I put my hands up in the air sometime, saying... YEEEEEEEHAAAAAW!

After seeing the real Bogota, Felipe was so kind as to take us to his hometown, Villavicencio, three hours outside of Bogota.  Nothing like a trip within a trip.  And I was relieved to be traveling by any means besides airplane (haven’t had the best luck with those).  Our plan was to take a bus.  And by bus, I mean 12 passenger van.  Felipe and I discussed our future life plans in depth for three hours and also he explained to me that I pronounce the entire Spanish language incorrectly.  Better late than never.

Yenny + Felipe 

I'm well versed in the hand shaped heart pictures.  This was taken in Shanghai May 2009 when James and Sarah had first met, and now, two years later, they're still dating.  You're welcome.

Felipe’s house was gorgeous and bustling with family.  Lots of people, lots of activity.  I quickly ingratiated myself with his younger siblings and cousins with the classic pato, pato, pollo.  And his dad’s business is none other than POPSICLES! What a treat! Especially because Villavicencio is hot – sweaty, humid hot.  Although only three hours from Bogota, it’s down the mountain and is considered the “llano” or plains, so the weather is vastly different.

One of our biggest reasons for going to Villeciencios was the nightlife.  We had already gone out once in Bogota, and it went splendidly.  In Bogota, we met up with some of Felipe and Cristian’s friends: two boys and two girls.  These girls were insanely attractive, petite, Latinas who exude sex appeal from every pore.  They were dressed very fashionably and their dance moves turned heads.  I turned heads for another reason.   Let me a paint a picture for you:

No suitcase = No clothes. No makeup. No hairbrush. No nothing.

There I am – in my mom jeans that I bought at the clothes warehouse, Yenny’s shirt that didn’t fit, Yenny’s bra that really didn’t fit, my New Balance tennis shoes with paint splatters from painting the school in Piura, no makeup, bird's nest hair, vampire pale skin, towering over everyone by at least six inches, and flailing about like a crazy person despite Felipe and Cristian’s best efforts to teach me how to dance.

And I was sober.

Normally, this doesn’t sound like my ideal night but it was surprisingly really, REALLY fun.  There were some La Hora Loca aspects, a live performance, and they played Lou Bega’s classic Mambo Number Five.

I put hands up in the air sometime, saying...

YEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAW!

We once again put on our dancing shoes (read: paint covered sneakers), and repeated the process in Villavicencio.  We went out with the four regulars + Felipe's cousin, Juan David.  The odds were in our favor (well more so than the tango class).  We danced and laughed until four in the morning and had a gay ol' time.

Felipe’s dad treated us to lunch on Sunday after Mass.  We went to a typical restaurant of the area (I can just hear Alberto from Valencia: typico).  This was a restaurant I could get on board with.  The choices were: beef or pork.  We ordered both.  They come out with a MASSIVE plate of meat, yucca, and plantains.  The meat had been slow cooked for hours.  The best part: we ate with our hands.  Katherine would have been appalled, especially after her grueling Cotillion (cataaaallion) lessons in junior high.  Our beverage of choice was like a clara, but Colombian style.  It was a mix of Aguila (Colombian beer) and Colombiana (Colombian soda).  Me gusta.

 Forks were optional.

The restaurant featured a live, traditional band sporting traditional attire, which included cowboy boots.

I remarked that although Felipe claims we’re in Colombia, I’m pretty sure we’re in Oklahoma: cowboys and barbecue – not to mention there was a photo of an oilrig on the wall.  Said live, traditional band had a singer que atrevido (bold).  He waltzed right up to me, mid song, stuck the microphone in my face and expected me to finish the lyrics.  There were many things wrong with this situation:  First of all, I don’t sing… EVER (except when I’m drunk at O’Connell’s).  Secondly, I don’t speak Spanish in public if I can help it.  Thirdly, and most obviously, I don’t know the song.  No hard feelings – the singer still wanted me to buy his CD.

