As I outlined in the first post to this blog, a major reason in my moving to Latin America is to make a career in an emerging market. Globalization is a product of two worldwide trends: the fall of socialism and the rise of the internet.

20 years ago, 60% of the world lived under some form of socialism. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, capitalism triumphed and East Germans poured across the border to go to McDonald’s. Countries from Eastern Europe to Africa to Asia to Latin America implemented market reforms. Protectionist policies and barriers came down in favor of free trade. Manufacturing in China, in all its glory and criticism, is the poster child of this historic development.

The internet represents another leap in human productivity by eliminating the need for service-oriented jobs to be performed locally. The world got wired and the textbook example of this change would be the call centers and IT industry in India. Where in the world we are doesn’t matter anymore, for many jobs.

Globalization got a bad rep in America and industrialized economies because it moved jobs to countries with more attractive costs of labor. Developing countries, on the other hand, saw the emergence of a middle class. Goldman Sachs coined the term BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) for those countries that would grow to eclipse traditionally rich countries. Then the investment bank identified the Next 11 countries that could possibly join the economic ranks of the BRIC. GDP growth in emerging markets, sometimes upward of 10%, is simply impossible to achieve in developed economies where 4% growth is considered rapid expansion.

So enough context on the world economy, why Colombia? Because I believe the best opportunity lies in the greatest unrealized potential. Emerging markets see so much growth because of their vast unrealized potential – mostly due to limiting economic policies. For example, China had so much unrealized potential because its 1.3 billion people lived under the inefficiency of a government-planned economy. Allowing all those people to produce for a profit motive is why China is now the world’s second largest economy, and set to become the largest in my lifetime.

Brazil is the Latin American emerging market most economists drool over because of its size. But if we look at unrealized potential, Colombia may be the most attractive. Where does Colombia’s unrealized potential come from? Security. I’ve written extensively about the crime here. I’ve complained more than it deserves because Colombia’s undergoing a historic turnaround.

Current president Alvaro Uribe was elected on a campaign of hard-line security measures after the soft policy of previous president Andres Pastrana, who granted FARC a safe haven the size of Switzerland. FARC bombed the capital in Bogota as Uribe was being inaugurated in 2002, missing Parliament and the presidential palace but killing a dozen poor people. Kidnappings for politics and profit were so rampant that any Colombian with money stayed in the city. Domestic and international tourism was nil.

The 80s and 90s were marked by the cocaine cartels’ contribution to instability, most notably Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel. Aside from bribing government officials, the cartels kidnapped or assassinated politicians and policemen. In his last years, Escobar paid a set bounty on any police officer killed. Medellin was considered the most dangerous city in the world. Right-wing paramilitaries also contributed to the chaos and human rights atrocities.

For decades, the climate of violence and insecurity repelled foreign investment. Who in their right mind would build a business in a country which could be taken over by Marxists, where management professionals are at high risk of being kidnapped, or where common street violence prevents people from going outside? In addition to tourism, foreign investment was also nil.

Times have changed. The New York Times ran an article last month on the attractive real estate market in Bogota. From the article:

Once a byword for kidnappings, bombs and chaos, Bogotá has become one of South America’s most attractive cities for foreigners to live and invest in … Álvaro Uribe, Colombia’s president since 2002, has taken a hard line on security issues and scored notable successes against left-wing guerilla groups in recent years.

Love him or hate him, Uribe’s government has kicked the collective ass of FARC - enticing mass desertions, killing high profile leaders, and remarkably rescuing Ingrid Betancourt and three American defense contractors.

Crime’s still a challenge but nowhere near levels of the 80s and 90s. Tourism is exploding behind the industry’s campaign slogan, “The only risk is wanting to stay,” which proved 100% accurate for me after my 2008 visit.

Check out this slideshow from Colombia’s Proexport:

A few highlights:

• Homicides cut in half in last six years
• Kidnappings down to a fifth of the level six years ago
• Foreign investment five times higher than five years ago
• International visitors doubled in five years
• In 2010 the World Bank named Colombia the most “business friendly” nation in Latin America

Uribe recently signed an agreement to allow four US bases on Colombian soil. Regardless of how much you hate America, you can reasonably assume a resurgence of FARC or invasion from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is quite unlikely with US boots on the ground. Colombia is America’s closest ally in Latin America. Again, regardless of how you feel toward the USA, and I know this statement will piss off a lot of people, but a look at the nations which allied with the US / “the West” over the years shows it’s not a bad choice economically: Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Egypt, Poland, Israel, etc. Not bad company.

The unrealized potential in Colombia stems from how little was being produced due to insecurity, as wells as how business-friendly the country is now. Capitalizing on this kind of unrealized potential is called “extreme investing” in this 2007 BusinessWeek article, in which the author calls Colombia an “extreme emerging market.” Here’s a selection from that article:

Colombia’s stock market has soared fourteenfold since October, 2001 … Colombia’s strong fundamentals stand out. Its $130 billion economy, a world leader in the production of coffee, petroleum, textiles, and flowers, is growing at 6.8% a year, two full points faster than the Latin American average. In the past 10 years, Colombia has slashed its inflation rate from 18% to 5%, and since Uribe was elected, unemployment has dipped from 16% to 13%. The nation has never defaulted on its debt or experienced hyperinflation. And entrepreneurial thinking is spreading. Run a Google geographical-hit query, and you’ll see that, per capita, nowhere in the world are there more searches for the words “Peter Drucker,” the late management guru, than in Bogotá. No. 2? Medellín.

I’m also bullish on Colombia because of the people. Bogota is known as the “Athens of Latin America” for its high student population. You can’t walk far without passing a university. It’s an educated populace, which is why many multinationals decide to build their Latin American headquarters here. When companies decide to build such an office to manage Latin American operations, it seems to follow a pattern. Of course, they build an office in Brazil to manage Brazil. Another in Mexico City for Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. And they often choose Bogota for at least the Andean countries (they sometimes separate the more developed Argentina and Chile from the rest of South America), over Lima or Caracas.

The professionalism and education of Colombians puts them at an advantage in other ways. Medical tourism is major growth industry projected in Latin America. Soaring healthcare costs in developed countries is causing those citizens to look for operations abroad, cosmetic surgery being no small part of that business.

*** UPDATE ***
USA Today came out with this excellent article about tourism growth in Bogota.  From that piece:

A boom in international hotel chains (as well as budget lodgings) is beefing up a once-anemic tourism infrastructure. And an exuberant cultural, nightlife and dining scene is luring foreign visitors who previously considered a trip here as tantamount to scheduling their own kidnapping …

What a difference a decade makes …

Nationally, Colombia is touting eco-adventures, such as birding and whale-watching, and forays into its coffee-growing regions, along with beach and cultural tourism. (Cartagena, the Caribbean jet-set paradise of the ’50s and ’60s, has undergone a renaissance after years of neglect.) …

“There’s a tourism boom going on. New restaurants. New hotels. It’s not Denmark or Sweden, but it’s coming,” says developer Abdon Espinosa, walking along a northern street lined with Dolce & Gabbana, Bulgari and other international luxury brands …

In the past five years, 25 shopping malls have gone up, he says. Sidewalk tables fill a pedestrian-only area called the Zona T that by night is jammed with youthful throngs strutting to pulsing club music. In its colonial center, artists and others are moving into once-derelict buildings …

[A] creative culinary scene has emerged, led by talented chefs such as Leonor Espinosa, owner of Leo Cocina y Cava, where native ingredients fuse Spanish, Indian and African influences. The inventive chef pairs lobster tail with sweet red pepper sauce; whitefish ceviche with coconut milk vinaigrette and mango puree; and blends corozo, a tropical palm fruit, into her signature martinis …

The city also boasts a vibrant performing-arts scene. This year’s just-ended Ibero-American Theater Festival (held every two years and catalyst for the grand parade) attracted about 80 theater companies from 40 countries, the largest contingent in its history …

La Candelaria, which, despite its status as Bogotá’s colonial heart, had become a seedy backwater, is re-emerging with new boutique hotels and budget hostels in rehabbed historic buildings along its warren of cobbled streets. (Though locals still warn you to watch your belongings by day and take cabs by night.) It’s a youthful district populated by several universities. It’s also home to a fine collection of 12 museums, including the stellar Botero Museum, featuring Colombia’s premier artist, Fernando Botero, along with works by Picasso, Miró, Degas and others …

Also here are Bogotá’s 19th-century cathedral and important government buildings, including the Colombian Congress, where earlier this year, local artist Rafael Gomezbarros affixed hundreds of giant fiberglass ants to its monumental façade. It’s a curious sight. But for many, no more unexpected than the metamorphosis of the city itself …

Also check out USA Today’s photo essay, The Bogota boom.

Natural and organic consumer products are another growing trend in developed countries. With a sizable chunk of the Amazon rain forest, Andes Mountains, two long coastlines, and a tropical climate, Colombia is one of the most botanically diverse countries in the world. See this New York Times article about the growth of HPC products from the Amazon.

Colombia has coastlines along both the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea for convenient shipping (and receiving) to Australia, Asia, North America (east and west coasts), Europe, and Africa. Buenaventura is the major port on the Pacific; Barranquilla on the Caribbean.

Aside from import/export, those two coastlines draw tourism because they feature some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Tourists will love Colombia for its beaches, mountains, rain forest, ethnically diverse culture, and WOMEN. I’ll never hear the end of gringos’ drooling over Medellin and the paisa women. Latin men seem to drool more over the women from Cali, which proclaims to be the salsa capital of the world. Colombian women are among the most seductive in the world, which is why the country’s also a major destination for sex tourism. Colombian tourism in general is a major growth sector.

For an indepth look at Colombia’s economy, see this Harvard researcher’s 2008 report Revisiting Economic Growth in Colombia – A Microeconomic Perspective. Unfortunately, it reads like only a Harvard researcher could’ve written it. The main argument is that, for Colombia to maintain its strong performance, it must make a priority easy access to financing (low interest rates).

Threats:

Venezuela – While Hugo Chavez is Alvaro Uribe’s political nemesis, Venezuela is Colombia’s biggest trading partner and the countries have a long, shared history. The economic disaster that is modern Venezuela primarily hurts Venezuelans (many of whom face water and power rationing at the time of this writing), but Colombians will also take a hit from their plight, as detailed in Bloomberg’s December article, Colombia Growth in 2010 May Be Cut by Venezuela Trade.

Crime – Security is improved but it’s still not the safest place. The low cost and widespread availability of drugs produce tens of thousands of addicts roaming the streets, which doesn’t create the best atmosphere to shop.

Insurgents – FARC has suffered crippling losses during Uribe’s tenure, but they’re still 10,000 strong. That’s ten thousand trained guerillas aiming to overthrow the government.

Scopolamine comes with a slew of side effects ranging from dry mouth and impaired speech, amnesia, excitement and restlessness, to hallucinations and delirium. In years past it was used in conjunction with painkillers to induce Twilight Sleep, which relieves pain during childbirth while keeping the patient awake. Scopolamine was studied by the Nazis and a few intelligence agencies during the Cold War as a truth drug. In very rare cases, scopolamine is used as a recreational drug for its hallucinogenic side effects. The chemical extract is highly toxic, so non-medical use is dangerous. The prescribed uses call for as little as 330 micrograms.

Unfortunately, scopolamine’s most common use is for robberies and assaults in Colombia. The extent to its damage is near endemic – 1 out of 5 emergency room visits due to overdose result from scopolamine. Organized groups of thieves prey on unsuspecting victims by drugging them and taking advantage of them once they’re under the influence. I started hearing horror stories as soon as I arrived. It’s described as a GHB that turns people completely agreeable to any suggestion, with the amnesia effects making it perfect for robberies and / or rape.

The stories I hear jump the shark from urban legend to nutty ridiculousness. One of those chain emails you idiots forward went around last year telling a story of an American woman incapacitated and robbed by accepting a business card brushed with scopolamine. Here’s Snopes debunking that nonsense.

Junk mail aside, the urban legend’s epitomized in the popular VBS documentary, Colombian Devil’s Breath. VBS won’t let me embed their content so you’ll have to watch the 35-minute documentary on their site.

Colombian Devil’s Breath – Part 1
Colombian Devil’s Breath – Part 2

Or watch Headline News’ 7 minute summary piece on the film, “Zombie Drug” (about as un-sensational as the VBS title):

After I saw the VBS film, I was curious. However, the natural skeptic inside didn’t buy it. It’s true that a tiny amount of this stuff is enough to take effect, but I don’t believe some of the reported methods of drugging victims. The most unbelievable is the taxi driver blowing it in your face, after which you’re immediately in a hypnotic trance at his mercy. I heard about somebody getting it into their skin from reading magazines in the back of a taxi and, most ridiculously, via ATM machine buttons.

After watching the VBS piece, I asked some born-and-raised Colombian bogotanos about scopolamine. Most echoed the taxi driver stories and urban legend fodder. One girl told me her cousin was taking a bus to Bogota from Girardot and somebody offered him a cigarette. The next thing he knew he was in a park with no money.

Another Colombian told me how he was drunk in a taxi. He didn’t remember much, but all of a sudden the taxi driver had some thugs around the car and they beat him up and took his money. I told him he didn’t get drugged and robbed. He got beat the fuck up and robbed. That’s not a scopolamine story.

Here are scopolamine stories I believe:

An Irish guy I knew living in La Candelaria had met a girl and they made plans to hang out. He met her and her friends at a bar on the west side of the city. He said he was drinking with them and that’s all he remembered. He woke up back in his room with nothing in his pockets. He called her to bitch her out and she hung up on him. Then she called back a few days later, saying something about how insulted she was that he accused her and she would never do that. She said he left her and her friends at the bar and she didn’t know where he went. While he was telling me this, he seemed to believe her story. I never saw that guy again, but God I hope he didn’t hang out with her after that.

An AA friend told me about a member in Medellin. This guy’s rock-bottom event came after partying in a brothel and waking up the next day in a run-down motel with no money and no clothes. He tried to leave but the motel staff told him he had to pay for the room. They didn’t care about his story. He had no recollection of what happened.

I looked for high-brow journalism on scopolamine but there isn’t much out there. I found a Reuters story about a Colombian woman who was found wandering topless in Bogota, asking about her baby. Police believe a gang trafficking infants was responsible. This story doesn’t appear on the Reuters site and seems a bit suspect. I found a Phillip Stewart on Reuters (the name on the byline), and emailed him asking whether he wrote the story and does he stand by it. His reply:

I met that poor woman years ago and never forgot it. Yes I wrote it.

A Canadian traveler told me a story that started in Medellin’s Parque Lleras. He’d lived in Envigado the year before so he wasn’t new to the country. He and a guy from his hostel started drinking beer and aguardiente with a couple Colombians they met. Things got drunk and his pal from the hostel was put into the back of a cop car while breaking up a fight, but the pal confirmed for to our Canadian traveler that he saw him get into a Mercedes with the two Colombians they were drinking with. He woke up the next day in Envigado, broke. A Colombian friend’s doctor father examined him and confirmed the symptoms of having taken scopolamine.

Of course there’s feedback from The Mick, who spent 20+ extremely alcoholic years in Bogota. We sometimes buy cheap stuff in 7 de Agosto, where we have to ride through this horrible little prostitution and drug zone. One time I asked if he partied there in his drinking days. He frowned and said he did, but that he hated those people because they always gave him scopolamine (which he pronounces “escopolamina”). He said he’s been drugged “loads of times” and “at least 30 times.” He took some heavy losses but generally believes scopolamine didn’t affect him as much because he was such an extreme alcoholic and drug user – getting drunk at breakfast, lunch, and dinner while smoking and snorting the whole time.

The Mick’s first time “scoped” came soon after an ex-girlfriend left him with their baby for five months. He, a raging alcoholic, was on a trip somewhere up north with a friend when they stopped for lunch and drink. He dropped the baby off at a day-care and started pounding beer and aguardiente at a tienda. They hopped into a taxi and The Mick clearly remembers his friend saying, “Everything’s gone white! It’s like we’re in heaven!” And then The Mick fell under the spell. (The campesinos at the tienda drugged them.)

The taxi driver ended up kicking them out of his cab. The Mick vaguely remembers crawling in the street, at one point crawling under a bus. They eventually remembered the baby and made it back to the day-care. They were stumbling and pissy while carrying the baby, and eventually made a scene in front of some cops and military guys. The Mick woke up in the Bogota British Embassy.

