Lost in Translation

© Reannon Muth / RumBum.com

Even after five days in Colombia, I had to admit that as much as my Spanish conversation skills had improved, they were still limited to the point that carrying on a conversation in sign language, baby talk or even dog would have had a better success rate than the Taco Bell-inspired gibberish I’d been trying to pass off as Spanish. “Where the hell are we?” was the only phrase at which I’d become truly proficient; a phrase that given our current situation, seemed particularly fitting.

Chiquinquiera looked as though it’d been a few years since it’d seen a can of paint. Or, for that matter, a tourist.

Because evidentially, improved or not, my Spanish was no match for the Colombian transportation system. A simple four-hour bus ride to a Spanish colonial town had turned into something a hell of a lot more complicated. Once again, my friend Kim and I had gotten on the wrong bus, effectively stranding ourselves in a bus station in the countryside. The right bus, on the other hand, wasn’t due to arrive to the bus terminal until one in the afternoon. It was now only 10:30.

Given that our only alternative involved sitting in the terminal with nothing to look at but a stray dog, several chain-smoking bus drivers and an altar of the Virgin Mary, we decided that so long as we were stuck there, we might as well see what sights the town of Chiquinquiera had to offer. But as we discovered in the minutes after leaving the station, the answer was nada. Chiquinquiera appeared to have only one street – an unpaved, dusty road that dead-ended into a hillside. And it looked as though it’d been a few years since it’d seen a can of paint or, for that matter, a tourist. People openly stared as I dragged my roller bag through puddles and potholes and down the crumbling sidewalk. A few even stopped walking in order to watch as Kim and I filed nervously past. 

We had good reason to be apprehensive. Just a couple of days prior, I’d been pick-pocketed while riding in a crowded streetcar. Fortunately, the items the thief had swiped were of little value: a camera case and a few souvenir earrings. But now, because we’d planned on spending the night in the colonial village of Villa de Leyva, in addition to our luggage, we were carrying credit cards, passports and a money-belt full of Colombian pesos. If we were robbed again, we wouldn’t just be stranded in a bus station; we’d be stranded in a South American country.

© Reannon Muth / RumBum.comThus, though we weren’t very hungry, we decided to forgo any further exploration and escape into the nearest restaurant instead. With white walls, white-tiled floor and raw meat hanging in glass display cases, the low-ceilinged room looked more like a butcher shop than a restaurant and for all we knew, it was. The woman behind the counter gestured for us to sit down at a plastic table in the corner.

 “Uno pollo,” Kim pronounced as the woman took our order a few minutes later. Kim pointed at a picture of a piece of fried chicken taped to the restaurant’s window.

“Uno pollo?” the woman echoed. She stared at Kim, looking dubious.

“Si, uno pollo,” Kim smiled brightly. “Por favor.” 

The reason behind the woman’s odd look became clear when, 10 minutes later, she brought out a plate piled with enough chicken to feed a pool of piranhas.  Apparently, by ordering ‘uno pollo’ (‘one chicken’), Kim hadn’t ordered a single chicken wing or breast but an entire chicken.

After choking down as much pollo and banana-leaf wrapped pork as we could stomach, we hurried back to the station where we were in for yet another surprise.

The ticket agent, the very same ticket agent who’d assured us that our bus wouldn’t be leaving until one, pointed at the clock and informed us that there was “no bus,” though what exactly had happened to it was unclear. Perhaps it had broken down or been hijacked or been run off the road by a herd of stampeding billy goats. Or perhaps it had never even existed. Whatever the reason, it was clear that our one o’clock bus was now leaving at three and our planned tour of an old colonial town was fast turning into an unplanned tour of an old bus station.

It was during the next few hours, whereby I tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to demand a refund on our bus tickets that I decided that if and when I ever returned to back to the U.S., I would enroll in a Spanish language course.

As interesting as being lost in translation was at times, being lost in Colombia was anything but.  I vowed that the next time I said "hello" to a big adventure in a Spanish-speaking country, it’d be with a big, confident "hola!"