Blog 31 - Beauty of Colombia
Written while sitting on the floor of Grand Central Station, NYC and edited in Commons Dining Hall at Yale
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Blog 31 - Adventure Magic Retreat!!
“On our way home, my cheeks hurt and my heart felt full.” - Matt Dahlia
It's 11:18pm in Santa Marta, and I just finished the last blog about Medellin, my introduction to the beautiful country of Colombia. I shut my laptop and let out a phew. I lay back in my hammock, hands behind my head, with a sheepish grin across my face. I listen to the waves crash and crash in the distance. I want to be here forever.
I was ready and not ready for the "adventure" week that followed, and WOW, that was quite a ride. Colombia's easily my second favorite country I've been to now. If you've ever wondered what happens when a group of 15 strangers from the Internet adventures together, read on.
It’s Magical
There's just some people that when I'm around, magic happens. Gabi (the organizer) and everyone on this trip symbolized that.
What makes a trip magical? To me, it depends on the trip. Solo trips are magical detours that remind you of The Alchemist. Road trips are genuine conversations that happen in the privacy of a vehicle. This trip was magical in its sheer diversity of activities.
For example, on the first day, we went on a banana boat. Have no idea what that is? Me neither. It's not even a banana, it looks like a floating hot dog. It's attached to a motorboat via a rope. The motorboat goes really really fast and makes sharp turns, and everyone on the hot dog's goal is to hold on for dear life. Not only was it so fun, it was symbolic of the adventures to come. Actually, one passenger, Ari, had just arrived to join the group when Gabi told her "Hey guess what, we're going on a banana boat!" I just loved how that set the tone for the trip for Ari. Like isn't that just so sick, to arrive in Colombia straight from New York and the first thing you're doing is screaming your ass off on a banana boat?
So that was a first for me, going on a banana boat. The whole thing reminded me a lot of going tubing in lakes in Oklahoma. You hold onto a huge tube and it's a lot more rough. If you haven't been tubing drop everything you're doing right now and fly to somewhere warm to do it. It's ridiculously fun. I think I have a hidden passion for water sports.
Another first? Climbing up a waterfall. Or rather, attempting. A couple days in, the group converged on a super fun waterfall. Some rocks inside the falls were grippable, and with the water smothering our faces, we strategized ways to climb up. It's not like we got super high up or anything - you could jump from where you had climbed without fear - but what I remember most was that sense of togetherness, the "let's go"s, the "you got this", the words of support we gave to each new climber.
Even in the midst of all the activities and drinking, we still found time to appreciate our surroundings. When we went tubing down a lazy river, in between laughing our ass off when our teenage guides splashed water on us, were moments of pure silence. Some people were napping (I was trying to do a fetal position on a floating tire), some were pensive, some were probably high. And when we did a night safari and our boat was just trudging through the shallowest of rivers in the pitch black of night, everyone just stared at awe in the nature around us. Fun fact: There's a flower in Colombia that blooms in the night and dies by the day.
This trip also had tons of laughter. During our boat party, we went through some damn rough waters. All of us were dying of laughter from how much our butts got launched. Ari's beer ended up spilling all over her face, and I remember saying, "You got beerface!" And laughing. Also, one time when Stacy and I were just talking about something completely normal, Rebecca comes up to both of us and asks, "Hey what sexual orientation are you guys?" I think that was the hardest I laughed all week.
The way I really felt this magic, though, was just the unsurmountable energy I got to break out into dance. The first night, Sebastian, Rebecca, and I, danced in a restaurant, undeterred by the passerbys looking our way. Every time I booted up my Bluetooth speaker, I felt a twinge of excitement for the beats to come. And when I had climbed the waterfall in Minca, I remember sitting there and just moving my hands like I was in a night club. The only music playing was inside my head. The magic, the energy... I miss it. Can’t wait for its return.
Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the lack of sleep, maybe it’s that everyone’s back in their study grind—but as I write this I'm looking down at Commons (Dining Hall) from one of the balconies, sipping on my free coffee from the Global Affairs building. Dancing right now is the last thing I want to do.
Trust in the Unseen
It’s 8 am on the first day of the retreat, and there’s an air of nervousness and excitement in our Airbnb. Bodies shuffle into a semi circle of pillows surrounding a candle. We eagerly await whatever life-changing visions we can get our hands on. We’re about to do a cacao ceremony.
So what is a cacao ceremony? It's where a group (led by an instructor) sits in a circle to drink heated cacao bean (the origin of chocolate) together. Afterwards, everyone meditates/moves their body for two hours. There's lots of emphasis on connecting with everyone else in the group. And of course, the cacao you drink is the real thing, unprocessed cacao - it faintly tastes like hot chocolate.
The goal of all of this is to open your heart, gain mental clarity, and feel united with those around you. But the thing is, for it to work, you have to look at it without judgment. Me from two years ago would've thought this, along with many things spiritual, was pointless and fake, until I did my first cacao ceremony in Ecuador (which turned out to be one of the highlights of that trip). It's something you need to trust in for it to have a real impact.
