Chapter 17: Colombia

“You can’t be chased by something you turn around and face.”

Colombia Santa Marta street dog street life

The sun is setting again, but tonight I see it. Very suddenly, America. But this is South America and I think it’s bigger than the mountains I’m used to. Colombia has appeared through the pink sunset haze and it’s a massive wall with jagged summits. It’s exciting to see it. Captain Malcolm, Troels and I have been travelling, sailing for 5 days to get here. The days have completely blended together like a dream. A strange dream, one of total ease and laziness but one of constant motion. At first I was slightly nauseous here and there but I got over it. There is not much to do while sailing, we have to cook and do dishes, we have to change the sails when the wind changes. It doesn’t take all that long though, most of the hours of the day are spent totally vacant measured only by the suns progression in the sky.

Next time I’ll keep a day to day log of the daily occurrences, but I haven’t done that and now the days, like I said, have blended together to the point where I can’t pull them back apart. This trip has kind of been like one big day anyway. The sun rises in the morning. I’ve done a few good sunrise watches and that has been my favorite. For most of this trip we’ve had very light winds and we’ve been using the motor, although Malcolm knows we won’t be able to use the motor when crossing the Pacific. Malcolm has really hilarious mannerisms because he’s British. He’s also old, modest and humble, and has a raspy voice. Troels and I like him a lot, but he’s got some idiosyncrasies like being extremely cautious when sailing. Right… not so bad… cup a tea then? Put the kettle on…. Troels has a thing or two to say about most matters and will always make his mind heard. I generally agree with him though so that’s good. He’s making an effort to get Malcolm more organized but good luck to him with that. Troels is only staying for this leg of the voyage to Santa Marta (Colombia) then he’s leaving and going to Bogota before plunging off into the Amazonas. It has been really good that he has been here, he’s helped us get some more systems in place to make this boat function better. He’s helped me with some food/ provisioning ideas because he’s a fantastic chef and we’ve been eating really well. All fresh food, always a salad on the side, and good proteins. Lots of eggs, omelets, tuna steaks today, octopus one day, some guacamole and sardines on toast…

Day in, day out, the sea is ever-changing and always the same. The clouds were some of the more exciting parts of the first 4 days, because we had very light wind. We had one bank of clouds which made a dark band across the sky. It distinctly marked the boundary between a high and low pressure system, and sure enough as it passed over, the wind picked up a bit and changed to that direction accordingly. The middle of the windless day would get very hot and just being on the water would become pretty exhausting. We’d let ourselves slip off into sleep. I’d wake up with a headache sometimes or feeling sick. And sick with a head cold/ sore throat a little bit. It was just kind of feeling a little lousy all the time, listless, lazy, and also very relaxed. Then kind of good feeling all the time too, with no priorities or commitments (except for having to cook) smiling towards the sky with my eyes closed. I wrote a lot, catching up on what I hadn’t been able to write during my hectic week in St. Lucia. The food was good, at some point you don’t need to eat much. I would do push-ups occasionally, and dream about running when I got to South America.

It was a lazy ride as I gazed out to Aruba and I felt sad. A bird came and landed on the biminy, and it wound up staying there for the night and the next day. Wind came the following morning as we looked into the distance at the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. It looked dry, not green, a few large rocks came up from the horizon and one distinctly desert mountain. The wind had picked up, and Malcolm was screwing around with the sails in the now fresh breeze. He reefed them, then spontaneously decided to furl the jib completely. We were sailing fine so I didn’t see the need to do that… For various reasons I won’t get into, it was a bad call and executed poorly. The sail wrapped around itself due to the whisker pole attached and the thing was now tangled and bouncing around hectically. Malcolm panicked and was yelling, which gave me a bad impression of his character under pressure. He even blamed me for his foolish blunder. He’s a very cautious sailor, which is good, but he’s overly cautious to the point where he makes bad decisions- like to furl the jib in that case.

But really, he’s learning, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that we will improve the way we handle sailing as time goes on. The incident was easily resolved but my thoughts haunted me for a while after. I thought there are so many other places I’d rather be than here. That night, in the distance, I saw Colombia.


