Smoke on the Water

There´s not a great deal to do in Bogota - much like most every other big city. It's so baron that five of us have been persuaded to take an hour long tour of the Police Museum. It's a museum that promises and delivers few, if any exciting revelations. A fellow tourist tells us, there's a military museum nearby that's also good, "but not as good as this."

As always, plan B is to drink lots of beers. That usually bulletproof plan is somewhat undermined by a beer supply that seems to use urine as a base ingredient, but I guess I'm going to try to stomach it

My friend, Chris the Canadian, tells me that the Columbian's drink of choice isn't beer at all. It's an anise-flavoured spirit, called Aquardientes - which roughly translates to fiery water. He tells me that what the kids here do, is hit a bar, where they'll put a carton of the stuff on the table and leisurely take it in shot-form over the course of the evening. Once they're all hopped up, it's time to hit the discotheque. And that's what we'll do, he says. When in Rome, he says.

I have a bad feeling about this. My first clue is the anise flavour. Yuck. My second clue is that it comes in a carton. Nonetheless, the slightest peer pressure from two Germans and a Canadian folds me like a napkin. I was right. I hate it. It's essentially Sambuca, less the syrupy-consistency and only half ABV strength.

My Germans friends don't seem to relate to the traditional drinking pace of the Columbians. Rather than casual shot, say, every five or ten minutes, the boys are more keen on a Germanic forty-five-second cycle. I'm not afraid of the alcoholic content of the drink, but it's familiar scent and taste repeatidily and vividly remind me of wet vomit. But, I can't very well show weakness in front of the Germans, so Chris and I take the pain whilst I try to explain to Germans that they disgust me.