Another time he was drinking as hard and heavy as usual in the Bogota streets. He remembers bouncing around various street scenes; then he was kissing some girl. Then he woke up in his apartment wrapped in a blanket. The apartment was cleared out. He went to the police station naked. He’s done that a few times.

The open-to-suggestibility is the scariest aspect to the scopolamine rumors. You consciously allow thieves to take everything? It seems too crazy to believe. The Mick describes the buzz in a way that makes me want to characterize it as an extreme form of the ecstasy high, which you’re in love with everything and everybody. Everything is peace and love. No evil anywhere. You want everything to be pleasant and feel nice and it does. This all comes with an impenetrable amnesia effect from everybody I’ve talked to – except fuzzy memories from The Mick.

From the Crime section on the US State Department’s Colombia page:

Use of disabling drugs: The Embassy continues to receive reports of criminals in Colombia using disabling drugs to temporarily incapacitate tourists and others.  At bars, restaurants, and other public areas, perpetrators may offer tainted drinks, cigarettes, or gum.  Typically, victims become disoriented or unconscious, and are thus vulnerable to robbery, sexual assault, and other crimes.  Avoid leaving food or drinks unattended at a bar or restaurant, and be suspicious if a stranger offers you something to eat or drink.

Scopolamine is surely used in Colombia, but the urban legends are rampant. The amnesia effect of scopolamine is crucial to the scam, and also adds to the myth. If nobody remembers what happened, it slows our learning about this drug and how it’s used. And anybody who’s taken it doesn’t know how because they didn’t see it – which is the obvious intent of the thieves.

Some stories are silly. One says women can rub it on their breasts and have guys lick them later in the night. I could buy that one, but it’d render the skin-absorption through magazines or ATM buttons bullshit. The whore would get drugged if it can be absorbed by the skin. Similarly, blowing the powder at the mark’s face exposes the thief just as much as the mark. And if you’ve ever snorted coke, you know how far powder has to go to enter the bloodstream. You don’t need as many micro-grains of scopolamine, but you’d still need to snort it through some kind of tube like (with) cocaine. You’re not going to catch enough molecules out of the air with a casual nasal inhale unless somebody pelts you in the face with a handful of it – like flour – hundreds of thousands of pesos worth of the shit.

I think the vast majority of scopolamine cases come from spiking drinks or mixing it with cocaine. And I believe most of the scopolamine bandits operate in brothels, which adds to the urban legend. This is how: First, the amnesia effect of scopolamine completely confuses the victim as to what happened. He remembers he was at the brothel, and he knows he can’t tell his wife that. He realizes he was drugged and decides to tell her one of these bullshit stories about the taxi driver blowing magic dust or passing him a tainted copy of El Tiempo.

I’m convinced these bullshit stories and the extremity of the urban legend are due to (A) the amnesiac effect and (B) guys lying to their wives, girlfriends, and female relatives to cover up their indiscretions. Until I hear a scopolamine story from a woman who got robbed or raped while NOT drinking recklessly, I’m sticking with my theory.

I think what happened to the Irish guy is as elaborate as the scams get these days. I can see that being executed. A gringo just arrived to Latin America. He’s still living in La Candelaria and doesn’t recognize the difference in women that are easy and too easy. Those women may use different weapons, but they exist across Latin America. After meeting, they lure him out to their neighborhood to drink with a table full of girls, maybe one guy. The bartender might be in on the operation. They drink and have fun while slipping the gringo a mickey. Whenever they spot the effects, they get everything in his pockets and then put him in a taxi back to La Candelaria. In the case that he calls back and isn’t sure if they robbed him, they play innocent and try to get him again.

I was skeptical about the suggestibility aspect of the stories but undecided and unsure. The VBS film showed bank footage of a victim at the ATM fetching cash for his robbers. On the other hand, the Nazis and Cold War agencies all abandoned it for any use so could it really be that powerful? Ultimately, The Mick’s hazy recollections of a hyper-ecstatic ecstasy pill high make a strong case for how that level of agreeableness can happen.

Most Colombians haven’t been “scoped,” so don’t be afraid of Colombia. The Mick said the stuff’s very hard to buy; he would have a hard time finding it (that says a lot given his last 20 years, see The Mick’s stories). And almost every story I’ve heard involves reckless drinking. Not just drinking, reckless drinking. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, think me-in-Peru reckless drinking. Colombia can be tough on a drunk. And while stories of victims who were not drinking recklessly are rare, there are a few. (But even most of those are guys lying to females about the night they went to bang whores).

I’m thrilled to be living in Bogota, Colombia, and I realize that a disproportionate amount of my writing showcases the danger, the annoyances, the scary, the sketchy, the bad. That content is the most compelling, but life is beautiful here. I’m going to stay longer than the previous plan of one year. There’s almost a sensation in the country that all the beauty, the attraction, the romance, the draw, comes with an equally dangerous and bloody risk. The rose comes with thorns. It sounds corny, but it’s true.

The Brugmansia flower, which contains the main ingredient in scopolamine and grows wild throughout Bogota and Colombia.

Besitosssssssssssssssssssss (^^) :0

Disclaimer #1: Of course not all Latinos’ writing sucks. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa have proven they can spell. Spanish-language journalists understand the utility of punctuation. And if you’re a Latino reading this, then you can probably write well. Maybe. But the majority of rank-and-file Latinos including white-collar professionals SUCK. This is not debatable. It’s fact.

Disclaimer #2: Remember that I love Latin culture. My decision to live here, the fact that I spend most of my time here, and that I’m creating a new life here – my actions speak louder than words. However, you can’t expect someone to embrace every single aspect of a new culture. The shitty writing will never grow on me.

Disclaimer #3: I want to fully admit and take responsibility for how Americans have butchered the English language. Assuming Jamaican patois isn’t even English anymore, American English is the worst in the world. I apologize for that (with a Z!), especially to you Limeys, but it doesn’t make Latinos’ writing any less shitty.

On to the evidence!

Here’s a typical Facebook comment from a Latina:

Colin, I miss youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Besitosssssssssssssssssssss ;p

21 extra u’s don’t add anything to the meaning, you chimps.

q t pasa, komo va tu vida todo trankilo masomenos?  Ojala no jajaja

OK, Americans intentionally misspell words sometimes but those are gangsta rap idiots. You’re a college graduate. Stop it.

Or ThEy’Ll WrItE lIkE tHiS aNd ShIt

Here’s a sample MySpace username:

<-:.B377A M3X1CANA.:->

Latin America’s primary use for punctuation: web design. That is cutting edge! Pullman Bus is one of the biggest bus companies in Chile. Unfortunately, their website is one of the most atrociously Flash-tastic pieces of shit that are completely normal in Latin America. But by golly their chump-change web developer sure knows how to write page titles that pop!

PULLMAN BUS :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

All caps and 51 colons. Not just 50.  51 (fifty-ONE), bitches!

These examples show more style than substance. Want substance? Here’s an email I got from Milagros, my last girlfriend in Peru:

parece que ya no existo para ti bueno besitos cuidate

Translation:

i guess i don’t exist to you anymore that’s fine kisses take care

God I miss her. Shortly after sending me that email, she set up her Facebook profile and accepted a Friend Request I’d sent some six months ago. I promptly deleted her ass because I didn’t want to see pictures of her with other boys. Excuse the tangent.

Here’s one from Winston:

colin 600000 por nivel no por clace que es cop  me pongo ha hacer propaganta para lo de los  estudiantes hablamos el viernes en grupo de apoyo perdon la demora estaba muy ocupado

For this translation, I’ve deliberately misspelled in English what Winston misspelled in Spanish, and put two spaces between words where he did.

colin 600000 per level not per klass what is cop  i’ll see aabout doing adverdising for students  we’ll talk friday in meeting sorry for the delay i’ve been busy

And I’m trying to launch a business with this guy! By the way, “COP” is the acronym for Colombian pesos.

We’ve seen two emails without one single character of punctuation, not even for 600,000. But those two aren’t exactly elite professionals in Peru and Colombia. Here’s a typical piece from an educated Latino:

aprendeo de los colombainos , hace dos añso casi no tenain turismo , ahora son toda uan potencia del turismo no sabes y nuestro pais tienmuchas cosas por afrecer , peor al corrupcion la falat d eapoyo a la media empresa turistica no nos deja despegar, por que por elyes como la ese congresista , que solo benefia a la elite y no a also verdaderos empresario del turismo , que ahn hecho por demas ?? solo para su benefico , viaja a colombai y aprende!!!

This piece of shit isn’t worth translating. However, Spanish speakers can see there’s no arguing with my thesis. Latin writing sucks. Here’s why in English:

so, you see, most latinos are horrible writers because they spell things wrong, but also they dont use punctuation properly, and its not just teenage females that write like that, let me tell you, its the educated professionals in the white collar world too, like most of the people i know in peru and colombia, some of whom work at multinationals that everybody would recognize, whose products everyone has used, those latinos write shitty emails just like this paragraph-long run-on sentence.

I read Spanish much slower than English. I put chunks together and, as in English, subconsciously find subjects and predicates that form sentences. I look for how the ideas are organized in sentence format.  At least a dozen times, I’ve been reading an email in Spanish before realizing out loud: “This is all one sentence.” One sentence, five lines long, separated by commas.

“You see” and “let me tell you” aren’t exaggerations either. They write exactly what they would say verbally, as if in person. And at every point where they would pause, they add a comma. This is Latino Writing 101. That’ll be 100,000 pesos. Email me now for the PayPal link.

Root Cause: Latinos Don’t Read

Latinos don’t read. In my opinion, being well-read is the most important criteria for writing well. Even short of being a professional or interesting writer, I’m just talking about writing coherently. If you never read, your writing will suck.

Before you haters get your panties up in a bunch (I have haters now), check out this post by my pata, Stu: Peru’s Reading Culture. Stu is a good liberal boy who loves cholos and isn’t only down here to make bread and exploit women like me. Just kidding. But if you’re going to hate on me, you better send him your poorly-written dogshit too.

I was once asked about the bookstores in Bogota. What are the big ones? I had to laugh at that one – bookstores. There are no Barnes & Nobles or Borders down here.  Nor are there the small, hipster shops (my favorites) like Subterranean or Left Bank in my hometown. There are dusty and dirty used-book shops, and not much else.

The newspaper industry in Latin America is a throwback to early 20th century America – mostly tabloids. You probably associate tabloids with the gossip mags that cover Brad & Angelina or Britney or whoever. But tabloids got their start in America by covering violence. The first American tabloid was founded in the early 1900s by a Harvard MBA who got the idea after seeing the huge crowd around a stabbing victim. He realized there was a market for blood and guts. So tabloids in their early days covered violent news in great detail, and were available at newstands surrounded by men in trenchcoats and fedoras. Only in the last few decades has the industry morphed into suburban housewives in the grocery store checkout lines examining some poor celebrity’s cellulite.

Newstands in Peru are exactly how I imagine the early 1900s tabloids. Sensational and provocative headlines in huge type scream: ‘BURNED to DEATH!’ or ‘Mother of Two RAPED and MURDERED!’ Next to those front-page headlines, some publications put a picture of a girl in a bikini. That’s how you sell reading here.

The Spanish web is about as developed as the English web was 10+ years ago. For most subjects, especially technology, there simply isn’t a Spanish option to read and stay up-to-date. Honestly, I’ve thought about stealing content from the most popular blogs and publishing it in Spanish. Unfortunately, I’m a good boy with integrity. Plus, nobody’d read it.

I disagree with Stu where he attributes the lack of reading to (1) only Peru and (2) poverty. First, I would extend the problem to all of Latin America. Second, I whole-heartedly disagree that poverty plays any role at all. I’ve bought books that cost the same as an empanada, and most cost less than the average lunch.

I believe it comes down to culture, again. I think they don’t read because most Latino boys are more likely to pick up a guitar or go play soccer, and girls are more likely to watch telenovelas or chat the night away on Messenger. God bless ‘em.

One of the main reasons I love Latin America is the more social culture. A warmer culture. Everybody parties. Everybody. But the downside is that most people won’t sit down alone and get lost in a book. And they write like morons.

I recently discovered Maddox’s website. In my opinion, it isn’t biting the style if you disclose inspiration and award props. So there.

There are rules to taking taxis in Latin America. I’m going to explain and contrast the Colombian rules with the Peruvian rules. Then I’ll explain why, ironically, I prefer the Peruvian rules.

Jump to Peruvian Rules, Peruvian Horror Stories, Colombian Rules, Colombian Stories (no horror), or Conclusion.

Peruvian Rules

In Peru, you never simply hail a taxi and tell the driver where you’re going. If you do this, regardless if you’re a gringo or not, you’re going to get ripped off.

First of all, not all taxis are safe in Peru. You can’t hail any taxi in the street. In Arequipa, there are a few safe brands. The Arequipa taxis have signs on top of them with the company logo. Some of these companies are very diligent in their vetting and hiring practices. They weed out thieves and choros with gang links. Some logos represent not-so-diligent companies. And still some of these logos were on signs found in the trash by some asshole that just bought a yellow car and is now making a living as a taxi driver.

At first, I only remembered two safe brands to get around, the two most common: Turismo Arequipa and Taxitel. After a while, I noticed that some companies or solo acts were making signs that mimicked those companies’ logos. They used the same fonts and colors, and used names like “Turista Arequipeño” or “Taxicel”. I had to get better at discerning the real from the fake.

After some months, I started adding brands to my safe list: Imperial, Teletaxi (seemingly a knock-off of Taxitel that rose to prominence and security), etc. And I started getting a little risky with unrecognized taxis. If I were with a group of people going to lunch, it’s unlikely we’d have any problems. Or if I were with Damien – both of us 6’3 (192cm) and him black – I usually didn’t worry about it. We didn’t make ideal marks.

Lima taxis don’t have the big signs atop the cars. The safe taxis in Lima have a company logo on the passenger-side door with a telephone number. The telephone number is what indicates safety. This is how it was explained to me during my one week in Lima (limeños, please correct me in the comments if necessary). Anyway, I thought this was a pain in the ass because you can’t spot the phone number from two blocks away. It’s written very small. You have to wait until the guy slows down and is right up on you so you can look real close. Sometimes I had to tell a taxi driver: Never mind.

Once you’ve chosen a safe taxi, you need to determine the price. Simply getting in and going is not how it’s done because the taxis don’t have meters. Instead, the price is negotiated beforehand based on the destination. Here’s how it goes in Peru:

1. The client hails the taxi.
2. The taxi stops and, from the passenger window, the client tells the driver his destination.
3. The taxi driver quotes a price.
4. If the client agrees, he gets in. But since Latinos love need to haggle, he’ll usually come back with a price lower by 1 sol or 50 centimos.
5. The taxi driver may agree or spit out a middle-ground price.
6. At this point, the client accepts or declines.

This process was annoying when I first moved to Peru because the taxi drivers all gave me ridiculous prices. However, after a few months, I picked up the Peruvian talk and they could tell I wasn’t a tourist. They started giving me fair prices.

Sidenote – Many of my Peruvian friends were annoying with their negotiations. I’d often take a price slightly higher than it should be for the sake of getting the deal done. Peruvians would refuse trips over 50 centimos (15 US cents!), and then wait 5 – 10 minutes for another safe taxi.

If a taxi asked for 4 soles to take me and three others downtown from Saga at 11pm, fine. That’s fine. Let’s go. But Arequipeños will wait for the 3 soles deal, saving about $0.33 USD.

Peruvian Horror Stories

The worst case happened soon after I moved to Arequipa, and became a national news story in Peru. An Israeli tourist was found strangled to death in a field near Carlos’ apartment in Sachaca. She’d been raped by more than one person. Peruvian President Alan Garcia publicly mentioned the case, vowing to catch the killers of the “Israeli journalist and soldier who was murdered because she dared to walk the streets of Arequipa alone.” Police arrested three suspects. It turns out the girl took a bad taxi. Story here.

One day at lunch with Carlos, he got a phone call from a friend of his. He was immediately engrossed in the story he was hearing, and told it to me after hanging up. Carlos’ good buddy, an Arequipeño born and raised in Arequipa , got a little overconfident in his hometown.  He was shitfaced wasted one night and got in an unrecognized taxi. He was almost passed out in the backseat when the driver stopped the car. He sat up to see where they were when the driver said, “Dame tu billete.” Give me your wallet.