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My friend Troels, he’s from Denmark

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the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

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1/18

I spent the sunrise watching as the dramatic coast was lit up. The huge mountains made me giddy, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta rise right out of the coast to a height of over 16,000 feet! This makes them the highest coast range in the world. It looked to me like California, but not the coast of California. These looked like the big mountains only they descended right to the sea. Yes, they were calling, I would have to try to climb one. I realized I’d been missing America, but now for a teasing time I’d get to be in America again.

We passed a large desolate island of rocky cliffs, scrub and cactus. Then we turned a corner and nestled between the jagged brown peaks I saw a city. High rises and industrial cranes, I didn’t expect it. Soon we had approached it. The marina was absurdly hot and the city was dusty, obscured by sunlit smog. Flags were flying on all the sailboats because the ARC was here! Silhouettes of the huge mountains stood high and the shrubby desert on the nearer hills shined in the morning haze. Troels argued with me that the hills must actually be lush and green when I commented that we were in the desert. Neither one of us expected this coast to be so dry. I don’t argue so I let it pass. Just a thought that one shouldn’t stand so strongly by ones opinions, especially when they don’t actually know if it’s true.

As we pushed into the dock, a Colombian woman was standing there waving. She was wearing a colorful sundress, sunglasses, and a large floppy sunhat with a sash.

“Mi amor! Tue es aqui!! Oh my gahhhd, I’ve been worried about joo!” she yelled. She was Mally’s girlfriend named Rosie who lived in Bogota. She was clearly fun and flamboyant and I greeted her with hugs and a kiss. “What’s wrong with chu, mi amor… Joo no happy to see me?!”Malcolm clearly was happy to see her, whether he expected to or not this morning, but he’s always kind of a grumpy, quiet Englishman.

Because we left a day late, we were the last boat in and many of my friends from St. Lucia waved to me as I walked the dock. We were greeted by our friend, chairman of the ARC, Andrew Bishop. He told us there was a beach barbeque taking place, we were late for it but we could get a boat ride over there with him. An hour passed and we met him again. Malcolm wasn’t coming. I thought we were taking a ride around the corner in some small boat, little did I know what I was in for as I walked the docks alongside Troels and Andrew Bishop. It was a multi-million dollar mega yacht, sleek design with a sweeping aft-deck. The host and owner Manuel welcomed us warmly along with a bunch of VIP types. We took a seat, being offered free drinks and hors d’oeuvres! Then the boat boys unleashed us and we sped off, back into the sea outside Santa Marta where we just came from. We traveled nearly 10 times as fast as last time, and Troels and I just looked at each other, toasting our beers and laughing- how did we end up here? We went far, getting an excellent view of the coast, and arrived at the catered beach party.

I saw some old friends there, got more free drinks, and ate free food. All this because I’m part of the ARC race and I don’t have to pay for anything! Crazy… but still, I really don’t care for the atmosphere at those catered parties. Everyone’s old and rich, my style is really more fending for myself in the jungle. I looked up to the hills. They looked dry, forested, like California and it made me homesick. I swam vigorously like Silvia did, I swam away. I got on the beach and ran past the Colombian beach goers. I ran to a road. I ran down the dirt road through the forest. I stopped and looked around, sunlight filtered to the ground. The air was perfumed. I then went back to the party.

Throughout the day I drank a lot because it was free. Then I got on the mega-yacht for my ride back even though everyone else had come to and was leaving the party on buses down the bumpy roads! Haha, I wanted to take the bus because I was itching to see Colombia, but instead for some reason I got the VIP ride. It was sunset when we pulled back into the marina, but we were persuaded to stay onboard longer and longer, because Manuel came and sat with us telling us not to leave. I chatted with Andrew Bishop and Troels for a long time until finally most of the fancy types had left. Eventually it was just Troels, me and a few elite business friends around the table. A guy from Texas and a guy from Holland, of course there were more people around, the entourage, and the help, in high society you can never be alone… We were fed prosciutto with manchego cheese, olives, hummus, crackers, gin and tonic. It was so crazy, Manuel was the classic, extravagant, Colombian billionaire. He took a liking to me and offered me a job at his company when I got to Australia. So funny but not really going to happen. He said a lot of things about politics, the state of the world, and general rich guy stuff like when ‘success becomes significance,’ blah blah… Actually the whole day made me feel a little disgusted, Troels too, so we went and walked the streets to see how the other side lives.

