Adventure Man would be proud

Olympic Quickie: Tough one to swallow for Team USA hockey. What a game though. I had a gut feeling from the US’s first goal onwards that they were going to tie the game, whether with 15 minutes or 24 seconds left on the clock. Too bad they couldn’t push one more goal across the line. Congrats to Canada. Keep your head up USA. Be proud!

My friend Eric Day goes by many names….mainly because I am the only one who calls him all types of nicknames. Most recently christened Brown Chicken on his six month Appalachian Trail hike, his flare for the outdoors has earned him the nickname “Adventure Man.” While I don’t try to rival his outdoor prowess, I do try to emulate him and am proud when I can tack on my own Adventure Man-esque adventure activity on my belt.

Two weekends ago was such the case.

I went rappelling with my friend Jessica and a group of seven other Colombian tourists about an hour outside of Bogota. Mere co-passengers in the transportation van by morning, the nine of us ended up forged a friendship through a common death-defying experience by late afternoon.

The original plan was to go whitewater rafting and rappel down one cliff. But due to a mild drought and lack of rain over the past several weeks, the river levels were too low so we couldn’t go rafting. Instead we rappelled down three different drops. The first one was a bridge, about 30 meters high.

The second drop was a waterfall cliff about 20 meters high with water rushing down our faces as we made the descent into a cave underneath the waterfall. Once everyone had rappelled down we took turns jumping the about 15 feet from the cave into the lake.

But the third drop was the mother of them all – a 75 meters high waterfall running down a mountain.

Thinking through the physics of rappelling you tell yourself that you really have nothing to worry about as long as the rope is steady and tied to a solid, stationary weight like a rock, tree, pole, etc. But it’s a whole different ball game when you are lunging down a 220 foot mountain seeing the “sturdy” rope of yours scrape against the rocks wondering how many times over this same rope has been scraping against these same rocks and what if something gives way? It was a rush. Admittedly I was nervous for the first drop since it was, well, my first time and the 5 minute instructional talk given by our guide on how to rappel didn’t exactly leave me feeling like a pro. But the first drop went smooth and I was not only not nervous, but excited, for the second drop. Then come the third, the second I took a peek down the endless abyss that I was about to head down, man oh man, the butterflies definitely kicked in.

But alas, I am alive to blog away about it. Equally as cool as the rappelling itself were the hikes through the ravines to get from one drop point to the next. And of course, what goes down must come up so we ended the day long adventure with a hefty 45 minute hike up through the mountains. Hell of a time I tell ya. Adventure Man would be proud of me.

Football and Fútbol

One of the best things about being out of the country this time of year is that I avoid the 24/7 news cycle of Superbowl coverage on ESPN and other US sports channels. Living in the States much my TV time naturally gravitates to sports channels. And it’s this time of year when incessant Superbowl coverage from what one team’s starting QB ate for breakfast to what the other team’s defensive end thinks about the host city’s nightlife just gets too annoying to handle. Being away from it all I can just sit back, wait, and enjoy the game when it is on.

A recent game that I enjoyed live was a soccer match between two of Colombia’s biggest rivals – Millonarios from Bogotá vs. Nacional from Medellín. Bogotá is the capital of Colombia, of course, and Medellín is the country’s second-city. So as with New York-LA/Chicago, Madrid-Barcelona, and Paris-Lyon, any matchup between first and second city teams is always fierce. But on top of that, there is political bad blood boiling between Millonarios and Nacional. Nacional was the team of Pablo Escobar, both figuratively as his favorite team but also financially after he bought them with his drug cartel money. At the peak of Escobar’s powers, the Medellín cartel (and by extension the entire city) was at war with Bogotá. The Colombian government declared war on Escobar and subsequently Escobar declared war on Bogotá. He placed $10,000 bounties on police officers’ heads, assassinated politicians, and rampantly set off car bombs on any given corner of the city. Throw in the paramilitaries who had their own initiatives and jumped into the power vacuum struggle and the country was on the brink of civil war. It’s that bloody era of Colombian history that unfortunately still scars Colombia’s identity to this day as a dangerous country stricken by domestic upheaval. The country has since cleaned up its act significantly after the current and outgoing President Álvaro Uribe beefed up domestic security and cracked down hard on the drug war and paramilitaries. It’s because of the increased security that Colombia has gone through what a US diplomat I recently met at the embassy here described as, an “economic miracle.” GDP more than doubled from 2000-2007 from $83 billion to $171 billion.

Politics and economics tangent aside, the game was awesome. It was the oepning game of the Colombian season and the most intense rivalry of the country. So the stadium was packed to the brim and Millonarios won 2-1. The quality of play was what it was. No use comparing it to European soccer. But the thrill of the crowd was intense. Non-stop singing and chanting in unison and the Nacional fans had a decent showing which enhanced the smack-talking exchange going on. Of course, after the match ended there was the usual 30 minutes of chest pumping and fight instigating between the two sides of fans who were separated by 20 rows of empty seats and hoards of policemen. The visiting fans, Nacional, were ushered out of the stadium first and only about an hour later were the home team Millonarios fans allowed to leave. Good times!!