Carlos’ buddy asked what the hell he was talking about. The driver told him to give up his wallet or he was going to let the two guys standing outside into the cab. Carlos’ buddy took note of the two guys on each side of the car. He locked both doors. A struggle ensued. The guys managed to unlock the doors and pull him out of the car, hitting him over the head with a metal bar. He woke up bloody and broke. He got stitched up and then called his buddies to tell the story.

My old roommate Roy – my good buddy and super-tight homeboy who’s going to visit me here soon – is a dumb-ass. He also got really wasted one night and jumped in a bad taxi. He fell asleep in the passenger seat on the way home. When they arrived at our apartment, Roy stumbled out of the taxi drunk. The taxi drove off. In his drunken stupor, Roy couldn’t figure out why the taxi drove off before collecting the fare. It wasn’t until the next day he realized he was missing his cell phone. The driver lifted it from his pocket while his drunk-ass was fast asleep.

Colombian Rules

By the time I first visited Colombia, I had already acclimated to Peruvian rules. So I asked the hostel employees how to recognize safe taxis. They looked at me like I was stupid. Aren’t there safe taxis and unsafe taxis? Same look. I asked if it was OK to hail taxis in the street. They said it was – with a tone like ‘Of course.’ I confirmed like three times that all taxis are generally safe and I could just hail them in the street. They agreed each time.

Since then, I’ve heard Colombians claim that not all Bogota taxis are safe. They say you have to call a taxi. I’ve disregarded this advice. There probably is a bit of danger, but here’s the difference: in Peru, not all taxis are safe. And NO Peruvian would say that they are. NOBODY. At least half of Colombians say that hailing taxis is safe. And I haven’t heard any horror stories yet. So I assume they’re safe. For now.

Colombian taxis are much bigger, although they rarely have working seat belts. Lima law requires passengers to wear seat belts, and many drivers enforce it.

Colombian taxis have meters – called taximetros. You don’t have to negotiate the price beforehand, which I liked when I came to visit last year. It was a relief. However, the meters don’t count in pesos. They count in some unknown number that starts with 25. The price you pay corresponds to a price guide which most drivers (should) hang from the head rest of the passenger seat. So if the meter reads 80, you consult the guide and see that 80 corresponds with 5000 pesos, or whatever. The taxi drivers know all the prices by heart. Sometimes they don’t post the guide where they should and rattle off the price from the top of their head, usually rounded up to the next thousand or so.

It’s important to make sure that the driver resets the taximetro to 25. Otherwise, he may trick you into paying for the last customer’s ride in addition to yours.

Those are the rules as I’ve learned them. However, I’ve only got 3 months in-country so I may have more to learn. My stories may serve as indicators of what I need to learn.

Colombian Stories (no horror)

My worst story happened my first month. I found a job teaching English after only two weeks in Bogota. I was still living at Hotel Aragon in La Candelaria. My first fascist class required me to be at Calle 187 (187^th Street) at like 5am.  My hotel was at Calle 13 (13^th Street). It doesn’t take a math major to figure out how far this is.

I had to leave the hotel around 4am. The TransMilenio doesn’t start running until 5 so I had to take taxis. I called cabs from the hotel to pick me up (I had already been robbed at this point so I wasn’t eager to walk around La Candelaria at 4am dressed business casual with a backpack). The first day of class, I got picked up by an honest taxi driver. He wasn’t very nice, but honest. He cut right over to Avenida Caracas and hauled ass up to the Autopista Norte. Seriously, he drove so fast I was clutching the door handle with white knuckles. We arrived in like 20 minutes (30 minutes early) and the fare was 17,000 pesos.

The next day, I was picked up by a nice but dishonest taxi. This fucking guy took me up Avenida Circunvalar all the way to Calle 170. Circunvalar is the eastern-most thoroughfare running north-and-south. It’s in the mountains most of the way. It twists and turns and climbs and descends. I sat in the back seat incredulous. How could this dumb-ass try this shit? I was so new in-country though, so I was hesitant to tell him which way to go. I didn’t even know the names of Caracas or the Autopista. I thought that if we arrived in time and it was the same price, no big deal.

We slowly made our way north creeping and crawling and I started to worry. Time was ticking down. If I were late for the company bus, I would miss class. The price was climbing past 17,000 pesos. I developed a plan.

This asshole arrived at my stop and enthusiastically pressed the button on the taximetro, which calculated a price of 23,600 pesos. He turned around with a smile and cheerfully said, “Veintitres mil, seis cientos.” I gave him a 20,000 note and told him that’s all I had. He said something like, ‘But the fare is 23,600.’ And I said something to the effect of, ’20,000 is all I brought with me, man. This same trip cost 17,000 yesterday. So I don’t know why it costs so much.’ And I got out. He drove off. I had another 20,000 note in my pocket.

I don’t know much about the economics of a taxi driver. I believe that if they use the meter, then the company that owns the car knows exactly how far the trip was and takes a specific cut of the fare based on that distance. I hoped that after paying his company, he made less money on that deal than he would have if he took Avenida Caracas and charged 17,000 pesos. But I don’t know.

So the main way the Colombian taxi drivers get over on you is by taking you for a ride. The second way seems insignificant, but they do it often to gringos.

When my brother was in town, he and I and another gringo, Geoff, took a trip to check out Parque 93 one Sunday. When we arrived, the driver quoted us something about 3000 pesos more than what it should’ve been. Geoff started arguing and asking for clarification. For 1000 pesos each (about $0.50), I didn’t really give a shit.

But Geoff did. He wanted to know exactly why this should cost so much. He summoned a guy working at the corner store in front of where the taxi was parked. When they got it all figured out, the taxi driver admitted that the fare should be $1500 pesos ($0.75) less than what he had charged.

At night (after 8:00pm) and on Sundays, taxis add a 1500 peso recargo to the fare. This guy rounded up the fare to the next thousand and then added a 2500 peso recargo. I’ve seen them charge 2000 peso recargos; it varies. But it should be 1500. Not a big deal in my opinion. However, Geoff doing that and me underpaying the other guy, deters aprovechadores from pulling that shit on gringos in the future. We’re making it easy for the next gringo. You’re welcome. Warmest regards.

Conclusion

As much as I hated the Peruvian system at first, I’ve come to prefer it. At first, it sucks I have to haggle with every cab driver and it sucks that some of them are thieves. I used to think, Why can’t this backward country be more like Colombia and get meters for God’s sake?

But I’d take the Peruvian way today. At least it’s clear and upfront. There’s a system with rules I can live by. Not all taxis are safe. Fact. This is how you spot the good ones. Fact. Determine the price beforehand – there are no bullshit rides and no surprises. Fact. The Peruvian driver hauls ass to get there because he’s losing money if he’s losing time. In Colombia, everything is ambiguous. Not every taxi’s safe, but most of them are. There’s no way to discern. And there are meters, but you have to know the streets to make sure the guy’s taking you the right way. Pain in the ass.

You may have the impression from my previous posts that I hate La Candelaria. This is generally true, but there are cool aspects to go with the bad. Southeast to La Candelaria, further into the mountains, is a tough little neighborhood called Egipto (Egypt). I heard of a gringa who lived there for a short time; she moved after a gunfight erupted on her street.  Due south of La Candelaria is Los Laches. I’ve heard it’s also tough, but no stories. In between Los Laches and downtown is Parque Tercer Milenio, where there live a tent city of displaced Colombians. And then there is downtown, which borders La Candelaria up until to mountains.

So you have all these disreputable parts of town surrounding La Candelaria, where all the tourist gringos visiting Bogota are. Naturally, some of these neighborhoods’ people – those not so inclined to work – hang out in La Candelaria. They beg, sell drugs, steal, whatever. It’s no more than annoying during the day, but at night it’s a ghost town. The streets empty out. Stick-up kids and other skanks take over. Nothing will happen to people walking in groups, but neither locals nor wise tourists walk the streets alone at night.

UPDATE, JULY 2010: Before concluding anything negative about La Candelaria, read my recent post Life is But a Dream in La Candelaria.

Don’t let this dissuade you from staying (or even living) in La Candelaria.  Most people have no problems at all. And it can be really cool! The emphasis on art is evident on every block. La Candelaria is home to some of the best murals I’ve ever seen. I believe that once the city gets a handle on crime, La Candelaria will be one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world.

Enjoy the pics. Jump to the end for the murals.

Don’t like viewing my pics on my site? Add me on Facebook for easier viewing.

Read how I got mugged my first week in La Candelaria if you haven’t already.

Rosa visited me in Bogota for the weekend (Rosa was my first girlfriend in Peru).  As will be the case for any tourist that visits me here, I had to show her Monserrate, La Candelaria, Plaza Bolivar, and museums – the city’s points of interest unfortunately located downtown.

We took the TransMilenio from Chapinero.  The bus was packed so there were no available seats.  The standing passengers all squeezed in.  There were two gay couples seated on opposite sides of the aisle a few rows behind where Rosa and I stood.

As we got closer to downtown, one of them started saying words in English like, “blow job.”  And he carried on talking out loud like that without really drawing my attention until he started saying things like, “Do you want blow job?”  Whenever I looked back at their row, the guy talking had his eyes fixed out the window.

Like I said, the bus was so packed with passengers that I barely had space to turn around and look at him.  He kept saying shit like that and I started getting annoyed.  My annoyance turned to anger.  Then he started saying things like “USA is the best.  I love USA.  I want to give blow job.”  All the other gays giggled every time he said something sexual.

He didn’t stop.  I eventually couldn’t take it anymore and addressed him: “Oye, huevon.  ¿A quien estás hablando?”  Hey man, who are you talking to?  I assume none of the passengers understood what he had been saying and paid little attention up to this point.  But we certainly had their attention now.  The dude somewhat froze up.  “A él,” he replied while pointing at the little, timid, seemingly-bottomer boyfriend seated next to him.  Me: “Tu ingles es una mierda…”  Your English sucks shit.  “Para que sepas.”  Just so you know.

A few minutes later the bus pulled into the Avenida Jimenez stop and I decided that Rosa and I should get off.  The J-line continues for two more stops into La Candelaria, but it goes so slow through downtown that I usually get off at Jimenez and walk.  Plus I didn’t want to stay on the bus with those gay assholes while squeezed into a tiny standing space.  But that incident shouldn’t necessarily be chalked up as a downtown Bogota thing (if anything, those gay couples were more likely to live in my neighborhood).  But that’s how I started my day on this particular downtown excursion.

So Rosa and I started up Avenida Jimenez.  As soon as we hit the avenue, I saw two bums having a meeting in the median.  One of them had a bat in his hand.  It wasn’t literally a baseball bat, but a piece of wood 2 x 2 inches in thickness, and about 3 feet long.  It wasn’t as long as a baseball bat and the wood wasn’t as dense.  But in effect, he was a bum walking around with a mini-baseball bat.  What the fuck is that?

This walk is generally safe during the day because it’s crowded.  There are dozens of cheap stores and informal markets, and restaurants further up the hill.  But I noticed that a lot of the people on the street seemed to be dirty bums (as defined in the Political Correctness Disclaimer).  Rosa said, “Que miedo.  Mucho mendigo.”  Kind of scary, lots of bums.

On the next block or so, Rosa exclaimed, “¡Ay, mira!”  I looked to where she pointed across the street and saw a bum trotting barefoot down the hill (I say trotting, but he was probably running as fast as he could).  He had long, nappy hair with a beard and wore only shorts.  He was so caked in filth that he looked more black than white.  I could see more dirt than skin.  A true skank, half-naked running down the street.  What the fuck is that?

We arrived in La Candelaria and I started showing Rosa around because La Candelaria is a beautiful neighborhood.  At some point I was approached by a professional panhandler with a hard-sell.  He asked in native English if I was American.  Native English.  He tried to shake my hand while explaining he was from Queens.  Bums that speak native English: where else in Latin America could they possibly exist?  The funny thing is – he’s not the first native English-speaking bum I’ve come across in La Candelaria!  What the fuck is that?

After seeing La Candelaria, we started the short walk to Plaza Bolivar.  Shortly after starting I noticed a young and dirty, gangster-bum with his hoodie up (although it was quite sunny and hot out) walking ahead of us on the other side of the street.  He turned his head to give a dirty look to every single person he passed.  I decided to maintain a slow pace so we wouldn’t pass him.  I didn’t want my back to that guy.

We arrived at Plaza Bolivar.  Rosa took pictures of the beautiful buildings, the soldiers in dress uniform, and the soldiers carrying heavy artillery (remember Colombia is at war).  Then we took a taxi to Monserrate.  The taxi driver started talking to Rosa when he realized she was Peruvian.  What does she think of Bogota?  She said it’s beautiful but it seems dangerous.  Lima, Peru is not a safe city, and downtown Lima at night certainly isn’t the place to be, but downtown Lima during the day isn’t anything like Bogota.  Mucho mendigo.  The taxi driver explained how much downtown has improved.  He said the 90s were a nightmare.  You could get mugged, stabbed, or beaten up in broad daylight.  He’s much happier with downtown Bogota.

Rosa wanted to buy some tourist stuff but thought it’d be cheaper downtown than atop Monserrate.  Are you kidding me? -I asked.  You want to walk all the way back downtown from Monserrate?  She did.  Somewhere in La Candelaria she asked if we could stop for a coffee so she could use the bathroom.  I told her it was her decision.  But there’s only about 1 ½ hours of daylight left and I’m going to leave downtown before it’s dark.  She decided to skip the coffee / restroom break.

We passed La Candelaria into downtown.  I saw a dirty bum with his hand out sitting on the sidewalk against a wall.  His beard didn’t have a trace of grey, nor did his long hair.  But apparently his body was already too decrepit and void of vitality for him to beg standing on his feet.  When he saw me approach, he said “¿Un pancito gringo?” A piece of bread, gringo?  Many of them say this when they mean they would like a little bit of money to go buy a piece of bread.  I assume American bums don’t say “Piece of bread?” because gringos will actually go to the store, buy bread and bring it to them.  But they really just want the money.   I ignored this bum.  He said it again as I got closer.  ¿Un pancito gringo? And again just as I passed.  And again much louder when I had passed him by several steps.  4 times in total.  Shut the fuck up!

After realizing the prices for tourist shit are generally the same downtown as atop Monserrate, the sun was going down so we started our walk back to the TransMilenio.  While walking, I saw a filthy old bum with a disgusting beard hauling a huge plastic bag over his shoulder.  He dropped the bag to the ground when he saw my big bald head sticking out of my big gringo frame and started his sales pitch.  I quickly shook my head to save his time.  He picked his bag back up and walked off, turning his body in a way so that his bag of trash hit me.  What the fuck is that?

I was somewhat fuming on the bus ride home.  I have a well-documented history of loathing bums.  And even though I’ve softened up to a more caring mentality recently, I still get angry inside at the more triflin’ ones.  The worst part about it is that I could literally kill most drugged-out, out-of-shape bums with my bare hands.  But I’m an upstanding member of society and have to just turn the other cheek.

I was happy to get back to Chapinero – which is not exactly the nicest part of Bogota.  But I looked at the people on the Chapinero streets with profound appreciation; they’re so clean and normal.  How nice.

UPDATE, JULY 2010: Before concluding anything negative about La Candelaria, read my recent post Life is But a Dream in La Candelaria.

After staying in La Candelaria when I was in Bogotá last year, I was convinced that I’d live in the neighborhood if I ever moved to Bogotá. After a week in the neighborhood this time, I’m convinced I won’t stay. The bums, drug dealers, shadetree operators, thieves, scoundrels, and sketchballs are too much for me to take. I’m leaving. Jump to Perpetual Begging, The Brick Incident, My Easter Sunday Mugging, or Leaving La Candelaria.

Perpetual Begging

Not only am I harrassed for spare change by panhandlers, I’m also offered drugs daily. It’s always a persistent sell. They try to shake my hand or call me “my friend” and ask where I’m from. They run the line about the bus or food or whatever. One time a bum stood in the middle of the street and acted like he hailed me a taxi that was going to stop anyway.  Then he asked for a tip.

I’ve learned that some panhandlers were displaced by paramilitaries or FARC and are legitimately in need, but I don’t know how to discern the real from the fake. Plus, getting in the habit of begging generally isn’t something I encourage.

