Ecuador D.I.S.C.O

Hullo pals! Happy xmas, Hannukah and New Years likes!

I´m in an internet cafe in Quito, jouked down here from Pasto to see what the old Ecuadorean chat is. The centre of Quito´s a belter, beautiful old colonial buildings and churches and old theatres with peeling paint and faded gilt lettering inlaid in the floor spelling out "Teatro Bolívar". And they have a trolleybus system! The wires make that amazing whaaang noise that those type of wires always make and the drivers invite you onto the bus in a kind voice at every station, sigan, por favor. I keep getting lost and ending up in strange stations with names like "La Ye" or up hilly side streets with unexpected parks and huge grey churches.

To arrive here i jammed my way onto a very hot and crowded bus from the Colombia border, stuffed full of crying weans, indigenous ladies in frilly blouses and strings of gold beads and guys selling crisps, water, ice lollies (tamarind flavour, magic) or"bizcochos" which in Colombia are cakes (or nice looking men, depends on the context) but here are a very delicious buttery biscuit. I decided to stop in a town called Otavalo to check out the market but as i stepped off the bus in the dark to find myself in the midst of panorama of motorway and petrol stations i began to question the sanity of this choice, especially since like a classic eejit i didn´t bring a guidebook, names of hotels, nada.

However, help was at hand from a large and welcoming family of Colombians who upon being asked if they knew any hotels immediately shepherded me into a taxi with them and whisked me off to a cute wee hostel where i was rapidly installed in a tiny but cosy wooden cabin with a view of a VOLCANO and a huge bed with one of those soft sinky mattresses that make you want to stay in it forever. The family were a family of anthropologists and i spent the whole day wandering round the market with them talking about Andres Caicedo and salsa joints in Bogotá and where to get good cameras. They were such a decent bunch of people, so kind and welcoming to a total stranger, and when we went our separate ways they invited me to go back to Popayan any time i wanted and stay with them. This is why i love Colombia chaps, the people are seriously grand.

The market itself was unbelieveable, a huge maze of stalls draped in beautiful woven cloth in vivid stripes, bags, jewellery, fruit, chess sets, dolls, shirts, apparently animals somewhere but i didn´t make it to that point. Throngs of people milling around the stalls haggling, tourists taking photos of everything and locals carrying huge bales of cloth strapped on their backs or selling cool watermelon slices. I bought a big swathe of cloth, stripes of red and purple and orange with odd designs woven into it, ah it is magic just to look at this thing it´s so colourful and beautiful.

Last night i bumped into some guys who work with Mark in la Sabana, horribly small world but the upside was we went out to an ECUADORIAN DISCO!! A dark, sweaty wee room with pounding music, flashing lights and smoke machine. Up on the stage several tight-shirted men prance around as the gruesome techno cumbia booms away in the background, before the DJ announces that there´s to be a contest for the best dancer and would all the men clear off the stage. Our dancers peevishly slink off while girls, "only the most daring ladies" according to the Dj, start to gyrate wildly and swing their hair seductively in time to the music. The stakes are upped when it is announced that the sexiest couple will win the bottle of horrible local alcohol, and several excited men bound up to the stage where everyone then begins gyrating and then some t-shirts come off, exhibiting comedy male love handles. Hilarious. The couple who win are a small chap with 90´s boyband curtains who won them the drink by picking up his partner, a hefty lassie with a brutally low-cut top, and jiggling her around for an unfeasably long time. While this was going on everyone else was dancing around wildly, a spattering of foreigners sticking out because of their brutal dancing. I saw a really short Haitian chap being shown the salsa ropes by a glamorous high-heeled woman, and the poor guy tripping over his feet and all his friends watching with tears of laughter running down their faces.

Quito today has been good but a little lonely, the city is deserted because it´s Sunday and Mark and Cherie forgot their passports so i´m here by myself. It´s half brilliant and half awful, travelling alone. I think you get to talk to more people and probably have more interesting expereiences (anthropology family, for example) if you´re alone, but then on the other hand sitting in a restaurant sadly wiring into lasagna for ONE while all around you people are having a good time is garbage.

However, back to Colombia tomorrow to go to the carnival in Pasto and chuck flour around, and then probably back to Bogotá! I miss Bogotá. Although it´s nice to come for a visit i have to say that Colombia is MUCH better than Ecuador and the men are better dancers, well mine is at least.

