thinking about china in colombia
I feel like it's about time to do another travel update, but nothing much of note happened on the route. For posterity, the route was La Jagüa → Curumaní → Pelaya → Aguachica → San Alberto.
La Jagüa de Ibirico is where i lay in bed for three days, after bravely cycling away from the crappy hotel in Agustín Codazzi where i got food poisoning. I had cramps and nausea for several days, even on to Pelaya, but yesterday coming into Aguachica it seemed to have finally subsided.
I am still in Cesar, but i am out of the arid basin and into the main valley of the Río Magdalena now.
At Curumaní i left the 49 side route and got onto the 45, which is the main drag south to Bogotá. Suddenly there were way more large trucks on the road, and it was much less relaxing. The one-lane-each-way highway turned into a full-blown dual carriageway, and since Aguachica it's bypassing all the villages along the way. This means no more people selling fruit and drinks and snacks by the side of the road. Even if i go off the highway to cycle through the villages, there doesn't seem to be much there except for a tienda selling the same mass-produced sodas and chips that you can get anywhere in Colombia. On the highway, there are gas stations every 20km or so - a big difference from the dudes in La Guajira selling shady gasoline in old Coke bottles. It's really made the journey less fun, although i suppose it was inevitable.
I was hoping that here in San Alberto all the traffic to Bogotá would head east through Bucamaranga (apparently Colombia's most middle-class/well-educated town - it's full of vegan restaurants), but sadly it seems that the official route follows the valley further south, so i guess i'll be stuck sharing the road with 18 wheelers for quite some time yet.
The good news - aside from my stomach recovering from the hell i put it through - is that the temperature has dropped to around 30C/85F, which makes a massive difference to my comfort level on the bike. When it was around 38C/100F, it was extremely tough to make any progress. Within an hour or so it felt like i had cycled a whole day, and even just trying to cycle along a flat grade felt like i was struggling uphill. I took lots of breaks and drank a lot of water, but in retrospect i am pretty sure i was constantly bumping up on the very edge of heatstroke. It was brutally difficult, and although i do enjoy the desert landscapes, it's certainly a relief to be able to get the bike up to 20km/h and no longer stress about if i can even make 50km in one day.
The humidity level is up, though, and i wonder if that's what got me thinking about China. The climate here is very similar to where i lived in Shenzhen. It could also be the hills, especially as i just climbed a very steep one into Aguachica and coasted back down it this morning. I got this strange sense of déjà vu, where i felt like i was cycling on a sharebike in Guangdong, or a rental in Taiwan. And then my brain just tumbled into the whole Chinese mindset. I started half-expecting to see a temple in the distance, and got a bit disoriented when the plains weren't rice paddies, but cattle fields instead. I started talking to myself in some hodge podge of Chinese featuring Spanish connector words like "y". I got a craving for greens.
Oh, lord, what i'd do for some fucking greens.
But it wasn't just wistful nostalgia. It was thinking forward too. COVID basically brought my time in China to an abrupt halt. Admittedly, i was anyway on the verge of wanting to just pack it all in after the horrifying suppression of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, and the despicable attitude of my so-called liberal/open-minded colleagues who took all of two months to start parroting the party line. The Xi administration just laid on oppressive policy after oppressive policy in my time there. I was at the end of my rope when the xenophobia and authoritarianism got cranked up to 11 during COVID. Like, fuck the PRC under Xi. Fuck that fucking dude and his party full of fascist snobs.
And yet. I still love the food. I love the way the urbanization was happening. I love the attitude to public space. I love how leapfrogging desktops to mobile-first development brought about a different internet culture. I love that the place felt so different to anywhere i grew up, but also so right. So comfortable. Like it was sort of a home for me. And - until COVID - i had in the back of my mind the idea of finding a way to Taiwan, a country that shares a language and much of the culture with China, but a country that is free and democratic. It's also a tougher country for a foreigner to find legal work in, but after three years in China, i had the language skills, i was in a good position to try make the leap.
And then COVID happened, and Taiwan, showing its core nature to be no different to all the other xenophobic countries of East Asia, closed its borders. They're still closed to this day. So that plan fizzled.
I thought i could wait it out for a year... soon it'll be two years.
But i realize that my heart is somehow still in China, or in the Chinese-speaking world. I can't really explain why it feels so comfortable to me. Perhaps it's because Chinese restaurants and especially Chinatowns have always been happy places for me growing up. Perhaps it's some kind of genetic thing passed down from my grandfather who owned (or worked in?) a Chinese restaurant for some time and lived in Hong Kong for over a decade. Maybe it's just some dumb exoticism, like all the other white people who fall in love with Japan due to anime, or Korea due to k-pop, or whatever. But it's there, there's something there.