In Ryan’s few days here, he was so frustrated by the panhandlers that he started yelling “NO!” by the last day of his trip. And I assume that half the drug-dealers are actually scheming on robbing the gringos who do want drugs. Some of the panhandlers holler insults if they don’t get any money. And some of them are very dirty, very skanky.

The Brick Incident

Friday I took a bike tour of the city. I was standing outside the bike rental shop with one of the tour guides, Juan. Juan is a half-black, dreadlocked Colombian and super-nice guy whose other job is for a human rights organization. Good people.

Some panhandler came up running the line on Juan while I ignored him. Juan was very nice in explaining he didn’t have any money. He called him vecino with smiles and apologies. The panhandler crossed the street and started cursing Juan and giving the finger, calling him “hijo de puta”, etc. I don’t remember exactly what I said to the bum but it was probably along the lines of ‘go fuck your mother’ or ‘take a bath’ or something not nice (I admit).

The bum got angry and acted tough. He implied he’d whoop me and put his hands up. I wasn’t trying to be insulting but the sight of this scrawny little crackhead – who probably hadn’t slept the night before as it was 11am – putting his hands up to the sides of his head almost by his ears made me laugh. I wasn’t trying to be cool, I was sincerely cracking up.

This pissed him off even more and he said he had a knife. He feigned his hand toward his shoe and half-crossed the street towards us, hiding what was (not) in his hand. I don’t remember what I did, maybe squared up or something, and the crackhead turned around, exiting around the corner.

Juan and I and an American girl shook our heads at the puppet show and went on talking about the upcoming bike tour. Five minutes or so passed and the crackhead reappeared around the same corner with a brick in his hand. The American girl darted inside the shop. I turned sideways, eyes on the brick but not engaging him anymore. From inside the shop, the American girl said, “Don’t antagonize him. Don’t laugh at him.”

Juan got out his cell phone and called the police. He audibly explained that there was a guy in a blue shirt and pants on so-and-so street with a brick, who says he has a knife. I wasn’t engaging the bum at all, and he slowly retreated and disappeared around the corner.

Not my idea of a Friday morning.

My Easter Sunday Mugging

I’m staying at a cheap, no-frills hotel because they give me a private room and a long-term discount. It’s not a party house with gringos making noise and the management runs a tight ship. Unfortunately, they don’t have Internet so I paid the management of another hostel to let me come in with my laptop and use their wi-fi. The hostel’s three blocks from my hotel. Since La Candelaria is the historic part of town, the three short blocks are actually about two city blocks in the States in distance. TWO BLOCKS.

The day after the Brick Incident (Saturday), I was online at the hostel all night long. I finished up around 2am and decided to call it a night. When leaving the hostel late at night, I lock my laptop in a closet at the hostel instead of carrying it, which the hostel management agrees is a good idea.

I left the hostel for my hotel. At the second block, I heard footsteps coming up behind me on my left. I turned to see a little Colombian making eye contact. I am accustomed to panhandlers approaching this way and running their pitch for a block or so. Instead of asking for money, this little guy pulled a shard of glass out and blocked my path, demanding my money.

I was scared. I gave him all the coins from my change pocket and told him that’s all I had (about 500 pesos, or $0.21). He realized he had me, stopped and scared and all. He demanded my jacket. I just got this black leather jacket for Christmas, brand new. I wasn’t scared enough to give that up.  I stalled. He asked more forcefully.

I sidestepped him and RAN. Not sprinting because I had to decide whether to ring the hotel bell and wait for the night clerk to answer or bypass the hotel and double back. I turned my head to see the Colombian jogging in the other direction. It was over.

While this happened Saturday night (the day after the Friday Brick Incident), the mugging technically occured around 2am on Easter Sunday.

Leaving La Candelaria

I felt like a bitch after the mugging.

I’ve been thinking about how he got me and the bum from the Brick Incident. Most of their game is inspiring fear. Whether they have a knife, whether they’re willing to use it, doesn’t matter as much as making me call their bluff. They have nothing to lose but a beating. Do I call their bluff to get a KO? Do I jump into the world of seeing through those kinds of bluffs? I’m too old for that shit. I’m selling out, moving up north to the rich part of town.

Talking to a few gringos who’ve been around the neighborhood, I’m learning what happens. Two gringos ran into a rasta who tried to sell them weed, and when they refused he threatened to crack their head with his hand in his coat pocket. Then he chased them a few blocks until they hopped in a taxi. He spit on the window as they drove off.

A scarier story: some bar near La Candelaria got held up by three guys with sawed-off shotguns. One gringo was inside working on his laptop. He lost his computer and wallet. Egipto, a neighborhood adjacent to La Candelaria, is reputably tough and gunfights happen there. Then there’s Los Laches to the south, another tough neighborhood.

I’ve heard of several muggings, in all directions and on any street. I wasn’t on a side block, but a heavy-traffic street. Locals say you just can’t walk alone that late at night. Take a taxi when alone. But it’s three blocks! Two by US standards.

I’d just rather not live like that. I don’t want to live a 7am – 10pm life because of the street situation. I’d rather just move up north.

You can freshen up by reading these posts: Amigos and Bricheras and The Brichera Scowl and the Second Date.  I’m now leaving Peru, so I thought I ought to share what I’ve learned.  Plus, I scored a one-night stand with my first bona fide brichera during my last week in Arequipa.  Jump to My First Brichera!, Type 1, or Type 2 bricheras.

My First Brichera!

Some may define my first girlfriend as a brichera due to the story in which she lost her mind.  But most Peruvians said she wasn’t.  She didn’t speak English.  Plus, I was her first (and probably last) gringo boyfriend.  So my first real brichera was the one in the following story (an English-speaking girl studying tourism fits the bill better).

Ryan arrived on a Wednesday for his two-week trip to help me move to Colombia.  We went out to El Balde for a few beers before moving on to Deja Vu, the primary brichera spot in Arequipa.  We ran into some friends and talked upstairs before I moved to the dance floor.  I was dancing with two girls while I noticed a different one staring at me from across the floor.  I smiled at her, but stayed where I was.

Some time later, I was walking with Ryan past the bathrooms and I saw that girl coming out.  I introduced us.  She spoke a little English.  Keeping the conversation going felt like pulling teeth so I split, leaving her with Ryan.  Ryan later told me Brichera was touching his leg and making eyes at him.  They found me downstairs and I sat them down with some friends.  A few minutes later, Ryan got up and told me she was all mine.  Brichera had been asking about me (Ryan later admitted that was a lie).  I sat next to her and we talked for ten minutes or so before Brichera started kissing me.

We made out for a while before going to the dance floor.  We drank a lot.  Brichera drank fast.  After finishing a beer, Brichera asked if we should get another (implying I buy).  I decided to invest in a round.  While dancing, Brichera suggested we race drinking that beer.  I barely beat her (that’s fast!).  She said we should get another.  I wondered if I was getting taken for a ride.  Oh well, I invested in another.  We finished that round as the bar was closing around 4am.

Because Brichera seemed to be a bit of an alcoholic, I told her I had more beer at my apartment.  We could keep the party going there.  She said that sounded good.  Could her friend come?  What friend?  Brichera had a cute, brichera wingwoman huddled up with some prissy European.  The friend didn’t want to come with us.  Fortunately, mine did.

The taxi dropped me, Ryan, and Brichera off at the corner near my apartment.  Brichera pointed at El Tablón, suggesting we get food.  Again, I wondered if I was getting taken for a ride.  Well, she’s already come with us to the apartment.  One more small investment may pay off.  I bought a quarter chicken and fries meal (to-go!), which we shared in the apartment while Ryan went to bed.  Brichera was drunk and weird.  She would bite off some chicken and then kiss me until I bit some of the chicken from her mouth.  Kinda gross.

After eating, Brichera said she just wanted to sleep in the same bed.  That’s fine, let’s get in bed then.  “Just sleep” turned into butt-nakedness, which turned into hair-pulling, hard-spanking doggystyle.  My investments paid off.

In the morning, she woke me up with oral.  Her hair was wet.  She had helped herself to my shower, which must have been cold because nobody turned on the water heater.  Good oral.  Then she got on top and rode it until she completed the unfinished business from the night before.  She laid next to me.  She asked for my hand, which she wanted to kiss.  I put my hand up to her face and she licked and sucked and kissed each of my fingers for at least five minutes.  Then she turned me over and gave me a half-hour massage.  Great massage, for 30 minutes!  Then she left.

Type 1 Brichera

The Type 1 brichera is the stereotype that’s out for financial gain or social climbing.  This kind can be found around Calle de las Pizzas in Miraflores and in Cusco.  I’m sure they exist in Arequipa, but nothing like in Lima.  See the definition of a brichera on Urban Dictionary here.  I wrote the preferred definition (#1) last year, but the second definition (#2) is an over-the-top explanation of the Type 1.

Although Cusco is known for bricheras, I didn’t meet any.  Granted, I drank myself too retarded to talk to anyone.  Lima’s where I found Type 1′s.  My brother and I were planning our night in Larcomar, but didn’t want to pay Larcomar prices for our first 5 – 7 beers.  My buddy Diego dropped us off at Calle de las Pizzas, which I think is hilarious to call Pizza Street.

Pizza Street is actually an aisle of bars and restaurants around the corner from Kennedy Park.  We walked this gauntlet to be solicited by someone from each and every establishment.  There were so many sales pitches we stopped saying ‘No,’ opting instead to just ignore and not make eye contact.

After one trip up the gauntlet, we still hadn’t chosen a bar.  I was hesitant to run the gauntlet again when two women approached us.  One was black, overweight, with blond hair extensions down to her waist.  The other was light brown, cute enough, and slim.  They asked where we were from.  They made small talk.  They kept talking.  Forever.  I was uncomfortable.  I made an exit strategy, pardoning ourselves for one of these bars.  There are prostitutes that work Pizza Street, and we met some, but these two didn’t offer us ‘massages.’  So I assume them to be Type 1 bricheras.

We bought a couple beers at the grocery store and drank them on a bench in Kennedy Park.  Two Peruvian cuties walked past us.  They noticed us looking at them and they stopped at the next bench over, despite the fact that a couple occupied that bench.  They leaned against it, in effect waiting for the couple to leave so they could sit there.

Ryan and I finished our beers and I decided to greet the girls on the way to the grocery store for another round.  I asked them if there was any specific bar on Pizza Street that was a cool place to party.  The cuter girl said she does know a place and we should all go together.  I was a little creeped out at the aggression and said my brother and I actually had to go to the store first but maybe we could meet them there.  The cuter one said they could go with us to the store, and then we could all go to the bar together.  The other brichera, also cute, picked up that they shouldn’t come with us.  I said that we’d go to the store and meet them back at this bench, then go to the bar.  We didn’t come back to the bench.

Ryan and I bought two more beers and decided to exit the Pizza Street / Kennedy Park lion’s den of Type 1 bricheras in favor of Larcomar, where I hoped to meet clean and rich Peruvian women.  We went to Bartini on the recommendation of the hottie that worked at our hostel, after I asked where we could find ‘the Peruvian girls who speak English.’

We entered Bartini and immediately started getting looked at by hot Peruvian women.  One group on the other side of the bar was so obvious that I waved at them.  Three heads simultaneously snapped towards each other in a hurry as if they weren’t looking at us.  Another group danced their way over to us.  One intentionally kept bumping into me while another struck up a conversation with my brother (in English).  I assumed this group to be Type 1′s because of the hottest one in the group.  The absolute stunner in a white miniskirt had a gringo on her arm.  The biggest nerd I’ve seen in Peru.  This couple made no sense.  He wasn’t ugly per se, but nerdy and awkward.  Probably an engineer (nothing against engineers, but even you engineers know that a lot of your peers are nerds).

Type 1′s generally make me uncomfortable and I’ve never indulged in one, so I don’t have intimate details.  I imagine that nerd at Bartini would.

Type 2 Brichera

Type 2 is a different story.  Disclaimer: this is going to be a politically incorrect explanation, but since when have I cared about offending people?

The need for a Type 2 came up after one specific brichera encounter.  I met a tall, beautiful Type 2 through a friend.  Later, that friend told me that the Type 2 only dates gringos.  Every boyfriend she’s ever had was a gringo.  Whenever he hangs out with her, it seems she is always emailing or chatting online with some gringo in Europe or the US.

I made out with her one night at Deja Vu.  I called her later that week and she invited me to a party at her house.  I went to find her house is huge and nice.  The nicest house in Peru I’ve seen.  Her family’s rich.  Upper-crust rich.  So why would she be chasing money if she is already set for life?

Now, to understand Type 2, I have to explain what I’ve learned about the racial issues in Peru (enter politically incorrect analysis).

Peruvian’s culture and national identity is a product of two races.  The indigenous people of the region and the Europeans who colonized them.  The whiter Peruvians, the more Spanish, still control most of the wealth and power in the country.  The darker, more indigenous Peruvians are the poorer, less-educated Peruvians.  When angry at the lower classes, Peruvians will often dismiss them as cholos or peasants.  I think most Peruvians associate themselves with the European side of their ancestry.  The US and Western Europe are the richer, more developed countries in the world.  I think each Peruvian wants to believe he / she has more of that in them than the people who built Machu Picchu.

And they all grow up watching Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, or Pamela Anderson and Jennifer Aniston in American movies.

There’s a white girl I know – so white it looks like she doesn’t have an Inca in all her lineage.  And all the Peruvian guys think she’s the hottest in town.  I like the brown look and I consider many other girls more beautiful.  In fact, I think the white girl wouldn’t even be considered above average in the States.  But their subconscious desire for white looks trick their mind into thinking she’s so beautiful.

I think the Type 2′s identify with or aspire to be a part of white culture as more of a rejection of the indigenous culture.  While their skin might be a mix of the two civilizations, they want to believe that their mind, their insides are more of one than the other.

Conclusion

I think these two types sum up the motivations of the brichera.  Surely there are hybrids, but I think they clearly fall into the two categories.  If I had to choose one, Type 2′s seem like better bets to me.  I never had a go with a Type 1, but they’d surely be good for at least sex.

I spontaneously decided to see Machu Picchu in my remaining time in Peru and packed a backpack before heading to the bus station. I arrived in Cusco at 6am Monday morning.

I intended to stay at my friend Billy’s hostel, where I stayed when I was in Cusco last year.  My taxi driver – Lenin – immediately started selling me his own hostel.  He asked how much I was paying at Billy’s place.  I answered an absurdly low number: 15 soles / night ($4.69).  He told me he would give me a private room and bathroom for that price.  I told him I’d think about it.  As we were passing Billy’s hostel, I noticed it seemed closed so I told Lenin the Taxi Driver that I’ll stay at his place.

While checking in and getting my key, I noted this hostel was a shithole.  No matter, the price was right.  Before taking a nap, I locked the deadbolt to my room with the key.  I slept for three hours or so.  I woke up and got some things together to go see Cusco and buy tickets to Machu Picchu.

When I tried to unlock the door, my key wouldn’t unlock the deadbolt.  This same key that locked the deadbolt was turning round and round but the deadbolt was not moving.  I was locked inside my room.  As I noted earlier, this hostel was a shithole and I could see that this door’s lock was also a piece of shit.  In Peru, doors have these large metal boxes for locks and door handles.  I saw that I could probably pry this metal box far enough off the door so that the deadbolt would come free from the wall.

First I banged and banged on the door in hopes someone downstairs would hear me.  I banged and banged and banged and nobody could hear me since I was on the third floor.  So I went to work on this metal box.  I pried and banged and pried and worked on the door for five minutes or so until I had bent the metal box back far enough that I could open the door.  The lock was bent into complete worthlessness.

I went downstairs with all my things to find Lenin’s little brother and sister (they manage the place while he’s driving his taxi and recruiting guests) watching TV. I told them my lock was broken and I want a new room.  The boy gave me a new room and I went out to see Cusco.  I decided that there was no way in hell I was paying for that lock and I would leave the hostel if Lenin tried to make me pay.

I took a city tour for 20 soles ($6.25).  I was skeptical that the tour could last four hours like they said at the tourist agency.  How much stuff was there to see?  The bus first brought us to Qorikancha – the Santo Domingo of Cusco Convent.  The tour guide went into long, boring explanations of absolutely everything and I realized how this tour could take four hours.  There were some cool paintings, so it was worth the 10 soles to get in.