Cementerio central

Ah and another thing, here´s a wee article about the Cementerio Central, which can also be found on http://www.colombiareports.com/ alongside many other fascinating things...

The Cementerio Cenral is by the 26, a huge road that stretches through the city past the Universidad Nacional to the airport. In the past it was the place to be for deceased Bogotanos, but these days it's fallen into disrepair and the affluent bury their relatives in grassy graveyards outside the city. The cemetery opened its doors in 1832 and houses some of the biggest names of Colombian politics including Luis Carlos Galan, Carlos Pizarro (both assassinated) and a whole slew of presidents. Also present are entrepreneurs and members of Bogota's ruling families, mingling with 19th-century bourgeois and modern-day working class city residents.

At the entrance a guard with an unnerving shotgun waves you through the high gates with a stony Father Time perched on top. Inside there is a central area which contains presidents and suchhlike, and an outer part with slightly less eminent members of Bogota society, fading into and area of normal people packed into walls of small boxes with names and crucifixes in endless rows. Narrow avenues of crumbling mausoleums draw you deeper into the cemetery, while the roar of incessant traffic on the 26 fades to a murmur.

This outer part of the cemetery is still in use, and generations of families end their days in these little boxes festooned with gaudy flowers carefully arranged in cut-off Coca Cola bottles filled with greenish water. You may bear witness to a funeral in process, often of young men killed in gang violence. While the mother wails over the coffin and begs for things to be different, the grim-faced cousins and friends slowly transport their friend towards his final destination while a somber group of mariachis trumpet a last serenade. On the fringes of the funeral party two men with shifty eyes adjust the revolvers that are stuffed into the waistband of their trousers.
Further away from the raw reality of 21st-century death is the central section of the cemetery, a walled oval filled with ornate mausoleums and presidential memorials. An impressive central avenue takes you past a number of businessmen, political figures and cultural leaders of the past two centuries. Galan's incongruous Modernist monument resides amongst the faux-Baroque tombstones and saccharine statues of angels and virgins, made even more poignant by its simplicity and clean lines.

To the right hand side of the avenue sits one of the most interesting monuments of the cemetery. A shining golden statue laden with brash flowers gleams amongst the cracked concrete paths and dusty overhanging trees. This is the tomb of Don Leo Kopp, a Geman immigrant who founded the Bavaria brewery. Don Leo and his company were responsible for the construction of the La Perseverancia, originally a neighborhood for the workers at Bavaria. Gaitan was born in La Perseverancia, and there is a statue honoring him in this still staunchly working-class area of the city. Don Leo was famed for his decency and for helping his workers to construct their own houses. Upon his death a strong cult developed around his monument, and every day people come to ask favors of the city's most beloved Jewish Mason. Two transvestites resplendent in eye-poppingly short Lycra dresses show off the kind of curves that only silicone can achieve, while they tenderly whisper their heart's desires in the ear of Don Leo, caressing his wavy gilt hair. The statue's shine is maintained by its devotees, who visit mainly on Mondays to repay their helper by way of a little spit and polish and some pink chrysanthemums.

The Cementerio Central is little-known among Bogotanos and as result of this is in a lamentable state of disrepair. However, a visit to this most fascinating of monuments to Colombia's tumultuous history is most definitely worthwhile. During the week the cemetery can be very empty, so the best days to visit are Saturday, Sunday or Monday as these are the days with most visitors.

Pal travels

Let`s never mention English Day again. Total shambles. Frankly i`m avoiding work because the boss was RAGING and on the warpath and i hope that after this puente (3 day weekend) she might have cooled down a bit. Erk.

Today i saw a policeman on a motorbike run a red like and smash into another biker on the Caracas, luckily the boy wasn`t going very fast but his bike still went flying. When he hauled himself back up the polis had come back to check on him and a massive crowd of pedestrians who were crossing the road at this point had gathered round to shout at the policeman, "Straight through a red light! That young man had right of way! I don`t know where they teach these polis to drive these days" etc etc.

At the moment i`m in an internet cafe waiting to go at 1pm to the Central University to be the judge of some kind of presentation, frankly i`ve had enough of English events after unmentionable E.D but it`s a favour for a lovely colleague. Later me and Cherie are going to get some delicious scran in town, canny wait i just got paid so i see red wine on the horizon.

