It was from the hills about 30 minutes from here. This pineapple was hard as a ****ing rock and the knife was as dull as a bleeping stone.

The virew from our balcony. At night hudreds of murcielagos(bats) gobble up the mosquitos. It's a great sight at they whip back and forth at eye level.

Yo prepare' un vaso de jugo de pina. Pineapple is my favorite fruit...i love it.