Colombia's birthday song wishes people to keep celebrating life until the year 3,000

Last week’s milestone: I attempted to ascend Alto de Letras, a cult climb amongst Colombian cyclists. It reminded me a bit of my tumour battle. The Alto is long. At ~80km, no wonder some Colombian pros complain European challenges like Alpe d’Huez (~13km) are just too short for them (not my brother and I; the Alpe almost 'killed' us last year!). The Alto is deceptive. Its average gradient is a gentle 4%. The problem: the short descents offer fleeting respite but imply the actual climbing takes place at a more gruelling 8%. The Alto is volatile and unpredictable. You start close to sea level in the sizzling tropics, weave through cool clouds, and mash your pedals to a chilly, windy, oxygen-deprived 3,692m summit—turbulence akin to the wounds inflicted by the war between tumour and immune system and the collateral damage caused by treatments. The Alto demands stubborn focus. It zig-zags dozens (hundreds?) of times on a tight road shared with mules and tractomulas. The kind of focus that my nutritionist demands although I’m not sure Letras falls under the category of ‘gentle exercise’. I woke up a little uncertain as to how the day would go.

As with the tumour battle, I made the climb look ugly (I experienced a few headaches during all the travel, but I’m still feeling great. I’m due a scan later in May and will let you know how it goes) but—and I pray the same goes for the tumour—I conquered it. It was a team effort in which everyone reading this played a role, but I want to thank and wish a happy birthday to one man in particular, who, even if you haven’t heard his name, you know better than you know: Julián Papá. We ‘lost’ him a few years ago but he’s still here with us and in us. It’s in part his wisdom when my brother repeats the old cycling adage: 'ride up grades, not upgrades'. His strength was passed on by the team domestique (again, my brother) and generosity by the team soigneurs (my parents and wife). The alegría with which I watched the final stage of the 1987 ('85? '86?) Tour de France with him early in the morning in Chía (actually I wanted to catch Airwolf) lifted me meter after meter.

Why do you know him better than you know? Again, a bit of Taleb:

If you know a set of basic parameters concerning [a billiard] ball at rest, can compute the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. 

... But to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single elementary particle in the universe needs to be present in your assumptions! An electron at the edge of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome.

Over time we will all die and be forgotten. But we won’t really be forgotten: whether we like it or not, we will always have been here and will have exerted ‘a meaningful effect on the outcome’ of humanity, earth, the entire universe. Until the year 3,000… and beyond! And this is just on a simple, physical basis—never mind the social and spiritual. Maybe you didn’t know you know Julián. But by you knowing me, you know him pretty well, and I’m pretty sure for the best. 

… Que los cumpla feliz,
que los vuelva a cumplir,
que los cumpla bastante,
Hasta el año 3,000!

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