First we stopped at a party in the marina to receive even MORE free beer. Then we went to get some cheap restaurant food. The streets in Santa Marta were different than places I knew. They were rough, raw and real. There was crumbling infrastructure and beautiful statues, there was traffic and music blasting everywhere. The city was Spanish speaking and wildly alive, and I loved it immediately. It was like no place I’d ever been before. There were crowds of people partying, a vendors market on the beach, and the smells of spiced meat and city sweat and sewage mixed into the maritime air.

“Hola friends!,” said one guy, then with gusto, “Welcome to my country!” Troels and I walked and laughed about stuff until the city almost became a suburb where we turned around. All advice was don’t leave the main streets and that Colombia is dangerous. When we went back, we sat and talked to that guy who had welcomed us. Him and his friends introduced themselves. Even though none of them spoke English, and neither of us spoke Spanish, we still sat and talked to them for over an hour. It was so much fun, and the suave bandito man Alexander who welcomed us was teaching us bits of Spanish. He’d talk slowly, with his hands, and eyes, and I’d understand what he was saying. And I would try to tell him, try to say something, but I didn’t know what. It was a fairly inspirational gathering and Troels and I both agreed we had a much more fun time hanging out on the beach with these gangsters rather than the swanky party. They also shared their booze with us, an unbelievable amount of free alcohol today, so now, having drank so much, I couldn’t sleep.


 

1/19

The morning began and I kept myself hectic as ever. I did work on the computer, and went around pretending to be a journalist. At the party yesterday I had talked to some journalists from a sailing magazine, and with some tipsy networking, possibly got an assignment to write about the Watt and Sea marine electricity generator. So I walked the docks and found people to talk to who had one on their boat, now I knew all about the thing and was ready to write. Meanwhile, Troels had made good friends with Andrew Bishop, and being a cinematographer, scored himself a free ride in a helicopter to film the area! Andrew Bishop really fell in love with him actually, can’t blame the guy, and offered Troels a job with the ARC which he is considering taking.

I walked around town, bought a watch because I lost mine, and had a wonderful time struggling with Spanish. In the evening I went for an extreme run. I ran through the suburbs I was told to avoid. The streets were narrow alleys filled with houses and people playing and partying, listening to music in the streets. The music here is crazy, it’s constant, loud and everywhere. At 7AM you still hear music blasting somewhere. The place was rundown, and seeing so many people but not able to/ want to stop and chat kept my run charged with adrenaline as I flew between the masses. I crossed a bridge over a ditch filled with garbage, stagnant canal water, and boats anchored on the shore.

Finally I found the main road and it became a highway leading out of town. I ran up it, the highway was spacious like America and climbed a desert mountain pass. I was excited to run up it besides the crazy traffic. Finally I turned my sights on a large peak ascending from the road, only mildly forested by scrub and cactus. I ran up it, attacking the mountain. It attacked me back, and I wound up with many scratches and cactus spines. It was very steep and there were these terrifying spiders like I’ve never seen before. I made the top before sunset and the view was incredible. I could hear music at the top blaring from all different corners of the city below. This is what I needed, this is my therapy. What I’ve been missing and craving about America and California. I went down, ran back through the ghettoes, and made it back to the marina by dusk.


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Some fancy snobby-bobbies on my fun mega-yacht boat ride

colorful ghetto

Colorful ghetto

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Santa Marta from the mountaintop

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1/20

Today was our big adventure day so Troels and I were up early, headed for the Sierra Nevada. We walked through Santa Marta, we walked far. Today we were trying to walk really far to get to the top of Cerro Kennedy. After an hour passed and we were still in the city we figured we’d try to start to hitchhike. Eventually we just got a taxi because everything around here is so cheap. We were going to hitchhike to the small town of Mica, instead we took the taxi all the way there to save time. It was a gorgeous 45 minute ride away from Santa Marta, we climbed out of the dry desert into the forested hills. Soon we saw mountains and before long were in the shambly little town of Minca. We tried to talk to some people but had an exceedingly hard time. They were selling rides on the back of motorcycles and were telling us the proper way to see this mountain top was to pay for a ride up- otherwise it’s too far to hike and we wouldn’t make it. The road goes all the way to the top and I was planning to hitchhike in as far as possible, then hike.

