MUSINGS - COLOMBIAN SHOCK!

EXPERIENCES FROM THE EDGE...

COLOMBIAN SHOCK

Backstory...

Imagine getting thrown in jail at age 21 after receiving libelous national press coverage connecting you to the death of a "talented Oxford University student" who you neither knew nor dealt any drugs? Apart from your mother's womb, this is the first time in your life you experience what it's like to be incarcerated: physically - by bars and fences; mentally - by aggressive strangers who are all at once victims of a cold world and violent perpetrators of keeping it that way; and, emotionally - you're burdened by gut-gnawing guilt for having potentially screwed your father’s legal career, your own legal career, the reputation of your family and, remorse, because secretly you really had a good time taking recreational drugs "recreationally" for a brief hedonistic, post-uni, let-your-hair-down, period of your life...

After many days and months in the slammer, fighting the writhing snakes surfacing from your deep unconscious, you paradoxically discover a freedom while in prison. In the midst of the shame-full ordeal, you feel re-born, but without having to convert to a religion for the privilege. A profound happening so exhilarating occurs, you could wank for the Olympics. A nine month sentence passes and you're released... Now obviously, the things you took for granted before – the scent of a rose, the sound of birds, the feeling of sand between your toes and men's bits massaging your palms - are appreciated a hundred fold. The sky is limitless with possibility and everything that crosses your path is for a reason. Fear has been faced, fondled, f***ed and forgotten - or so you think...

Not even a year later...

The Colombian boarder was a nightmare from hell. My post-prison journey in South America kicked off with a familiar feeling - traveling is, in my view, surprisingly much like jail. It's all about contrasts - peaks and troughs – stepping into The Unknown with no seat belt on, suffering endless trials, experiencing random moments of unexpected beauty waiting in the wings. Despite being an Oxford university Law graduate with a few clever quips up my skirt, I'm a geographically challenged Welshie with no common sense and a moustache issue. I seemed to blend in well with the hirsute Venezuelans packing the crickety yellow old school bus like a crowd of over-sized battery hens, just as I'd been able to entertain the lesbian fraternity in Her Majesty's Prison with comical rap performances. But I soon discovered that just as I had to adapt to the "prison language", my two rehearsed words in Spanish - "adios" and "cervesa" - didn't spark a cock-a-doodle-doo of conversation. I was in the trough part of an adventure.

Without warning the bus pulled up to the ominous frontier and Pablo, an Italian stallion artisan with greasy locks and eyes like a bull frog, hopped off leaving his luggage behind? Before I could fight my way through the throng of pot-stomached locals, the bus was bombing at high speed into no man's land..."Argh!" I screamed in an accent that would have made Tom Jones beam,

"Que Pasa? Donde? Adios? Cervesa?", but to no avail.

I reached for my "Learn Spanish in a wink" book and yelled,

"Donde esta la casa de Pepe?"

The driver's response to my obvious torment was to make a series of gesticulations which are impossible to repeat without diagrams and a blow up doll. With an evil snarl, he put his foot on the gas and we continued to bolt along the desert strip from the boarder. He was like Michael Schumacker on amphetamines. After fifteen minutes of gripping the moustache of the woman sat practically on top of me, we entered Maicao.

Without so much as a "ciao", I was pushed off the bus by several podgy hens and both my backpack and the Stallion's luggage was thrown at me from the roof rack onto the dusty road. Showering me with dirt, the bus skidded off into the distance and I found myself surrounded by scarred youths carrying flick knives and an over eager dwarf cab driver carrying a big gun. Shaking, I lit a cigarette - a prison tactic when facing sudden fear. Pretending not to notice my audience, I sat on my backpack and fumbled for the Lonely Planet guide. I read in horror the following warning:

'Don't stay even minutes in the boarder town Maicao. It is a lawless town. Killings are frequent. Get the first bus to Santa Marta...'

It actually felt worse than standing in the dock being sentenced to nine months imprisonment. Dumped at some sort of cross-roads, the streets were in rack and ruin in every direction. Grime littered every wall, pavement and shack. Several joints selling beers were filled with intoxicated villains. Carts and cars drove by churning up more dust. I felt sick. A tank appeared with a few men riding up top in military uniform, pointing serious machine tools at the locals. I put on my shades and lugged on the filter - if the police or army asked to see my passport, a regular request in such countries, I had no 'entrance stamp' - illegally in the country! Worse still I was a vocabulary-disabled "gringa". I didn't know how to order a cab, let alone explain my way out of arrest and imprisonment. It's in such moments the echo of parental sensibleness plagues the brain,

"You are so naive darling. You are so stupid. I told you so. What were you thinking?"

For twenty minutes, that's one thousand two hundred seconds of sitting in a lawless town illegally, I remained in position lugging cigarettes and nervously plaiting my facial hair. Suddenly - praise the Virgin Mary! - Pablo appeared through a mushroom cloud of tank smoke, his eyeballs goggling out of their socket like loose pasta shells. And he had the cheek to shout abuse at me with annoying Italian inflexion.

"You stupid f***ing gringa! You didn't get-a your passport stamped? You're in grandissimo problemo."

I was not about to take any pesto from this spaghetti-slurping, arty farty, twit.

"I'm aware that I have no entrance stamp you silly Wap. Now get in a taxi with me back to the boarder where you can explain in your self-professed fluent Spanish what happened. At least "I" salvaged your luggage..."

It worked. We hailed the dwarf back to to the boarder. Pablo argued with the officials and I got my tits felt for free by the dodgy guard in the cowboy hat. Then midget man drove us back down the same desert road towards Maicao, past shantytowns and enormous billboards advertising Coca-Cola and Nike to the world's impoverished. The army pulled us over and a bunch of matchstick chewing sixteen year olds equipped with M16s, demanded "regalos". Pablo was forced at gun point to hand over some of his silver jewelery and I performed a pee show on the desert highway.

When we finally drove back into Maicao, the dwarf professed that I'd agreed for him to take us all the way to Santa Marta - seven hours away - by car. Pablo translated. I denied. Pablo ranted. The dwarf shouted "$500!". Pablo's eyes started frothing,

"Did you a-negotiate with this dwarf, you silly woman?"

"Does the Pope use condoms you silly wap?"

Immaculate conception emerged in the shape of the bus to Santa Marta. We leaped from our cab into the moving getaway vehicle and the dwarf organized half the town to chase after us. For over a hundred meters on desert highway, a band of thugs relentlessly chased after our bus carrying sticks, knives and bottles. Dust splattered their faces and we breathed a sigh of relief as they disappeared into pea-size shapes on the horizon. The dwarf disappeared from sight before his gun...

A sign on the road read - 'Welcome to Colombia!'

Welcome to Colombia", I internally mused.

The next three months in this misunderstood country transpired to...transport me to some unpredicted peaks...

© G3 1996