Life's a Beach

Doing laundry in Bogota is more like spending an afternoon hanging out with all your clothes. It's too cold and damp to make use of the outside hanging/drying facilities, so every surface and shelf is now supporting the act of drying. It started in the kitchen, where the washing machine sits in a dark nook, which is handy for making tea, or cooking your third breakfast of the day. So far i've had boiled egg & toast, french toast, and cereal. Now i'm giving an evening sermon to my socks and underwear. They're draped over the cupboard doors like a congregation hanging on my every word. At the dining table, beach towels drape over the backs of chairs, while board shorts sit limply upon the chairs. Wet conversation lingers at this flaccid dinner party.

So much for dry humour.

A return from vacation is the reason for this festival of laundry. Last night (after a record-breaking 25min taxi from the airport) i shook my backpack clean to reveal 700pesos in coins, 2 dead insects of unknown identity, business cards of my new favourite bars & guesthouses, an un-used mosquito net, the key to room 7 at Casa Mara Hotel, and all those dirty clothes.

10 days of no advised timetable on Colombia's Caribbean coast serves to remind me that i take great pleasure in not knowing the day or time, and if left to my own devices, i spend my sunny days on the beach, rainy days in transit and evenings in restaurants & bars eating, drinking and playing the cajon.

Life's a beach.

Right about now i'd like to retire to a hammock. Sleeping under the stars in a cotton net is something i need practice in, an art to perfect. For now though, i have to shower and tend to my socks and underpants. Life's a bitch.

Dear Mum & Dad,

I'm 'home safe & sound. Good food, warm people and a pleasing mixture of coastal cities, fishing villages, mountain pueblitos, local bus journeys, national parks and new friends. Was i really away just a week? Weather was a mixed bag. Even so i still got a nice, though un-even, tan. That's the trouble with enjoying solitude on deserted beaches, there's no-one to apply suncream to your back. While on the beach, i travelled forward in time to Christmas 2012. How does a Colombian festive holiday sound? I like the idea. I also took a huge leap of faith, i used the Colombian postal system to send you a postcard. It's eta is long after Christmas 2012, but i'm thinking of you and 'wishing you were here' all the same. Skype soon.

Love,

Glenn x