People told us hitchhiking would be basically impossible because one of the only sources of money for the town is selling those motorbike rides. However, never let someone tell you hitchhiking is impossible! Soon we hitchhiked a motorbike ride and the guy gave us a much fairer price, about 3US$ for a short distance. Zoom! We were off! Rocketing around corners and through potholes, hanging onto the back of the bike for dear life. The views were grand to the now densely forested mountains, it had been a gradual change but we were no longer in the desert. I saw tree ferns and bamboo, like Dominica, now we were in the rainforest. The bikes dropped us off at the road junction for the town of Victoria. We continued hiking. It wasn’t long before we successfully hitchhiked a ride in the back of an industrial truck carrying bags of cement. We were so happy to be sitting there, and we let it carry us deep into the Colombian rainforest.

The ride was fun but started to become pretty rough. I had to be careful to avoid tree branches which whacked me a couple times. I accidently ripped open a bag of cement by stepping on it wrong, and without noticing I became covered in the stuff. I felt bad about that. Also I had an avocado in my pocket and I forgot and smashed it in a very bad way. Oh god so bad, cementy avocado, I just left it alone in my pocket but started to become more uncomfortable as we passed an isolated village and the road turned to rough dirt.

The ride continued in the cement truck to the land of supposed danger, guerrillas, kidnappings and Colombian drug lords. The road was extremely worn and rough now, it was amazing to see the huge truck crawling along it. Another truck in front of us kicked up its dust for us to bathe in as we were tossed around like cargo. The forest was lush now, lusher than ever. There were flowers in all different colors the likes of which I hadn’t seen before. The views were beautiful, looking down to the hills and it did look like America to me. One type of tree glowed among the greenery with bright orange flowers covering it. Some pine trees mixed into the rainforest, and this rainforest was not humid like Dominica. It still felt dry and fresh up here, the perfect temperature, not too hot or cold even now in January. I smelled a sweet perfume in the air, and it was only one scent calling me back- the delicious smell of water in the desert, of a canyon, of Moab, Utah. Nowhere else have I smelled it like this, I don’t know why it was here but it was distinct. We rode in the truck for over an hour and at some point I scarfed down the smashed avocado.

Now we were deep in the jungle looking out to the ocean and we disembarked from the truck. From there we hiked up the road where it turned off the “main” road at the “town” of Dorado. The town was just a hostel/shack with a fantastic view and clear, mild air. We went up and saw no cars. We passed the Indian dwellings of the native Colombians and one was particularly beautiful. Just patched together out of plywood and things with fantastic gardens of colorful flowers. People were nice. They were not friendly and outgoing like people in Dominica, people in Colombia are quieter, more serious and reserved. I appreciated it. We walked far, saw no cars to hitchhike. Soon the road was climbing the mountain. By then it was afternoon and we stopped on a log for lunch of papayas, apples, and bread. The mosquitoes tore us up. Okay. We knew we had to get back to Santa Marta today and we felt extremely far away.

“What time do you want to be back at this log?” I asked Troels. No later than 3:00PM we decided. We hiked. Troels was a good friend for me. “You are too fast,” he’d say with all the opinionated honesty he could find. And, “Stop talking, let’s enjoy the silence of the rainforest.” I had heard that one before! Troels is an intellectual and an idealist with the same adventuresome spirit I have. He was the perfect friend to have at this time of my life.

The higher we climbed on the road, the lusher the rainforest became until we were inside the cloud. It was far, could we make the top? We decided to go as fast as possible and get up as high as we could. The hours passed gloriously and we did some running. We saw a couple open views but we were unfortunately in the cloud. It broke through a bit, and Troels decided he was happy with that. So was I. Since it was getting late now, we turned around and started to run. We ran fast and got into the groove, the slop taking us down with it. At some point my bad knee began to give me pain, and we were fatigued anyway from the day of moving up. We made it to our log at 2:45, now we just have to hitchhike countless miles home. We decided it was a shame we didn’t make it to the top, and should have paid for the motorbike ride. We could have hiked back. Next time.

