Day 4 - February 9th

Day 4 - February 9th
Drank all day
Haircuts
Melle's last night in Cbba [Cochabamba]
Saved by Mélanie
Kicked out of pimienta for climbing in toilets

        Jan from The Netherlands is one of those people who I still think about, even though we knew each other for a total of about two months, six years ago, and I'm fairly certain we'll never see each other again. Even online our chat is fleeting, but fuck he was fantastic.
        That same weekend when I latched onto Mélanie's hand in the back of the minibus, our whole volunteer crew went rafting in a 10-man inflatable boat thingo (raft) on some Bolivian river somewhere (Bolivia). The water was fairly calm but we all sucked at rafting so enough people fell overboard to make it fun. The entire time, as the nine of us plus our Bolivian tour guide paddled against the currents, Jan and I sang the barbershop classic 'Mr Sandman' at the top of our lungs:

        Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum!
        Oh Mr Sandmaaannnn...... Bring me a dream (bum-bum-bum-bum!)
        Make him the sweetest that I've ever seen (bum-bum-bum-bum!)
        Give him two lips, like roses and clover
        And tell him that his lonesome NIGHTS ARE OVER
        Mr Sandman...... I'm so alone (bum-bum-bum-bum!)
        I have nobodyyyyy to call my own
        So please turn on your magic beeeeaaaaaammm
        OH MR SANDMAN BRING ME A DREAM!

        Everyone else hated it so much hahahaha. We loved it, and how could you not? It's a classic. ALL TIME!!

        Jan and I spent a lot of time together when I first got to Cochabamba, we used to go down to a particular bar whose name I can't remember, drink beer, eat nachos, and play Chess. One time our cocaine dealer Andres asked for a game, and once we were done sniggering to each other he romped the both of us twice each in record time, before retiring because he said chess made his head hurt. That was the scariest part, it was like his brain wasn't part of him, like it was a motor that switched on in the presence of a chess board. The guy was fucking Rain Man.
        We'd been buying coke off him for a month, rolling our eyes when he told us that he made a living as a “tennis instructor”, but when I think about I now, he had positioned himself as the go-to drug dealer for every new volunteer that arrived in Cochabamba through the agency we were with. He'd identified a constant stream of 20-year-old, first-world uni students looking to party, and cornered the market. In a country gripped with poverty the guy was a straight up genius and I sincerely hope he charged us double.

        On Feb 9th Jan and I were sitting at the bar, drinking just after lunch time with no plan, when Jan piped up excitedly declaring, “Taco, we are going to go to the hairdresser and ask for The Local Cut!”
        A picture appeared in my head of myself with a cartoonish purple streak through my dark brown hair and I thought it looked pretty sweet, so we went in to the hairdresser and I tried to explain it to them in Spanish. I had this idea in my head that they would have to bleach it first and then dye the bleached part purple afterwards, and I tried to explain that to them, but the combination of my limited Spanish and non-existent knowledge of hairdressing only led to confusion. I decided to leave it after the bleach was done because it was taking a long time, and the image in my head had started to fade anyway.

        Mélanie was furious with my bright orange fringe, and I loved the attention. That night we went with a big crew to La Pimienta, which was our favourite nightclub in the city. I needed to go to the toilet real bad at one point, so I climbed over the door to a toilet stall which for some reason was locked with no one inside. The bouncers came in and banged on the door, and I drunkenly told them to fuck off. They kicked me out, but Mélanie rescued me by pleading our case with them in her superior Spanish, saying that this was our last night out in the city with everyone and we just wanted to enjoy it. I kept my mouth shut like a good idiot and we went back inside.

Click here to read the next part - Day 5 - February 11th