Watermelon Poison: drinking fire water in Bogota

“Keep your limbs away from your body, when you’re holding those.” Vic advised. 

I flung the small mountaineering bag off my lap and onto the floor. “Is that a fuse?!” I asked, scrambling up.

“No. no no. ‘Cmon, Isy, this neighborhood withstood four car bombs and three decades of cartel activity. I wouldn’t imperil its good fortune now.” 

I nudged the bag gingerly towards the balcony door with my shoe and looked back skeptically at the reformed conspiracy theorist. “Open it”. He nodded enthusiastically. 

I slowly pulled out the contents.

“A bag of disguises.” Vic smiled.

“Screw disguises, nobody here will mess with you while I’m around.” Captain Dick Neverman burst into my life half-drunk and with a voice sounding like he was swishing marbles. While continuing to bark over his shoulder I realized he was actually speaking Spanish and that there was a hotel staffer following him timidly and struggling with his luggage.

“I’m a man who knows how to get things,” he said with conviction. Returning his gaze to me and his language to english.

“Oh, hey, Izz.” Vic said while inspecting the rooms wall joints and casually tossing a half filled water bottle onto my bed.

“While you’re drinking that,” he pointed to the water bottle without looking at it, “I’d like to introduce you to my uncle, Captain Dick, I think I mentioned he will be joining us for the expedition?” 

I must have missed the email. Sure enough — there standing at the edge of my bed, was one enormous Captain Dick, grinning ferociously. Vic clapped him on the shoulder as he continued. “I dunno,” Vic shrugged, breaking into a matching smile that gave away their shared ancestry. “Consider him, a kind of Incontinent Sherpa.” Dick burped, not unhappy with the description, and Vic looked back and forth between us as he pondered the term. He shifted to a smile. “Well, I haven’t quite figured out the correct way to describe his role on our voyage yet, but he knows the local scene here. Hell we might even run into one of his bastard kids playing soccer on the wrong side of Bogota’s tracks!” At this they looked at each other and simultaneously threw their heads back like oversized howler monkeys in shared laughter.

“I’m both incontinent and I’ve lived IN this continent!” the Captain added, causing his belly to shake.

Vic ruffled through a 70 pound bag he’d tossed on the ground and then rejoined the two individuals standing by my bed.

“So the way I see it, ol’ Ishmael,” Vic said, as he slapped an incorrect amount of half American half Colombian change into the bell hops hand and waved him off. “It shouldn’t but take us a week to get what we need here, accomplish our mission, and we’ll be safely back in our cubicles stateside.”

While he explained our itinerary I emptied the belongings from the bag of disguises Vic had passed me, all I could see was a pair of tinted sunglasses, some Vaseline and a mariners cap. The fuse was actually a tap measures hook.

Vic rubbed his tummy and looked at the Bogota skyline through the open balcony doors before turning abruptly and pacing quickly toward me. Dick vaulted up the stairs to the loft. Neither man had stopped moving since they arrived.

 “Are you going to drink that or what? We haven’t much time.” 

I picked up the water bottle and inspected it. Vic leaned in and whispered. “It’s Aguardiente.” The words came out like he was blowing a smoke ring and his eyes bulged with excitement. “It’s the local stuff. Try it.” I hesitated awhile longer, peering at the suspiciously too-clear fluid and then took a sip.

“ughhh it’s awful!” I wheezed, speaking with my throat, barely able to form vowels.

“Good stuff eh?” Vic smiled. “We’ve been drinking it all flight.”

“All flight?” I winced, trying again to swallow and not wanting Dick to sense weakness.

“Sure, see, the Captain here had this ingenious idea to shave a few pesos from our in-flight drinking tab. Really transformed our final leg into a first class affair.” Vic nodded his respect in the Captains former direction. Dick was now up above glowering down from the loft with a full faced smile and dark eyes.

“How’d you get it out of Duty Free?” I asked, deciding against disrupting their momentum by mentioning that their breath smelled like dried pavement after a diesel spill.

Vic pointed at him and continued, “Have to hand it to him, for an out of shape bald guy, Dicks got game. He sweet-talked the store clerk to let us keep it on us, then he took our water bottles into a stall at our connection in Panama City and filled them up with Aguardiente. Voila!”

“Or? Hey what’s the Spanish equivalent to ‘voila‘, Captain?”

“Demonios si!

Vic frowned. “No comprendo.”

Means “hell yeah.”

“See? No need for google translate with this guy around.”

I knew that Vic Neverman expeditions were renowned for being fierce affairs filled with half baked academic jargon and kamikaze after hour expeditions. But I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for this. The country had allowed not one, but TWO Nevermen in. What could be expected of their chaperone? My face flushed from the spirit and the thought.

Vic grabbed a fresh bottle of Auguardiente and two beers from a six pack and shoved them down his pants. “Okay, I’ve got provisions for transit.”

“I’ll go hail us a cab” The Captain offered nearing the hallway. “You guys will love the street art here. I hear you’re a writer, Isy? And all the dogs have giant pointy spiked muzzles. It’s kind of terrifying.”

He moved fast for a big man. I had to grant these guys one thing, they were men of action.

For the first time I became concerned about my own safety. What exactly had I signed up for? How many other messages had I missed?

Three individuals entered the Falcons Nest Hotel in Bogota that evening. When we prepared for our return flight home in Cartagena, only two would still be standing.

To hear what happens next see, “Blood, Wine & The Body Snatchers of Cartegena”

(For useful advice gleaned from locals on this trip, See “The Papaya Principle, Surviving Medellin, ‘Safest City in the World'” )

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What: Aguardiente (translates as: “fire water”. Made from four ingredients, alcohol, sugar, anise and water)
Where: National Drink of Colombia
How to drink: Locals usually drink it neat.
How do you open the bottle: Hit the bottom of the bottle hard a couple time when holding upside down.
Myth propagated by the Church to limit consumption & coitus: Aguardiente mixed with watermelon is poisonous.
ABV: 29%
Aroma: 0
Taste: 1
Finish:0
Value: 8
Availability: 10* (*Every Colombian state makes its own brand and has its own monopoly on production and distribution. Bringing a different brand into a different state can be confiscated as contraband.)