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My Journey to Colombia from New York: Part Four


‘Would you like to stop for a coffee?’ asked Gustavo waving his arm enthusiastically at roadside stores.


Lucas and I looked at each other with harried expressions. ‘Er no, I think we’d better keep going to get the suits organised,’ replied Lucas.


We wound our way downhill. The surfaces of the roads were excellent and were not bumpy at all, but the curves and intersections seemed countless, which slowed our progress towards the city below us.


‘There’s a faster road down, but it’s very steep and the surface would be damp after the rain. It’s better to be safe than sorry,’ said Gustavo.


After the earlier overtaking manoeuvre, I was happy to agree. Anything that limited Auntie’s ability to travel at increased speed sounded like a good idea. I looked out again at the striking city below me. ‘Does the city ever have flooding problems? Because it’s in the deep valley?’ I asked.


‘No, there’s no problem with flooding. Except perhaps in the very poor areas, where there are shanty towns,’ replied Gustavo.


About one hour after I’d landed, we arrived at a modern multi-storey shopping centre on the lower slopes of the city. We took an elevator up two floors and stepped out. A lot of the shop spaces seemed to be empty, with only a gym and a tailor open. ‘They keep constructing new shopping centres in every new building. The economy isn’t strong enough to fill all the space,’ said Gustavo.


The head tailor looked like she was in her late 20’s or early 30’s. She had slim features with brown hair and bright light-brown eyes. ‘I know you sent your measurements over from Australia, but they insisted that they needed to measure you here,’ said Lucas.


‘That’s OK – no problem,’ I replied. I stood quietly, quite enjoying her studying me with concentration while she whisked a tape measure across my body. She grabbed a trial jacket and helped get it onto my shoulders. ‘Él es tan alto que apenas puede alcanzar hasta poner la chaqueta!’ she said.


‘What did she say?’ I asked.


‘She said you’re so tall that she can barely reach to get the jacket on. She will have to make some alterations while we wait. Shall we go and get a coffee?’ said Gustavo.


The nearby gym had a cafe attached to it. I ordered a banana milkshake while Gustavo and Lucas ordered coffees. Auntie disappeared somewhere, while we sipped our drinks. Actually, I gulped mine down because I hadn’t had anything since my wait at the boarding gate in Bogota. ‘How amazing is it that a tailor would stay back after 5PM to alter a wedding suit on the day of the wedding. What tailor in Australia would do that?’ I thought to myself.


We returned to the tailor and paid for everything after trying it all on. By about 6:15PM, we were standing at the locked car, waiting for Auntie. ‘Where has she gone?’ I asked Gustavo, with the suit hanging in its plastic bag hotly over my shoulder.


‘Well, she was going to the restroom. Perhaps I should go and look for her,’ he said. He and I climbed into the elevator and pressed the button. As the doors closer, we noticed Auntie coming down the escalator. ‘There she is!’


By 6:30PM we were on the road. We have 90 minutes until the wedding started. We drove along a six lane road through the city, beside the river. Then we were on a different four lane road. Then we were on an interchange to get on a freeway. Then we got caught up in traffic on suburban roads, with countless winding roads and red traffic lights. At 6:45PM, at a red traffic light in the middle of a busy commercial district, Gustavo got out saying, ‘I need to go now – I have some things to do in town. Don’t worry Lucas, I’m sure you’ll get to the wedding on time. I'm sure it will all go fine,’ he said, shutting the door as the lights turned green. He disappeared into the crowds on the street as we raced away up a hill.


I clenched my jaw shut tightly and ground my teeth. We were in a car with Auntie, who could only speak Spanish. Lucas and I could only speak English, apart from saying polite hellos, goodbyes and being able to exclaim how good something was. At 6:50PM, we arrived at an apartment building after a long uphill run past other similar buildings. I breathed a sigh of relief until Lucas spoke.


‘Ah, this is the wrong place – this is Angela’s Mum’s place. We have to go back down the hill to another building. I had to come here to figure out where I was,’ said Lucas. ‘Uh, no no, wrong apartmento,’ said Lucas. ‘Damn, I can’t think of the word for “left”’.


