My holiday companion of 22 years ago hadnt changed a bit and I recognised him immediately at the airport in Geneva. A little greyer around the edges may be but still the same man I travelled with through three wild and crazy countries by upteen number of buses all those years ago.
I soon discovered that Oswaldo married a lovely lady called Valentina not long after I left Caracus and now has a delightful family with Ana Cecilia aged 22 and Sebastián aged 16. They have a lovely apartment in Geneva and by all accounts a wonderful life in this wonderfully cosmopolitian city.
Unsurprisingly we were soon asking questions of what the other remembered about our epic journey and it was fascinating to discover what we did and didnt recollect between us. I had no recollection at all of winning a pile of Bolivars at my first attempt at the roulette wheel in a southern Columbian town one evening and upsetting the locals by insisting that we leave right there and then as we were ahead. But it sounds plausible because thats what I do today. Ive always had a lot of luck at the routelle table and the numbers he mentioned (24 and 34) are those I normally go for.
He had no recollection of the time we went in search of soup from a local peasant woman doing her best to make a few Bolivars from the bus that stopped in her village once a day. Just as he assured me that it was vegetarian a chickens foot floated to the surface of the soup. Poor Oswaldo struggled to find me anything veggie to eat amongst a continent of carnivores. When he asked for how long I had been a vegetarian I think he expected me to reply all my life. When I told him “dos semanas” he near through a wobbler. But I knew then that it would be for the rest of my life and so far it has been.
He didnt remember the guy from Israel who joined us for the last two days of the trip and my attempts to keep them from arguing for they didnt get on at all. Its funny how Oswaldo seems to have just airbrushed him out of his memory even though he remembers some of the adventures the three of us had together.
We both remembered arriving to a hostel in Bogata and Oswaldo calling a number he had been given of a man who gave tours of the city. Its only now after we revisted that memory that I understand fully what actually happened. Apparently Oswaldo called the man but he explained that he had had an accident and was in plaster and unable to work as a tour guide. When he asked Oswaldo where we were staying he advised us to get out immedately as we were in the most dangerous part of Bogata in a hotel notorious for incidents with its guests. I do recall a conversation which consisted of little more than muy peligroso hombre vamos.
We both remembered the amazing single bus journey from Cucata in northern Columbia to Bogata in the middle of the country some 24 hours with the same driver at the wheel around and across some of the most dangerous and high mountain passes youre ever likely to see. We recalled how at the bus station the ticket lady gave us two plastic socks in which to hide the majority of our money. Bandits apparently had hit the last two buses over the moutain passes and this was our best chance of arriving with enough money to get back again.
We finished the day yesterday with a lovely walk along one edge of Lake Geneva. Geneva is such a beautiful city and I struggle now to work out how it is that I lived here for three months and remember only how miserable I was. Or may be I dont, for I was a student and broke at the time relying on a pot of marmite to keep me alive. That I do remember and clearly...
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