If Peru and Colombia were competing for best singer that makes me extremely uncomfortable… Danffer wins hands down.  Besides, he wrote a song for me (“Lorita” = instant classic) and serenaded me last summer and he gave (no purchase necessary) me his CD.  It wasn’t a fair fight.

Colombia.  Wow Lorita, lookin fly.

Peru.  I don’t make a habit of hugging large, sweaty men (in sequined shirts) – only on request.

After lunch, we made a stop at this hole in the wall restaurant for my favorite thing I ate on the entire trip (besides San Jacinto lunch in Piura – I really can’t top that), but more than Inca Kola, more than Sublimes, more than Argentine steak, more than chifa, more than pasta with whole squid (that one was a bust), more than ceviche, more than medialunas, more than the absolutely delicious guacamole the cooks make at Santisimo (I am so embarrassed.  My mouth jus started watering)… EVEN MORE THAN CHIFLES.

Queso sietecueros con bocadillo: A delicious cheese with candy (and here I was thinking that bocadillo meant sandwich).  They were delectable separate, but eaten together, the combination of flavors were truly spectacular.  I think Felipe’s dad was a little put off by my enthusiasm.

We took the "bus" (this time the vehicle was only slightly larger than an SUV) back to Bogota and finally it was time for our tear filled departure...

The four best friends that anyone could have.

(Spotted: MOM JEANS)

But wait, what about my suitcase?!

Luggage lost: January 12, 2011

When we had to fly back to Oklahoma on the 17th, I was still sans luggage.  After droppin some f bombs with the LAN representative and threatening to call the CIA on them, I finally accepted defeat.  Because I didn't have a suitcase, my checked luggage was a GIANT stuffed caterpillar that Cristian's mom had made for his girlfriend in Oklahoma.  So my only belongings were my backpack, the Mario pillow, and the caterpillar.  I travel light (and plush).

Upon arriving in Houston, we had to claim our luggage for customs.  As Yenny and I stood in line, I didn't look sketch at all holding my huge, slightly torn trash bag.

The customs official said, "Next!".  I handed him my form...

Official: (in a heavy Texas accent) What's in the bag, ma'am?

Lori:  (very sheepishly) A giant, stuffed caterpillar.

He takes a look at the bag, looks at me, and then takes another look at the bag.

Official:  Welcome back.

Luggage found:  January 23, 2011

Yes, my friends, after 11 days of despair, I was finally reunited with my precious suitcase.  But not after LAN gone one final gag in:

I received an email saying that my luggage would arrive to Will Rogers World Airport (haha world airport. More like – hey, you can maybe catch a flight to Dallas) on an American Airlines flight.  I rise bright and early Saturday morning and trek all the way to Oklahoma City with a sparkle in my eye and a bounce in my step.  And then I waited.  The all too familiar feeling returned when the baggage claim conveyor spouted out unfamiliar suitcases.  As you probably guessed, it didn’t come.  LAN, you did it again, you little bastards.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, I will never fly your airline again.  Fortunately, it arrived the next day.  It was like a mother reuniting with her child…

I missed you.

So now I’m back in Oklahoma, my leg has healed from my run in with shelf at the market, my tan lines are fading, I’m back to facebooking my Peruvian friends with “te extraño mucho,” I'm finally showering on a regular basis, and I’m looking forward to the next travel adventure...

 Ash and Lorz Do Europe May 2011.

This should be good.

Gata, gata!

“I love her, and she loves me.  But we are not a couple.  And it is SO cool.” – Cristian

This is how Cristian described our relationship, and I couldn’t agree more.  Our time in Colombia was very different than anything thus far on the trip because it wasn’t like we were tourists in Bogota, it was like we were just hanging out with friends for a long weekend and happened to be in Bogota.

