Beautiful, Graceful Creatures

I finished Narcos.

I also finished Wild, and now I'm picking up Life of Pi where I left off. A hard copy of Life of Pi was in my room in Cartagena and I got hooked, but I couldn't take the book (well, I could have, but that would have been rude and I want good AirBNB guest reviews), so I bought a Kindle copy. I have a feeling I will spend a decent chunk of personal money on Kindle books during this trip.

In the shower yesterday I sliced open a mosquito bite while shaving. I keep forgetting to put mosquito repellent on, because I never see or feel them around so I forget they're here... ninja-bug motherfuckers.

Cali: First Impressions

So far, the things about Cali that make it special to me are the lively salsa dance scene and the Cali Zoo, both of which happen to involve beautiful, graceful creatures being ogled by tourists.

As luck would have it, the finals of the Cali Salsa Festival are happening this week, so I should have a chance to see some of the very best salsa dancers in the world perform! I got lucky with the zoo as well; that gem probably would not have been on my radar if it weren't for Angela's recommendation the night I arrived here, and it has absolutely been a highlight of my trip so far.

The place I'm staying now, Casa Miraflores is a 3-story hostel designed for and by artists; it is gorgeous and inspiring. The walls are painted with murals and covered in encouraging words, there are multiple lounge areas on every floor for people to hang out, large tables for people to sit and work together, a kitchen on every floor, and a studio space in the basement for salsa lessons and yoga classes. The hostel is owned by a man named Nate, who used to live in Washington (Spokane and Bellingham) before deciding to travel around South America and develop real estate. I met him during the the salsa class I took on Monday afternoon, and he looked familiar somehow. When I found out he was from Washington, I thought maybe that's how I knew him, but then it hit me: he reminds me of Jeremy from Broad City. (Go ahead and google "Jeremy Broad City" if you have no idea who I'm talking about. I'm sure those of you who DO know what I'm talking about will also be googling him right about now.)

I met a traveler from France, Caro, at the hostel, and even though she moved hostels the next day, we met up for dancing last night. Her English is stellar, so I didn't practice much Spanish with her. At the club, I talked to a guy from Brazil (also in English) who was full of Rio suggestions for me. I ended up leaving after being there about an hour, because as it turns out, I'm less into the dance scene than I thought I would be. I still want to go out every night, but an hour or so satisfies my need for experiencing the scene.

On Monday night, I hung out with two Australian travelers, Sophie and Hannah, and a very tall man (6'8") from Germany, Simon. Sophie and Hannah are the type of people I really wish I could stay friends with, but I took too long to get out of my dorm room the morning they left the hostel and I missed my chance to get their contact information :( Hannah even has a friend in Seattle so I really probably could have seen her again. I'll try not to procrastinate an info exchange with someone awesome like that again.

The night I arrived in Cali, someone from the hostel suggested that I try to go out to Armenia (a coffee town) for a few days, which he insisted is far superior to Cali. And while that may have been possible with more planning, there just won't be time for it. At the beginning of the week, I had hopes of doing a couple day trips -- one out to a lake for windsurfing and another for hiking and waterfalls -- but even those ambitions have had to be reigned in. Quite frankly, I'm just not sure I can afford to do it, and the main reason i wanted to come to Cali was for the dancing. So, my goal is to go dancing 5 of the 7 nights I am here, and aside from that, I am going to let myself take it easy and work on getting my budget organized and plan for the next leg of the trip: Peru.

CALI ZOO

It took me an hour to walk to the Cali Zoo, but it was well worth it. I don't think I've ever been to a more beautiful zoo and seen more enchanting wildlife before. I was especially fascinated by the lemurs and the baboons, who I could have stared at for hours. I arrived at the zoo at noon, already hungry, but I still stayed for 2.5 hours -- that's how amazing (and big) it was. On my way to the exit, when I thought I had seen everything, I discovered three more areas to explore: another monkey area, a bird area, and the aquarium. I deleted two apps from my phone (Venmo and TripIt) to make space for more photos and video because it was all just too good. I kept thinking about how badly I wanted my nieces to be there and to watch their faces as we looked at all the fun animals together... Stephen too, actually.

I've been reading Life of Pi , which is about a boy in India whose family owns and operates the Pondicherry Zoo (and then eventually the book becomes about the time when the boy found himself alone in a boat with a tiger in the Pacific Ocean), so it is very animal- and zoo-focused. Having read some of that book made me look at the animals in the zoo with different eyes, because the protagonist is not anti-zoo; he sees zoos -- at least the ones with sufficient habitats that mimic the natural ones the animals thrive in, and provide appropriate food and plenty of water -- as places where animals can be even more content than they would be in the wild, because they never have to stress about finding food or becoming food. It's basically the animal equivalent of being on vacation all the time. Might get a little boring, perhaps, but in some ways that's a sign of too much freedom, not too little. Plus, zoos give people a chance to see creatures of this planet that would be impossible to see otherwise, let alone up close. Seeing the animals in person is important, because it makes it personal. Planet Earth and Animal Planet, etc. are fabulous, but I didn't react to viewing those types of shows with the same "oh my god, I love you and I respect you and you're exquisite and we share this earth home and I'm going to take care of it for you" response as I did when I was watching itty bitty monkey people hopping around on tree branches right in front of me.

Here's the video footage I deemed worth deleting apps for:

This one's my favorite: the monkey is trying to squish the dragonfly on the other side of the glass and then a mama with baby-on-board passes him. Probably the best video footage I have ever gotten.

Baboon Butts

Baboons' pink behinds are made of calloused skin, and they serve as a pad to protect the baboon from sitting for long periods of time. Sometimes it gets overgrown though, and then it starts to resemble a brain. I really wanted to take close-up photos of the overgrown ones vs. health ones to show you how even the healthy bums are more odd-looking than you would ever imagine, but it seemed exploitative of me to take photos of the animals, especially the ones whose bums had become overgrown. I'm imposing my human standards of what's cute and what's not cute onto them and this was decidedly NOT cute, so it struck me as bully-like to be sharing, like "OMG you guys, check out Rafiki's gross ugly butt!" So if you're curious, just google, "overgrown ischial callosities baboons" and then you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about.

Also, female baboon booty swells when they're fertile. I saw the alpha male hanging out with his bright pink business out, "preparing himself" for mating, and then he went up behind a female and took maybe five to ten thrusts and then she scurried away shrieking.

I get upset thinking about rape in the wild sometimes. When I was in Nicaragua, I saw a horse mount another horse and engage in what seemed like an unwanted/unwelcome sexual experience and it made me mad. But it also seems silly to get too emotionally affected by the sexual politics of other species, and what could I possibly do about it anyhow? So now I tell myself that when the time is right, the female animals of the world will organize their revolutions as humans have, if that's what needs to happen. It's just as likely that they are more or less okay with the order of things as they are. This is why I'm not going to get involved. Not my monkeys, after all.

More zoo photos!

I didn't hav any desire to have a high-quality camera with me during this trip, until I got to the zoo. My iPhone did all right, but I'm kinda bummed out by the pixelation that happened whenever I wanted to zoom in. Filters helped, though!

An ostrich dining with the llamas. NBD.

More mama monkey + her adorable backpack.

Some tropical birds just seem excessively gorgeous. LOOK AT THIS CREATURE -- that rainbow coloring is what happens when you let a child color in the outline of an animal, like when they make elephants green with yellow ears or dolphins pink with orange swirls.