¡Ay Papito! ¡Ay Mamita!

Greg and Janet Smizer came to Colombia last week. Yes, it´s true! My parents joined the orioles and flew south for a few days (four, no more) to come visit me. The decision was made hastily--in fact, I didn´t even know (and neither did they) that they would be coming until about a week and a half before they arrived. It was delightful having them here, and also pretty hilarious. Those of you who know them will undoubtedly understand the limitless potential for good laughs and awkward moments.

For example. Consider the average sized Colombian and then consider me. Take into account that which I´ve previously written along the lines of size disparity, especially on the farm. Now consider Greg Smizer. Six foot two, solidly built. Petite and delicate? Hardly. Watching him cram his long spindly legs into the back seat of the car upon picking him and Janet up from the airport elicited from me a feeling of empathy and also giggly childish delight. Knees pushed nearly to his adam´s apple, chest heaving slightly to try to make room for limbs that would not rest in their preferred anatomical location, and the strained smile that attempts to convey the idea that everything està bien--we´re in Colombia!

Since their time here was so short, we didn't really do many touristy things. I wanted them to see my day-to-day, and my farming budget doesn't really allow for day trips into the mountains or high-end dinners. They came to the farm, we hung out in the city, we rode the brand new aerial cable, we went to my favorite cafe, and we cooked a delicous meal for all of our friends the last night they were here. I think they enjoyed themselves. I think it's so cool that they wanted to come to Colombia.

Anyway, much has gone on in the life and times of yours truly since I last wrote. After my parents' spontaneous trip to visit me, I took a spontaneous trip of my own. I officially left Cecilia's farm and decided to take a few vacation days before heading out in search of another farm further south. On the morning my parents left, Jenn and I took a road trip up to Cartagena, a city up on the Carribbean coast. Apparently, Gabriel Marquez' ''Love in the time of cholera'' was filmed there, so it seemed more than appropriate to travel to that region, especially since I currently find myself deeply entrenched in that very book. In Spanish, of course. I am reading it at the white-knuckle clip of about 1 page every five minutes.

We drove up there with our friend Maria, who is the owner of the boarding house where we would stay on weekends in the city of Manizales. Twenty three hours in the car. One way. Weirdly, it didn't feel nearly as long as it was, at least on the way up. I must have taken about 500 pictures out the window as we rounded curvy mountain passes, climbed up steep green hills, and joined the traffic caravans of large banana trucks and tractor trailers. The variety in the landscape was astounding. The temperature would climb and drop within an hour, to a point where you could be sweating like you've never sweat before at 1pm, experiencing zero wind and an unrelenting sun, and then by 1:30 you've climbed to the top of a hill where the breeze finally reaches you and the air has dried out, and you find solace in the shadows. By 1:45 you reach into your bag for your sweatshirt, it's actually not warm at all anymore, and you're high up above the valleys, and by 2pm, you're climbing down the mountain and quickly peeling off your layers of clothing once again. The towns through which we passed changed with the climate, too. The hot weather yielded vallenato music, which is that accordion and guitar tropical beat, and the people sat outside their homes in rocking chairs or hammocks. In the cooler weather, we found men in jeans and cowboy hats, cows grazing for miles and miles, and coffee drinkers on patios. I saw so many different shades of green, blue, and yellow, and I also discovered something especially delicious about traveling by land in Colombia: road food.

This is not your Roy Rogers or Sbarro experience. No senor. Think little roadside restaurants which serve heaping portions of freshly made cheese, hot chocolate, coffee, arepas (thick corn patties), avocadoes, savory soups, grilled meats, homemade sweets, and agua panela, which is kind of like really unrefined sugar, maybe a cross between molasses and brown sugar, mixed in with cold water and lemon. Delicious. And you need not travel through thirty miles of nothingness in desperate search of those big blue signs with the fork and knife logo, sponsored by McDonalds, as in my country. The rest stops on the highways of Colombia can be found pretty much every 5 km or so, which means that you never go hungry on the road. And highways are mostly one-lane roads with double yellow lines that everyone ignores, especially when you find yourself stuck behind a donkey truck.