I wondered how many more places on the tour would charge to get in.  I paid for a 20 soles tour, and that’s really all I wanted out of this tour. Next we went to Saksaywaman, which I had already seen last time I was in Cusco.  This entrance was 40 soles.  I opted to stay on the bus with the driver.  After all, Saksaywaman isn’t much more than a bunch of big rocks.

After an hour, the group came back to the bus and we drove to a different patch of rocks.  I learned that the 40 soles paid for the same ticket for these new rocks which I could clearly see from the bus.  They all went in and I asked the driver how many more of this tour’s stops cost money.  He said all the rest of the stops are included in the Saksaywaman entrance.  I asked him how I could get back down to the plaza if I want to skip the rest of the tour.  He pointed up a hill and said a taxi would eventually drop a tourist off at the entrance to Saksaywaman.  He also pointed down a hill at a forest and said I could walk.  Saksaywaman sits on top of a mountain and overlooks Cusco, seemingly quite a walk.  But that sounded cool.

I took off on foot into the forest.  I had a nice time and saw a lot more than I would’ve seen on the whack-ass tour.  I walked for five minutes through a forest of tall skinny trees and came upon the road thirty feet below a dropoff.  I spotted three peasant women sitting on a blanket and asked them how to get down.  They pointed me in the right direction and I continued my descent.  I came into a residential area with sidewalks instead of roads and passed through two or three neighborhoods until I had descended the mountain into the city.

I found my hostel.  I asked the little kids if they told Lenin about the lock.  No word.

I went back out and ate at Rosie O’Grady’s, the Irish bar that boasts the highest elevation in the world (so I’ve heard) and also owned my Maca’s family (Maca is Carlos’ baby’s mother and fiancee).  Maca’s cousin Heidi (Billy’s girlfriend) was managing.  She took me to a special office which services tourist agencies so I paid bottom dollar for my Machu Picchu tickets (about $150 altogether).

I went back to the hostel to shower before going out.  I asked the kids if Lenin had any news for me.  Nothing.  I paid the boy another fifteen soles for a second night.

After eating dinner, I bought some weed and went back to the hostel to roll it into joints.  The two front doors are always locked and a manager has to let people in and out.  I knocked and knocked and knocked.  Nobody answered the door.  I couldn’t get into my own hostel!  What a shithole.  I rolled one joint on the stoop in front, ringing the doorbell every five minutes or so.  It probably annoyed the other guests, who I could hear, but they couldn’t let me in because they don’t have a key.  I went to a restaurant and ate a second dinner just so I could inconspicuously roll joints on the table.

I smoked one on the way to the bars.  As I entered the first place, my jaw dropped as I took in the scene.  The dance floor was packed … with white people.  Wall-to-wall gringos.  Where the fuck was I?  Cusco.  I was stoned and had a beer while looking around at all these white people, which I am not at all accustomed to seeing.  Then I split because it’s not my scene.

I was out all night drinking.  I got back to my hostel around 4am.  I was supposed to wake up at 6am for Machu Picchu.

I woke up at 7:30 and panicked.  I definitely missed the train to Aguas Calientes.  I was worried I would have to buy new tickets ($150).  I packed a few things in my backpack and put on my Machu Picchu clothes.  My plan was to run to the office where I bought the tickets to see if they could do anything for me.

I ran downstairs and the two little brats said that I had to pay for that lock.  Lenin told them not to let me leave until I paid.  The girl was extremely annoying in how loud she kept yelling “Tienes que pagar por la chapa” and “Tu la rompiste.“  I told them I’m not paying for that lock and went back upstairs to get all my things.  I was activating my aforementioned plan of leaving the hostel.

I came back down and told them to let me out.  They said I had to pay for the lock first.  They called Lenin and he would be at the hostel in seven minutes.  All too familiar with Peruvian time, I set my phone alarm for exactly seven minutes.  I paced back and forth, fuming, wearing my backpack with all my things in it.

I had missed Machu Picchu. I was still quite drunk.  I only slept three hours.  And now I had to deal with this lock shit.  This all brewed a perfect storm of rage.  My plan was to stay close to the two glass doors and, when Lenin unlocked them to come in, I would push him out into the street and start yelling at him.  If he offered any resistance, I would knock him out in front of all his neighbors.

My alarm went off.  I told the little shit-sticks that seven minutes had passed and I was leaving.  They refused.  I told them I was going to throw their computer through the doors.  I grabbed the boy by his shirt and pushed him against the wall.  I obviously wasn’t going to hit a kid, but I wanted to scare him a little.  I grabbed the handle of the door while I said, “Si tu no abres esta puerta …” and I banged the door a little bit to make some noise …

And both doors shattered into hundreds of little pieces of glass (it was an accident!).  As soon as the last piece hit the ground, I leapt over the pile and sprinted down the street.  My backpack must have weighed at least 30 pounds (thanks in large part to my 965-page hardcover copy of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and Business of Life).  I turned after three blocks and sprinted two blocks uphill (Andes Mountains uphill).

I wasn’t running or jogging, but sprinting – on my toes, chin tucked, full-range arm-swinging.  Like a wide receiver after a reception in the backfield with a cornerback on his tail.  After five blocks, I slowed and started panting.  I needed water.  I needed to get off the streets.  I saw an old man sweeping the stoop of his hostel.  I asked him how much for a room.  35 soles ($10.94).  I’ll take it!

He showed me to my room, which was very nice.  This hostel was no shithole.  He even brought me a towel, toilet paper, and bar of soap.

I changed clothes and ran to the office where I bought my Machu Picchu tickets. I was super-paranoid of every police car. The lady who was supposed to meet me at the train station said she called my hostel and the kid who answered the phone said there was nobody by my name at the hostel.  Perfect!

The ladies in this office devised a way for me to change the date of the train ticket.  One of them went with me to the train station, where I was supposed to explain that I got robbed early that morning so I couldn’t travel.  I didn’t want to lie and felt nervous about it, but I pulled it off.  I acted like a dumb gringo who only speaks English.  It worked and they changed the date on my train ticket to the next day.  YES!  After leaving, I kissed the girl that accompanied me to the train station several times on the cheek and invited her and the other girl in the office to lunch later.

But now I had to worry about this whole Cusco Incident (the incident being me breaking a lock and two glass doors of a hostel and fleeing the scene).  Normally, I wouldn’t worry because I got away with all my stuff.  However, I gave my NAME and PASSPORT NUMBER when I checked in.

So Lenin had a description of me (I’m somewhat unique-looking) plus my name and passport number if he were inclined to have the authorities look for me.  While I have a good grasp about life and culture in Peru, I have no clue how police and the authorities work in Peru. Will they be looking for me?  Will they hold me at the airport if I try to leave the country?  Would they even care?  I needed to consult some Peruvians.

I emailed Carlos an abbreviated version of the story.  He replied right away saying it’s probably not a big deal but that I should get out of Cusco as soon as possible.  I met Ward in Cusco for lunch and he thought there was a good chance that Lenin didn’t even call the police.

I went back to Rose O’Grady’s and bought lunch for the two ladies who helped me.  Billy was there!  After the ladies left, I told him the story (over a few beers to calm my nerves).  Billy didn’t think it’d be a problem, but he did think that Lenin called the police and lied to them (leaving out that he was in effect detaining me illegally).  Billy said the police would probably look for me at the airport and main bus terminal over the next few days.  He recommended that I go to the Zorro Estación (the bus station for poor people) and catch a bus to Sicuani, a tiny pueblo two hours out of Cusco.  In Sicuani, there’s another terminal where I can catch a bus to Arequipa.  Billy said the police wouldn’t be looking for me at either of those stations.  A plan!

I went back to the hostel for a nap and worried that Lenin might check all the hostels in the area.  I used a fake name and no passport number at the current hostel.  But as I said, I am easily describable and my check-in time corresponds exactly with the Incident.  Then I realized I hope he does find me.  I want to knock him out just for putting me through all this.

Although I wanted to stay off the streets as much as possible, I took a long walk after my nap.  I passed through a peasant part of town, crowded with markets and poor indigenous people.  Arequipa has peasants, but nothing like Cusco.  Remember this was the Incas’ capital city.

That night I went out drinking.  I got so drunk I don’t remember much.  At one point, I was in a place with a live pseudo-rasta reggae / punk band.  I got a picture of us getting high.  At another point I told somebody trying to sell me drugs that maybe his mother’s for sale, I might be interested in that.  And then I was drinking at a table with three Germans when I didn’t like the tone from one of them.  I stood up on him, ready to scrap.  He didn’t want to.  And in some danceclub I was dancing salsa and twirling Peruvian girls, unfortunately too drunk to talk or do anything else.  When it was time for bed, I was too drunk to make the three-block walk home without stumbling and looking like a wasted idiot.  I had to sit down at a park bench in Plaza de Armas for ten minutes with my head in between my knees to muster up the energy to walk home normally.

I somehow woke up on time and went to Machu Picchu (separate post).  I’d planned to catch an overnight bus back to Arequipa afterwards but I was dead tired.  I paid for another night at the hostel and checked out the next day.

It was time to execute the plan and escape Cusco.  I ate at Rosie O’Grady’s again and talked with Maca’s cousin Paolo.  He told me about a collectivo service that goes to Sicuani.  If I took one of these shuttles, I wouldn’t even have to show my face at the Cusco bus station for poor people.

I took a taxi to the collectivo parking lot, an operation with five vans that leave once they fill up.  9 soles ($2.81) for a two-hour ride to Sicuani, and it arrives faster than the bus.

Billy was right: the authorities definitely wouldn’t be looking for me there.  Sicuani is the smallest, poorest little pueblo I’ve seen to date.  I get stared at in Arequipa, but I got stared at in Sicuani.  I imagine there are more speakers of Quechua than Spanish in this little town.  I had three hours to kill in which I ate and looked around.  I asked at five different places; none had cold beer.  Every single woman in the town had the custom pigtails, hat, dress, and blanket backpack (with or without baby inside).

The bus was just as poor and peasant as the town (but only 18 soles / $5.63 for a seven-hour bus trip!).  The family in front of me spoke in Quechua.  One woman in the family slept on the floor in the aisle, her feet directly to the right of my aisle seat.  We got to Arequipa around 3am.  I got away smooth!

Cusco Quick Facts:

• I was originally going to call this post “You Don’t Have to See Cusco” and the Machu Picchu post “You HAVE to See Machu Picchu.”
• Cusco is typical of tourist towns with little other industry (New Orleans pre-Katrina, Amsterdam, Las Vegas).
• Everything is over-priced (compared to the rest of Peru).
• There are a million and one ways to spend money and Cusquenos are good at getting you to spend it.  I was constantly hounded to buy snacks, shoeshines, massages, drugs, oil paintings, crafts, etc. etc. etc.  I said “No” no less than fifty times per day.
• While it is over-priced, the food is EXCELLENT.
• Saksaywaman isn’t worth it (it’s rocks!).
• City tours aren’t worth it.  Here is a list of points of interest for you to do your own city tour:

1. Museum of pre-Colombian Art
2. Inka Museum
3. Museum of Religious Art
4. Musuem of Natural History
5. Cathedral
6. Triunfo Church
7. Sacred Family Church
8. La Merced Convent
9. San Blas Church
10. White Christ

• If you went to Cusco and stayed around the plaza, briefly seeing Machu Picchu, you didn’t really see Peru.
• If you really want to know the Cusco area / character, get back to Lima or Arequipa the same route I did (via Sicuani).

Conclusion: I think I need to give another run at sobriety.  I feel that, one of these days, I’m not going to come out on top.

Pictures

(other pics of the typical Cusco views on a different post)

So around 1pm, I went to a sauna in the Jose Luis Bustamante area.  You pay 10 soles to enter ($3 USD).  They offered sandals, but I was already wearing mine.  I passed into a locker room and stripped down to my swimming trunks and sandals.  I passed the locker room into the bathhouse of tiled, white floors with tables and benches.  Four showers.  A steam room (camara de vapor).  A sauna (camara seca).  A TV room showing South American soccer.  They sell beer, water, juice, and soda.  And there are putas in bikinis selling massages.  I ordered a beer and alternated between the steam room, sauna, and showers.

There was only one puta working.  She was hot enough.  Very brown.  Kind of thick.  Seemingly bored.  A few other guys were lounging around, not interested.  I hung around drinking beer for about an hour just to see if any other girls were working.  It seemed there was only one.  She asked me if I wanted a massage.  I did.  She led me to a staircase, and a small room and closed the door.  The room featured a shelf with a bottle of lotion and a tall, padded bench.  I paid her 60 soles ($18.63).  She asked me if I knew what a massage was.  I told her I did as I dropped my shorts.  We got started.  She asked me if I like latinas.  Yes I do!

I finished and went back to the bathhouse area.  I ordered another beer.  I wanted to hang out in the sauna and steam room some more.  That’s when I saw a different puta.  Really cute.  Fair complexion, cute face, dark hair.  Really young.  She was wearing a Brazilian-style thong to show off her shapely butt cheeks.  I went into the sauna.  She left the guy she was talking to and bee-lined to the sauna.  She sat across from me in the dry heat.  We were alone.

She had an embarrassed smile while we talked.  I’m 29.  She’s 20.  I’m Colin.  Her name’s Fiorella.  She asked me if I exercise while touching the lower cleavage between her breasts while looking at me.  The tension in the air was too much.

She said she saw me come back from the massage room with the other girl.  It’s true.  But I might want another massage.  In fact, I was already sold.  I just needed time for the juices to start flowing again.  Another guy came into the room.  Then the the first puta came in and sat next to me.  Then another guy came in.  Now it was a crowd.  I was almost drunk again and started clowning, telling jokes and such.  Fiorella laughed loudest.  I left the room for another beer.  When I came back to the bathhouse area, I felt a pinch on my butt.  I turned around to see this young puta, Fiorella, giggling.

I noticed WWE wrestling was on in the TV room.  I sat down front-and-center with my beer.  I watched a match in which some guy I didn’t know beat another guy I didn’t know, to the crowd’s dismay.  I have a soft spot for wrestling.  I kept drinking.

I was drunk at this point.  I started talking to the other guys in the place, which seemed like a taboo (talking to other guys in a brothel).  But I was funny so they humored me.  In the steam room, they place pounds of leaves over the steamer to create a pleasant smell.  Aromatherapy.  I don’t remember what the leaf is called.

I looked for my young honey.  Because there were so many guys at that hour (4 – 5pm), she was busy.  I watched her come back with an old, gross guy.  We made eye contact and she winked.  But she had somebody else in line.  She went back to that same room with the next paying customer.  She was busy from the moment she pinched my butt until now.  It didn’t bother me.  I waited for at least an hour drinking and drinking.  It was finally my turn.

She sat next to me and asked if I wanted a massage.  I said I did but I can wait until she is ready.  I offered her some beer.  She drank a short glass and said she’s ready.  We went to that same room I was in just a couple hours ago.

I paid her and said that I don’t know if I’m ready to have sex but I just wanted to meet her again.  I told her I wanted to hang out with her outside of this place – if she wanted.  I told her I live in Cayma.  She said that sounds cool.  How can she get a hold of me?  My phone got cut off.  Can I call her?  She said she doesn’t have a phone.  Well I guess we won’t be hanging out.  With her eyes down there, she said she wants to see me with my shorts off.  I took them off and reiterated that we don’t have to have sex if she doesn’t want to.  She grabbed it underhand with a facial expression of a kid with a new toy.

We started doing it.  She was so adorable sucking her thumb during doggystyle.  I didn’t finish by the time there was a knock on the door.

I’ll miss that girl.  I got dressed and headed out.  My drunken judgement was acting on my plans from before going to the sauna.  I called Rosa.  She sent me an email earlier that week (I ran into her a few times in the last two weeks and told her I was moving to Colombia.  She sent me an email saying she would like to ‘talk’ before I leave).  She agreed for a date around 10pm.  Still drunk, I sprinted through a shower and over to Carlos’ place to drop off some work documents.  Then I ran downtown to meet Rosa.

It seemed like Rosa wanted more than talk.  We went to Istanbul for a drink.  I drank juice and she drank scotch.  I was almost nodding off at the table because of how drunk I got at the sauna.  I told her I was tired from working so hard with Carlos on our new business.  She believed me.  She asked me how long it had been since I’d been with somebody.  Three hours?  I told her a month.  I told her about the chibola.  She said she hadn’t been with somebody since January.  I told her I bought a DVD on my way downtown.  The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei (remember my aforementioned soft spot).  Would she like to watch it at my apartment?  She would.

