Showdown at the Colombian Corral

April 30th, 2009: A few night nights ago I was not being very smart - yes, not very smart. If you had to grade my smartness, I would say I earned a, D (which would be a 1.0). Went out with about 12 individuals to a bar about 8 blocks away from the hostel. Four of us left around 1am and began walking back from the bar - breaking Bogota's golden rule of intelligence which is to take a cab after 11pm.

On our journey back to the hostel, we witnessed - front row - an all out bum fight going on amongst themselves. We had to take a detour to avoid the clubbing that was going on amongst the dozen or so dirty individuals. The street we turned on was much narrower than our intended course. The size of the dimly lit street was just large enough to fit a full sized American car with some over sized 22's. Buildings lined the street making our coarse seem as a if we were in a gigantic narrow rat maze. Since it was an unplanned route, we went a longer way due to being a bit...disorientated. Drugged out bums, who were feasting off the garbage, littered the street.

One of the filthy men, who looked as if he just finished robbing Santa in a chimney came running at us. My friend started screaming. He had one hand out and one had in his pocket. He kept coming forward - the distance between us was uncomfortably becoming smaller. I had my two inch trusty pocket knife that was cupped in my hand from as soon as we left the bar. In some way I was expecting a confrontation. I yelled, "NO - NO - NO." I am glad "no" means "no" in Spanish and in English (don't know much Spanish at the moment - especially with the brain is in hyper drive). It slowed down the bums run to an Olympic speed walker's pace. I lifted the knife into the air and continued to shout as he kept moving forward. He was about 12 feet - no...maybe 11 feet away and was quickly approaching one of the girls. I cut him off from my group, pointing the knife at him and continued to repeat the lovely word men love to hear..."NO". His coarse finally...changed.

An event that took perhaps only 10 seconds seemed to last for eternity. You have to love how the brain can slow down events to a manageable speed when it is needed.