Once we got back to Dorado we relaxed and hiked slow down the main road, hoping for a ride. I found the area with the sweet smelling air and bathed in a waterfall. Then we were picked up by a cool dude from Holland who was living in Colombia and he drove us all the way back to Santa Marta. We talked the whole ride about our lives. We got to the outskirts of the city earlier than expected and from there took another crazy motorbike ride for only 1$ this time. We flew through the traffic and around a rotary and took the corners in a terrifying way. Then we got on the bus as well, which we decided to abandon once we were in the heart of the city. It’s a crazy, reckless, uninhibited city. We went and ate at a restaurant, utterly and completely fatigued. We didn’t get back until somewhat late and the night ended well. Back at the marina, I met our new crew member, an old Italian guy named Allesandro. He was very nice. “Thank you for today,” Troels told me. Aww.


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We were having a lot of fun

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1/20

Last night, even though I was incredibly exhausted from the mountain climb, I still got to bed late. Rosie woke me up at 6:30AM yelling for me to get to action! Jeez, she is a crazy lady, but a lot of fun too. There were boxes of stuff, so much stuff of hers that came from her and Malcolm’s apartment in Trinidad. They had basically loaded the apartment into the boat which was foolish; they should have thrown more stuff away. The boat Mystique Soul had been a constant horde and it is actually quite hazardous when sailing. It’s uncomfortable to live in as well, but truly a problem when sailing.

It’s mostly Rosie’s stuff. We got it here to Colombia (she lives in Bogota) now Mally and her had boxed it up. The boxes were piled in the cockpit and I was immediately loading them like a crazy person down the dock and into a taxi truck. The problem with Malcolm and Rosie is that they yell orders to do something, but when I ask them to clarify what they want, they are unable to do that just repeating the same thing I didn’t understand in the first place. It’s stupid. So after running back and forth down the dock a couple times, I loaded a huge air conditioner into the taxi. This was all taking place while still half awake, then I jumped into the middle seat of the taxi truck to run the errand with Rosie.

Rosie was talking Spanish with the man and I realized I could understand bits of what they were saying. It was cool and I tried to participate in the conversation a little. We went to a place where we could mail the load and ended up spending two hours or longer there, much of the time in the blazing morning sun. I was tired, still in a daze from the previous day’s mountain climb. The lady working there then gave me a small cup of strong Colombian coffee, and it perked me up. Colombia is intense, it’s wild and faced paced like Rosie. An adventure here turns into one of extreme physical labor and much speed. Running errands takes abundant energy and you find yourself moving fast. To keep up with this insane, high traffic lifestyle, the people must cope by drinking this incredible coffee! So finally, Rosie and I left and ate a cheap meal of camarones from a street vendor.

Then we went to the hardware stores. The way it works around here is the whole street is full of hardware stores, each one selling various odds and ends but all second hand stuff. It pours out with along with the clutter of people into the street. We went from place to place talking to people. Rosie was great, and the Colombian culture was great. She had no problem as we were running along turning and shooting someone a question as they were sitting on a bench. “Donde estas la hardware store…” or something like that with no introduction, then they’d talk as if they were friends.

This is the best way to learn Spanish, and Rosie’s profession is a Spanish teacher. Walk around with someone who speaks 50-75% English but 100% Spanish and run errands. After she would finish talking to the hardware store people, she wouldn’t even realize it but she’d still be talking Spanish to me. I was loving it, feeling immersed in the culture. Finally we took a taxi back.

I did my work during the day on the computer, then went for a bike ride on Mally’s small, rusty, folding bicycle. I took off moving fast and free, flying through those little ghettoes I had explored two days ago. Then I found that mountain pass and climbed it. At the top was an excellent view to the neighboring city of Baranquilla. I noticed a side street at the top of the pass so I took it and biked down. It went straight down and the bike couldn’t handle it. The bike had very bad breaks and also was unbalanced, so I rode down the huge hill with my feet dragging on the ground to slow me down. There I found myself in a different district of Santa Marta, with colorful slums patched together out of plywood, and teeming with people, dogs, music and life. It was a crazy and fun place with people playing in the alleyway streets. Around here people check you out and hold eye contact, but it’s fun, another part of this warm culture. I was loving this bike ride but it was getting dark and I was totally lost. The traffic when I got to the heart of the city was ridiculous, with basically three lanes of cars/busses/pedestrian and bicycles/motorcycles crammed into two lanes. I made my way through, feeling elated and eventually found my way back to the marina still in time to go out to another ARC party.

