The Roofs of San Fernando

On Saturday night, at about 7pm, I went downstairs to hang my laundry out to dry. As I pulled the wet clothes from the washer into the basket, Cali's celebrated evening breezes unceremoniously blew the back door to the house shut with a crash of finality.

"No."
"Way," I said out loud to myself, staring at the locked door.

I was the only one home. All six members of the family that live in and own the house (most of whom tend to be at home around 90% of the time) had just left to celebrate Biviana's birthday across town.

After a brief pause of disbelief, I carried on hanging my clothes up to dry and tried in vain to think of a way into the house. This is Colombia, so there are bars on all the windows making it impossible to enter that way. I absurdly considered trying to pick the lock with some wire hanging by the door. I kept my mental fingers crossed that my dear friend and housemate Corinna would miraculously come home from vacation a day early or Clara, who I tend to see about once a week because she has such a busy nursing schedule, might turn up. No such luck, and I didn't have any other ideas.

When the clothes were hung, I walked out into the dark yard to contemplate my predicament. I turned around, looked up at the house, and saw the light from my room illuminating the Tibetan prayer flags dangling in the open window. I gasped and thought, "I bet my house key is sitting right there on the desk inside my window."

My eyes scanned from the window, down along the first floor tile roof, to a place a few feet above the corrugated awning over the laundry drying area, and landed on a limb-y little tree that appeared to be suitable for climbing.

I had a plan.

Despite having given up rock climbing in favor of salsa dancing over a year ago, I still know how to stem and mantle and test holds and use tiny nobs for feet and such things, so I managed to hoist myself up through the tree without (much) fear. Once on top of the corrugated awning, I discovered that the tiles on the roof of the house were not fixed, so I crawled over them gingerly on all fours, breaking at least 1 or 2 on the way to my window where - Yes! - my key rested in easy reach on my desk.

The moment I grabbed the key, it suddenly occurred to me that a key for entering through the front door might not be particularly helpful for opening the back door. This realization stunned me for a moment, but all I could do was climb back down and find out. I tucked the key into my bra and headed for the ground.

Upon reaching the corrugated awning, I scrambled delicately across it to the brick wall that borders the property to see if there might be an easy way for me to reach the front of the house along the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. There wasn't, so I returned, and shimmied down the tree.

When I tried the key in the back door, I couldn't even get it in at first. Then, it suddenly slid home… but  it wouldn't turn. Darn!

Ok. Execute Self-Rescue Plan Part 2.

Reconnisance had already shown me that climbing forward on the wall would be difficult and probably not very fruitful. I needed to find my escape toward the back, where the top of the 10 foot wall surrounding the yard was flatter, and I wouldn't have to climb over more tile roofs. I wanted to get onto the wall via the little storage shelter built in the back corner of the yard, but this time there was no convenient tree that I could use. Instead, I found a heavy, ancient, metal exercise bike discarded long ago in this forgotten corner of the yard. I dragged it over to the bamboo post that would need to support my weight and went up with one foot on the seat, the other on the handlebars.

As I paused in the darkness to consider whether or not this semi-stable structure would hold my weight, the risk of getting injured, and the potential consequences of trespassing in the Colombian night across the roofs of unknown strangers, big white fireworks started to go off in the distance. I smiled and took it as an affirmation to carry on, so with a little hop, I landed my torso on top of the plastic roof.

Immediately, I realized there was no going back. My dangling legs could no longer reach the stationary bike, and the position I was in prevented me from being able to see below to find my way back down. I was committed to going up or nowhere. With the plastic roof popping and cracking underneath me, I pulled myself on top of it, somehow avoiding the protruding wires and nails all around me, and made it to the wall with flesh and spirit intact.

I walked carefully and occasionally crawled on all fours along the walls and edges of rooftops, passing by a few patios and open windows, hearing voices coming from several buildings, and wondering if I should call for help. I made my way out to the edge of the entire building cluster and realized I was about three stories up, now. I sat for a few minutes watching all the Saturday night activity going on in the park below before I decided to return and call down for help into a patio I had passed earlier.

"Alo? Alguien puede ayudarme?"

I was looking down into a small patio with nice tiles and landscaping, connected to a recently renovated building. The people inside heard me, and after a few moments a man in his 30s with longish wavy hair and a button down shirt came out and looked up.

I explained my situation to this person, who I determined right away to be a relaxed, kind soul. He immediately began to give me a gentle lecture about how risky it was for me to go crawling around on the rooftops of Cali at night and demonstrated the seriousness of it all by showing me that he had grabbed his handgun before coming out to see who was yelling from the roof. The lecture continued intermittently as he and his friend figured out how to get me down.

They brought out a ladder, and nice man number two climbed up onto the sturdy roof of a storage area in the patio below. Wavy hair passed the ladder up to him. He brought it over to my wall and climbed up to meet me. Standing on the very top step of the ladder he told me to put my arms around his neck. That did not seem like the world's greatest idea, so after a little negotiation, I got him to step down and just help me to get my feet onto the ladder.

I was back on solid ground pretty quickly, listening giddily to the rest of wavy hair's lecture about how the police run the building between my house and their office, and how most people have guns in their homes, and if you're on someone else's property they have the right to shoot you, and how I was lucky they were in the office because it's rare for them at such a late hour on a Saturday, etc. I nodded and did my best to look contrite while inside I was glowing with the glee of escape!

They let me out their front door, and I walked home to my front door, key in hand, savoring the secret of the adventure as I passed through the Saturday night streets.