I look down the list of publications i read on a regular basis - blogs and newsletters - and it's still tilted toward China, even though i don't live there any more. Every night i am still doing flashcards to retain familiarity with a language that i don't have any reason to speak in my day-to-day life. I find myself following the politics and current events at least as closely as i do stuff coming out of Europe or North America - the regions of my birth and adopted citizenship. Some part of me really cares about what's going on over there. I don't want to let go of that small connection i had.
And it all comes into sharp focus when i am traveling here in Latin America, because i'm noticing i really don't give a shit about this place. I mean - okay - that's harsh. I care just as much about here as i do anywhere else that i am traveling. I read the local news, i engage in conversation with local people, i eat local food, i support the local economy. But here, i know i will only ever be a traveler. I can't imagine staying here, or any other country in the region, for longer than my 90 days visa-free. There are plenty of things to like - the life is cheap, the weather is great, the people are chill - but it doesn't feel like home. I don't feel like i could have any kind of long-term life here.
I've often talked about how i don't see a long-term life for me anywhere, really, and that's still true. The idea of putting down roots, or committing to one particular place for the rest of my life, that just feels so alien to me. I love to travel. I love to constantly be visiting new places and experiencing new things. I love to be a drifter... i love to be anonymous, just passing through. But then there is some practical requirement for me to settle down here and there, at least for a year or two, if only to earn enough money that i don't end up stone cold broke, and then i'd truly be fucked - relegated to a sad life in one of my two countries of citizenship y nada más. No, like it or not, i need to work. And that means i need to find somewhere to establish myself. And then when i think about... why not here? Well, because i like THERE better. Is that what it means to have a home? Or at least some kind of attraction to a place that could one day (or temporarily) be a home?
I don't know. I feel like Europe is home for me too, more so than Canada to be honest, but also Europe can be a bit self-involved.
I guess i'm just pondering a little bit what i am going to do, which is easy right now because the cycle route isn't very scenic. And, actually, that's part of what i like about cycle touring, that just pedaling along a straight road for 4 hours, it gives my mind space to think. There's no internet, no TV, no news, no music, no games, no distractions, it's just me and my thoughts. And China is what i was thinking about today.
La Jagüa de Ibirico is where i lay in bed for three days, after bravely cycling away from the crappy hotel in Agustín Codazzi where i got food poisoning. I had cramps and nausea for several days, even on to Pelaya, but yesterday coming into Aguachica it seemed to have finally subsided.
I am still in Cesar, but i am out of the arid basin and into the main valley of the Río Magdalena now.
At Curumaní i left the 49 side route and got onto the 45, which is the main drag south to Bogotá. Suddenly there were way more large trucks on the road, and it was much less relaxing. The one-lane-each-way highway turned into a full-blown dual carriageway, and since Aguachica it's bypassing all the villages along the way. This means no more people selling fruit and drinks and snacks by the side of the road. Even if i go off the highway to cycle through the villages, there doesn't seem to be much there except for a tienda selling the same mass-produced sodas and chips that you can get anywhere in Colombia. On the highway, there are gas stations every 20km or so - a big difference from the dudes in La Guajira selling shady gasoline in old Coke bottles. It's really made the journey less fun, although i suppose it was inevitable.
I was hoping that here in San Alberto all the traffic to Bogotá would head east through Bucamaranga (apparently Colombia's most middle-class/well-educated town - it's full of vegan restaurants), but sadly it seems that the official route follows the valley further south, so i guess i'll be stuck sharing the road with 18 wheelers for quite some time yet.
The good news - aside from my stomach recovering from the hell i put it through - is that the temperature has dropped to around 30C/85F, which makes a massive difference to my comfort level on the bike. When it was around 38C/100F, it was extremely tough to make any progress. Within an hour or so it felt like i had cycled a whole day, and even just trying to cycle along a flat grade felt like i was struggling uphill. I took lots of breaks and drank a lot of water, but in retrospect i am pretty sure i was constantly bumping up on the very edge of heatstroke. It was brutally difficult, and although i do enjoy the desert landscapes, it's certainly a relief to be able to get the bike up to 20km/h and no longer stress about if i can even make 50km in one day.
