dear pigeons, your welcome

¨Colombia has the natural resources of a thousand nations and the natural habitat and climate to support any life form on planet earth. The sad reality is, that all of the treasures and wealth of this great nation has been squandered by the few co

rrupt only to leave nothing to marvel at in its origin"- francisco de miranda

I arrived on colombia 3 weeks ago. and every part of the aforementioned statement stands true except the last part. There is plenty left to marvel at in its original form. I arrived in cartagena and spent a few days getting adjusted to life on land. There may have been a time or two where i lost balance and appeared drunk cause my sea legs hadnt yet worn off. I met a few folks in the hostel and they immediately invited me to santa marte and taganga. why the hell not. seems cool enough. Taganga, to my surprise, is hippies paradise in colombia. A sleepy little fishing town with more dread haired people than fish, is a quaint place to sit idle for over a week without ever even knowing it. after saying goodbye to hippie heavan, myself and two girls from holland, along with a brother and sister from australia, decided to trekk through parque tayrona. A beautiful natural park on the atlantic coast. what wasnt so beatiful is the mud and horse manuer that blanketed every inch of trail. everything in the park is brought in on hooves, and appearantly, its too much effort t

o clean up. i did not bring hiking shoes and my sandals were in my big pack back at the hostel. so haflway through the hike, after my trainers were already ruined, i said fuck it and decided to take off the shoes and compete the hike barefoot. my feet still have open wounds on them. the hike was picturesque however.

with boulders the size of city blocks littered across the shore, we would stop and watch as the beach was being kissed by the sea.

i spent the next two nights, sleeplessly tossing and turning in my hammock trying to fend off armies of mesquitos. i succumbed to defeat and let them have the best of me. gotta give it to em, they just didnt quit. i think im now 1 pint

 of blood short. on the second night, i removed my hammock and thought it would be a good idea to just lay it right on the beach where the wind would prevent any buggers from biting. shit, i totally forgot that this is not the great lakes and theres tides here. i woke up 1 hr later to a rogue wave completely drenching me and my bags. so spent the next 3 hours looking at mr. moon laughing back down on me.

thats enough of the coast, im all beached out. time to head inland. i meet anne, an argentinian girl who was in my hostel in taganga, that was heading to bogota. sweet, that means id have company on the 20hr bus ride. watching the sunset and sunrise from a bus in the middle of the northern andes in colombia is way to disprove mirande´s statement. we arrive in the north bus terminal in Bogota and spot a dunkin donuts. i nearly piss my pants out of sheer excitement. finally some familiarity of the good ole USA. Anne has a perma grin cause they dont have dunkin donuts in argentina. so we order our large coffees and two boston creeams, and w

e both reach for our cameras to capture this moment.

anne returned to buenos aires and left my non spanish speaking, gringo ass in bogota. great now what. I head to la plaza de bolivar, a quadrant of government buildings with a gian open space in the middle with literally thousands of pigeons. there were vendors selling bags of corn to nagging kids so that they can take enjoyment in feeding the pesty birds. sure i guess ill act 10yrs old again. i approach the vendor and as how much for a bag of seed. "uno mille" he replies, roughly 40 cents. fuck yeah, give me 5 bags. now recall for a minute that scene from home alone 2, lost in new york, where the homeless woman gives kevin a hand full of seeds and he just throws them all in the air causing havoc in the square. well that is exactly what i did, except with 5 times as much seeds, 10 times as many pigeons, and 20 times

 more people. i never knew birds could cause such chaos. it was like that scene from a discovery channel special where the locusts take over a whole area, except with pigeons. not 30 seconds after launching the feed from my hand, i was approached by a colombian police office and asked nicely to leave the plaza. so long bogota, farewell to my pigeons.