A few Colombians dressed in white aerobic pants practiced the Brazilian fight/dance of capoeria, spinning cartwheels and throwing slow kicks on the grass. The Harry Potter club convened across the park, sporting round-rimmed glasses and casting spells with their wands as they traipsed through the trees. The local Boy Scout troop assembled, shouting militantly and stomping around in tight formation, myriads of merit badges proudly displayed.

I recalled my experience in the Boy Scouts as a youth.

Troop 155 of Jamul was the antithesis of everything that the Boy Scouts of America stands for. In light of the Scout mantra, "Be Prepared," we neglected sleeping bags and snake bite kits to make room in our packs for vials of gasoline, explosive Binaca spray bottles, and firecrackers which somebodies older brother had brought back from Tijuana. While the other troops were busy practicing knots and reciting Scout passages in class A uniforms, we were swinging from the trees in roped-up cots and plotting water balloon attack missions on the other camps. At the end of a long day, someone would saw open a piece of dry bamboo, and we would recline around the fire, passing the smoldering stick like a sacred peace pipe, babbling about girls and blowing shit up.

Anyhow, Medellin has been a series of good omens saying "stay for a while." Steve had given me his old cell phone, a necessity, he said, to find work. By my second day in town I'd found several prospective students for private English lessons without really trying at all. I also found an apartment for the equivalent of $90 USD for the month in the center of town by the University.

So everything is sort of conspiring, and I'm just going with the flow.

My good friend Daniel arrived in Medellin last night, ready as ever for a night on the town. So off we went, sipping a small bottle of rum as we strutted down the street. The end of the night found us in Zona Rosa, the "place to be" in Medellin, according to the Lonely Planet.

We should have known better.

Every city has its weird coven of overpriced discos that nobody actually enjoys. But somehow people feel obligated to stay all night, buying watered down drinks which cost too much and trying their hardest to look blase, blend in.

The music was bumping, but no one was dancing. The night was cool and smelled of afternoon rain, yet no one was smiling. Everything felt plastic. A subdued frustration lurked on the breeze.

Is this it?

It was the stuff of midlife crisis, where, on one especially hallow Saturday late night, dull men in expensive clothing can no longer strain out that famous desperate smile and finally crack, crying out to the cosmos and later giving away all their earthy goods to join the Hare Krishnas, dancing with reckless abandon in the street.

Thunder barrels through red brick alleys.

The next morning Daniel and I went to the local supermarket for supplies. I bought deodorant for the first time in about seven years - a requirement, I've been told, if I expect to find a Colombian honeypie. The checkout line was long and it took some time before we reached the front.

I looked around, feeling bored and annoyed by the florescent lighting. I saw a woman, she was beautiful, tall, jeans, high boots, but when she turned around and faced me it became apparent that she had no eyes. Two black holes gaped at me where her eyes should have been, imagined singularities which threw me straight into the void.

I observed my consciousness shifting.

I felt again exactly like I had in the Barranquilla bus station, suddenly estranged from consensual reality. My insides became airy and crispy. I consisted of nothing but pork rinds and styrofoam!

What was happening?

I felt on the brink of it, hanging by a thread. The world was a cheap hoax, a bizzare charade, and for better or worse, I had snapped out of it. It was at once fascinating and terrifying.

Try to stay calm. Look natural. Just make it to the door and sit down outside. Fresh air. Sunshine.

My skin felt like television static and my left ear hummed from the inside. I felt sick. Why were everybodies eyes floating in front of their faces like magazine cut outs? Deja vu rushed in from every direction. Forgotten dreams surfacing in the mind, syncopating precisely with this very moment. Rerun, seen this one before...

I was Howard Hughes slugging milk in the screening room, Friedrich Nietzsche crosseyed in his bed. This is it, I´ve met the Edge.

Woah, stop. Thoughts like that´ll only make matters work. Relax.

Just breathe.

A skinny cat ran down from a tree and started at me convictingly.

¨Remeber,¨ his eyes seemed to say. ¨Be here meow.¨

The oddness stuck for about an hour as Daniel and I walked the vacant Sunday streets of Carrera Carabobo eating fruits which looked like bunches of spiders eggs. When the feeling finally left me I became serene, nearly blissful. The air was damp and cool and evoked a nostalgia for a life I've not yet lived.

It was the adamic Sunday, the archetypal day of hush and nothing, cozy down with your loved one if you got one and watch the rain through steamy windows.

written by  chaddeal on March 1, 2009 from Medellin, Colombia
from the travel blog: The Great Pan-American Synchronistic Cycle Extravaganza Unlimited
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Beautiful :}

written by  Jessica Grice on April 9, 2009

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