60 | Gaycation Magazine www.gaycationmagazine.com

Out n AboutBy Tom Stockwell

Blue Eyes in Bogota

Gaycation Magazine | 61www.gaycationmagazine.com

Back home in the UK, I don’t stand out much. My hair is light brown, now streaked with white. My eyes are blue. I’m a little bit shorter than average, and prefer a hearty meal to a sweaty session at the gym. In short, I don’t turn heads, unless a fair bit of alcohol has been imbibed by whoever is craning their neck at me. When I was living in South Korea, I experienced the complete opposite - constant stares, curious mumbles, and the seat next to me on the bus was always empty while others stood, something that evoked an odd combination of offense and relief in me. However when I went to Colombia last year, spending a month in the South American nation, I discovered one thing: the locals love the exotic, and what’s exotic to them is simply run-of-the-mill to an Englishman.

I didn’t expect much to happen in my month in Colombia. I ventured to Babylon Sauna in the capital, Bogota, on my second day in the city. As the taxi pulled up to the non-descript location, I walked through the door, and felt all eyes upon me. Stripping down to my underwear, I became aware of my pale skin and hairy torso, a stark contrast to the chiseled physiques of the other patrons,

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their skin tones ranging from cocoa to caramel. I was intimidated to say the least, and wondered if financial transactions were expected in dealing with a foreigner like me. I needn’t have worried. Men who looked like they could have walked out of an adult movie would come up to me, brush past me, fix their gazes, with come hither looks as they beckoned me into a cubicle. They all said the same thing. Not a demand for money, no. Every single guy I talked to commented on my ojos bonitos. My beautiful eyes.

Curious, I asked my Couchsurfing host about this. He laughed, and said that Colombians go crazy for people with blue eyes, as they’re such a rarity in the gene pool there. This turned out to be the case in Medellin as well, the next city I went to. Girls and guys alike stopped in the street and, after ascertaining that my belongings hadn’t been ransacked, I learned to accept the compliments. Nico, the tall, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed (heterosexual) American that I hung out with in Medellin may as well have been a movie star for all the attention he got. Back in our respective homes, we were nothing out of the ordinary, and