When Yenny and I planned this trip, she mentioned that she had two friends in Colombia.  I imagined that we would try to meet up with them sometime during our stay and have lunch or go out or something.  Boy, was I wrong.  It began when Cristian and Felipe met us at the airport proudly holding a sign made with computer paper, masking tape, and yellow highlighter: "Jenny | Lori | Welcome to Colombia"

Not entirely legible.

I won’t be able to remember Colombia without thinking of Cristian and Felipe.  They took care of us in every regard and come to think of it, there was not a moment when they left us alone.

We were planning on staying at Cristian and Felipe’s friend’s apartment that was currently vacant.  It wasn’t exactly Buckingham (Boeckingham) Palace, but we sure weren’t complaining because it was FO FREE.  Incidentally, we never even slept there because the next two nights, we all stayed at Felipe’s aunt’s apartment, which I fell in love with.

Every single surface was covered with knick knacks and every wall covered in art or photos.  It reminded me of my grandparents’ house.  We got to explore her life through her belongings.  We looked through photo albums of Felipe and his cousins and other people we didn’t know.  Her library contained books on almost every subject.  Her apartment showed this fascinating life full of travel, adventures, and loved ones.  I want my house to be exactly like that when I’m older.

We found a book about Colombia so Cristian proceeded to lecture us for 45 minutes about the culture, history, and politics of Colombia (complete with Cristian's commentary).  With each photo of an indigenous person, he would exclaim, "Look at the tradition; look at the culture."

Love. This. Place.

Truly fascinating

Cristian and Felipe were dedicated to showing us the real Bogota.  They complained that tourists come to Bogota and only see the nicer part of the city, but not us.  No, we were going to experience the essence of Bogota.  And you can’t know the real Bogota without a visit to La Piscina…

In a taxi, on our way to downtown, Cristian, the ever faithful tour guide points to the right and says, “That’s La Piscina, it’s a very well known whore house.  It’s one of the classier ones.”  What makes a Colombian brothel classy, I still don’t know, but I politely smiled and nodded and quietly stored that information away in case it ever came up on Jeopardy or La Luna trivia.  I thought that would be the end of my La Piscina exposure.  The taxi driver quickly interjected, and said, “No, La Piscina is in the other direction.”  It really didn’t matter to me in which direction was La Piscina, until it was decided that we take a tour of the district in our taxi with our new taxi driver friend.  You see, he is very familiar with the area… from experience.  For the next 20 minutes, we creeped along prostitute (and transvestite) lined streets while being regaled with outlandish tales by the taxi driver about his gallivants with various hookers.  Now these stories were so crude and rude that I have made an executive decision not to repeat them here.  Each of these stories went the same way: Cristian and Felipe laughing hysterically; Yenny and I with eyes wide, hands over our mouths in looks of total disbelief (and asking for translations quite often... this wasn't the kind of vocabulary you learn in SPAN 3073).

As we neared La Piscina, the purpose of our tour, the taxi driver slowed the car down, rolled down the window, whistled and yelled, “Gata! Gata!”  A woman walked over to greet him through the open window with an, “Hola, mi amor.”  She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and then they started making out (Note: we had to explain to Felipe and Cristian the subtleties of the English language when it comes to “making out” and “making love”).  As this was happening, the four of us were just silent and blatantly staring (wouldn’t you??)  And just as quickly as it happened, it was over.  The taxi driver dismissed his lover and sped off.  I was a little baffled by the whole situations so I asked…

Lori:  “How does he know her?”

Felipe: “How do you think?”

Oh dear.

This paints a rather sordid picture of an otherwise delightful city.  We saw many interesting things, met lovely people, took a side trip to Felipe’s hometown, and even went to two (we are so hardcore) discotecas; all of which I will discuss in the next and final post.

A few pictures of our entertaining outings in Colombia:

A photo representation of the overall superiority of the Mario pillow versus the airline provided pillow.

I think I have had more ice cream in South America than I have had in my entire life.