The other day i got an e-mail from Mia, a pal of mine from uni who`s off on a magnificent expidition on a sailing boat from Singapore across half the world. What an amazing journey! I like thinking about my pals and what they`re all up to, adventurous bastards are never away from the Trans-Siberian Express or cycling to Andalucía or gallavanting around mysterious African countries getting dysentry. Another champion traveller is young Jo from the Monkey, whose European cycle tour antics can be found here: www.jobellvelo.blogspot.com She is a much better blogger than myself and writes stuff up constantly, hats off Jo!

Isn`t it grand to think about all the things you could do with yourself? Move to a different continent or study something strange or go to Germany and become a master baker or cycle across Canada or have lots of love affairs or learn to speak Japanese or join a band or sail across the world or thousands of other things. A comforting thought, i always find, thinking about all the possibilities.

Roight i`d better go and get geared up for this English gubbins, more to follow...

English Day HELL

Greetings pals, just a quick communication today to say HULLO before i`m off to English Day, the horrific uni event that last year was the reason for me out-of-tunely singing "La Camisa Negra" in front of 500 people. This year round will be little better as i`ve been lumped with the job of MC, if anything even more embarassing than belting out old Juanes hits. However, armed with a vile silver lamé shirt i bought in a small town market, lots of brutal gags and hopefully the blind love and devotion of the students who over the past year have learned lots of useless facts about Scotland i will make it out the other side. Severe day of delight tomorrow to commemorate the end of English Day. I`ll let you know how i got on.

This internet cafe smells strongly of cheese toasties! Lunch time...

Here to finish are Anna, Cherie and me hamming it up at Halloween:

Socks

Good morning pals!



Time for the classic weekly trip to the internet cafe in Minuto de Dios in order to avoid the mind-numbing tedium of sitting in the office trying to do crosswords in the free paper (only clues i ever get are the ones that ask the name of something in English).



Monday there was a glorious holiday (thanks, Catholic countries) so the weekend was a 3 dayer. On Friday the other language assistant arrived at the uni, a fact leading to two fancy lunches with people this week for us happy scroungers. Unfortunately they are with some kind of deans, heads of faculties or something like that. The last time the uni gave me free scran it was breakfast, an ornate plate of ripples of cheese and ham with bits of papaya and mango Jackson Pollocked on top. Interesting.

This week i`ve got loads of work, several unpleasant days where i have class at 7am and finish at 10pm with hours and hours of hanging around in between. Thank god for the Panificadora Continental, the glorious bakery across the road from the office.



Friday night i attended a partah in Hannah and Anna`s house with Cherie and Sergio. Cherie had a dragonish look about her and i was dolled up like a flamenco dancer but Sergio`s stripey t-shirt, permie marker `tash and crap French accent stole the show. None of us won the costume competition though, we was robbed! A never-ending stoner-rock set by the very stoned Costeño pals drove us out, but not before we talked to a man dressed as a postie. A POSTIE! Royal Mail shirt and everything!! Even had a wee discussion about Glasgow postcodes.



Saturday we went to a BBQ in Suba in someone`s back garden where i got eaten alive by insects even through my purple Primark tights. The host`s da is apparently a big-shot lawyer who defends narcos, no mention of that but i did have a misty-eyed chat about the deliciousness of Spanish calamares, mmm. Our host, resplendent in a stained MacDonalds apron, served up plate after plate of slabs of meat, ribs, sausage, black pudding, tatties, guacamole... Colombian barbeques are a total institution, they always have excessive amounts of scran and bevvy invariably accompanied by high volume vallenato or salsa. Although a disposable number and a packet of Lidl snags in Kelvingrove park has its charms...



!!! I went to a commercial centre to see the new Tarantino film on Sunday and in the time before the film started went to buy some socks because mine are shameful and have big holes in them. In the sock shop, get this, you give them your old manky holey socks and they give you $4,000 pesos off sock purchases! These chumps gave me MONEY for my ancient, decrepit not to mention dirty socks! Dirty as in i was wearing them, one sneaky trip to the lavvy later and they went flying into the sock bin. Next stop - new socks with patterns on them like flowery teapots. 10 points Colombia! What a country. Where else would stuff like that happen?!