We made it a few minutes into the film before making out and petting.  We did it.  I couldn’t do it very good.  I told her I was really tired from working all day.  She believed me.  We slept until she went home around 2am.  We met for ceviche the next day.  Afterwords, we did it again – better.

At the end of the weekend, it didn’t hurt anymore.

Soon after our drinks arrived, the girls’ table sent an ambassador to make contact. One of the guys came over and explained that it was some girl’s birthday and she wants a hug. We gave her hugs and the other girls hooted and hollered. We sat back down. More guests arrived to their table and they asked if they could use our table. We merged tables (or were we acquired?) and crowded in. That was how we joined the party.

After ten minutes or so, we acquired a newly-emptied nearby table too.  Because we were crowded, Nicolas and I moved to the new table at the other end. Four girls followed. One of them – Milagros – was among the first to join us. She didn’t run per se, but she had a bounce in her step on her way to make sure she sat next to me.

So Mike, Nicolas, and I started putting down beers while chatting the girls up. It wasn’t the first thing she asked, but Milagros asked if I had a girlfriend within two or three minutes. The birthday girl told Nicolas that he was her birthday present. The girl Mike was talking to asked him if he had a girlfriend. He told her he did and that she was in Canada. She said that’s great because her boyfriend was in Europe. This was seeming easier than it’s supposed to be.

A band started playing Spanish covers of American songs.  Our side of the table was getting crowded and I was getting tipsy. Milagros was seated perpendicular to me and I put my leg over hers to make more space. It seemed natural at the time. And it felt good. She put her hand on my leg. Later we held hands under the table.

Before the party sent the ambassador, this girl was the one I identified as the one I would pursue if we ended up talking to these girls. From our table, she seemed the most beautiful. She is light-skinned with dark hair, high cheekbones, cute eyes, and a slim figure. When she got closer, I saw she was a little pimply in the face. She’s only twenty. Oh well, I had terrible acne my whole life. Sometimes I still get it. Who am I to give a fuck?

When the band finished, the girls asked us if we wanted to go dancing. Nicolas did not, but Mike and I went with them to Munay’s on Dolores. There were thirteen of us – about half girls and half guys. Because there were so many, the club gave us a bottle of Pisco to go with our cover charges. I danced with Milagros while Mike was shared by two or three girls. I went for a kiss which Milagros refused.

We got a table and drank the Pisco. I put Milagros on my lap. She told her friends to take a picture of us. I kissed her on the cheek for the picture. A few minutes later, she couldn’t resist the kiss any longer. We started making out and her friends took another picture. I got Milagros’ phone number. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. I told Milagros I was leaving. She said she wanted to leave too. We left together.

Outside, I hailed a taxi. Beginning the negotiation with the driver, I told him “Quinta Gamero pasando por …” This is like saying your address and then “with a stop at …” And I looked at Milagros to say her neighborhood but she didn’t say anything. Whatever, I thought. Maybe we’ll have a nightcap at my place. We got in and made out the whole way. I paid the driver and asked her if she wanted to check my apartment out. She did.

We got upstairs and went in my room. We got in bed and started to make out. She got on top of me and ripped my shirt off, sending a couple buttons flying. We got naked and had sex. We did it all. Oral both ways, 69, all the positions. She’s loud. Not screaming, but constant moaning. She woke up all the roommates. Not only is she loud, she is a multiple-orgasmer. And not just a multiple-orgasmer, but an above-average multiple-orgasmer. She comes early and often. It was pretty cool. I was drunk so it lasted a long time. We took several breaks. During one, while cuddling, she told me she was looking for a serious relationship.

At one point, she was riding on top while stimulating herself. I decided to help out; I moved her hand so I could stimulate her there.  After a few seconds, she grabbed my hand and put it back on her butt so she could take over. After all, she can do it better than me. I got the impression she enjoyed how I was massaging and spanking her buttcheeks. I ventured into her crack a little and she didn’t resist. I ventured inside a little and she didn’t resist. I turned her over so I could venture in a lot and she didn’t resist. After that, I asked her if she wanted to engage in anal. She did. We did that for the last five minutes or so until she collapsed on the bed. I was too drunk to finish. It was 4 or 5 in the morning. We went to sleep.

We woke around 7 and we had sex again. This time I finished. We started to talk. She told me she picked me as soon as she saw us in Montreal. I told her I picked her too. She told me she told all her friends at the table, “Para mí es el grandote.” The big one’s mine.

She told me she wanted to ask me something but she didn’t want me to get mad. I told her I wouldn’t. She asked me my name. HA HA! She left around 8. Before leaving, I invited her to the party we were throwing that night for Damien, the newest arrival to Arequipa.

Damien arrived and we had a party. A few Peruvians puked in our toilets and all over our building staircase. Milagros didn’t attend, but she came over on Sunday. Apparently her dad wouldn’t let her out Saturday because she never came home Friday night.

She arrived while Mike, Nicolas, and Damien were playing on their computers at the dining room table. We waited for them to leave. Milagros’ conservative Catholic upbringing makes her shy about heading straight to a bedroom for others to see (but having anal sex on the first night is no big deal). As soon as they left, she jumped up off the couch. I was trying to play it cool like I wasn’t in a hurry to run for my room as soon as possible. She was NOT playing it cool. We got in bed and did it all over again (minus the anal). Afterwards, she started to get extra-cuddly. She kissed me all over my face dozens of times.

She asked me if I thought she was easy. I stumbled with that one. What are you supposed to say to that? Anal sex on the first night I met you – within six hours of meeting you. I should have been like, “NO! Not at all!” Then she cleaned my room. Afterwards we ate chicken.

So when I moved here and heard the word, I assumed they were talking about gangsters or thugs. It wasn’t long before things didn’t make sense and I got clarification. As I understood it under my first clarification, cholos are the indigenous people, descendants of the original people who inhabited the land before the Spanish colonization. The women with the hats and the long, braided hair.  They carry their babies like a backpack in a blanket wrapped tight around their bodies. This was a slight misunderstanding. I have since been explained that it means anybody with indigenous heritage, which is basically everybody.

Before my second clarification, I misunderstood a cholo question with my basketball team after a game. José asked me if I liked cholas (ending with –as means female). I told him I hadn’t had one but that my girlfriend was rather brown. The whole team broke out in a laugh. I was sort of trying to get a laugh but didn’t expect such a reaction. After the initial laughter induced by the surprise of the answer, there were aftershock laughs. I didn’t understand why it was so funny because I hadn’t gotten my second clarification.

I don’t remember how it came up, but I was telling Rosa this story a few weeks later. She argued with me that she was not brown. She told me she is very fair-skinned and white, even compared to girls I named who I consider pretty white. I told her she’s out of her mind and that she is brown. She told me that ‘we are all cholos,’ that all Peruvians are of mixed heritage. I’ve found this to be the politically correct line that people profess in public. In private, however, you can hear ‘cholo’ used in a derogatory way towards the poor people who can’t read or are ghetto in some way. Not all Peruvians were created of equal bloodline. There is a higher concentration of whiter, Spanish blood on my basketball team (height) and in my company (education).

Some time later, I told the cholo story to some friends including Rosa’s answer. They all laughed hysterically and created an office nickname for my girlfriend: Cholita Brown. Whenever they invite me to something or ask me what I am doing over the weekend, I say I don’t know and they all say, “Aahh, La Cholita Brown!”

Rosa is not so cholita given our trip to the gym last week. My new gym is on Octavio Munoz, a street that is supposedly packed with thieves and scoundrels. People from the educated class of Peruvians (who seem to be the only ones I meet) tell me it’s dangerous and to be careful. Not only have I never had a problem around there, I have never felt unsafe. I took Rosa to the gym and, almost immediately, she told me she didn’t like it because “es muy cholo,” or it’s ghetto.

Most of the time, I can’t tell what is ghetto and what is not. Besides the very nicest parts of town and the dirt-poor, homemade shanty-towns, everything looks the same. When comparing everything to America, and everybody is brown and speaks Spanish, how do you discern what is ghetto?

My gym plays American music. Yes, I got stared at my first few weeks going there, but I get stared at everywhere I go. After a few weeks, the regulars stopped staring and I even got to know some of them, as I would in any American gym. The weights are ancient unlike any nasty gym I have seen in America, but this is Peru. There are two large rooms with dance classes, which are always packed. There’s one room with five heavy bags and bag gloves. There’s a kickboxing team that occasionally trains in there. There’s a café, a computer lab, and a game room with ten pool tables. All of this under one roof for 1 sol ($0.33) per entry.  But, I will yield to the locals and accept the fact that, given its location and Rosa’s impression, it is a cholo gym.

There is a T-Shirt they sell in the tourist shops. It resembles the logo of Inka Kola, a popular Peruvian soda brand, but it reads “Cholo Power.” I got the great idea to wear this shirt around Arequipa. It’d be funny because nobody would call me ‘cholo.’ Unfortunately, I can’t find that fuckin’ shirt in XL!

I had a terribly reckless and irresponsible time in Bogota that left me with the inclination to make my way in life towards Colombia instead of Brazil. Because this post is so long, I’ve divided the content into subsections: The City (for people who care about what Bogotá looks and feels like), The Play by Play (for people who actually like to read about what we did as American idiots), The Women (for the perverted voyeurs), The Aftermath, and Pictures.

The City

With just over 8 million people in the metro area, Bogotá is about the size of Chicago. Throughout the city, skyscrapers shoot into the skyline against a backdrop of green, tree-covered mountains. The elevation is over 8500 ft – another city over 50% higher than Denver. The mountains behind our hostel were often partially submerged in clouds. Although Bogota is close to the equator, it isn’t hot because of the altitude. Also because it is so close to the equator, the city does not experience seasons. They have one climate year-round, which is relatively temperate but it rains often.

Our hostel was in La Candelaria. It’s the historic part of town with one-lane streets and old buildings. It’s a hipster neighborhood, if such a thing exists in Colombia, where the artists live. The personality of the people, the restaurants, the bars, and the architecture captivated me. Almost every wall on every block was covered in graffiti. Unfortunately, the neighborhood is also packed with degenerates, bums, and generally sketchy people. It felt a little dangerous sometimes. But if I move to Bogotá, I’ll probably live in La Candelaria.

Zona Rosa is the high-end part of town where we ended up drinking every night. Zona Rosa is so nice I couldn’t believe I was in South America. Since my Latin American experience is limited to four cities – Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Arequipa, and Bogotá – I may be going out on a limb here at the risk of inaccuracy. But none of those cities have any area as nice as Zona Rosa. Most American cities, including my hometown of St. Louis, have nothing on the size and scale of such a high-end area of consumerism.

Zona Rosa features high-end bars and restaurants one after the other interrupted by Hugo Boss, Bang & Olufson, Gucci, and other stores I don’t shop at. Drinks, after accounting for the current exchange rate, cost about the same as an average big city in America. Even outside of Zona Rosa, I noted how nice and developed everything in Bogotá was. Again, I was constantly wondering out loud if I was actually in Latin America. I could’ve taken pictures of the streets and passed them off as Florida.

The only downside to this excellent city is the aggressive panhandlers. We were approached with a hard sell our first afternoon and the pitches never ceased. La Candelaria was crawling with them.  It seemed as if we always had some loser walking behind us, unwilling to give up the sales pitch that never stood a chance given his prospects.

The Play-By-Play

I touched down in Bogotá at 8:30 pm. I arrived at the hostel (The Platypus) at 9:30 and actually met Eduardo before Dennis did. Dennis has a Colombian co-worker in DC who set us up with a buddy to show us around. After introducing each other and reuniting with Dennis, we hopped in Eduardo’s shiny black Benz. We told him we weren’t interested in any sites or views our first night; we just wanted to start eating and drinking.

Luckily for Dennis, Eduardo spoke fluent English. However, something was lost in translation as we shared a delicious dinner and discussed what we would do that night. Eduardo knew of a special party, but should we get some girls first? That sounded like a great idea to me and Dennis. He said he knew some girls that we could get before we go to the club. So we hopped back in his shiny black Benz and headed to a discreet place on a side-street. Inside we found a dim bar packed with model-quality women in skimpy clothes. Dennis and I looked at each other and realized we were in a brothel. Communication breakdown?

The three or four dozen models who were staring at us outnumbered the male patrons at least 5 – 1. MODELS. We told Eduardo that we misunderstood him and that we wanted to go to a bar with girls who might let us touch them for free.

Eduardo took us to a liquor store to pound Red Bull and scotch before we hit the party. The party was a techno-club featuring one of Colombia’s most famous DJs: DJ Fruto. The place was packed with beautiful, well-dressed people – a scene as cosmopolitan as anything you could find in New York, Chicago, LA, London, Amsterdam, etc. Unfortunately, they were playing techno and I was looking forward to salsa and a more authentic Colombian experience.

I got more and more disappointed that I’d have to dance to techno. I’m a staunch capitalist, but I started to ponder one of Karl Marx’s predictions in the Communist Manifesto: the homogenization of culture. He predicted that in a global economy where money rules, we’ll see the erasure of languages, values and overall national identities. This is already happening as English dominates the language front and techno conquers the dance floor. Why would I come to Colombia to see this party? I’ve been to this same party on three different continents in five or six different countries. I decided to get really drunk so maybe I could have a good time. I bought a pint of aguardiente (‘hot water’, an anise-flavored Colombian liquor) and started chasing it with beer.

My strategy worked well enough that I started dancing. Dennis made out with a fat girl and then escaped her. He and I started dancing with a different group of girls. I put in some time dancing with one in particular – the hottest one with huge breasts and a cute face. I patiently waited three or four songs before I started touching her.

Then Dennis started making out with a girl who was not fat. We all went out to the patio for some air. Outside, there was a bonfire, another bar, and jazz music under the beautiful night sky. I met some gay guys who passed me their joint. I indulged. I started making out with the short hottie I’d been dancing with. We made out the whole night.

It came time to leave around 3 or 4 am. Eduardo, Eduardo’s roommate, Dennis and I wanted these four girls to come back to Eduardo’s apartment. The girls were skeptical. Eduardo explained we could all fit in his car. The girls became more skeptical. Eduardo was losing the sale so I held my short hottie close to me and told Dennis to not let Eduardo talk. Dennis was helpless without Spanish.

Eduardodisappeared and reappeared behind the wheel of the aforementioned shiny black Benz. The girls were no longer skeptical and we piled in, me in the front seat with my hottie on my lap. Keeping consistency with the club and Benz, Eduardo’s posh apartment is smartly decorated and overlooks some upscale part of town. We drank scotch and danced reggaeton until dawn. At one point, Dennis lied down on the couch and went to sleep. I pulled him up and pointed out the window to the beautiful view of Bogotá in the morning. He admired it and returned to his couch. We passed out on Eduardo’s couches that night.

The second day, after a meal withEduardo, Dennis and I went to a museum district which featured the Botero museum, the gold museum, and a few others. I’d never heard of Fernando Botero, but have learned that he’s the painting pride of Colombia and still alive at 76.

Botero has some kind of fat fetish and only painted images of not just fat, but obese people. Several paintings of naked fat women reclining on a bed or naked fat women from behind. He re-created famous paintings with fat people (e.g., a fat Mona Lisa). You get the point. He did some interesting paintings – one of a house in which a mob had interrupted a party to shoot everybody up. The characters in this painting were still roundish, but not cartoonishly obese. I asked some of the employees of the museum and learned that, in fact, Botero is not fat. Go figure.

Then we toured the Gold Museum with a handful of Colombian girls we met – to be described in better detail in the section devoted to Colombian women. We were thoroughly bored with the Gold Museum despite its being Colombia’s most famous museum and the only one I’d heard of before arriving. All the gold work was small and simple, made by the indigenous tribes of the region pre-Columbus. We hit some more museums and took goofy pictures of ourselves in front of paintings, statues, and whatnot.

After the museums, Dennis and I went for a coffee because it seemed like we had to drink coffee while in Colombia – like getting robbed in Detroit or getting drunk in Ireland. There were two girls and an old guy at the table next to us. The girls casually stole glances at us.

