A look, the rain and Colombia

Day 1 began with amazement as traveling always does. You get lost, meet random’s and usually get asked to do things that you would look down upon.

It began with me just walking out of the hotel with a camera and fresh journal. Ten meters in the locals of the Old City of Cartagena were all over me. Offering goods, services and more. Finally, a guy named James threw out, ‘Hey, you from California?’ I nod and he responded with stories when he lived in Orange Country. Now, to be clear, Colombia is nothing like the OC but it sparked a convo.

Five minutes later we were having a Colombian beer together, five minutes after that he was offering me ‘party favors.’ If you’ve read From PA to LA, you know that the ‘party favors’ in Dalton were some sort of football, basketball or baseball. Like the OC example, Colombia is not exactly Dalton, PA.

After turning down his party favors (c’mon, use your imagination here folks!) he took me down the path of Colombian soccer. Fresh off watching The Two Escobar’s, we immediately brought it up and James had me hooked on a different ‘party favor’—Colombia’s history. For 30 minutes we spoke about their culture, the power of sport and the art of competition on the pitch and in the streets.

From there it was a 3 hours walk around Cartagena. From the amazing ally’s and the walls that protected this vast city from pirates to the beautiful beach my Flip camera was at work.

Finally, I sat down and within 3 minutes of letting a breath out and taking in the Caribbean someone walked around the bend and into my vision. And like all foreign men this moment lived up to the pre-conceived hype of South American women. Dark, slender and strikingly beautiful—our eyes locked and as if the magnetic force of our pupils were truly that—she walked towards me in my chair and I remained stuck, not wanting to get up to lose our eye line.

‘Ola,’ in a most magnificent Colombian accent.
‘Ola,’ in a most pathetic wanna-be Colombian accent.

And then we kissed on the cheek, as if that was a normal thing to occur on good ol Hermosa Beach back in LA

He name was Daniella and we spent the day walking, laughing, having a local beer and even running through the rain on the back streets of Cartagena. She was from Medillin (which I loved due to my now obsession with The Two Escobars) and full of youthful energy, Latin spice and passion that cannot be described in a blog but imagined.

Notice I never said we talked as her English was poor and my espanol as inconsistent as my 3-point shot, but we had a connection that those who are open to such a thought can understand.

As if we knew each other for years we spent the late afternoon together like a higher power wanted us to—full of the one thing that makes this world spin on her axis.

Passion.