Excellent weekend - all i did was eat, watch films and lie in bed all day like a pig. This is the life!

Chiguiros

The chiguiro (or capybara) is the biggest rodent in the world. It apparently has good eating on it and in the Llanos they spit roast it over a big bonfire. Probably the most interesting thing about this bad boy: the meat is very popular in this neck of the woods during Lent, because supposedly in the 16th century the Catholic church classified it as a fish thereby making it allright to eat. How informative is this blog by the way. Here is a picture of a chiguiro eating an ice lolly:

In other news, yesterday i visited the infamous San Andresito which is a whole neighbourhood full of shops and stalls selling every kind of junk under the sun. It`s in the Zona Industrial among grim grey warehouses and the skeletons of old train tracks. Gun holsters, hair straighteners, pink satin bedsheets, Japanese toys, weight gain powder, you name it and it can be found here. The main market is for contraband goods. I was on the hunt for a pair of trainers and so spent two hours traipsing from stall to stall while the proprietors pounced desperately on us as we arrived, asking what we were after, who was wanting the trainers, for the lady or for the gentleman, what style what brand try some on! No compromise! I sometimes get a bit Scottish about it all and wish they would just beat it and leave ye to look at the trainers but i got into the swing of things, going into the shops and gazing at the wall of trainers before picking some up and footering about with them before moving on to the next one, where an identical wall of trainers confronts ye except in this one there`s a wee chap in a lurid trackie having his lunch, a big slab of meat and a few desultory potatoes rolling about the plate as he saws his way through what looks like a medium-rare boot but you have to admit it smells delicious.

Finally i found a pair of absolute crackers (dear reader, if you´re into trainers they´re brown leather Nike ones, from the new collection according to the man, with a GOLD swoosh. Elegante como el pegante!) and it was over to Sergio (he of the salsa lessons) to work some Colombian bargaining magic on the shopkeepers. If i try and do this i can get them to take about $20,000 (8 pounds) off the price, but my accent just says "Hello my whole house is wallpapered with dollars so charge me double, please!". Needless to say with a Colombian bargaining legend on the scene the chaps knocked much more off, cheers pal! Must work on bargaining skills. As they are all contraband trainers they don`t pay any taxes so they buy them for $40,000 a pair anyway. Observe:

Also glass cases with rows and rows of watches, and all the wee guys who work in the shoe shops huddled round a TV shouting at A.C Milan vs. Real Madrid, and people in the street watching a heated chess game between two auld buffers, and banged-up cars with the boot full of suspicious Levis or bejewelled roasary beads. Hint of the Barras about the place, wafts of cheap cigarettes and the smell of fried food, car horns, people shouting, the heavy slate Bogotá sky hanging above your head as tinny salsa pounds out of shops and car radios. Ah Colombia i love you all over again.

After San Andresito we went to eat empanadas up at Las Aguas (see post on empanadas for more information about both the place and the foodstuff) and then to a piano concert. I didn`t pay that much attention to the music because i was too busy looking at my new trainers, arf.

At the weekend i will be ripping up dancefloors with my shiny new trainers and shiny new salsa skills, finally i got the trick of the thing! Plenty of practicing in my house while the parrot looks on disdainfully and "Todo Tiene Su Final" blares out the stereo, soon i will be a salsa master!! That song (Hector Lavoe, also done by Marc Anthony) ("Everything has its end") is the soundtrack around here recently, i`ve even got this sort of Zen/salsa theory of life worked our around its lyrics, but saldy it will have to wait til next time since i`m off to class.

Cinemas and chandozos

Hello pals!

Well things are looking up around here. It`s the Bogotá film festival at the moment so i have been at the pictures twice a day every day at a bizarre cultural centre beside my house to see bleak documentaries about shattered personal relationships among people trying to escape from East Germany and hysterical French capers about perverse TV execs.

Is there anything better then going to the pictures? Something about the ritual of the thing, the way it`s fundamentally the same even if you`re sitting on a rooftop watching something projected onto a crumbly wall, or in the most luxuriously Miami-esque cinema in an opulent commercial centre, or in some scabby university auditorium with uncomfy creaky seats and a faint smell of old coffee in the air. When the lights go down, and the projector hums into life and you see those strange crackly dots and lines that appear over the picture momentarily, and the way that if you look back you see all the light spilling out of this little hole in the back wall, laser beams of stories. Cinematic overload magic.

