Songs in the Key of Life

The apartment that Bill and I rented had an agonizingly slow cable modem. It was enough to drive a man to drink. But I had my laptop with me and plenty of free space on my iPod so I knew what was to be done. My sister had done a pretty good job filling the thing up with music before she gave it to me, but there were a million songs running through my head that I wanted to hear again.

After a few days, a new found appreciation for BitTorrent and 15 GBs I was feeling like my old self again. And just in time too. Next Monday was some national holiday, Colombians sure do love their national holidays. They have something like 30 days off a year, which makes for a lot of 3 day weekends and great excuses to travel. Marta and I decided to head to Armenia to check out the Parque Nacional de Café. And my goal was to get enough new music on my iPod to keep us occupied for the 7 hour bus ride each way.

Lately I’ve been hearing Crosy Stills Nash and Young in my head a lot. Just the one song, they keep telling me to love the one I’m with. It sounds like such good advice, but like most bits of good advice it’s much harder to put into practice.

The trip to Armenia started off most disastrously. A ½ hour into our journey the skies burst open and let out one of the torrential rains that Medellin is famous for. Traffic came to a standstill and we sat around and inhaled diesel fumes. Turns out some power lines were knocked down, combined with the long holiday weekend and that meant that the single road out of the valley in which Medellin was nestled in was packed from end to end.

Eventually we did make it to Armenia. On the way there Marta found one of the few Spanish songs I had on my iPod, “Algo Mas”. Not the version by La 5ra Estacion, but the one from a relatively unknown Cuban vocalist I’d fallen in love with. In what will no doubt prove to be one of the most ironic twists of fate I’ve ever stumbled across, Marta decided she loved the song and it perfectly summed up our relationship. She must have played that song 100 times over the span of one weekend.

Armenia is gorgeous beyond compare. The rolling green hills you see everywhere in Colombia are full of coffee and banana plants and a nice cool breeze keeps the heat of the sun at bay. Marta and I spent the entire next day exploring Parque Nacional del Café, walking over bamboo bridges, riding pontoon boats out on the little man-made like and pretending to be Juan Valdez.

As I went through all the movements and said all the things that sounded so right and felt so wrong I couldn’t help but hearing Fiona Snapple in my head telling me about feeling like a criminal. I’ve come to the conclusion that doing the right thing is really hard. In fact, that’s how you know it’s the right thing to do, because you just really don’t want to. It’s far more easier to just do what will get you through the next moment without having to feel the pain and anguish that accompany the truth, only the pangs of guilt that eat you up inside.

As we found ourselves traveling back to the north on our ride back home I couldn’t keep my eyes open. As I laid my head down to sleep I put on Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” I glanced out the window and watched as the Colombian country side turned slowly into autumn. Things weren’t going as planned, they seldom ever do, but I though to myself I just can’t help it if I’m lucky.