Cartagena was immensely touristy, but also breathtakingly gorgeous. Situated on the ocean, the old part of the city boasts colonial European architecture with balconies overlooking narrow streets illuminated at nightfall by antique lanterns which emit a warming yellow hue. Bright pink and purple bougainvilleas wind whimsically around doorframes, balconies, and banisters, and musicians roam the streets with their classical guitars and it's all enough to make even the most callous of human beings fall in love. Jenny and I were lamenting the fact that not only were we broke in Cartagena, but single as well.

Maria's brother lives in Cartagena, and he let us stay in the vacant apartment over his store. Un. Believable. Also located in the old sector, the most sought-after real estate in the city, with high ceilings and french doors that led out to our very own balcony. We have been shown such generosity in this country.

One of my favorite things about Cartagena was ever-available coffee vendors in the streets. They walk around with thermoses and little cups, and there seemed to be one on every corner. Coffee when and where you want it. Heck, you don't even have to leave your house. The apartment where Maria's brother lives had a little basket with a string attatched to the handle. If you're feeling super lazy, or just too hot to peel yourself off the rocking chair, you can lower the basket over the balcony down to street level with your money, and the coffee vendor will place the coffee into your basket, at which point you just have to pull it back up (ever so carefully so as not to spill it!) and there you are! So much fun. It was like fishing for coffee.

Since realistically Jenn and I couldn't really afford to do this trip, we simply pretended we could, dealt with the expenses we couldn't control (transport, etc) and kept it simple with things we could control (food). We ate a lot of yogurt, bananas, and granola. Good bang for the buck. Punch for the peso. But don't you worry, we still left room for plenty of quality food, probably the best food we could have found, which happened to be some of the cheapest:

Example: Arepa de huevo. Egg arepa. Arepas in Manizales and other landlocked cities are more like thick corn tortillas, cooked over the fire. Arepas in Cartagena are fried, then slit open, at which point a raw egg is cracked and dropped inside, along with a little bit of cooked ground meet, then the arepa is thrown back into hot oil. The egg fries inside the arepa and when it is scooped back out with a slotted spoon, it's ready to eat. They must be eaten straight from the oil, because once they cool they get soggy and flopsy. You squirt some hot sauce or tartar sauce (or both) on it and eat. Delectable. Because what can be better than fried food? Food that is fried TWICE! But the arepa itself is only half the charm of the experience. These arepas cannot be found in standard restaurants in the luxe confines of Cartagena center, oh no. We had to venture out of the tourist area into the neighborhoods, where the arepas de huevo are sold on street corners. A few chairs are set up next to the arepa stand, where a television is almost always mounted on top of an egg crate so that patrons may watch their favorite soccer team while they eat. Good food, good soccer game, good time.

Also, if you go to Cartagena, don't leave without eating arroz de coco. Coconut rice. Sticky, dark brown from being cooked with panela, that molasses/brown sugar stuff I wrote about earlier, and of course, coconut milk. It's more of a dessert than a side dish, which I heartily appreciated. We took some with us on the road trip back to Manizales, but after digging our spoons into it at a rest stop, I accidentally left the box on the roof of the car. We saw a white little box-shaped bird flutter away and bounce down the road, spewing brown stuff, in the rear view mirror as we picked up speed upon driving away, and I had to try really hard not to show how incredibly devistated I was. Tranquila.

Maria's brother, Carlos, was one of the funniest people I've ever met. We spent the day on the beach of the island, Isla Tierra Bomba, and we got silly on beers and rum and gave them an English class. Carlos was convinced that the word for scissors was "chicken," and kept doing the scissors cutting motion with his index and middle fingers and saying "chee-kan, chee-kan!" We taught them the word "scissors," (SEE-zahrs!) of course, as well as "knife," (NYE-eef!) and "I don't understand" (Eye doh nonderstahn), among others. Sometimes, when Carlos spoke too fast and we asked him to repeat, he just repeated the same words at the same pace, just in his version of gringo Spanish. So funny. As if that would help us understand. And so for the rest of our time we all spoke Spanish with this weird harsh "r" sound (eg. "Varrmos ar lar playarr" instead of vamos a la playa), and it never got old. I like accents.

Tomorrow Jenn and I begin what will be the longest series of bus rides of either of our lives. We will travel from here to Bolivia in about one week. Not excited to sit still for a long time, but I am excited for street meat!