There are no students at uni this week as they have a recess week, unfortunately the course i teach is an extra-curricular course for whoever wants to do it and consequently i get nae holidays. Quite hysterical atmosphere at work though, the fact of having no students gives the place a bit of a party vibe, especially yesterday which was the culmination of the "Secret Friend" business. This was a name out a hat, buy that person a present thing for the day of Love and Friendship which is the last Saturday in September (we were late, as always. Sometimes i love my disorganised work). I got a friend of mine which was nice, rustled up some hipster gear at the market in Usaquen on Sunday (i also got a belter cardigan last week, RED with a black and silver fair isle yoke and shiny black plastic buttons, yes please) and i think she was pleased with it. I asked mine for an interesting book and she gave me an unexpected but not unwelcome (Spanish) copy of Angela`s Ashes and an orange t-shirt that says "I`M A GREAT CATCH" on the front of it. Then we cracked out the Tetrapak rum and the boss wired up this crap karaoke game, the one that rates your performance (NOTE TO PARENTS: I know you know what this is, i heard all about Donaldo´s magical "No Woman No Cry"). I`ve mentioned before that i´ve got a reputation at work for being really into rancheras, so my colleagues of course fell upon this like vultures and they all started chanting "Katherine, Katherine!" until i sidled up and murdered Vicente Fernandez´s classic "Estos Celos", complete with shady dancing and AYAYAYAYAAYYYYYs!!!!
Needless to say the game was fairly harsh with my performance, lots of little red "Horrible!" and "Pésimo!" (=dismal) floating up the side of the screen. PERSONALLY i think it was rather good...

Some facts and other news:

1. I am going to learn to dance. Hopefully i´ll be teaching a pal to write very elegant and well-structured English essays and in return the dancing lessons will allow me to quit the shameful shackles of being a shit dancer. Cherie´s sister, brother-in-law and nephew are coming to Colombia in December and the plan is to go south, down to San Augustín and Cali (!), and there is NO WAY i´m going to Cali with these dancing skills. Cherie is on the Septima at this moment, and has been ordered to pick up an mp3 CD stuffed with salsa hits. (I´m in the internet cafe beside the office).

2. The word "chandozo" means mongrel dog but can also be used to greet pals, e.g: "Quibo chandozo! Que me cuentas?" (="Hiya pal! How´s tricks?").

3. The best corrientazo (set lunch place) in La Candelaria is the bakery on Carrera 5a, in front of the famous "Doña Cecilia" tienda where all the hippies get rattled at night time (incidentally, about this tienda, they sell shots of tequila to the street, so if you`re jsut trapising about looking for somewhere to go you can have a swift shot then continue on your way. It´s delicious but lethal). I had lunch there today and for two pounds ($6,000) i got a bowl of ajiaco (typical Bogota soup with chicken, potatoes, sweetcorn and special herbs called guascuas), a plate of salad then the main plate - chicken, rice, patacón (flattened, fried plantain YES PLEASE) and yuca with two massive glasses of lulo juice (lulo is a green fruit that looks a bit like a cucumber, it´s very refreshing). Corrientazos are great.

4. I´ve got to go to work now :(

5. BUT i´ll be back soon with my weekend holiday plans, i think we are returning to Boyacá with Cherie´s pal Lauren who just arrived from England to get a wee snook aboot Villa de Leyva which is a town i don´t know much about apart from they filmed a telenovela about ZORRO there once! Which reminds me of "A Confederacy of Dunces" where he leaves a note for someone saying "I declare that you be hung from your underdeveloped testicles until dead - ZORRO", which phrase was once the entire text of an e-mail from Leckie, who really writes a mean e-mail.

Off to work! But first, to the bakery for a bun! Yes it´s a dirty job this 18 hours a week (half of which i spend eating buns) Language Assistant business, but someone´s got to do it!

Smarties

Good morning!