True to Colombian nature - we washed out our ice cream cups and then drank soda out of them.

 Buying clothes in Bogota because I still don't have my suitcase.

 My two favorite people in the whole country.

 Cristian's homemade juice (jews).

 Breakfast spread prepared by our very own Pipe and Cristian.

 Taking the laundry for a walk.

 Eating (FREE) empanadas at Cristian's uncle store.

So yes, just one more post until it's all over.  "Don't cry, don't cry."

Because they're not together.

Two things absolutely have never ever ever happened to me while flying:

1) Miss a flight

2) Airline loses my luggage.

And now, I can proudly say, that BOTH of these things have happened to me on this trip.  Whenever something particularly shitty happens to us, we always have the same response, “good blog material.”

The worker/attendant/LAN Argentina representative/my new best friend woman was awfully friendly, but not entirely helpful.  Yenny and I were at the airport SIX hours before the flight (we’ll be damned if we miss another flight), and both tickets were bought together – same credit card, same confirmation number.  But as the travel gods have not looked upon me favorably thus far on this trip, Yenny’s bag came tumbling through the baggage claim conveyor belt, but sadly, mine did not.  I couldn’t quite follow this logic in my mind, so I asked the representative,

L: “Por que las maletas no están juntas?” (Why are the suitcases not together?)

Woman: “Porque no están juntas.” (Because they’re not together)

Well when you put it that way….

Then she asked what my address was in Bogota – didn’t know it.  Then she asked my phone number – don’t have one.  This is going to be tricky.  We finally decided that I would pick my suitcase up at the airport in Bogota tomorrow.  She gave me a LAN phone number to call, an email to contact, and interestingly, her personal hotmail email account.  I mean, I’m not looking especially dashing in my Nike shorts and Chi O pull over (God, I need to grow up. I really shouldn’t be dressing like this anymore), but I was quite charming.  And I think she recognized that and saw the potential for a new beefie in me.  Her thoughts, ‘Here’s a girl who’s down on her luck, but has still got a smile on her face.  That’s what I want in a friend.’  I’m totes gonna look her up on Facebook.

Did LAN let me down by losing my luggage?  Yes.  But they totally made up for it by playing Gags! I was thrilled!!!

Gags! This is the moment where they point out the hidden camera.

In the Buenos Aires airprot (be mindful, there are two.  And we almost went to the wrong one).

This was too good to be true.

Woooow.

So now we’re waiting in Cordoba, Argentina for a flight to Panama City to connect to Bogota.  Yep, makes perfect sense.  And yes, we too had to look up where Cordoba is on a map.  But it sure looks lovely…

Our only view of Coroba

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cordoba IS lovely!  We got to experience this first hand because our flight to Panama City was CANCELLED!! Oh jeez, what is that about Murphy’s Law?  Everything that can go wrong will go wrong?

They announced that the flight was cancelled and offered to put us up in a hotel for the night.  Hell, better than sleeping in the airport.  Our flight was supposed to take off at 4:15 am, and it was 6:30 am by the time we get to the hotel.  And we hadn't slept a wink.  We were tiiiiiiiiiiired.

The good news: the hotel is AIR CONDITIONED (love it), has INTERNET, we get our meals FOR FREE, and they have a POOL!  Baller.

View from our window.  Stunning.

Getting ready to enjoy a nice, romantic dinner for two.

 Did I mention this was FREE?

The bad news:  We’ll only get like 4 days in Colombia, if we ever get there.  Oh yeah, and I still don’t know where my luggage is.  But I’ve got the essentials: my computer (blogging away), two magazines that I’ve already read, the wooden box I bought for my grandpa in Buenos Aires, and the gifts that Eduardo gave me.  I never believed in the, “pack a change of clothes in case your luggage gets lost.”  To me, that’s already accepting defeat.  If you expect bad things to happen to you, they will happen.  My theory has now been debunked as my luggage is somewhere in South America – I think it was going to Bogota by way of Lima (my favorite place).  Fingers crossed on that one...

