Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

  If I must be negative I prefer to do so in the beginning. Pull the stinger out and then apply the ice. Colombia is thus far one of the few countries of which I find the food unremarkable. Maybe because I was told to set my expectations low, I found even the dishes in Cuba more appealing. Of course, in certain countries where the local cuisine is beyond the point (Canada comes to mind), I have no memory to compare. Be that as it may, Colombia has on the whole left me unimpressed in its culinary aspect. Quindio, the area I travelled through, is known for its chorizo and I like a good chorizo, but I failed to find one that was not bland. If anything I found the chicharron in these parts a superior component of the bandeja paisa dish. Instead, what stole my heart in Colombia is the relationship between the people and the land. Agriculture is the pulse of the nation and her people have come, out of necessity, to value the earth. In many ways Colombia is a global example of the pro...

  If the bugs that make your room a constant home at the Hotel Reserva Monarca are a warning that you are now on nature’s turf then the sunrise is nature’s way of compensating you. Let it be said that the sight of the mist-covered mountains in their multi-hued glory is more than enough of an apology for a few crawlers under your bed. There are no better morning greetings than the sounds of birds and other animals meeting the rising sun with you. Of course, Hotel Reserva Monarca is surrounded by natural majesty and breakfast is served in a veranda overlooking the forest. Here your companies are not so much the bugs that crawl into your room through the gaps in the screen door but butterflies that seem to know the hotel was named in their honor and lizards. Breakfast here consists of chorizo, scrambled eggs or a calentado (a “warmed up”, consisting of rice and beans) and assorted fruits accompanied by coffee or hot chocolate. I tried to alternate each day. The first time I tried L...

My first impression of Periera was of a typical Colombian city, although it was already colder than the ones I had visited. I knew I was in the foothills of the Andes, however, and in the center of the so-called Coffee Axis. One of the advantages of hiring a driver is the opportunity to observe the city that will be your home for the short amount of time ahead of you. I had arranged for the driver I had met briefly last year in Bucaramanga (about a ten hour drive from Periera) to meet me at Matecaña International Airport and we had little trouble finding him. Periera, the capital of Risaralda, is the largest city I’ve visited in Colombia (apart from a drive through Bogota in 2012) but it maintains many of the subtle features of other Colombian cities and towns. Before reaching Hotel Reserve Monarca in Salento we made a stop at Victoria, one of three shopping malls in Periera. It is a three-level building with a movie theater, casinos, arcades and a food court offering the standard fa...

Well, it’s back! After seven years the Greatest Show on Earth rises from the ashes of bankruptcy and delights us again. I had to make the pilgrimage to Amica Pavilion this weekend to mark this happy occasion. Of course, in many ways it is no longer the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus I remember from my youth. This came about gradually. By the early 2010s the elephants were gone (the surviving pachyderms sent to a sanctuary in Florida) and then the lions and tigers were also retired. I was hoping the circus would survive without performing animals and I was always of the mind that the clowns and the acrobats were worth the price of admission alone. Yes, there is a primal thrill dating back to gladiator days of seeing the beasts under the big top but if the survival of this piece of Americana meant performing without animals and, more importantly, if entertainment could be delivered humanely, the Ringling Bros could do without animals. The show this Sunday confirmed my belief....

It’s been nearly a decade since I climbed Machu Pichu and visited Cusco but, somehow, I feel as if the effects of heightened elevation would still affect me to a similar degree. It must be said, of course, that in Peru I benefited from a knowledgeable guide who prepared my team well for the trek. The hotel where we stayed offered oxygen masks and at least one of my fellow travelers made use of them. I made but one miscalculation which fortunately resulted in nothing more serious than the need to take a seat in the lobby until my illness passed. After eating substantially to prepare for the higher altitudes I, upon returning to the hotel after a day in Machu Pichu, sat down to a plate of tough alpaca steak which did me in. And yet, I feel confident that my over-forty constitution can tolerate another visit to the land of the Incas. In part, though, this explains my unpreparedness for Los Nevados of Colombia late this March. Los Nevados is at a higher altitude than both Machu Pichu and ...

Irish literature in the early 20th century was practically defined by James Joyce. His legacy, however, is not confined to giving voice to a nation on the verge of erupting into independence but his revolution was literary and largely religious as well. His debut novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , was rooted in the classical tradition right down to the protagonist’s last name, Dedalus, a reference to the Greek hero Daedalus, while dismantling literary conventions as thoroughly as the role of the Catholic Church in Irish identity. For Joyce this crisis of faith began in 1903 on his mother’s death bed. Shortly after graduating from University College in Dublin, Joyce moved to Paris to study medicine but returned upon hearing of his mother’s imminent death. Joyce and his younger brother Stanislaus tended to their mother dutifully but it was at this moment where Joyce’s stance against the Church became established, refusing to take confession or pray. As Joyce’s biographer H...

Throughout the last thirty years Colombia has done a remarkable job shedding itself from the infamous legacy of Pablo Escobar. I have visited twice and always felt safe. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a friendlier more welcoming lot than the Colombian people. But the most damning aspect of Escobar’s legacy has almost nothing to do with cocaine or mass murders. No, what has proven the most difficult remnant of Escobar’s reign is hippos. And while the terror of the Medellin Cartel has dissipated the ecological impact of the drug lord’s exotic pets remains a problem to both locals and the ecosystem. It is possible to see the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar as a tragedy of Greek proportions. A poor child from Rionegro left to learn the ways of the streets in the neighboring city of Medellin grows up to be one of the most powerful drug kingpins in the world building a palace of luxury (although, garish in style, quite frankly) fitting a man of both brutal violence and a cult of ad...