Why Colombia?

"Why Colombia?" It's not just friends and family members who ask as they try and conceal their horror. I too have found myself at times struggling with the decision. No one needs to list the potential dangers and bad press the Colombians have had to endure for decades. A glance at any government travel advisory is enough to drain the courage of even the most daring traveller.

Twenty years ago I would not have given a second thought to the idea of travelling to a country like Colombia. I was much younger of course -- and obviously more wreckless. I find myself, however, losing my nerve. My wife, (as usual) just rolls her eyes at the horror stories I've pulled off the net. I actually appreciate her sanity in the midst of my own growing doubts. Being older, more fragile and less linguistically equiped she should logically have more to fear -- but doesn't.


"Of course, shit happens," she tells me, "but it can happen anywhere ... You just go looking for horror stories to scare yourself ... We're not going anywhere or doing anything particularly risky. We're having a stopover in LA but I notice you haven't gone to any trouble to find out about assaults, thefts, rapes, drive by shootings and killings that go on there."


She has a point. And as an acquaintance living in Colombia tells me:

"In Bogota and Colombia you could run into the same problems you would in many developing nations with high poverty rates. But the things which used to happen here are mostly history, with the exception of remote regions where guerrillas still roam."


I recall our first journey to Latin America in the 80s. We arrived in Los Angeles, taking the first Greyhound bus South and walking across the border into Mexico with no Mexican visa stamped into our passports. In stark contrast to the security measures on the US side of the fence, the Mexicans seemed indifferent to aliens wandering across into their territory. We disappeared into that massively exciting (and if you were believe the travel advisories, seriously dangerous country) for months, riding the slow train to Guadalajara, inebriated for the most part of the journey on tequila and aguardiente that was shared around the carriage.


My wife claims I got on the train full of these friendly Mexican passengers who shared their food, drink and good cheer and got off two days later speaking Spanish ... a "magical realist" exaggeration for sure, but a myth with some truth in the sense that we immediately felt at ease and were receptive to the people, their culture and language.

We eventually (and quite easily) bribed our way out of the Mexican visa stamp situation. We turned up at an immigration office in Guadalajara six months later, explained we had no tourist card or visa and were willing to pay any charges for our misdemenour. We were very politely offered a range of options, anything from a further 6 months stay to permanent residency - and not too costly at that. Imagine an illegal immigrant trying that on in Australia!


It occurs to me that this trip has some connection to the past. It's not a repeat but an extension of it ... a bit of unfinished business. I've brought along a number of articles from that time which have sat in a drawer at home doing nothing for the last twenty years. I thought it would be a good idea to resurrect them (or parts of them) on this blog while we travel through Colombia.


The last few years of the 80s were spent living, working and travelling through most of Latin America. We never managed to get to Colombia (at that time truly bogged down in anarchy). I've re-read Garcia Marquez's The General in His Labyrinth -- a horribly turgid book, especially on a first reading -- but am somehow now captivated by the portrayal of the main character, Simon Bolivar on his last journey from Bogota on the altiplano (a metaphor I suspect for the heights of his achievements as the region's Liberator from the Spanish) to the decaying, Caribbean city of Santa Marta where at the age of 47 (the same age as me) he meets his death, disillusioned by the disintegration of his vision of a truly liberated South American Super State.


The risk of not doing things or going places you want -- out of fear -- is perhaps the greatest danger of all as you get older. There are enough real problems and dangers to contend with at this age, why indulge or entertain those which do not exist or are at best remote possibilities?

Perhaps I have found my own answer to the question: "Why Colombia?"



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Post Script:


All images above were taken today (2 May, 2011) at the Statue of Simon Bolivar, or at and around Plaza Simon Bolivar in Bogota. Seems I have survived our first day in the country to tell this tale, with - God willing - more to come in the following month or so :-)