South of the Border

Disclaimer – I tried to take a vacation. I tried to leave my raccoon-esque fatigue look behind me in Munich and run away to Colombia. This is the story of what happens when I try to take a vacation.

  

Growing up the phrase 'south of the border' stirred up uncontainable amounts of anticipation...first, it meant we were going on a road trip. Secondly, it meant maybe - just maybe - Dad would let us stop at the redneck, rat trap that was (and still is?) ‘South of the Border – the Highway Oasis’ on Interstate 95 at the border of North and South Carolina. Thank goodness parental discretion reduced my visits to a minimum over my lifetime.

As I grew taller, the world grew bigger and my definition for 'south of the border' transformed from a petrol station/firework haven to the Continental border. The same juvenile desires awoke as I yearned, weakly I will admit, to join my friends for graduation parties, spring breaks and summer vacations in cheaply decorated, all-inclusive (bad decisions included) Mexican resort towns. Thank goodness for parental discretion, athletic commitments and personal discretion.

And so it became that the days of my life continued and my passport(s) took me right across the globe, but never ‘South of the Border’, until recently. My first trip to South America was a well timed break from my routine to attend what turned out to be a nine day wedding celebration of two glorious humans I proudly call friends. My trip to Colombia included a comical sequence of transportation blunders, a wealth of new cultural adventures and a charming cast of characters - old and new.

Destination 1: Bogota

I was to visit for an evening but as fate would have it, I got an early start to the transportation ‘adventures’ as the flight crew fumbled their way through three different technical failures on the tarmac in Munich - we cut our losses and returned to the gate. Different flight path, different airports and Bogota and I met only for a much anticipated nap at an airport hotel.

Destination 2: Cartagena

A four day retreat awaited me on the other end of a short flight from Bogota. I picked up a few friendly faces in the airport and we dove into the steam room like coastal Colombian town. I was immediately in love. We pierced the city walls of the old town and sauntered along narrow streets with bits of shade cast by charming wooden balconies that jettisoned from the sides of Caribbean colored walls. The town was buzzing with activity of the daily routine and it was merely seven am. Reconstruction here, house painting there, I absorbed it all thru my half opened eyes. Refurbished doors were garnished with the most ornate knockers of Gods and Iguanas that promised me equal charm and elegance from their neighbors if I just came back in a few years time.

They called it jet lag therapy, so our globally sourced group willingly suffered from the side effects and napped at all the wrong times, stayed up late and sipped cocktails before lunchtime. Our planes had arrived from countries oceans away and we shared war stories of our 20+ hour flight routes as our bodies tried to determine what time zone it should be in. The sun chased us under cafe umbrellas where we lingered over coconut drowned in lemonade, ignorant to the beads of water that dripped from the glass with each sip staining our Western garb. The locals pushed carts of limes down streets lined with beaded jewelry, coconut juice carts and local hats. We weaved in and out of a life that had an unfamiliar rhythm to it, a rhythm that my body yearned to adopt. So I napped again.

While the theme was relaxation, we also mixed in a little adventure...of the transportation and volcano variety. We were coerced into taking a boat to nearby islands to lounge in hammocks, eat fresh caught lobster and snorkel around the reef. First stop: a 'not in the brochure' Costal village when engine failure plagued our boat of forty. We disembarked on a group of poverty stricken locals carrying out their daily routines. One man lazily brushed his teeth in a doorway that opened into the sea – a thorough brush and then ‘pteh’ a stream of minty white foam right into the water – I secretly envied his freedom. Children splashed in the water as their younger siblings were washed by mothers and fathers. I wandered a bit, bought warm drinks from the market that wasn't running the generator that day and snapped photos of empty sports courts and dilapidated homes that displayed rusted 1980s Coca-Cola signage that once held promise of prosperity.

We were merely disrupting their day and when boat number two, with as many engines arrived, we left behind a scene of innocence and headed towards our haven. We swam, we ate, we napped again and I snapped a few photos and bargained with Elvis for a handful of local handicrafts. I know a little about winds and currents and I positioned myself accordingly for the boat trip home. It was extraordinary! We skirted around the major waves on the hour long trek home and my partners in crime snickered when I promised them roller coaster like experiences if we threw our hands in the air like ten year olds at Space Mountain. The captain and I both knew he couldn’t avoid the big waves forever and we got sufficiently wet and a few freefalls between sets. I wanted to do it all over but the glum faces of those weary of wild boat trips told a different story, so I tucked my head, wandered home and took yet another nap with a smirk on my face only a boat can bring.

We dined on the city walls, sang to a make shift karaoke machine and consumed more umbrella accented cocktails. We had an impromptu bar setup poolside to taste the local spirits from Peru and Brazil so that we could survive the heat. We tucked ourselves into an air-conditioned bar to spend a very tense and rewarding two hours cheering on the Germans as the captured the World Cup title then proudly walked thru town in our Red, Gold and Black to cheers of ‘Alemania’ as it seems no one in Colombia was supporting Argentina. We quickly seemed to acclimate to the energy of the locals – a perpetual relaxed buzz of life.

So it is only Day 3 and I managed this with only a small cold and moderate fever. The ‘consultant’s flu’ that will sneak up on every over-confident consultant that tries to escape from the grind of daily work, but a little penicillin and more than my fair share of naps and I was surviving – after all – at least I was not in the office.

Next up: Termite hills and Freckles