I’ve discovered South America’s answer to Southeast Asia’s Chinatowns. 

Simon Bolivar plaza.

Just like no self-respecting city in Asia goes without a Chinatown, no town in South America would dare not have a Bolivar plaza to honor the guy who brought them independence. 

Get off any bus into any town, point yourself in the direction of the center of town, close your eyes and start walking.  If you don’t bang headfirst into a statue of Simon on his horse then you ain’t in South America.

Here’s the one in Cartagena. 

I was supposed to meet my buddy Steve here.  He was flying in from NYC for a few days.  His plan was to spend one night in Bogota and then come to Cartagena on a flight in at 8 AM. 

Noon rolled around and no word from him. 

No problem.  Maybe just a mix up on the flight. 

I kept checking my email throughout the afternoon.  4:00 still no Steve.  I was beginning to wonder, but wasn’t too worried…he’s the type of guy who it wouldn’t surprise had gotten delayed by a nice Colombian woman.

By 8 that night though, and still not even an email, I began envisioning all the scenarios they warn you about in the Lonely Planet guidebook.  I started wondering how hard it would be for me to get a last minute ticket to Bogota, and whether I should start with hospitals or police stations first, and what the word for ‘dead American guy’ is in Spanish. 

Around 9:30 PM an email comes in that says–and I paraphrase–”shit hit the fan.  Stuck in Bogota.  Tomorrow”. 

I guess I wasted all that time practicing how to pronounce, “tiene uno gringo muerto?”.

I’ll have to wait and get signed clearance from Steve before I reveal  what “shit hit the fan” means, but suffice it to say it involves the usual suspects…beer, Colombian women, Canadians, cops, and shady after-hour joints.  Until I get full clearance, you’ll have to piece the scenario together yourself.

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It seems amazing to me that I only have 3 days left on the trip…and with each day I realize how much stuff I haven’t been able to fit into the posts that I wanted to.  Basically I’ve only hit the surface on both the trip and my father’s story.  On the plus side, I guess it leaves me with tons for the book (he says, already in not-so-subtle plug mode).

Especially the part of my parents’ story.  As I’ve reached this latter point in their journey together it’s tough to get it out in a couple breezy paragraphs.  Knowing the expiration date on that part of the story, and having seen/read all the excitement at the start of it, it seems all the more tragic as I put together  the pieces leading up to his death. 

I won’t get into it all now because I don’t want to get gloomy on you, but letters from this period definitely sad to read.  From the looks of things Hector Senior was caught in an unhealthy perfect storm of tropical illness, work that was taking him on insane trips–at one point hitting 20 countries/islands in 19 days!– and a drinking problem that was beginning to get out of control.

From what I gather, he was by no means a mean or sloppy drinker, more just someone who after years of living that era’s lifestyle–particularly that of a social business man where a few martinis at lunch, a few more at dinner, scotch at cocktail parties was the norm–somewhere along the way had crossed that invisible line.  As someone who clearly enjoys his beer, I always wonder if I’m pre-destined to follow the same fate (as you can see from some of the posts, it obviously hasn’t detered me though).

You know what’s funny is that until I was 17, I thought he had died when a car fell on him while he changed a tire.  I’m sure I was told the real cause but somewhere along the line as a kid I had made this up as the way it happened.  It wasn’t until I got caught drinking in high school and during the ensuing discussion a reference was made to “…what happened to your father.” 

I’m sitting there wondering what’s a car dropping on someone got to do with getting caught drinking by that f#%&ing rat Louie?  (can you tell I still harbor a grudge over that one?) and then I find out the real reason.  Weird.

Anyway, I don’t want to drag this down because from what I’ve learned about Hector Senior is that even to the bitter end, ‘dragging things down’ was something he never did.  There are stories of him still the life of the party (sans alcohol) at a stint in a rehab clinic.  Then again, sometimes it worked out the wrong way–like when his AA sponsor came over and the two of them proceeded to have a grand old time getting liquored up together. 

The person I do feel for during this period though is my mom.  It seems it was a year or two rollercoaster ride–moments of hope that it was turning around, followed by inevitable relapse.  And then to finally lose him–she only 29 with two kids, one of them a newborn.  Wow.  I can’t say enough about her.  I think Book #2  and 3 deserve to be about that amazing woman.

—

So…

How about an espionage palate cleanser so as to not leave this post on a down note…

Hector Senior’s Colombian time adds a little more to the CIA  intrigue I mentioned before–there are numerous mentions of troubles going on here…him having to pop off somewhere in the country or off to Chile for some vague business.

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but man, the number of references throughout his travels to coups and curfews…and a tendency always to end up “selling ad space” in the dodgiest areas…they start to add up.  It may be coincidence, but whereas I used to think it was a stretch, I’ve now moved from ‘maybe’ to ‘feasible’ to ‘I’d be surprised he wasn’t’.

One other palete cleanser…on a trip here his visa wasn’t up to date, so he needed to go to the Venezuelan Consul in order to get a permit updated before getting back into VZ.  The consulate refused to grant the permit, so he left and just restamped a new date onto the old one.  When he got back to VZ, the official looked at his documents, took him aside and asked him if he was aware that the minister who supposedly signed his papers last week had died last year?

Hector Senior said he thought that was most interesting.

And as always…he slipped on through.

C