Archive for September, 2010
An American Affair
Posted on 30. Sep, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: After a summer in the States, I share my reflections on American women and an affair I had with one.
I wasn’t happy to spend the summer in America, but I needed money. I was less happy about working at a restaurant as a 31 year-old MBA, but life sucks sometimes. I planned to spend as little time (and money) as possible in bars or chasing women. I hoped to save every dollar possible, which go a lot further in Colombia.
I’d been in Latin America for two years, so maybe I thought I’d become spoiled with attention from women. Had it been too easy for too long? How would American women be? Regardless, I was happy to resign myself to earning dollars, getting swole at the gym, and waiting to finish my sentence in St. Louis. I wasn’t going to chase one tail in that whole goddamn city. … Read more
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Weightlifting in Latin America
Posted on 24. Sep, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: I describe the weightlifting scene in Latin America and contrast it with America’s.
I prefer life in Latin America. However, not everything’s better. Weightlifting is frustrating. The culture isn’t as developed in Latin America. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Muscle Beach, and Pumping Iron made it mainstream in America only a generation ago. It diffuses to other countries later. Here’s the kind of stuff you see.
In Latin America, you typically see guys benching a bar with 25s on each side (95lbs), sometimes even less. … Read more
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Medellin’s Parque Lleras in Pictures
Posted on 22. Sep, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Pictures of Medellin’s Parque Lleras, the city’s center of nightlife.
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My First Bender in Medellin
Posted on 15. Sep, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: I spent my first weekend in Medellin with a couple Americans living there. Highlights include My 3rd Time Bribing Cops in Colombia FAIL and Envigado: Night of the Freak Shows.
Before coming back to St. Louis for the summer, I spent a weekend in Medellin. It was my first time outside Cundinamarca, the department of Bogota. Gringos and Colombians alike drool over Medellin. I got an invite from a reader, Zac, to crash on his couch. I was sold.
I flew in May 20 on no sleep from the night before. I realized what an asshole I was for wearing my leather jacket. Medellin’s not cold at all. To my dismay, Medellin proper is an hour away from the airport. I took a little bus through the mountains into the city. It dropped me off downtown near a metro station. … Read more
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Guatemala and United Fruit: US Policy Blunder
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Overview taken from Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the US toppling of Guatemala’s elected government in 1954.
Guatemala is the saddest country in Latin America. The beauty of its verdant highlands dotted with whitewashed colonial towns, its shimmering lakes overlooked by soaring volcanoes and its Mayan ruins half buried in rainforest cannot conceal the ancestral oppression of its indigenous majority. It has had an elected civilian government since 1986. But a guerrilla war lasting almost three decades was settled only in 1996. It cost some 200,000 lives; most of the victims were Mayan Indians killed by the army. The war continues to cast a dark shadow. Guatemala’s democrats must struggle against what some have called poderes fácticos – shadowy networks linking corrupt former army officers and organized criminal gangs of drug traffickers and money launderers. In many ways, these networks are the real power in the country. They appeared to flourish under Alfonso Portillo, the country’s president from 2000 to 2005, who fled to Mexico on leaving office and faced charges of stealing $16 million of public money. Under Oscar Berger, a reforming liberal elected in 2004, a new effort began to cut Guatemala’s army down to size and to liberate democracy from military tutelage. … Read more
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