Dennis and I finished our coffee and went out in search of food. About a block from the coffee shop, we saw one of the girls walking with the old man. I asked them to recommend a restaurant in the neighborhood. She told us about a great place we could walk to with them as it was on their way. We arrived at the restaurant in minutes and said goodbye. After ordering a couple beers and lunch, that girl came into the restaurant – without the old man. She came back to say that she was returning to the coffee shop and that we should join her and her friend after we finish our lunch. After she left, I proclaimed “I love this country!” and the bartenders laughed. After lunch, we didn’t go to the coffee shop because the girl wasn’t gorgeous and we wanted to take naps and get drunk.

After naps, we met Eduardo in Zona Rosa. He had a party to go to. We suffered another communication breakdown in the kind of place we would go to that night. However, this breakdown was not a language failure but rather Eduardo not following directions. I specifically told him many times that I wanted to dance to salsa that evening and that I absolutely did not want to hear techno. Furthermore, I explained we wanted to dance salsa in a cheaper place with sleazy women. A more authentic Colombian experience.

So Eduardo took us to another high-end nightclub. It was even pricier and more posh than the first one. Dennis and I agreed that Eduardo probably wanted to show off the best of Bogotá as well as show off to his friends that he knows gringos. La Alma was a three-story club, the top floor was open-air with techno and the second floor was reggaeton / hip hop.

I was initially annoyed that Eduardo had taken us to another kind of place that I can find anywhere in America or Europe. And I’d already paid the exorbitant cover so we wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. The place was crowded so it wouldn’t even be easy to dance. So I decided to drink myself retarded again. I ordered a pint of Smirnoff with some chasers. Dennis and I put down the bottle in about thirty minutes. He expressed concern for how fast I was drinking. I went to the bar for beers. I didn’t tell Dennis until the next day, but I did a shot of scotch at the bar every time I ordered a beer.

After some time, my strategy worked again. I got drunk enough to enjoy myself in this place. At one point the DJ played House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” to which I always show off how high I can jump for the entire song. After one jump I landed into a ledge and knocked over three or four drinks. I didn’t really feel sorry and the song wasn’t over so I kept jumping.

I met some gringo at the next table (we were in VIP). He and the other gringos worked for the American embassy. I started dancing with a couple girls from their group. Then Dennis and I took these two girls upstairs to the techno and fresh air. At some point, Dennis made out with some other girl. He told me she was smoking hot but a bad kisser.

Back downstairs and extremely drunk, the bouncer wouldn’t let me near the American embassy gringos’ table. I didn’t really care. I met some new people – two guys and a girl. I made particularly good friends with one of the guys. He told me we should go to this other club together. I agreed.

I can’t understate how drunk I was at this point. I don’t remember this happening, but Dennis explained the details the next day. Apparently, Dennis found me outside and I told him that we are hopping in this taxi and going to a different club. He told me that he has a group of five girls that want to hang out with us. I was so drunk I insisted we go to this other club. According to Dennis, he firmly demanded to know why I was cock-blocking him. “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU COCK-BLOCKING ME?!” He reiterated that he had five girls with him – one of which he had already made out with and one that was interested in me.

I managed to win the debate and we hopped into the taxi with these new friends headed for the next club. Although he may have been angry that I accidentally cock-blocked him, Dennis conceded the next day that this second club was worth the trip. Located on the top floor of a 41-story building, we admired a view of downtown Bogotá from the balcony high above the city. I don’t remember much of what happened at the club, but apparently Dennis made out with another girl and I drank more alcohol. It was dawn and the skyscrapers, mountains, and lush green foliage looked majestic in the early blue sky. We left around 6am and got to sleep around 6:30.

Sunday was the day I hoped to see the modern art museum of Bogotá. It was far from La Candelaria but we made the trek on foot anyway to learn it is closed Sundays. We weren’t mad because it was in a beautiful park. We took pictures. We returned to La Candelaria on a different street – I think it was called Carrera 9.

It was a major thoroughfare with sidewalks completely packed with poor people selling cheap, worthless stuff. There were lots of seemingly sketchy people around. Dennis didn’t like these people. At one point, we heard a loud whistling and three cops took off running toward the sound. Against Dennis’ objections, I insisted we go check out what was going on. There was a punk rock concert in a medium-sized venue. It seemed to be getting out of control inside. Twenty or thirty cops mobbed up outside in anticipation of this concert letting out. We started to notice all the punks in the street with mohawks and torn denim jeans. The cops were preparing to give these punk rockers beatings with batons. I agreed it would be a good idea to leave before the concert let out. We went back to the hotel to take naps.

Sunday night was my last night and I had high hopes for a good time. We went out with two guys from our hostel – Tom from England and Scott from Scotland. We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and drank at a microbrewery called Bogotá Beer Company. Dennis was sick so he wasn’t drinking. I drank for him by taking a double shot of aguardiente every half hour or so in addition to the three foot pitcher of beer I shared with the Brits.

I had a great time drinking with these guys and kept trying to find common ground by drawing similarities between America and the UK. I’ve often heard Americans and Brits, grouped together, being complained about in Europe because we share a culture which drinks a lot, drinks fast, and is loud and obnoxious in the process. I hadn’t drank in such Anglo-Saxon fashion since March so it was fun. We were the rowdiest table in the place and I imagine we annoyed all the other patrons on the patio. We made inappropriate and politically incorrect comments. Dennis doesn’t mind making fun of himself for making out with fat chicks. Scott explained that Equatorial Guinea was rated to have one of the worst human rights records in the world. And then he toasted to never having felt safer in all of Africa. Tom told a story of how drunk he was in Amsterdam’s Red Light District one night. After visiting a prostitute, he stumbled out for more money or booze or whatever. After deciding to visit another prostitute he was embarrassed beyond belief to get undressed and find he still had a condom on his dick. For some reason, the jokes are funnier when delivered in English / Scottish accents and slang. (I still had the old Johnny on!) And then he toasted to how cool the girl was about replacing the used one with a new one.

There was a group of girls at a table next to us and we kept talking about one of the girls’ giant breasts, which Dennis insisted were real. We don’t know if they spoke English, but Scott made cup shapes over his chest with his hands a few times so I’m sure they knew what we were talking about. After a restroom break she came out of the bar with her arms crossed over a newly zipped-up jacket.

Dennis had enough and took a taxi home while Scott, Tom, and I hit an Irish bar for a shot and a beer. Then the Irish bar, the last bar open in Zona Rosa, closed at 1am. We walked around for a half hour in search of a bar but the streets were dead. I still don’t understand how a city of over 8 million can completely close down because it’s Sunday.

We got a taxi. The taxi driver told us the only places open were brothels, which the Brits weren’t in the mood for. We got back to the hostel to look for people – empty. Even worse, the office didn’t have cold beer. Only room temperature beer, which I drank but this prompted Tom and Scott to go to bed. And so I sent for a taxi and went to a brothel. And this brings us to the section of the article completely devoted to Colombian women.

Women

This is an email exchange between Dennis and I before he arrived in Bogotá.

Dennis to me:

“it sounds like the nicer part of town is in the north (our hostel is downtown). my friend actually suggested we try to find a hostel up in the north, my only problem with that is that all the hostels seem to be downtown so we have a much better chance of finding other travellers (aka easy white girls) but the north sounds like thats where all the locals party. what do you think?”

Me to Dennis:

“easy white girls would be nice, but i wouldn’t get your hopes up for them. the kind of white girls i see here in arequipa are NOT the kind of girls that want anything to do with guys like us. they are the type that are here to go backpacking in outdoors gear, climb mountains and ponder the injustices of the world and shit. we want to meet colombian women! just remember: deep inside of every latina is a very special person that needs – no CRAVES – a tall gringo, his penis and intellectual prowess.”

This email is obviously a joke and I’m being silly. However, it’s funny because there is a hint of truth in it. We were stared at everywhere we went. Dennis told me a group of girls were staring at us on the dance floor the first night. We dismissed it more or less and kept moving to find space to dance. When we found space, Dennis told me that the girls followed us.

This was the group that ultimately came back to Eduardo’s apartment. I put in a considerable amount of time dancing with my hottie, being patient because I sensed this one might get scared off. I don’t remember how we started kissing, but she was an excellent kisser. We made out all night. Dennis was surprised I didn’t get her phone number. Honestly, it didn’t occur to me.

Claudia was short and beautiful with huge breasts. I was surprised when she told me her boyfriend was out of town. I was disappointed when, at Eduardo’s apartment, she said she didn’t want to lay on a bed with me. I don’t remember saying goodbye or anything. I just remember waking up on Eduardo’s couch alone.

We got stared at the next day at the Botero Museum while observing Botero’s bizarre fat-fetish art. I noticed a group of five girls taking turns staring at me – maybe at Dennis on accident. Then the ringleader of the group came up to me with a camera and said, “¿Foto?” I assumed she wanted me to take a picture of them. I agreed. Then she gave one of her friends the camera while she and the others jumped in line with me and Dennis to take a picture with us. I was thrilled because they were really hot and clean-looking. Dennis wasn’t thrilled because he thought they were too young. They didn’t think I spoke Spanish so we parted ways. We ran into them later at this big statue of a hand and took more pictures together. They still didn’t know I spoke Spanish so we parted ways again. I insisted to Dennis that two of them had to be at least 21 years old. He sort of agreed.

Outside the Gold Museum, we ran into them again as I caught a glimpse of the ringleader. She was my favorite with a slim physique and an innocent, gorgeous face without a blemish or wrinkle on it. She wore plaid pants that accentuated her beautiful, round bottom.

This time she came up to me with paper and pen and said, “Mays-aing-yair?” Messenger? I answered her in Spanish and wrote down our email addresses. Her friends appeared and I proposed we all see the Gold Museum together. They agreed and I started to talk with the ringleader while the others listened. Dennis moped around thinking these girls were too young and wishing he spoke Spanish.

The girls told me they were all studying to be teachers. I relayed this to Dennis. At least they’re in college, right? He agreed and started to believe they might be in their twenties after all. The word for “we study” and “we studied” is the same in Spanish – “estudiamos.” I told them that we studied business but they probably believed that we study business (as in we are still students, as opposed to MBAs).

Then someone’s dad showed up. Well, we don’t know if he was a dad or who he was, but an older guy came out of nowhere and had a brief conference with the ringleader. He apparently didn’t have a problem with the girls talking to us, but it made us feel like pedophiles again. They were from some small town hours away, so it was probably a family trip. We all said goodbye after the Gold Museum and I occasionally thought about the ringleader from time to time throughout the weekend. I’m a sucker for sweet girls. I remember thinking I could be happy forever with a clean sweetheart like her with her beautiful, caramel-colored face and apple butt.

On our last day, I found myself in the lobby of our hostel talking to another hot Colombian. She was telling me Dennis and I should go to Zona Rosa with her and her friend later. She was also short with huge breasts and a beautiful face. While she was talking, she laid back in this hammock and got comfortable. She seemed so relaxed reclining in this hammock, like a girl you have been with for a long time who is ready to be cuddled and spooned to sleep. I wanted to jump into the hammock and kiss her all over her face.

Before I arrived the first night, Dennis walked her to a store down the street. She didn’t speak any English so they couldn’t talk. But ever since then she was always asking me what he and I were doing and trying to coordinate hers and her friends’ plans with ours. Dennis insisted we ditch them all weekend because neither one spoke English and her friend was ugly.

So this should bring us to where I left for the brothel. I’d been dreaming and drooling over the women all weekend long. This was my last night and there was only one kind of place open. Plus, Dennis had made out with four women by this time. If we were competing, I would be losing 4 – 1. A perfect storm developed of my insecurities in losing the game combined with a strong desire for these Colombian women, combined with the fact that I probably wouldn’t have been able to go to bed at 2 am after two nights drinking until dawn.

The taxi took me to the curb and pointed out the door. A mustached man dressed in a suit came to the cab and opened the door for me, gesturing me in politely and confidently. This mustached man came to be my primary caretaker in my time here. Resembling a Latino version of Borat, he ushered me into the place, sat me down at a booth, and brought me a Heineken.

I surveyed the field and took a liking for a slim black girl with huge butt and breasts. I took her to a bedroom downstairs within twenty minutes of arriving. It was OK, I was finished in ten minutes or so. She had a body as good as God makes them.

When I got back upstairs, I realized this was the only bar open and I still wanted to get drunk. So I sat down in the same booth and ordered a shot of aguardiente and another Heineken from Borat. He told me to move from my current table to a table where three girls were sitting. I obliged but focused on my precious booze. The girls left and I drank alone for twenty minutes or so.

A caramel-colored cutie walked down the aisle wearing a coat. She said goodbye to a few people around the place, but when she saw me she sat down and started a conversation. She asked how I liked the negrita. I asked her if she wanted a drink as I ordered another shot and a beer. She wanted scotch – the most expensive drink on the menu. I don’t remember what we talked about but it must have been nice and time-consuming because I found myself wanting to be alone with this one. I consulted Borat to see if I could use my credit card for a room if I felt the need, which he told me I could.

We were downstairs after an hour or so. While this one didn’t have as much of a brickhouse body, she was hot with wide hips and a cute, brown face. She was the type whose bodily architecture needs to be on top in order to achieve orgasm. In my experience, I’ve found that this type gets the job done pretty quickly once they are up there. So she was on top, but not sitting up straight because she was also the type that needs constant clitoral stimulation. Her head was right next to mine as she ground herself into my pelvic bone while riding. This is somewhat painful for me. However, I enjoyed her persistence and tenacity in finishing herself off, which must have taken more than twenty minutes. I’ll never forget the spectacular view of the mirror above the bed: her beautiful backside spread-eagle and my disgusting pink balls.

After a lot of hard work, she stopped altogether and laid her cheek against mine.  Her hair was wet with sweat against my face. We put in a little more effort for my sake, but those twenty minutes left me content. I had no orgasm by the time a knock on the door let us know my time was up. (the next day, I had bruise pains right on my pelvis bone)

We went upstairs, said goodbye and she went home. It must have been 4:30 and I still wanted to get drunk. I ordered another shot and a beer. This is when drunk irrationality tells me that I had already broken out my credit card. I might as well have a good time, right? Borat asked if I wanted a girl to join me. NO! Thank you, but I am fine. He brought me more aguardiente.

I noticed a girl eyeing me. She was lighter-skinned (think Italian or Spanish complexion). Very beautiful. She sat down and we started to talk. She was very sweet with something magnetic about her. I usually dislike the personalities of prostitutes and strippers, who are generally cold and completely transparent about only being interested in money. This one refused a drink. She drank club soda with lime. I insisted she drink with me. She didn’t want anything.

Borat offered me a pint of aguardiente for 150,000 pesos (about $95). I refused and made a face like he was hurting my ears. I really didn’t need that much liquor anyway. He had a conference with the bartender and I went back to talking with this new whore who I had no intention of having sex with, but was admittedly charmed by. Then Borat came back and offered the pint for 100,000 pesos (about $63). I refused, I really didn’t want a whole bottle. I turned my attention back to my little buddy sitting next to me. She asked me if I liked the two girls. I told her the first one wasn’t that cool but the second one and I had some kind of chemistry. She shook her head at me. Then Borat came back and offered the bottle for 60,000 pesos (about $37.50). His price has come down a full 60%. I finally agreed and he brought the bottle.

I already broke out the plastic. Might as well have a good time, right? The girl and I took a shot together. I told Borat to bring a shot glass for himself, for this cop that was working, and for this little fat dude that seemed like he worked there. We had a big toast. Borat took two shots. Then the cop took a second shot. I drank a lot, too. I noticed it was dawn outside and decided I shouldn’t go to bed before my 1pm flight back to Perú.

The girl sitting with me didn’t come off like a prostitute at all, but a girl who really enjoys sex. She told me one of her favorite activities: “fumar la marihuana y tener sexo – es RICO.” She really loves to smoke weed and have sex. Really? WHAT A COINCIDENCE! I also enjoy smoking weed and having sex! Isn’t it amazing that we have so much in common?

I came up with the clever idea that it might be fun to smoke weed and have sex together. She agreed that it was a good idea. I asked Borat if he could get me some weed. He told me he can’t and I wouldn’t be able to smoke it in the bar anyway. Plus, they were closing soon. However, he would have this little fat dude take care of anything I need from now on. But I would need to pay 50,000 ($31) to the house to take my new honey with me. I agreed and the three of us – me, my hot honey, and Little Fat Dude – hopped into a taxi for an ATM.