He proceeded to wave his arms, shouting ‘Si and No’ alternatively as we made our way back down the hill towards the river. The beads of sweat on Auntie’s forehead grew as we looped around on ourselves a few times, narrowly missing several crazed motorcycle riders as we made our way back through a busy commercial district that looked exactly the same as the one we’d left Gustavo at. ‘Si, Si. Uh No, No!’ exclaimed Lucas as we turned left and retraced our steps over the river. I clenched my door handle tightly and closed my eyes. Auntie steered back around to the same intersection, and Lucas pointed straight ahead. Auntie followed straight through the intersection. ‘Si, Si!’ encouraged Lucas. A little further on, he waved to the left. Auntie obligingly steered over another bridge into a small street that ended with a tall terracotta coloured apartment building, protected by a large metal gate and a guardhouse. It was now 7:10PM.


Auntie addressed the guard through a speaker, telling him we are staying in Apartment number 603. He dialled a phone, presumably calling someone in the apartment to check that we were legitimate.


‘No,’ he says. I found it interesting that the word sounded the same in Spanish, but then I reacted.


‘He’s got to be kidding hasn’t he?’ I asked Lucas, while Auntie and the guard exchanged volleys of conversational Spanish at ever-increasing volumes. Behind us, another car rolled up, with its headlights boring through the back windscreen at me. The guard opened the gate, apparently to let us park just inside to let the other car past. It seemed we weren’t permitted to go any further.


‘Mum and Dad should be up there, but they won’t answer because they won’t answer because they don’t speak Spanish,’ said Lucas. This only frustrated me further. Here I was, at 7:15 at night, sweating from the suit and backpack sitting on my knees, in the back of a tiny little car after travelling since 4:30AM. I still had to get dressed for the wedding and I had no idea how long it take to get to the church, but every journey so far in Medellin had taken almost an hour. I couldn’t see how we were going to make it.


‘Why can’t we just walk up to the elevator and go up? It’s just over there. Stuff the guard,’ I said.


‘There could be a lot of trouble if we did that. He’s got a gun you know,’ said Lucas.


‘Well what the heck are we going to do? You’ve tried to call Angela and the phone won’t work. Arrggh!’


I looked up at the balconies of the building and noticed a door open. Suddenly, Lucas’ Mum steps out.


‘Brenda – we’re down here! Answer the phone so the guard will let us in,’ I called.


It was 7:25PM by the time we got into the building. The guard could not understand Brenda on the phone, because he spoke Spanish. It turned out that Auntie managed to get on the phone to Angela, and Angela had called another person in the building, who was a friend of the owners of Apartment 603. The owners of Apartment 603 were away in Australia, so this friend rang the guard and told him it was OK to let us in. Did you follow all that? If you didn’t, that’s OK – because I didn’t either. The main thing was we were allowed into the apartment we were staying in. Auntie said, ‘Bye’ and drove off, worn out and probably immeasurably relieved that her part in the night’s proceedings was over.


‘Just a simple white shirt and tie with the suit trousers tonight,’ said Lucas. I grabbed the stuff and started to get changed in the bedroom assigned to me. It was obviously usually a study, but there was a partly inflated air bed on the floor. The apartment was very modern by the way, and equal or better than any other I’d seen in Australia.


‘Aren’t you going to have a shower,’ asked Lucas’ Dad (Bob) who was already dressed in a suit. ‘You’ve been travelling since 4:30 haven’t you?’


‘Surely I don’t have enough time?’ I said.


‘Well Lucas is having a shower in the ensuite, so you’ve got time to have one in the main bathroom. Go on, it’ll make you feel more awake.’


It was 7:45PM by the time Angela’s older sister, Nina, picked us up. ‘Hello, how are you! You have come a long way today. Welcome to Medellin.’


We headed off along more winding suburban roads. I felt a wave of guilt – I’d already caused the cancellation and then delay of the wedding, and it looked like we were going to be late again. It seemed impossible that anywhere in Medellin was only 15 minutes away...


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