I went with Troels, Mally, Rosie and our new crew member Allesandro. Allesandro doesn’t speak much English, and his hearing is bad. So he’s a bad combination with Malcolm who cannot talk loudly! He looks like a classic character portrait of an old Italian man, with tired eyes and sloping brows, a large nose and toothy smile. He speaks less often, but when he does it is something wise, thoughtful and kind. The party was pretty lame, but I was given enough free wine to get drunk so that was okay. Not that I needed to be drunk. It was a fancy venue, with chandeliers and the ARC rally welcomed us to Santa Marta. Opulence always leaves me feeling gross. They fed us steak and dessert and wasted lots of my time that I should have been writing with giving their speeches. But having Malcolm and Rosie a little tipsy was fun. Troels and I ditched everyone at some point to go have our own party in the streets of Santa Marta.

At the fancy party they gave out prizes. Stupid useless crap like these large styrofoam sailboats (which of course made their way to Malcolm’s bedroom horde.) Troels and I took our sailboats to the beach for a proper goodbye to eachother, and we set them sailing out to the moonlit night. He was staying here in Colombia, inspired by some long distance hitchhikers we met, he was going to hitch to Bogota to stay with a friend. Tomorrow I would go with Malcolm, Rosie and Allesandro to Panama. A new chapter would begin. Then we ran into our friends from a few nights ago and partied with them on the beach. Some young guys were there, the cousins of our friend Alexander. They looked like they’d be my friends, one had glasses and tattoos, one had a skateboard, one was good looking and from Argentina. They asked our story and I told them. I told them in broken Spanish! They understood, they asked me questions in Spanish and I understood and answered them. I was amazed with myself, Troels was amazed as well. My time sailing with Silvia from Espain, and with Chico and Alex teaching me, my time in Colombia and most of all Rosie teaching me- ahora, yo apprendo un poquito Espagnol! I wish I could stay in South America longer so I could learn, pero muy triste, manyana estamos navigando a Panama! But they speak Spanish there too and Rosie is coming so she can keep teaching me.

We talked with them for 3 hours and we drank together on the beach. We smoked cigars they gave us and they gave us presents, small trinkets, so I gave them the last of my pesos and a couple American dollars too because they had no money yet still gave us what they had. Here we partied with the poor people, there was no steak and chandeliers, at the yacht club we partied with the rich people. We knew this was better. Alexander looked me in the eyes like a crazy bandito man with his fine shirt and sombrero and he’d say to me, “Moment Please!” Then he’d take a deep breath and look to la luna y la stars. He’d talk slowly with his hands and teach us the Spanish words so simply that way, and for the whole time we spent with him we talked small sentences and he intentionally taught us. “Esta es mi pais… la energia es amor… la energia es nauralise. Smell… Ah, la mara… pero, they pollute it. Look, valle, eso… Algaoe.” He picked up some seaweed. Es malo. Escoutcha! Ahhh… si…. Musica. He started to dance. Then to sing crudely. At some point we got up, Troels and him, arts martialise! Tae Kwon Do, Karate… ya! They started dancing and around chopping at eachother like maniacs. We all laughed then I got up and sparred with him, Jinjitsu! It wound up being the best night ever and it ended late with fond goodbyes and goodlucks. They all wished me well on my journey to Australia.

It was my last night in Colombia and the wind was howling down from the mountains. It was blowing sand through the palm trees and out in great clouds of dust to the sea. When I went for a shower, the building felt like it was coming down. We were sailing for three days starting in the morning to the San Blas Islands of Panama, but tonight it was very windy and tomorrow wasn’t supposed to be much better. I’m sure the captain Malcolm was apprehensive about it, but of course he was, he’s apprehensive and negative about everything. Who knows what’s actually going to happen, I’ll have to wait until the morning and see.

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3 thoughts on “Chapter 17: Colombia

  1. Thanks Lynn for reading :) I do experience continuous kindness from our extended human family, it’s really amazing and uplifting. I haven’t been able to write properly during the last three weeks I’ve been travelling, but in the coming month or so I should be able to come up with some incredible stories!

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  2. Michael,
    Your stories are incredible by themselves, but they are even better by the way you communicate them with your writing style. Something about it – maybe it’s rawness/honesty – melts the screen which I’m reading and actually brings me into the story. Thank you for inspiring me and others.

    I only knew you for three months in Glacier, but I know you are a good man. I will keep you in my prayers.

    Your friend,
    Nelson

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