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Do you remember that night when we crossed the border? How could you forget, you have better memory than me and tell things with that accent that makes everyone dream of being you. You do not forget because your feet burst with blisters and I did not know whether to laugh or carry you on my shoulders. You were wearing the new shoes you had bought in Guayaquil, and yet the road destroyed your feet.
But we had no choice, right? Because we didn’t have any money to travel in better conditions. So we grabbed the backpacks, the guitars and headed out of Otavalo towards Colombia. Colombia sounded like dead, missing people, narcotics and guerrillas. "I hope we are not abducted," you were saying. "I hope the customs don’t stop us", I thought. Dreamers. We were so afraid of a country that turned out to be the celebration of life every day and became our home for a long time.
We spent the longest of our lives crossing the border. The distance from Otavalo to Tulcán was covered by rides from cars on the road, or by bottle, as they say in your country, but then we had no luck and had to continue on foot. There are 10 kilometres uphill from Tulcan to Ipiales, and for each kilometre we walked the next one seemed to grow even longer. The weight of our backpacks, tools, the hunger, the fatigue and the accumulated tiredness, and the long nights took its toll on us, and we walked silently under the drizzling rain coming from an unforgettable sky with its Ecuadorian cold biting our ears and noses.
We were accompanied by Nico, an Argentinian who made the same journey (over the mountains?) with flip flops and burst out laughing whenever he could. He was our guide and the one that dragged us all night until we saw the border, almost at dawn.
Rumichaca: "I go and seal, but you pass without saying anything or looking at anyone." That was how the three musketeers passed through the border, but we felt like more than Musketeers; we were survivors of the Andes, stepping on Colombian soil.
Then we sang and that was how we got food and money to continue the journey. From Ipiales we continued to Pasto without any hardships. There Juan Carlos and Paola greeted us at their home and we slept in the living room as dormice, in a tent that was something like the Sheraton.
And then the bus to Cali! So much anger, fear and shame felt for you! So much outrage! To avoid requisitioning, you went into the bathroom just as the policemen got into the bus. But, they saw you and escorted you out of the bus screaming. After getting off the bus they discovered who you were: the stowaway of life, Arthur Gordon Pym of the Caribbean, who had left his box to see what would happen in the bow of life. But they did not find papers or money either on you or me. Poor them and poor us! What a laugh! "Get on the bus, boys, and have a safe journey." It seems that musicians also have little angels, just like drunkards.