Along your travels you will meet a lot of different people. Some people will pass through like petals in the wind, some will take root and others will make you wonder if they should just jump out of the gene pool. Like stones, we all tumble through this river of muck. Some of us roll through the silt and come to rest on a peaceful river bank. Along the way rough spots, and sharp edges are smoothed. Some rocks sit on the banks for years, points more pronounced, but smoothed none the less by the elements. There are other rocks which over time seem to multiply their sharp edges exponentially, and become as course as a wire brush. I call these, “Mars Rocks”. If you run into a “Mars Rock” along your travels I hope for your sake you are not stuck in a taxi with them for 45minutes.
On our most recent trip to Medellin our flight was delayed due to mechanical issues, and we arrived much later in the evening than expected. Our original plan was to take the bus from the airport, but at that hour buses were no longer running. Our next option was to find the cheapest taxi ride. One taxi driver offered to take us for $15,000 pesos less than everyone else, if we didn’t mind sharing the ride with another passenger. We took him up on the offer, happy to save the money, and thought that maybe we would make a new friend in the process.
We didn’t know it at the time, but we saw our carpool partner even before he got in the taxi. He was making a scene yelling at all the taxi drivers. They all refused take him anywhere, all except our taxi driver. When this “Mars Rock” stuck his head in the car door and opened his mouth we were appalled. After being told the price for the ride he proceeded to tell the driver that “I’m no F’ing N-word, don’t you F me like some F’ing N-word. I hate when you N-words try and F me over”. The first thought that came to my head was “maybe I can pretend I don’t speak english”. Sadly, I can’t act. He then turned to us and said, “I’m Jamaican, I can say N-word”. Did I mention, he was white as the Jamaican sands?
This guy barely took a breath during our 45 minute ride. He talked about everything from Sacred Geometry, to how he used to run cigars, and Stone Crab Claws from Cuba to Jamaica. He was somehow able to infer, with sacred geometry, that our driver was satan.
He also told us how he was Hugh Hefner in Cuba for $5 a day, and in the same breath, how he was such a good guy because he was in Medellin to help orphans. Instead of engaging with the crazy person, I decided it would probably be best to just keep my responses to a series of nods and grunts. When we got closer to the city, he told the driver it was too late to go to a hotel. Instead, he had us take a detour down crack head alley where he was dropped off at a brothel. The madam called him by name, and received him with open arms.
I don’t want a world full of smooth flat rocks. I like the points and edges, they make us unique. There will always be times that we could all use a little polishing, but maybe some rocks were never meant to leave Mars.