There aren’t many places in the world where you can take a 1 hour 45 minute bus ride (from Portal de Sur in Bogota) and descend 2300 meters (7545 feet) in elevation while climbing 13 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Fahrenheit) in average March temperatures.
The arrival to Melgar is a feast for the senses. Within 6 minutes of getting off the bus my girlfriend Kary and I had already been given three business cards of places to stay for the night. As we walked across the street we saw some classy graffiti written on the underside of a pedestrian bridge with a timeless piece of advice, “Yielding to a vice costs more than it does to raise a family.” After we got to the other side of the road, my girlfriend slowed down to talk on the phone and arrange for us to be picked up. While doing so, we realized we were being shadowed by a young woman of about 16 years old. Her head was slightly cocked in our direction as Kary spoke on the phone. She was either listening to Kary’s conversation or trying her hand at urban camouflage. The second Kary hung up, she delivered her sales pitch, “Mommy, would you like to buy sandals, bathing suit, shower cap, sleepers, …”
Before she was able to finish and without asking why in the world this person she had never met was calling her “Mommy,” Kary emphatically walked up to her and asked to be led to her store. We immediately got down to the business of talking swimsuit fashion. There were in total maybe 6 or 7 swimsuits fit to foam mannequins. Kary pointed to each mannequin and asked which sizes were available and the price of each swimsuit. When Kary mentioned she would also be buying a suit for her daughter, the sales clerk quickly called across the street for reinforcements. “What size is your daughter?” asked the clerk, trying her best not to foam at the mouth. Kary then stood next to the clerk and suggested her daughter was maybe a hand length shorter. The clerk then yelled to her newly-arrived senior helper, “Size 16!”
The older woman then ran across the street, grabbed a box of swimsuits and came running back to the store front. She then dived inside the box and started showing us all the swimsuits in size 16. As soon as Kary inspected the first swimsuit she said that she just wanted to see one piece bathing suits. This second piece of information sent the woman into an even higher gear of her frenzied search. Within 30 seconds a pile of swimsuits started to form at our feet. Kary picked up her favorite one and they then started negotiating on price. We ended up walking away with two swimsuits for $10,000 pesos each. The morning was off to a great start. We decided to celebrate our purchases with two beers. Before we could get halfway through our beers, our friend Giovanni had already arrived on the scene to pick us up.
He had brought along his son Nicholas. When we asked why one of Nicholas’ eyebrows was bandaged, Giovanni replied that Nicholas school had just become mixed (boys and girls) and some of the girls were going haywire playing “Guess Who?” with their new male classmates. We didn’t have time to finish our beers, instead Giovanni told us to grab our beers as he and his son Nicholas helped with our luggage. On the car ride to our hotel, Giovanni gave us a run down on the roadside attractions, “Here is the Colombian Air Force base, I had a chance to serve here during my military service but decided to do my service in Bogotá, I can’t take the heat here in Melgar. Actually two soldiers died in these barracks due to becoming over heated.”
He then explained that we would be staying in a group of cottages called Anebre. And, for $45,000 pesos a night, we could do all the swimming/water sliding, ping pong, basketball and nigh clubbing we could stand. We would also be given three meals a day. It seemed we were driving towards the working class version of Sandals Resorts. After we pulled into the compound, I was immediately impressed with the number of female dogs walking around the property with stretched out mid-sections, a sure sign that they had recently given birth. A quick glance at the parking lot, which wasn’t more than a dirt hill and a few trees, revealed that there weren’t more than 4 or 5 other families here with cars.
Giovanni then led us to out room, which looked like it had pretty much everything we needed, a bathroom, two sets of bunk beds, cleans sheets, a fan and a closet. We then go dressed into our swim suits and headed to the pool. After splashing around a little and listening to “Pajaritos En El Aire,” over the hotel sound system, we went to lunch. The lunch consisted of homemade patacones, rice, ground meat, pork rinds, bean soup and fresh lemonade. As we ate, one of our new-found canine friends sat underneath the table to get a ring side seat to all the nice smells coming from our table. I threw a couple scraps underneath the table for our friend, seeing as though she was a raising a family of pups.
After finishing our meal, we asked the waiter if we could visit the pups of the mother who had recently adopted us. The waiter said yes and pointed us in the direction of where we could find the litter of pups. The pups where located in the patio of one of the bungalows. The litter looked pretty fresh, each one looked no bigger than the size of a fist. After taking a few photos we decided to head back to the pool. As we walked to the lower pool, we realized that the hotel water slide had just been turned on. Our group of six people made no fewer than 16 passes each on the water slide.
After a full day of lounging around the pool, eating bat-shaped ice cream off sticks and two large meals we put the kids to bed and went to the discothèque with Giovanni and his girlfriend Milena. The discoteque had a total of three groups in attendance, one group looked like a small bachelorette party which simultaneously drank, smoked and danced while yelling their musical requests to the DJ. There was one lucky male in the group who followed me in to the bathroom each time I went to take a leek. The urinal banter started with him asking me the same question, “Where you from?” and then him reciting a list of all the English-speaking countries in the world, “….Ouuustralia, Caaaanaaaadah….”
The other group in attendance seemed to be more the picnic crowd. They all just sat around drinking their beers calmly as each one took turns dancing with their pajama-wearing infant on the dance floor.
The next day we decided to take a mid-afternoon trip to Giradot. Giovanni drove at breakneck speed down the highway while yelling at cars, animals and livestock to get out of his way. I feared at one point he was going to start passing on the center line of the highway between cars. As soon as we reached Giradot, Giovanni informed us that we were going to taste the best avena (grounded up oat meal drink served chilled) we had ever drank in our lives. Our first stop was “Avena Las Delicias” where we ordered 1 avena each. The avena was smoother than a honey-flavored milkshake. After we finished our avena, Giovanni told us that “Avena Las Delicias” used to be a business run soley out of the back up three-wheeled tok-toks.And, after several years it had finally gotten enough money to open a brick and mortar store.
Our next excursion was a long walk across a 466 meter (1528 feet) long train/pedestrian bridge (Puente Ferreo). While on the bridge, we took several photos of the cityscape, the Magdalena River and our group of friends that was being followed by several undersized dogs. Not wanting to miss an opportunity at enlightening the group, Giovanni explained to us that, “The reason these dogs live on the street is because of bad behavior at home.”
The traffic leaving Giradot had picked up substantially due to a Marc Anthony/Reyes de la Noche concert that was taking place. The increased traffic seemed only to incite Giovanni to take more short cuts and yield at fewer intersections. Our arrival back to Bogotá was a welcome opportunity to rest our sun burnt skins, expanding waistlines and frazzled nerves.
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