It was during my week-long stay in Medellin, the "City of Eternal Spring", that I learned to live a double life. By day I admired Botero's best paintings and sculptures, threw carnations at the annual bull fighting tournament and explored the city´s bustling neighborhoods via the clean and efficient Metro. I played the unassuming role of a sweet young tourist - reading
The Motorcycle Dairies at outdoor cafes and spending time with children at the local library.
But Medellin's nightlife holds no place for that innocent girl. By nightfall I traded in my leather sandals and sun hat for shiny silver heels and a low-cut dress. Suddenly a suave cocktail-sipping vixen at nightclubs from the set of Miami Vice, I mingled with the rich, powerful and surgically-enhanced offspring of Pablo Escobar. The freshly-tanned, grungy boys at the hostel transformed as well. Suddenly they were wealthy corporate tycoons - buying $100 bottles of liquor for their Colombian beauty queens. Still, the gringas weren´t completely ignored. In addition to lines of coke and shots of rum, one Latino suitor even offered me a new set of breasts. From dancing midgets to sinks made of dead horse heads - every nightclub seemed to offer more surprises than the last. But eventually, when the morning light was bright enough, our chariots transformed into pumpkins, gowns into rags, castles into $8-night hostels.
My fellow travelers and I would stumble back into our bunk beds, as the young men recounted their attempts to snog Colombia's next top model. One day I will return to this amazing city, where the weather is almost flawless, delicious French pastries only cost a dollar and the people are warm and inviting. But for now, it is time to turn in my Paris Hilton costume and audition for another role in this Colombian telenovela. Maybe they need a new peasant girl on a Juan Valdez coffee farm.
It was during my week-long stay in Medellin, the "City of Eternal Spring", that I learned to live a double life. By day I admired Botero's best paintings and sculptures, threw carnations at the annual bull fighting tournament and explored the city´s bustling neighborhoods via the clean and efficient Metro. I played the unassuming role of a sweet young tourist - reading The Motorcycle Dairies at outdoor cafes and spending time with children at the local library. 
But Medellin's nightlife holds no place for that innocent girl. By nightfall I traded in my leather sandals and sun hat for shiny silver heels and a low-cut dress. Suddenly a suave cocktail-sipping vixen at nightclubs from the set of Miami Vice, I mingled with the rich, powerful and surgically-enhanced offspring of Pablo Escobar. The freshly-tanned, grungy boys at the hostel transformed as well. Suddenly they were wealthy corporate tycoons - buying $100 bottles of liquor for their Colombian beauty queens. Still, the gringas weren´t completely ignored. In addition to lines of coke and shots of rum, one Latino suitor even offered me a new set of breasts. From dancing midgets to sinks made of dead horse heads - every nightclub seemed to offer more surprises than the last. But eventually, when the morning light was bright enough, our chariots transformed into pumpkins, gowns into rags, castles into $8-night hostels. 
My fellow travelers and I would stumble back into our bunk beds, as the young men recounted their attempts to snog Colombia's next top model. One day I will return to this amazing city, where the weather is almost flawless, delicious French pastries only cost a dollar and the people are warm and inviting. But for now, it is time to turn in my Paris Hilton costume and audition for another role in this Colombian telenovela. Maybe they need a new peasant girl on a Juan Valdez coffee farm.
2 comments:
Oh, come on... you've lived double lives before.
And nice use of the word snog. Irish is rubbing off on you.
nothing quite like the photo of an upwardly mobile smiley white american girl posing as "native" brown people torture animals for entertainment. your sense of irony is impeccable... or is it?
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