The Million Dollar Ride

And I don’t mean a stretch limo joyride decked out with leather seats, champagne, and HD plasma TV monitors. In Colombia, what is colloquially referred to as the “million dollar ride” is when a cab driver pulls a weapon of choice on you, typically after concluding that you are a gringo (but still happens to many native Colombians), and takes you on a ride to the nearest ATM to withdraw as much money as possible to bankroll his night out on the town. A prevalent system in place here to avoid that is to call cabs from your apartment/office/or point of origin. It’s a real simple, fast, and efficient process. I dial 4111111 and reach an automated message telling me my request has been processed. It goes to a dispatcher who radios to taxis on the road that I need to be picked up and a cab driver calls in that he/she will pick me up. The cab arrives (usually no later than 10 minutes after the call) and I give them my code which are the last two digits of the phone number I called from. It ensures that the right person is picked up and the arriving taxi who called in the pickup has info on record so no foul play can go down. It is always more advisable to call a cab than to flag one from the street. But let’s face it, you can’t always call a cab from a point of origin. If you get caught in the rain leaving the mall or are heading home from a bar, well, almost definitely you are hailing a cab from the street.

Whenever I get in a cab that I hail from the street, my unofficial litmus test of sketchiness to gauge the likelihood of a million dollar ride is to check for two things: first, the cabbie’s ID sheet. It’s a laminated piece of paper hanging from the backseat with all his license and registration info. However, a lot of cabbie’s don’t have them visible for the passenger. Second thing to check is if the driver has a rosary hanging from the rear view mirror. Colombia being an overwhelmingly Catholic country, more drivers have rosaries than they do visible ID sheets. If they have neither a visible ID sheet nor a rosary, adios, next cab please! Yes, you can argue ten ways from Tuesday that religious people do bad things and yes I am perpetuating the common stereotype that Colombia is a crime ridden land of thieves and cocaine cartels. But it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

Speaking of stereotypes, here’s a video to watch when you have 7:52 of free time. (Watch the whole thing because it is meant to disabuse the stereotypes.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uzfXVyqTzI

Speaking of religion, in Colombia you know that you don’t need a cell phone to talk to God? By that I am referring to the catchy little sign outside my neighborhood church reminding people “Recuerdas que estás en la casa de Dios. Para hablar con Él, no necesitas tu cellular” (Remember that you are in the house of God. To speak with Him, you don’t need your cell phone). Bouncing around from Germany to Russia to Colombia with stops in Paris and Manalapan, NJ in between, and going long stretches without seeing close friends and family, few things in my life are necessarily constant. I try to keep up with my faith and go to church as much as possible as one way to ground myself in something constant in this whirlwind of a life I am living. It has also led me to some interesting experiences at some of the services I’ve attended around the world.

I search for English speaking Catholic masses wherever I go, most of which are easily just a Google click away. But being in Colombia now and having a familiarity with the language, I’m not pressed for English-speaking services. Not surprisingly, most of the English speaking Catholic services I’ve attended are dominated by Filipino ex-pats. Afterall, that’s essentially what the Philippines is – an archipelago of 95% English speaking Catholics. This was the case in Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, and Moscow. A very interesting service I went to in Moscow was conducted half in French and half in English. The priest would say something in English then repeat it in French (or vice versa) but with a smooth eloquence that didn’t come off as repetitive. Even more interesting was the representation of the crowd. The French part of the mass was catered for not necessarily French from France, but for the large French West African population. The English, likewise, was meant to cater for not the Americans, but the Filipinos and Nigerians in attendance. More so, every group (French West Africans, Filipinos, and Nigerians) had their own choir and they alternated the songs that they sang in their native language. Adding more to the flavor, the songs were enhanced by a “local touch.” The French West African songs had a distinct, smooth, reggae beat to it. The Nigerians meanwhile added rhythm through a soft beat of the bongo drum.

Here in Colombia the services are much more traditional, the congregation much more homogenous. Every single one of the 7 services on any given Sunday is jam-packed standing room only. The church that I go to just down my street is an interesting mix between developed world modernity with its new-age architecture but a twist of developing world congregation. By that I mean the standing room only capacity for each service; the chaotic rush of people from all angles of the church at the same time to receive communion; and the life of the town that a church becomes on a Sunday morning with vendors galore and family gatherings all seeming to gravitate there.

So it’s interesting….I go to church around the world in an effort to root myself in something constant, something consistent, but even that is a tough task as I am always running into something new, something different, something refreshingly insightful that makes me appreciate the local surroundings.