Timeline of Important Events, Part III

NOTE: This is the third time I will write this entry. The first time I was over halfway through when a hit of the backspace key once again mysteriously erased the entire piece. This made me aggrevated but I decided the only thing to rid me of my heartbreak was just to write it again while it was fresh in my mind. The second time I was just about finished, just deciding if I needed another sentence to finish it all off, when my computer just suddenly restarted itself. None of the other computers in the internet place did this - just mine. For reasons which now escape me I had once again not saved the entry. The man behind the counter sort of shrugged and charged me the full amount. I had been in the internet cafe for almost five hours. I went out into the plaza, into the cool air, and just stared at the trees. I have decided, though, that as this day has already been pretty much given over completely to the internet I will attempt to reproduce this for a third time. After all, Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas wrote a number of the novels in his Petagonia up to five times when his manuscripts they were stolen, seized, lost or destroyed. So, with Reinaldo on my mind I return, and, having eaten a very late meat-based lunch and watched the music video for Hips Don't Lie by Shakira and Wyclef Jean for what is, quite literally, the 70-somethingth time since being in Colombia, I feel refreshed and ready to start again. I must defeat this pincha entry. I will not sleep until this fucker is down. -------------------- At night the town of Barichara is still and completely silent. The sloping streets are streaked in yellow light, the cobblestones small and dark, the houses sit shuttered and proud with their whitewashed walls and red roof tiles. There are almost no vehicles, not even parked on the roadsides. The sandstone cathedral glows orange under floodlight. In the canyon behind the town silent lightning flashes behind low clouds. The sparks of light reveal cats behind rubbish cans, tall crucifix gravestones in the tightly packed cemetary, a duo of young lovers on a park bench in the town plaza. Ana, Jorge and I are eating Brazilian cashews near one of the smaller churches and we are arguing for and against the existence of elves. We are drinking tap water from a red bulletproof Canadian drink canister with a maple leaf design and a sticker saying "Made in USA". We are imagining ourselves as characters in Hollywood slasher flicks, but what with the darkness and the eerie silence and the lightning and the squeaking of wheeling bats, we have decided actually not to jump over the wall to the cemetary. Instead we approach the open metal gate of the Children's Park. Outside there is a parked motorcycle. We tiptoe into the blackness and we are clutching each other tight and glancing around. Under the rotunda there is a hulking, black silhouette, and Ana's eyes are wide as she breathes "It's a person! Lets GO!". We go, moving like shadows. Back in the light of the streetlamps Jorge and I have lost our fear of a few moments ago and dismiss any notion that there is any thing dangerous ever in this tiny town. We are talking at full volume now, which makes everything seem less scary. Ana is not convinced, however, and chooses to stay sitting alone by the benches in the alameda. We turn to go, though and she squeaks "mmmMMMMWAAAIT!" and runs to join us. We stop to read the sign on the wall by the gate; "Parque Infantil," it reads, then below it a phrase with missing letters - "R ED R U IO", which gets us talking about The Shining and makes me start growling "redrumredrumredrum!" in a kinda gruff voice. It is at this moment that Ana freezes and goes white and I turn around and see, behind the metal grate in the wall, a man's moustached face, staring silently at us from the darkness. Now, my subsequent reaction is one that I can not justify or explain, even after extensive cross-examination from both Ana and Jorge, and it has become, since, a cause of much humour in our little trio. My reaction was: in shock, to raise both arms up, like an attacking bear or big cat, and to claw the air viciously while yelping, loudly, "REDRUMREDRUMREDRUM!!" at the face of the man, as if trying to exorcise him from the park. There was no thought process to this, and once I registered what I was doing and what he must think I backed away silently while the face disappeared and the man in full appeared at the entrance to the park, startling Jorge who hadn't yet seen the face and was just puzzled about my sudden outburst. "Is something the matter?" the man asked in Spanish, looking suspiciously at his motorbike. Jorge replied, "No Señor, we were just wanting to come into the park but we weren't sure if it was open". "It's always open" he answered, and shrunk back again. We went in, quickly and I avoided the mans gaze but noticed, as we passed ,his girlfriend hidden away in the darkness. They left, and we played on the see-saw and danced and laughed and encountered a huge millipede. We owned that park, then. But still, we remained giddy with soft fear. Still there were the sounds of bats, still the silent lightning. Still the street lamps mysteriously switching off around us. Still the wind and the quiet emptiness of the stone town. Still, the shadows. -------------------- By day, Barichara is a gentler, kinder place, its ghosts and elves long gone. In the mornings a thick mist hangs through the streets as stores open their wooden doors to sell handicrafts and creamy brown tubs of arequipe. The fresh sun glistens on the cobblestones after the morning rains. Old men in wide cowboy hats lean on slender canes and amble slowly up the hills. The sounds of church bells and the tooting of the minibus horn. School children gathering in the main plaza to flirt and gossip. Smells from the resturants of cooked trout and goat. The cathedral rises bold and splendid. Purple flowers, overhanging the white walls from the courtyards. One of the mornings we head by bus into the nearby town of San Gil to do some white water rafting. On the walk along the riverside malecon I kick my foot and crack my big toenail into two pieces, which is painful. A lady from the rafting company fixes it up with some disinfectant and a bandaid while we are waiting for our guide. He is late because he ran into the river to avoid the approaching army. The army is currently making a sweep through the town in an attempt to recruit men, and indeed, as we wait here come soldiers on motorcycles, black guns poised and tall, heads turning as they look for any possible candidates. What they are looking for are young, male Colombians - if they ask you must be able to produce, on the spot, evidence that you either have already served in the military or are exempt from doing so, otherwise you will be taken immediately for an interview. Unless you are incredibly lucky you then must front up for intensive training before a lottery to find out where you will be serving for the next year and a half. If you are really unlucky your location will be on the front, in the jungle, fighting and possibly dying in the long battle against the country's everpresent guerilla groups like the FARC and ELN. For this reason we instantly forgive our guide's AWOL status and wait in the sun for him to return. Which he does, grinning, and we begin our rafting. The rapids are fun and we get wet, but whats really special is everything happening around us. The sky is clear and glowing and the banks are lined with brown willow trees, drooping spectacular. The rocks are dark and jagged, the water murky and brown. There are groups of thin cattle, lazing by the water, there are black vultures hopping, there are swarms of butterflies whipping in mini hurricanes, storming in flashes of white and orange. We float downstream, in and out of the raft, and we listen to the water and the wind and the chirruping, giggling birds.