Willys and café and illuminados on the plaza. Air the color of ripening naranjas, air scented with fried pork and guava. Exhaust in your beard. Laughter on their lips. Salsa and cumbia music mezclada with the goose-honk brakes of Alcalá buses, and the tinny sound of these men pushing wheelbarrows, looking to pour concrete or paint.
Filandia. It’s lively here. I think it’s a touch hipster even, or cosmopolitan — small town meets a dyed streak of hair. Cafés at every corner and tiendas with any number of baskets, earrings, or little wooden cats with tall tails for holding onto rings and their matrimonies or desires. The best coffee you’ve had here and, for some reason, a constant thought of rain. “Cambio climático,” said the man in the doorway when asked if that ocean falling from the sky was normal. “Not in the summer, no.”
It feels so good to travel again. There’s a web I’ve drawn attempting to write down all the names and occupations or remarkable traits of the humans I’ve met, from new chosen family down to Jairo the taxi driver. A few of those names have gone already from my head, flighty as it is, and I am left with what they were — abuela-to-my-left, or the 30-some-year-old-from-Verona on her way to Armenia. So be it.
I am immersed. I am also reminded of the futility of trying to find out a place — the uselessness of thinking I, or any gringo, could possibly investigate and form conclusions about a place in 17 days. What for? What would I be saying about a place, so arrogantly, if I tried to tell you here what exactly it is? I have travelled before with this purpose, stated or not, tucked behind my ears. It is futile, plain silly, and with my broken Spanish? Díos mios. No point to be made except to maintain a separation.
Willys and café and illuminados on the plaza, which will come down by the end of January. How many good coffees has she made? Besitas on the cheek and Maluma with his scrawny arms, Bad Bunny fuzzing from the speakers. Colors on your windows no matter your money. My poor grammar. Voice messages through WhatsApp and a crisp pair of pants, per Laula and her lavandería. Okay but really, the Willys: all the Jeeps are here if you’re looking for them. Shiny with racing stripes and hands clung to the roof racks.
This is as good as finding-out gets: description, and the bias of my eyes. Nonetheless.
Welcome to Colombia. Les aprecio a todos.