Takes Two to Tango

Yes, it really does take two to tango, and Yenny and I learned this the hard way.  Despite our better judgment, we thought we were just the right kind of girls for a  tango lesson.  Mind you, the tango lesson included dinner and a tango show, so the last two (well, really the dinner) were what hooked us.  This whole extravaganza was only 200 pesos (= $50) AND it included free beer and wine.  This is sounding to sound a lot like the Spanish Steps Pub Crawl in Rome…

But first, the lesson!  There were maybe 30 people in the class, from all different countries and all different ages.  We started by walking around the studio in a circle to the beat of the music that was playing – I was already struggling.  Then we split up into girls and guys and learned a step.  Then the instructor would play the music and the guys had to ask the girls to dance, while switching partners every two minutes when the teacher instructed to do so.  Well, there were definitely more women than men in the class, so Yenny and I (more me I think) found ourselves standing awkwardly on the side for the majority of the time – which was FINE by me!  Anyways, we repeated this process two more times and combined everything that we had learned.  The final step we learned was a “tango pose” which involved the woman raising her leg and circling the man’s hip.  Our instructor said, “the higher the better.”  Which was not my style because I wasn’t too keen on an “I see London, I see France” situation.

Success!!!

Afterwards, we had a delicious dinner, which we enjoyed with two adorable Danish guys and three lovely girls from Australia.  The Danish guys were shooting a promotional travel video of  Buenos Aires, and they asked us Yenny and I if we would like to be in it.  At first, I was like “whaaaat kind of video?” because you never know.  But we ended up saying simultaneoulsy: “Buenos Aires is a great place to dance tango!” and struck a pose at the end.  I was a born actress; Yenny on the other hand, forgot her lines the first time around!  Embarrassing.  We were trying to be professional, but we just ended up bursting into giggles the whole time.

The show was fanastic as well! I was even selected to dance in front of everyone.  Can you imagine how much I was blushing?  Unfortunately, Yenny had enjoyed the unlimited wine a bit too much at this point and was not of mind to take pictures.

 She was only slightly better at tango than me.

 Our Danish friend was selected to dance in front of everyone as well.

And so ends our stay in Argentina. Or so we thought!  We are currently in a hotel in Cordoba, Argentina waiting to get on a flight out of here (hopefully, eventually to Bogota).  Some pretty irritating/hilarious things have happened to us in the last 24 hours in our attempt to leave Argentina, so you won't want to miss that!

Sketchy at any time of day

Yenny and I are stubborn.  Ever since we got scammed BIG TIME taking a taxi from the Buenos Aires airport to our hostel, we have been very anti-taxi.  The buses are far too confusing for us, and the subway generally doesn’t reach the areas we want to go.  So we walk.  And walk and walk and walk and walk.  [Note: when I say we got scammed BIG TIME, it went down like this:  guidebook says you should be able to get a taxi from the airport for 90 pesos, realistic average is 130 pesos, Yenny and I spent 320 pesos ($80)]

On Monday, we threw caution to the wind and took the subway about four stops so we could see La Puente da la Mujer, a famous bridge designed by Valencian architect, Santiago Calatrava.  And we rode in a WOODEN subway car.  It blew my mind.  I was expecting announcements and electronic signs declaring the next stop (“Proxima Parada: Benimaclet”). But no, this bad boy was just rollin through, windows down, non automatic doors, and I was fascinated by it.

Santiago Calatrava = my homeboy

Hey Yen

Flashback: January 2008.  Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias, Valencia, Spain.

What a hilariously awkward picture.

We saw the Puente de la Mujer and decided we wanted to see La Boca (the area where tango was supposedly born and where all of those brightly colored houses are in postcards) next, as that is the only district was haven’t visited yet.  Well, it wasn’t tooooo far on the map.   We bought a couple of big ass waters and decided to go for it.  My feet are so tired from all of the walking we’ve been doing the past few days, so I keep tripping on everything.  Literally, about once a block, I make this big production of stumbling over my own feet, but without actually falling down.

