I was feeling a tinge of writers block when I put up my last post. Attached here are a few snips from my journal to paint a better picture Columbia. Also a video I made using time lapses from Columbia.
In a climb this morning I kept pace with the scattered clouds drifting on the hillsides. It was overcast above and below me but the world seemed radiantly white, as if the mist held some incandescent source within. Soon I was in the clouds and they were still luminous but now it seemed to radiate from me, maybe it was. After three hours of climbing I approached a high ridge crossing where the clouds broke up behind me and I could see down to a majestic earthy green valley below, and climbing out of it, my winding road scarred into the mountain side. Splashes of blue sky broke through with columns of aureate sunlight. It was magnificent.
It is shortly after midnight and I woke up with very itchy ankles to discovered a half dozen mosquitoes inside my hammock. I killed them, I had to. My bug mesh was zippered tight so I knew I had bigger problems. I got out of my hammock to find a leaf cutter ants trail passing directly over my shoes. They were covered in ants. I pounded them on the hard ground to clear them off and quickly got into my bug free zone. Bug mesh on my head, rain coat, pant legs, deet on my ankles. Investigating my hammock I found dozens of red leaf cutter ants crawling on it and several large holes where they stupidly carried off my bug mesh. I cleared the ants and applied deet to my hammock ropes. I am not sure of that works but it is the best idea I had besides switching trees. Unfortunately all other tree options in the immediate area are pretty bad. Next I got out my needle and thread and spent an hour or more sewing holes while the din of mosquitoes surrounded my head. I sewed up 15 new holes and it seemed that the ants would not crossing my deet barrier.
I stopped at a bakery for breakfast and ate various pastries with a middle aged man who was very interested in my trip. He would also explain my trip to anyone that came to the bakery or just walked by on the sidewalk. He was very excited about. He told a woman walking past and her jaw literally dropped. I know it is an expression but I can't recall ever seeing that reaction in real life. Later in the day, for lunch, I pulled off the main road and followed a dirt path into a pineapple and papaya farm where I sat on a bamboo bench so old that trees engulfed it in bark on both ends. Four farmers came around to have lunch with me. When I explained to them what I was up to one of the guys literally took his hat off, tipped it towards me. A tip of the hat, another expression I've never seen acted out so peerfectly. After a quick lunch they went back to work. As I sat reading the youngest farmer, a late teen I would guess, came back to me with a pineapple. A gift. He seemed to be trying to avoid being seen by any of the other workers. I got out my knife and started cutting into it, but he took over when he saw that I didn't know how to fillet a pina. I have somehow made it this far in life without ever cutting up a fresh pineapple. Now I've learned how to do it from a Columbian pineapple farmer. Apparently I was just waiting for the most qualified person to learn from. He didn't eat with me but headed back to work. It was delicious. Before I left, a second farmer brought me another pineapple. I packed that one up and ate it for dinner.
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