And during these two hours of meditating and dancing, there was laughter, tears, and those moments of introspection that come by once in a blue moon. What hit me most, to the brink of tears, was when we were laying on our sides and our instructor reaffirmed to us that home is inside all of us. That it never leaves us. For me, being away from family and friends so much over the past year, it's felt lonely at times. It's been uncomfortable, sometimes shocking, and at points made me question everything. Sometimes I just need that pinch to realize that I'm not as alone as I think, which I really appreciated. I really wonder, when's the next time I'll be in that type of trance for two hours straight? I was so content afterwards that I just had to calmly dance in the sun for a few minutes.
Trust in the unseen is what I live by, and to have this instructor with us to fortify this belief was a blessing. Fun fact: This entire ceremony happened because Gabi and the instructor ran into each other on a hike in Colombia (they had met in Bali) - they didn't know they were in the same country, and voila!
It's so fun, going on these solo trips and getting out of your bubbles, because you get really good at talking about nothing. With many people I've interacted with, I’ve had to lean on a crutch of classes or work as a topic. For example, it's easy to talk about orientation and classes when you arrive at school for the first time. That becomes your default subject - your bond over how hard a test or project is. But when you meet someone you're spending the next few days with with nothing in common, it's up to you to find that middle ground, be curious about the other person and be comfortable with just shooting the shit. It's been a blessing doing this a lot recently, because I would never have gotten that opportunity at Yale or at home. I’m always astounded by how a group of strangers with few similarities can have an absolute blast - it gives me so much hope in humanity.
It's insane to believe that I met Gabi 1.5 years ago - we were in disbelief at how short that felt given everything that's happened, the growth we've both seen in ourselves and each other. It's the simple truth, that more = slow. Man, I love writing about this summer camp stuff. What's so beautiful about it, it ain’t some crazy learning experience - it was just friends having a great time. And we'll do it again soon.
The Conversations
The real sweetness of the trip was in the conversations. It was so fun to strategize climbing the waterfall rock by rock. It was amazing cheering Felicity on when she climbed the highest and jumped from maybe 12-15 feet up. And it was a crazy moment when I pointed out to my salsa partner that we were matching (the credit actually goes to my friends for noticing).
There was one insightful moment where Rebecca and Gabi were saying that I'm not a morning person. The way they knew? That in the morning hours, I just don't talk a lot, that I have this certain, peaceful grin as my default expression. Honestly, this made a lot of sense. It's funny because my Chinese name, 书晗 (Shūhán), means that I like to read books in the morning. Only the former is true of me.
My favorite conversation was with a bartender in Santa Marta. We met him our first night in the city and loved him. When we returned a week later, he came with us to dance at our hostel bar. It was hard not to smile at the passion with which he danced - he was probably one of the best dancers I've ever seen. And to think this was just a random bartender we met on the first night!
During the night we had a lull sitting outside a random bar. It was 2 in the morning, I had just rapped Bande Organisée with a few French people inside (forgot I was in Colombia), and I was chilling with our favorite bartender. I asked him how his English had gotten so good. He proceeded to tell me his life story.
His great grandmother escaped Venezuela many years ago, and he’s been raised by his grandma in Colombia. When he was 15, he sold empanadas in the streets of Cartagena and Barranquilla, the coastal cities. He would walk street to street with his cart, yelling, “Empanadas! Empanadas!” at anyone. It was when he saw someone much older than him, doing the same thing, that he decided he didn't want his life to be like this years from then. He decided to try his best in school to go to university. He's a student now, and funds his studies by bartending. He also has five older sisters. He's expected to care for the whole family, and works many hours.
What also impressed me is that every time he had English speaking customers, he would ask, "What is that?", pointing to different things on the table. That's how he learned - just by working. "If I use English, I can be a better worker." he said. He could've explained his life story in Spanish but the fact he wasn't afraid to make mistakes in front of me was really nice to witness. I could tell in the sincerity of his voice that he didn't get this opportunity to talk about his life to English speakers often. It felt like a full circle moment, whenever he needed help he would say a word in Spanish like "aprovechar" (seize) and I'd give him the word to continue. His story is one of many I will always remember from Colombia.
~~~
As I flossed my teeth and stared at my complexion in the mirror, it let out a sly chuckle.
It was one of the last days of the trip. I was in a hostel in Colombia, sharing a room with three dudes I had spent so many hours with in the past week. I was struck by a stomach disease that had me toilet-ridden and unable to drink alcohol. Yet another reggaeton song was blasting in the roof above, making it near impossible to sleep in silence. Above me, hundreds of residents and visitors alike of the city of Santa Marta were dancing their nights away.
I laid in bed, isolating the sweet white noise of my fan to keep me company from the noise. Up until this moment, I had done so much with amazing new friends. We had done a cacao ceremony, played ninja on the beach, gone on a crazy night safari, and jumped in countless rivers and lakes.
The next day, I was going to experience a wild boat party to an island, meant to be the conclusion of an adventure of a week, all thanks to my dear friends Gabi and Val. There would be screams of joy and adventure to end off the trip.
But this actually felt like the conclusion, being in bed unable to sleep and dying in the heat and my sickness. Relishing in being sick and my immune system putting up a fight against the recent chaos. Realizing that I'll have to switch universes again soon as I go back to Yale. Feeling the magic of everyone I had met, and vowing to myself to surround myself with it this semester.
“I’ll be back,” I muttered to myself. “I just know I will.”