It`s a sunny day in Bogotá and beside this internet cafe they are painting the radio station building. From a drab streaky grey it`s being gradually transformed into a radiant yellow and blue beacon of colour in the main street. Every day as i walk to work from the motorway where i get off the bus (hello mad Colombian traffic laws, it`s the beginning of the road that connects Bogotá and Medellin yet it´s fine for the bus to screech to a halt and let me stumble out the back door, giant patent red handbag and folders of disorganised bits of paper flying in the wind) there´s an old geezer sitting on the wall outside this building, a right smart old buffer in a suit and a hat that makes him look like a Texan. Who is the auld dude? Maybe he´s an old school preacher on the radio, i can imagine him being quite into gospel music. On the other hand maybe he´s on the run from the law and it hiding out in sleepy Minuto de Dios neighbourhood. Next stop - getting the truth from the auld buffer...

This morning i had a string of rather nice classes, one was in the other building of the uni which is a 30 minute hike away from the usual place. It`s in an old school building and has those kind of draughty classrooms with shoogly chairs and a view of a playing field which my school had. However it does have a cosy wee shed where an old couple sell tiny sweet cups of tinto, empanadas and cheese toasties to the chilled staff and students. I went in with my colleagues to sneak a tinto between classes and the old man greeted me in English, shook me by the hand for 5 minutes straight and then gave me a wee packet of Smartie-like sweeties of the most patriotic variety, the ones that only come in red, yellow and blue (like the Colombian flag, pop-pickers!). It´s something that happens a lot here, people are so intrigued to meet a foreigner and so proud of their country that they treat you unbelieveably well, partly i think because Colombians are very hospitable people in general, and also because they want you to feel welcome. It was lovely, to experience that hospitality again after a few months of a pretty joyless slog getting back into everything, it´s lightened my heart again. Thanks Señor Tinto and your patriotic Smarties.

Ships/rooms

Though I love this travelling life and yearn
like ships docked, I long
for rooms to open with my bare hands,
and there discover the wonderful, say
a ship's prow rearing, and a ladder
of rope thrown down.
Though young, I'm weary:
I'm all rooms at present, all doors
fastened against me;
but once admitted I crave
and swell for a fine, listing ocean-going prow
no man in creation can build me.

- Kathleen Jamie

Liberal ladies love Galan!

Yesterday i was off work with a sort of low-level flu, today i feel better but i'd quite like another day off work. Not happening but. Yesterday was quite relaxing, i spent the day in with Patty the parrot reading daft articles on how to train parrots to ride bicycles and the like. She sat on my shoulder for a while and we watched a documentary about the linguistic abilities of parrots. Best was finding Sparky (Youtube that bad boy), an African Grey parrot who lives in Kilmarnock and can say "I'll kick your baws son" and "Sparky wants a chocolate biscuit and an Irn Bru". Superb.

Colombian news is rather thin on the ground, i've not been up to much due to some cash-flow issues on behalf of those stingy priests my employers. However i did go to see an excellent exhibition of Mexican art and its relation with Colombian art at the Museo Nacional, they had lots of murals and woodcuts and sculptures, excellent stuff.They also had a tiny but interesting room stuffed full of memorabilia relating to Luis Carlos Galan, a politician who was assasinated at a rally in 1989 in Soacha (a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Bogota that used to be a village before being swallowed up by the city, also you may remember the place where i went sometimes last year to teach wee guys a bit of English and have my owl hand puppets licked by wee lassies). They have the suit he was wearing when he was shot, and lots of election propaganda (he was the Liberal presidential candidiate at the time and apparentlhy a sure thing to win the election) among which my favourite by a mile was the sticker showing him all wavy haired and charming with the slogan "Liberal ladies love GALAN!". Definetely worth a visit, Bogota readers. The building famously used to be a jail and a convent (not at the same time, obviously):
This weekend i will hopefully have the finances under control and will have rather more interesting things to report than that i sat in the hoose all day chatting up a parrot (who behaved extremely well until a pal dropped in to see me and then shat on my nice maroon jumper) (of course, the parrot shat on me, not the pal) and eating Chocoramo, glory of the Colombian snack industry. It's a sort of rectangle of cake covered in chocolate, a lunchbox classic for 50 years (but only in cold areas of the country otherwise they melt). I really do not know what i'm going to do when i live in a country where Chocoramos are not easily available. It doesn't bear thinking about. Maybe you can get them imported?