This is the part of my trip where I fall head over heals in love with the world. Perhaps it's this beautiful country with undertones of dark history and an apparent honesty in the people about their country's past with no attempt to sugarcoat it, yet a drive to overcome without forgetting what it was. Or maybe it's the fact that I met a cool Serbian-Aussie to travel with, or that I'm at the end of my trip and finally feeling motivated to do as much as I can before I go home. In any case, I am breathing in Colombia and all that it has to offer before the close of an epically introspective journey.
So I met up with Jen one last time in Bogota, caught up over hours of good conversation and we said our goodbyes for the last time on this trip, in the early morning. And then, as if without skipping a beat I met Bili, the Aussie, and a Colombian girl from Cali. We went out together to the Botero museum in La Candeleria on the first day. The next day we met up with a friend of Bili's from Bogota who took us to see a cathedral made out of a salt mine 200 meters underground. The cathedral was breathtaking and an energy came over me being under the ground, surrounded by all the salt. It was as if I was connecting to the universe in silence. I know it may sound cheesy and outlandish but there was a moment down there where I had a sense of complete acknowledgment, as if my thoughts were being listened to. Maybe I shouldn't write this stuff in public but I've never stopped myself from being my weird self before, so why start now? Anyway, I got to practice my Spanglish with the Colombian girl since she spoke no English and lots of Cali slang which made things even more difficult and somewhat hilarious. Back in Bogota it was very big city life. But then...
Next stop: Salento. Beautiful, beautiful Salento. This little pueblo nestled in the heart of coffee plantations with the smell of fresh, pungent earth all around, this is where I fell in love completely. For the first time. With this continent. We stayed at a hostel farm outside of town and spent our days horseback riding, hiking in the Cocora valley surrounded by wax palms, touring coffee plantations, learning about the magical hot brew that I have come to adore every morning (and afternoon), and eating the most outrageously-out-of-this-world-orgasmically-delicious peanut butter brownies. We met cool people everyday and in the nights we played Tejo, a game where you throw metal disks into a pit full of clay with paper packets full of gun powder in the center and try to create explosions. And we danced to salsa music on the streets in the plaza. There is hardly any nightlife in Salento but we managed to make the most out of every opportunity. But on the last day as Bili and I were walking into town, we encountered an abandoned puppy on the side of the road who was crying. We asked around about who owned her and what was wrong but no one offered a hand or a heart. Two other people from the hostel on their way to town approached us and joined us in the cause to help this sweet little dog. We found the police station and asked where the vet in town was. I carried her to the vet where he examined her and informed us that she had fish bones lodged in her esophagus and stomach and if we didn't take her to a hospital to get her operated on she would die, suffering and starving for another 6 days or so until death finally took her. The four of us could not bear to leave this poor puppy to die as the owner had, presumably because he didn't want to pay to put her down humanely or get her the surgery. We decided with the vet that her best option was euthanasia because even if we did pay for surgery, there was no one to look after her and she'd likely end up back on the street. It's a hard decision to make when another life is in your hands but we had the money and it wasn't even a question of cost for us. Hopefully it was the best thing for her. I helped the vet hold her as he shaved her arm, inserted the needle and injected her. The poor thing had no place in this cruel world but hopefully she is in puppy heaven now. The vet wrapped her body in plastic bags and I carried her lifeless body back to the hostel. We found shovels and dug a whole in the ground, next to flower bushes and close to the farm. As I lay her body into the ground I hoped she would know somehow that even though she was abandoned by her owners, in the end she was surrounded by people who cared, and forever in a place surrounded by love.
It's amazing to see how some living creatures treat other living creatures, taking them into their homes and yet rejecting them if anything goes wrong. It's a beautifully tormented world we are living in. Sometimes my emotions get the best of me in situations like these. I'm so overcome by sadness and anger at the dilemma of people wanting companions but not being able to provide for them. It just really hit me, watching the life flow out of that poor little creature, that some things are born without any support system. They go back into the earth almost as quickly as they came from it and all our lives really are just a spec in time in the whole spectrum of things. It's a reminder that my time is so short, that life begins now, every second of everyday. This is our golden opportunity to do what we can to shape and fulfill our dreams, to find happiness and to hopefully partake in making this world a better place. Every moment is a chance to seize the day and make a difference. Every decision has the potential for something better. I am one of the lucky ones. I'm here, living, breathing, fulfilling my dreams, and I'm surrounded by love. But am I happy? How can I be happy when I see that so many people have so little? Should I be happy that I have so much more? Does having more money and more stuff really make one happier? The older I get, I swear the more confusing life gets. It gets harder and harder to know what the right decision is. Should I have saved her life and tried to find her a new home? Was letting her go "humanely" enough?
This is the part of my trip where I fully comprehend that the world is so tormented by hardships. This is where I fall in love with a world, accepting all of it's problems because there is no love with all the good and without all the bad. In order to have one we must also have the other. This is where I feel so much love and so much pain and I know that it is the only way. I must endure hardships in order to survive, I must have sadness in order to feel joy. This is where I understand that harmony is not a place of peace. It's a balance between good and bad and it stems from both and there is no such place where pain does not belong, except in a fantasy. And even a fantasy comes with some pain because there is no translation into reality. This is where I breath and fill myself with joy and pain because I'm human. I'm a minuscule part of this beautifully tormented earth. All of our pain and all of our joy collides. We are one earth suffering the same pain in each life, and thriving for the same joy. And this is where I find some small piece of comfort in knowing that I am not alone. We are all suffering together. But hopefully, every living thing will experience at least one moment of pure joy in their short spec of time.