After getting money, the taxi took us to a disgusting motel not far from the whorehouse. The hourly rate was like 15,000 pesos ($9), which I would pay afterwards. Little Fat Dude took care of all my arrangements and showed us our room. The dingy room had nothing but a bed. The hardwood floors were in need of replacing and the paint on the walls was peeling. Little Fat Dude said he would come back with the weed. My hot honey and I got in bed and couldn’t wait for it. We were naked and I was inside even before I paid her.

From the moment I started touching her until the end of our episode, my hot honey was moaning and breathing hard and looking at me with those pleasure eyes. She was on fire. ¡Viva Colombia!

Ten or fifteen minutes after starting, there was a knock on the door. I flung the door wide-open wearing nothing but a condom to find the surprised Little Fat Dude. He had two joints for me for 10,000 pesos ($6). My hot honey, motionless on her back, didn’t bother covering up. I fumbled through my wallet only to find 50,000 peso bills. I gave him the 50 and told him it was for the motel and the weed. I told him to leave and I didn’t want any change (100% tip).

I got back inside my hot honey and we lit a joint. We passed it back and forth while I slowly rocked from up top. After deciding she had enough marijuana, she carelessly tossed it aside on the floor and grabbed a hold of my shoulders.

This was an amazing sexual experience. I pulled out every trick in my book of how to get a girl off. I went down on her for at least ten minutes while she pulled my head into her pelvis. Before doggystyle, I dove into her butt with my tongue and she said “Oooh, ¡me gusta!” At one point while on top, she was squeezing my chest muscles and shoulders so hard that her nails dug in and hurt. Nobody beats me up. So I grabbed her neck with both hands, choking her while pounding away. For about five full minutes, I was strangling her with both hands, only easing up to allow her a breath every 30 seconds or so.

She started to hurt after a while so we stopped. Her eyes teared up and she began to sob a little. I asked her what was wrong. She told me she has only had sex like that with one other guy – her ex-boyfriend who she had a kid with. Then she started getting hysterical and worried. She said it was so late and she was a mess and I hadn’t even paid her yet. I cuddled her and kissed her on the cheek and told her not to worry.

I paid her and she started to come back to reality mentally. She seemed to realize that I am not her boyfriend and she is a whore and this is her job and she has things to do and I would go back to Perú and we would never see each other again. I assumed we would share a taxi to her house and then my hostel.

We stepped outside to a bright sun and rush hour traffic. We walked together and talked. Before I knew it, we were back at the brothel. She said she lived there. “¿Vives acá?” I asked in disbelief. She said she’d only been in Bogotá two weeks. Then she asked for a tip. I made a disgusted face and said “No seas fría.” I disappeared into the pedestrian traffic. I bought a beer, lit the second joint, and took a taxi back to the hostel.

Aftermath

I got back to the hostel at 9:30 am. Dennis, Tom, and Scott were already awake and laughing at me. I told them an abbreviated story and kept drinking. At the airport a woman at security waved her hand in front of her nose, implying that I reeked of liquor. I asked at my gate if I had time to get a beer before it was time to board. I was told I shouldn’t drink any more because it was against regulations. I went for one anyway. On board, I fell asleep before the plane had backed away from the terminal. I didn’t wake up until the violent landing in Lima three and a half hours later.

Then the shame set in – that shame you feel when you leave Amsterdam. Did I really do all that? Drink and smoke all that? Bang all those whores? Spend all that? Am I a degenerate piece of shit? Yes, I am.

Then I realized I would talk to Rosa soon and felt even more shame. Did I miss you? Of course I missed you, mi amor. Mucho. What did we do? No mucho. I saw some museums. We ate some good food. It was nice to see Dennis again, you know I hadn’t seen him in over a year. I met some British guys who were pretty cool. That was about it, honey.

Dennis’ illness got worse. An email I received from him late Tuesday night while he was in Lima:

“I’m doing a tour of the city tomorrow (if i feel ok) so i should get to see enough to judge but so far i dont think so.

here are my symptoms by day:

Sunday – light-headed, cough, some nausea
Monday – vomiting, fever, I felt so hot i couldn’t even sleep with a sheet
Tuesday – uncontrollable shivering, congestion, BAD fever, runny nose, diarrhea

i think ive covered all the bases so tomorrow i should be good!”

He arrives in Arequipa Thursday and we do it all over again. God help us.

Pictures

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One friend back in America, a connoisseur of prostitutes, explained that he just needs a basic service like getting his engine oil changed. He doesn’t take the oil-change guy out for dinner. He doesn’t get to know the guy beforehand. There is no seduction process. He pays the guy and the service is performed. The difference between prostitutes and non-prostitutes is the same as the difference in work performed by a professional (someone who gets paid for it) and an amateur (somebody who does it as a hobby). Sex professionals and amateurs are like their equivalents in boxing. Professional boxers have had a lot more practice, know a lot more tricks, and are simply better at it.

Javier has a girlfriend but he says that, concerning sex with prostitutes, “es necesario.” It’s necessary. So whenever she goes to Chile on business – about twice a year – he goes to Amanecer (Sunrise). Amanecer is one of the nicer brothels in Arequipa. Javier says you can get a puta for as little as ten soles downtown, but she’d be “horrible.” He prefers Amanecer for the most attractive putas in town for 100 soles ($35).

Javier’s girlfriend left for Chile Friday morning. Some ten or twelve hours later, we were at a botellaria for a pre-drink with his buddies. We got buzzed up and went to a discoteca on Avenida Dolores – a bar district for locals where you don’t find gringos. The club scene was cool – lots of reggaeton / hip-hop youngsters in tank tops and sneakers.

We danced salsa with a few girls while his buddies drank at the bar. We got drunk and left for Amanecer. In cars and when in groups, I sometimes tune out Spanish and just think. Somebody may have told the driver before he lit a joint, but I’m positive that nobody asked permission. And we smoked it all in the taxi on the way to the whorehouse.

I’d asked Javier about Amanecer often before this night. I knew there was a bar and you could take your time in choosing a girl. I knew you could dance with them. I had pictured a run-down house in a bad neighborhood. I pictured no sign or even any lights on from the outside. Inside, I imagined a virtually empty place selling beer from the kitchen. I assumed half a dozen or so hotties would flock to us because we were the only ones in there beside a couple of fat, disgusting old men.

Before getting out of the taxi I could tell my expectations were way off. It wasn’t discreet at all. Instead of being on a quiet street in a bad neighborhood, it was on one of Arequipa’s major thoroughfares in a bad neighborhood. At least six taxis were parked and double-parked on the curb dropping people off or waiting for potential customers to pick up. There were three bouncers outside the door and above their heads was a prominent, brightly-lit sign that read “AMANECER.” From the outside, the place looked just like a strip club.

I’d asked Javier about strip clubs in Arequipa, and I had to describe to him what they are. He told me they don’t exist here. I must not have done a good job of explaining because Amanecer looks and feels exactly like a strip club on the inside as well. There’s a stage where a naked girl dances. There are tables everywhere to sit and watch. There’s a bar and servers. The place is packed with guys from all walks of life and girls wearing lingerie. There must’ve been at least forty girls working – giving attention and flirting. After every dancer’s set, the stage clears and everybody can dance.

One difference between this place and American strip clubs is the overall quality of the interior. The bathroom resembled a custodial room – you literally walk past mops and mop buckets and various cleaning products and big trash tubs to get to a disgusting, tiled trough next to a sink. No toilets. The private rooms were shantily-built with wooden planks. The plank-board walls must be between one-half and one inch thick and don’t reach the ceiling, so you can hear the other rooms easily. Regardless of the global trend of capital flow to the region, this establishment has seen very little investment.

Another difference between American strip clubs and Amanecer is in how the house and the girls make money. In America, the girls make money from tips while dancing and private lap dances. The American house makes money from selling booze and taking a cut from the girls’ revenue.

At Amanecer, the house makes money from the bar and renting the rooms to the putas - 20 soles paid by the gentleman. Nobody puts down dollars on the stage or asks for private dances. Girls sell sex as opposed to lap dances. The girls also make money getting guys to buy them drinks. The girls will only sit with you to talk if you buy them a drink. Drinks bought for girls cost twice as much as they would normally; I think the girl gets half and the house gets the other half.

On the contrary, Amsterdam is basically a meat market. Girls pose in the windows of their lair and you choose solely on physical attributes. There is no talking, dancing, or buying drinks. At Amanecer, you can dance with them, talk to them, get to know them, and get tricked a little into thinking they like you. Since it looked and felt so much like a strip club, I asked Javier: if I desire a girl and am ready to go, how should I phrase the proposition? Is there a code to respect? A caution to realize? Or a subtlety to observe? Just as drunk as I am, Javier leans in and slowly slurs, “Dile: Quiero cachar contigo.” Tell her: I want to fuck you.

The next day, Javier told me that he’d been worried I wouldn’t like Amanecer or that I’d be uncomfortable. He stopped worrying after about thirty minutes when I had a Brazilian on my lap making out and feeling each other up.

Let me back up a bit. I was relatively relaxed upon entrance and took my time to patiently take in the scene. We had a table at the stage, front and center of the whole place. I may have gotten noticeably rowdy as all the dancers paid our table a lot of attention, but I was generally playing it cool.

After some time, I noticed a white girl with long, dirty blond hair staring at me. Staring hard. I found a reason to go to the bar and greeted her as I walked past. She grabbed my arm and said a line of indecipherable gibberish in Portuguese. We slowed it down and she managed to communicate back and forth for a few minutes. She told me she was from the south of Brazil. She asked me to buy her a drink. I agreed.

Sometime between when I agreed to buy the drink and receiving it, my stupid-drunk logic decided that I should take more time to maybe find someone else. This Brazilian was hot, but not the hottest in the house. I gave her the 12 oz. beer (S. 15 / $6), left her at the bar and returned to our table. I didn’t know about the drink-for-attention deal at that time, so she was probably confused and insulted.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her at the table. Her ridiculously thick Portuguese. She didn’t even speak Spanish! How do you speak native Portuguese, move to Peru, and not speak Spanish? In getting certified to teach English, I learned about lexical similarity – the degree to which two languages are identical (e.g. horrible means horrible). Given that a score of higher than 80 / 100 equates simply a different dialect, and given that Portuguese and Spanish have the unusually high lexical similarity rating of 89, one could argue that Portuguese is merely a dialect of Spanish. And I could understand this girl better than she could understand me! That is how bad her language was.

If you’ve never heard Portuguese, the vowels sound like the noise deaf people make – some deep, guttural noise from the diaphragm, exemplified in the word ‘nao’ (no). A particularly thick accent in this puta I met. She didn’t say that she was from Sao Paolo or Rio de Janeiro; she just said ‘the south’. I imagined she was from some secluded jungle-town completely isolated from the civilized world. The village nympho had sex with every guy in walking distance from her straw hut. Recently relocated because she had no chance to better her life due to little intelligence and no opportunity. Why would she move to Peru to become a whore? Brazil isn’t a rich country on American standards, but it’s on the high-end in South America.

On the other hand, Peru is second to only Bolivia in being South America’s poorest country. A Brazilian moving to Peru to be a whore would be like an American doing the same in Mexico. It doesn’t make sense. There are a lot of women from Eastern Europe and the Caribbean working in the Amsterdam Red Light District, but at least they’re upgrading their situation by moving to a rich country despite their profession. This Brazilian has probably never been on a plane or even seen an airport. I imagine she took a bus from the jungle across the border to Arequipa.

There was something athletic about her body. She wasn’t buff or ripped, but there was something physically superior about her. A pure bloodline of agrarian laborers. Not a white collar professional or factory worker in all her genetic ancestry – only farmers and people living off the land going back to the countrymen of Portugal before Christ.

Then again, this is all my wishful-thinking imagination. For all I know, she was born and raised in a Sao Paolo favela and has never seen any kind of nature – not even a zoo. I also like to think she never met anybody like me. She stared at me so hard because she had never laid eyes on a big handsome gringo wearing nice, clean clothes.

Back at the table now. I think Javier noticed me looking around for this Brazilian sex-monster and I know I mentioned her once or twice. I guess after some time he probably said something about it to a puta because, after a while, the Brazilian came to the table to sit on my lap. I had bought her a beer earlier (which she didn’t have anymore); I don’t know if that credits me to some attention later.

We started making out before I spent any more money. In Amsterdam (and probably in America), you don’t kiss whores. I wouldn’t want to and it’s probably not allowed. Javier told me he does it and it’s normal here. Warm culture! Still, I didn’t see anybody else in the whole club doing it. And here I am the big gringo sucking face with a puta right next to the stage.

I didn’t care, this Brazilian felt good. Her lips were so big and thick. Black American girls aside, I’ve never felt lips like these. They were so thick I wanted to eat them. I would never expect that on a white girl. At one point I bit her lower lip so hard she had to stop kissing for a minute and told me to be gentle.

Despite her quasi-athletic physique, her skin was like silk. Regardless of the fact that the rain forest doesn’t meet the ocean in Brazil, I like to think her skin was so smooth because she spent some time everyday at the beach rolling around in the sand and playing in the salt water, coarsing and filing her skin to that soft smoothness that was so easy to bite, suck, lick, and bury my face in.

All the servers in this place are men and I think a part of their job is to make sure that all the guys are paying for the company of the women via drinks. Some guy came up and asked me what she would like to drink. She ordered a rum and coke and the guy brought a pitcher for the table (S. 30). She hadn’t drank much of it when it was obviously time for a room. She grabbed the pitcher with one hand and my hand with the other.

On the way to the private rooms, we entered an area of leather sofas packed with couples sprawled about and some lone putas. I’d never been to a brothel – only the Amsterdam Red Light District – so it was new for me to see the social dynamics, the support and encouragement the girls give to each other. I noticed it all night that women would hoot and holler at each other. Then a couple of putas saw my Brazilian sex-queen and I headed for privacy and said, “¡Provecho!” Enjoy!

In American slang, clients of prostitutes are referred to as ‘tricks’. I may be tricked a little but there was definitely a physical chemistry between us. I don’t want to get too graphic and I couldn’t even communicate in any language what really went down. But I wouldn’t have chosen her so quick if there wasn’t that chemistry. Most whores get down on you with the same passion the oil-change guy has for your car. Who cares about feelings? Change the oil and we’ll see ya next time. That’s why Amsterdam is a meat market with no heart.

There was about a five-minute wait for a room. We made out the whole time we waited, her venturing into my pants to see what’s up.

We got in and took our clothes off. As soon as we were undressed, she jumped on me like a cat on its prey. We were kissing so hard our teeth kept knocking uncomfortably. Amsterdam whores don’t care to get any enjoyment out of the experience. The general attitude is like: ‘Let’s get this penis hard and these testicles emptied.’ It’s like changing oil. There’s lots of cars on the road and you need to service as many as possible to make the most money. And then: ‘Thanks, have a nice day.’

The Brazilian wasn’t so cold. We were connected at the face, tongue, and throat while she was straddling and riding my hand for at least ten minutes before paying any attention to my penis. When it was time for oral, I got so relaxed I was immobile. After oral I spent an hour doing hard work, but was too drunk to finish and some asshole started knocking on the door to let us know we had to get out.

Frustrated and sweaty, I walked out and she went to the bathroom. Just before stumbling to the room with the sofas, I felt a slap on my butt. I turned and saw a different puta. “Fock me, fock me!” she said with mischievous eyes and a smile as she walked past.

I found Javier with a slim beauty on a sofa with some drinks in front of them. I asked him to loan me 100 soles for another hour with my jungle-honey. He had no money left and wanted to leave soon. The Brazilian returned and slumped onto the sofa with me. She laid her head on my shoulder / chest and lovingly rubbed my stomach, occasionally feeling my semi-erect penis through my jeans.

The whore literally cuddled me afterwards (never in Amsterdam)!!! Extremely frustrated and a little drunk-irrational, I thought of how to get money. There was no way, no hope. The Brazilian and I started making out again. She asked me if I wanted to dance. I told her it’s 5:30 in the morning and my buddy wants to leave. I got her name and number, I don’t know why. I don’t think we’d be able to communicate over the phone. She walked me all the way to the front door and we made out for a while before I walked out. The taxi dropped me off at my place at 6 am.

Three Grupo Cinco Hits:

El Embrujo (The Bewitched)

Te Vas (You’re Leaving)

Quien Cura (Who Cures [The Heart])