The humidity level is up, though, and i wonder if that's what got me thinking about China. The climate here is very similar to where i lived in Shenzhen. It could also be the hills, especially as i just climbed a very steep one into Aguachica and coasted back down it this morning. I got this strange sense of déjà vu, where i felt like i was cycling on a sharebike in Guangdong, or a rental in Taiwan. And then my brain just tumbled into the whole Chinese mindset. I started half-expecting to see a temple in the distance, and got a bit disoriented when the plains weren't rice paddies, but cattle fields instead. I started talking to myself in some hodge podge of Chinese featuring Spanish connector words like "y". I got a craving for greens.
Oh, lord, what i'd do for some fucking greens.
But it wasn't just wistful nostalgia. It was thinking forward too. COVID basically brought my time in China to an abrupt halt. Admittedly, i was anyway on the verge of wanting to just pack it all in after the horrifying suppression of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, and the despicable attitude of my so-called liberal/open-minded colleagues who took all of two months to start parroting the party line. The Xi administration just laid on oppressive policy after oppressive policy in my time there. I was at the end of my rope when the xenophobia and authoritarianism got cranked up to 11 during COVID. Like, fuck the PRC under Xi. Fuck that fucking dude and his party full of fascist snobs.
And yet. I still love the food. I love the way the urbanization was happening. I love the attitude to public space. I love how leapfrogging desktops to mobile-first development brought about a different internet culture. I love that the place felt so different to anywhere i grew up, but also so right. So comfortable. Like it was sort of a home for me. And - until COVID - i had in the back of my mind the idea of finding a way to Taiwan, a country that shares a language and much of the culture with China, but a country that is free and democratic. It's also a tougher country for a foreigner to find legal work in, but after three years in China, i had the language skills, i was in a good position to try make the leap.
And then COVID happened, and Taiwan, showing its core nature to be no different to all the other xenophobic countries of East Asia, closed its borders. They're still closed to this day. So that plan fizzled.
I thought i could wait it out for a year... soon it'll be two years.
But i realize that my heart is somehow still in China, or in the Chinese-speaking world. I can't really explain why it feels so comfortable to me. Perhaps it's because Chinese restaurants and especially Chinatowns have always been happy places for me growing up. Perhaps it's some kind of genetic thing passed down from my grandfather who owned (or worked in?) a Chinese restaurant for some time and lived in Hong Kong for over a decade. Maybe it's just some dumb exoticism, like all the other white people who fall in love with Japan due to anime, or Korea due to k-pop, or whatever. But it's there, there's something there.
I look down the list of publications i read on a regular basis - blogs and newsletters - and it's still tilted toward China, even though i don't live there any more. Every night i am still doing flashcards to retain familiarity with a language that i don't have any reason to speak in my day-to-day life. I find myself following the politics and current events at least as closely as i do stuff coming out of Europe or North America - the regions of my birth and adopted citizenship. Some part of me really cares about what's going on over there. I don't want to let go of that small connection i had.
And it all comes into sharp focus when i am traveling here in Latin America, because i'm noticing i really don't give a shit about this place. I mean - okay - that's harsh. I care just as much about here as i do anywhere else that i am traveling. I read the local news, i engage in conversation with local people, i eat local food, i support the local economy. But here, i know i will only ever be a traveler. I can't imagine staying here, or any other country in the region, for longer than my 90 days visa-free. There are plenty of things to like - the life is cheap, the weather is great, the people are chill - but it doesn't feel like home. I don't feel like i could have any kind of long-term life here.
I've often talked about how i don't see a long-term life for me anywhere, really, and that's still true. The idea of putting down roots, or committing to one particular place for the rest of my life, that just feels so alien to me. I love to travel. I love to constantly be visiting new places and experiencing new things. I love to be a drifter... i love to be anonymous, just passing through. But then there is some practical requirement for me to settle down here and there, at least for a year or two, if only to earn enough money that i don't end up stone cold broke, and then i'd truly be fucked - relegated to a sad life in one of my two countries of citizenship y nada más. No, like it or not, i need to work. And that means i need to find somewhere to establish myself. And then when i think about... why not here? Well, because i like THERE better. Is that what it means to have a home? Or at least some kind of attraction to a place that could one day (or temporarily) be a home?
I don't know. I feel like Europe is home for me too, more so than Canada to be honest, but also Europe can be a bit self-involved.
I guess i'm just pondering a little bit what i am going to do, which is easy right now because the cycle route isn't very scenic. And, actually, that's part of what i like about cycle touring, that just pedaling along a straight road for 4 hours, it gives my mind space to think. There's no internet, no TV, no news, no music, no games, no distractions, it's just me and my thoughts. And China is what i was thinking about today.