I always exclaim to Yenny about how much I love Buenos Aires because it’s so European and beautiful.  However, what we were walking through was not the Buenos Aires I had previously known.  It looked more like Lima than Paris.  Instead of tree lined streets bordered on either side by ornate balconies, we were looking at dilapidated houses, mangy dogs, whistling men, and graffitied walls.  I wasn’t ever scared, per se, because at the same time there were children running around, a family taking a walk, a few old men sitting at a restaurant, normal day to day stuff.  It wasn’t like shootings and drug cartels and such.  Anyways, we FINALLY make it to Calle Caminito and it’s wasn’t as cool as we thought.  It was extremely touristy. 

[Note: it makes me a little mad when people complain about things about being “touristy.”  What are you expecting??  I don’t mind touristy things at all, because I am a… tourist.]

We did happen upon a lovely little park that we explored along the way

And we unexpectedly saw the Boca Juniors Futbol Stadium

The graffiti wasn't scary; it was sometimes quite beautiful.

And other times, ominous.

Caminito

 so. many. people.

But Caminito was outrageous.  It looked like a theme park or something.  Waiters would accost you to sit at their café, there are life size cut outs that you can pose behind so that you look like a tango couple, our photos weren’t even that great because there were a ton of people: we weren’t diggin it.  Despite our empanadas earlier (delicious), we were still a little hungry.  We decided to go eat at a restaurant featured in the book.  Fodor’s describes El Obrero like this, “When the rock band U2 played Buenos Aires and asked to be taken to a tradition Argentine restaurant, they were brought to this legendary hole-in-the-wall.  For 50 years, El Obrero has served juicy grilled steaks, sweetbreads, sausages, and chicken.  The extensive blackboard menu includes rabas (fried calamari) and puchero.  Try the budín de pan (Argentine version of bread pudding).  This spot is popular with tourist and workmen alike, so expect a short wait.”

This sounded great!  It’s basically on the other side of La Boca, so in typical Yenny and Lorita fashion, we got to walkin.  Our plan was to walk along the port the entire way.  We were executing our plan until a police officer stopped us and told us to cross the street.  I’m not exactly sure why, but something about peligro (danger). So we did as instructed and took a different route.  And walked and walked and walked.  Yenny thinks she broke her foot or something so she was just hobbling along and we’re both sweating under the intense sun until we finally made it. Oh dear, we were so tired.  And then we ordered GOBS of food.  It was sick.  For some reason, I thought after all that walking and because it was our last full day in Argentina, we should splurge.  We ordered a ridiculous amount of food.  We couldn’t even eat half of it, and even so, we still felt super sick after.  We had to go back to the hostel and sleep.

The calamari was delicious.

I can't even look at this without feeling sick.  Carb. Overload.

Before we left, we had to decide on how to get back to the hostel.  I consulted the book once more and read the last line of the restaurant description that I had previously overlooked, “This area of La Boca can be sketchy at any time of day, so be sure to take a taxi there and call for another to take you back.”

HOOPSIES.

So it was decided:  we’re definitely taking a taxi.  We walked out of the restaurant and turned right (the general direction of our hostel) but some man started yelling at us.  Whenever men whistle or yell at us, it makes us really uncomfortable.  So we were just like “great, another one of those.”  But he was persistent, so we finally turned around to see what’s up.  Turns out he was advising us to go the other way, because the direction we were headed was really dangerous.  Ohhhkkkaay, great.  So we make a mad dash out of there to find a taxi, Yenny with her broken foot and me stumbling across crumbling sidewalks.  We find a taxi and even after giving him the wrong address, our cab fare ended up only being 20 pesos (= only $5).  Mistakes were made. Lolz.