The other parallel is with the fervour prevalent in the general public, seen in Ecuador in the form of all night election rallies between Darwin's giant tortoises and marine iguanas on the Galapagos Islands. This time the World Cup in Brazil was the source of excitement, with the Colombian national team travelling with the hopes of a nation behind them, keen to erase the memories of 1994, when star defender Andres Escobar was shot dead in Medellin for the mere crime of scoring an own goal, and the even more shameful events of 1998, when the team was knocked out by England.
In an unfortunate final parallel with my days in Quito, I discovered that the Colombians had rather inconveniently planned an election for my final weekend, and it so happened that they too agree with the idea of a ley seca, or dry law, from Friday to Monday of election weekend. Quite what people really thought of being unable to buy alcohol legally on the Saturday of Colombia's first group game I was never quite sure, but there can be little doubt that the planning of the election to clash with that first world cup match was no coincidence.
My couchsurfing arrangement for my stay in Bogotá was on the floor of a small student flat with the cheery and laid-back Juan, who took a similarly laid-back attitude to his hosting of me, showing generally more interest in his beauty sleep than in being a city guide to me. The thing that I was most enlightened by through meeting Juan was his gift to me of a bag of roasted and salted ants - a speciality from his father's hometown and deliciously crunchy and protein-rich. The afternoon spent scoffing those and drinking hot chocolate with cheese was definitely the highlight of our time together.
It was therefore actually quite fortuitous that Bogotá in itself does not offer an awful lot to delight an American coach tour. The city runs in parallel lines along the hillside, peppered with hidden delights such as open air classical concerts on the steps of the historical museum, the museum of gold (if you're into that kind of thing), and the occasional plaza and a few historical alleys buried within the urban sprawl, strangled by confusing knots of roadways and an indecipherable tram system. The main square, Plaza Bolívar, also follows in the unfathomable custom of posing for photos with flocks of pigeons eating out of your hand. That one I will never understand.
The beauty of couchsurfing is that in such a friendly and welcoming country as Colombia, a successful couchsurf can easily lead to many more connections, which in turn lead to experiences that could not have been previously envisaged. After watching Brazil win their opening match, much to the consternation of the vast majority (most Spanish-speaking South Americans seem to really dislike Brazil, without any real explanation), I followed up on one such connection and was picked up and lead to Vanguardia theatre in an unassuming inner-city neighbourhood.
The theatre resides in what seems to be an unused family home, which its troupe of young actors have renovated into something which can best be described as an adult version of those old ghost train fairground rides, but with a whole house as the ride and actors playing the monsters, who can do an awful lot more than just give you a bit of a fright. The night of the Brazil game I was taken to a house party, where it was clear that some of our thespians took a method acting approach to their ghoulish roles, and I was urged to return the next evening for their "Noche de Terror". This involved waiting nervously for our 45 minute slot with some couples on a date (it was actually a "Noche de Terror Romantica", before being summoned and flirted with by a hipflask-swigging corpse bride, ducking plates and attempting to becalm the mother of all domestics kicking off around us, and finally being abducted into a tiny broom cupboard and subjected to water (pistol) torture whilst shouts and screams echoed from the master bedroom. To say I enjoyed the experience would be overstating it, but the inventiveness of the whole setup was fantastic.
That was Friday night, by which stage the ley seca was in full flow. Having used my early night on Friday to pack my bags, it was time to go out with a bang on the Saturday. I convinced Juan that it was worth his while to actually leave the house and watch the game, and we positioned ourselves in a city plaza, ready to have some good old sober fun.
Wow. What a noise. The differing qualities of crowd noises around the world is quite an interesting thing to investigate (just compare YouTube clips of goals from La Liga and the Premier League), and the noise of thousands of anxious Colombians turned out to be rather high-pitched indeed. In fact, they screamed and blew their horns whenever Colombia had the ball. As well as when they didn't. And when the ball was out of play. Even half time only produced a partial reprieve. Greece well and truly taken care of, I bounced around with a mass of hardy gluten-tolerant souls as blokes tossed flour in the air. There may have been no alcohol, but it was certainly not missed.
My Bogotá experience, and with it this whole ridiculous adventure, ended at Vanguardia, where I had been invited, in the customary welcoming Colombian way, to the after-show party of the final "Noche de Terror". I wish I could give an eloquent and witty description of the night, full of colourful cultural comment, but the truth is that that night only comes back to me in a blur of late-night drives across the city for more vodka (come on, this is South America, there is a way around any rule that the law chooses to impose), said vodka being distributed in ever-creative ways, outrageous and explicit dance-offs, and a pure feeling of joy radiating from every person in that room - a feeling that life is happening right now and we're incredibly lucky to be able to share it with each other.
And I'm sure that it wasn't just the alcohol talking. South America has a way like that. Even in its poorest, most pitiful and most dangerous corners, joy can be found, and is usually just waiting to spring itself upon you. It could be in the form of an unimaginably stunning landscape, which were too many and varied to recount here, but which have all been captured and breathlessly described somewhere in this blog. It could be in its adventures: not just adventures such as hiking through jungle, riding a buggy across a desert oasis or camping at 4000m near an active volcano, but also the daily adventures such as venturing down to the local market to marvel at the colourful fruits and haggle with the even more colourful traders, or come to think of it crossing the road or stepping into any of the many methods of transport that people somehow get around in.
It could be in any of those things and many more, but it will most probably be in the people. Despite often living in extremely challenging circumstances, brought about in the main by centuries of exploitation since the Spanish invasion, a wry smile is never far from even the most weather-beaten and world-weary of faces. The gusto with which the vast majority of people go out and attack each day without a word of complaint ever passing their lips makes me ashamed of the way in which westerners find so much to pick fault in our comparatively comfortable and spoilt lifestyles.
Where these differences are most pronounced is when you compare how people dance. Witness the all-out booty shaking mambo dancers on the cobbles of Salvador's street parties, the carefree yet elegant way that indigenous folk dance in the Andes, or the way that salsa dancers seem to fuse their bodies together, clinging to each other and showcasing their sexuality for all to see. When South Americans dance, it's as an outlet for all the spirit that is coursing through their veins, and when that's been charging up all week, the result is explosive.
After having been hit by that last burst of energy, I woke up feeling like I'd been hit, swept my things together, stumbled into a taxi and all too soon found myself blinking in the lights of an airport waiting for my flight back in the direction from whence I had come nine short months previously. As my parents greeted me at the airport I was happy to be home, as I still am. I would of course jump at the chance to go back, but until that moment I am grateful for the fresh pair of eyes that South America has given me to see the world with.
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