A Final Pilgrimage : Simon's Sword Recovered?

Here we are on our last day in the country, huffing and puffing our way uphill towards the mansion -- this our final Bolivarian pilgrimage. The house sits at the base of the Bogota's soaring peak, Monserrate, amongst beautiful gardens full of palms, ferns and rhododendrons. After seven weeks of travelling through Colombia, we finally visit the Quinta Bolivar where El Liberatador lived on and off from 1810 to 1830.

Earlier in this blog I mentioned Simon Bolivar's sword and the tale of its theft from the Quinta Bolivar in 1974 by the then outlawed "terrorist" group, M-19 (now an established Leftist party in the Colombian parliament).

The original sword is now safely locked up somewhere in the bowels of the Banca de Republica, the government oddly superstitious and fearful about it disappearing again if placed on public display.

A replica of the sabre and its scabbard, has ironically been donated to the Colombian people by Hugo Chavez, President of the so-called, "Bolivarian Republic" of Venezuela and sits at the foot of El Liberatador's bed on display. I say "ironically", because it is well known that Chavez has secretly provided military and economic support -- and continues to fund -- Colombia's main guerilla group, the FARC, to the tune of millions.

The M-19, split from the FARC in 1974 precisely because the latter refused to support its audacious plan which at the time FARC considered irrelevant to its objectives and damaging to its image.

There is in fact quite a fascinating story behind the raid. One detail that caught my attention was the absurd lead-up to the theft. Once the decision was taken by the M-19 to steal the sword, an advertising campaign ensued with the guerrilla group placing curious messages in the major newspapers.

These ads placed in the papers on the 15, 16, and 17th of February, 1974, read:

“Parasites? Worms? Memory loss? M-19 is coming soon”.

People in the streets tried to guess what the M-19 was. Almost everyone though it was some kind of medicine for an itchy bottom.

Rumours of the "M-19" made the rounds of Bogota as the members of the revolutionary movement set every detail for the definitive strike on the Quinta de Bolívar. Late on the 17th of February, they easily broke into the mansion, stole the sword and left leaving some pamphlets behind about the group and why they had done what they did.

The day after the theft, headlines spoke of big operations to recover it. They did not succeed, in part because the M-19 always knew how to keep the sword safe. It was kept in a notorious brothel for a time, at the home of a famous Colombian poet, Leon de Grieff, then passed along to various M-19 supporters, activists, intellectuals and artists across the country. In the late 1980s it was even flown to Cuba for safe keeping!

The M-19 went about placing graffitti on walls around Bogota the next day:

“Bolívar, your sword is back in the struggle”.

As well as quoting Bolivar himself:

“I will keep my sword unsheathed as long as the liberty of my homeland is not completely assured”.

The international "revolutionary" support for the theft was astonishing. A group called, The Order of the Keepers of the Sword was formed in 1986, and it included people who sympathized with the causes of the M-19 such as Fidel Castro, Ómar Torrijos (the Left wing leader of Panama at the time), and absurdly, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina.

From being an ignored, almost totally forgotten artifact in a small, badly guarded museum, the stolen sword become mythical in the minds of the Colombian general public.

In the 1990s the M-19 joined the new Constituent Assembly formed by the elected liberal President of the Nation, César Gaviria Trujillo. The group laid down its arms and returned the sword as a gesture of goodwill and to demonstrate that a revolutionary group was able to participate in the Democratic process, if genuine opportunity is provided.

"We were no longer at war, so giving it back was a honorable farewell from our times in secrecy,” said one of its foremost leaders who went to Cuba to retrieve the sword.

On January 31 1991, the sword was returned to The Quinta de Bolívar in a lavish ceremony ... but then was rushed off to the high security bank vault.

So the sword has been returned -- after a fashion. Still, (and like Colombian Democracy itself) no one has actually seen the authentic item in decades.

Most amazingly, there are plans to exhibit the sword ... but only in cyberspace. I wonder what message about Colombia the virtually exhibited sword of Simon Bolivar might send?

A representation of freedom without actuality?

Simon Bolivar's Sword

Reflections on La Candelaria and Crime

May 1 - 3

I remember trying to stay warm in a tiny, box like room just off Kathmandu's Pie Alley in 1985. With wooden slats for a bed and the thinnest mattress imaginable I would, by candle-light, snuggle in my sleeping bag reading a novel picked up from a second hand book store in the area. That was more often than not, my evening's entertainment. The streets were dimly lit, covered in mud, strewn with trash and controlled by bands of mangy, vicious dogs that needed to be beaten off with sticks. The atmosphere was almost medieval and the area was not exactly safe. Close by there was the pie shop along a grimy lane which stank of piss and where illegal money changers and drug pushers did business. Apart from the obvious the Pie Shop served Tibetan momos, bowls of spaghetti and hot lemon drinks. There was music every night and guaranteed company and conversation. It was a place to exchange hair raising stories from the road and seek a little Western respite from the hard slog of travelling through the Indian subcontinent. I remember that Pie Shop as a little oasis where a relatively new breed of traveller, "the backpacker", sought refuge from the dark and cold alongside Hippies, who were beginning to look decidely older and a bit out of place.

Fast forward : Bogota, 2011. Here we are twenty six years later taking refuge from the dark and cold along Calle 13 in the Candelaria district. I'm astounded by the simiarities with Kathmandu's Pie Alley and its grimy, fascinating environs. We are three stories up in a ramshackle "apartment" paying a good deal more than the fist-full of worthless rupees, but still the price of a room is relatively cheap. We are snuggled up in bed, me with my net book cursing the WiFi connection which constantly drops out, my wife reading her Kindle with its fresh download of novels. There has been an evening down pour and outside the cobbles are coated with a slippery patina of mud.An overturned garbage bin lies at the curb of an intersecting lane being picked over by dogs and the occasional beggar. You would think twice about walking the streets of this part of La Candelaria at night. Shady types hang out on street corners, eyes glazed, faces drug ravaged. Music blares from the hole in the wall restaurants and cafes of the neighbourhood.

We are a stone's throw from Plaza Chorro de Quevado where it is thought Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada established Santa Fe de Bogota in 1538. La Candalaria stretches about 20 blocks in all directions - in fact it is the oldest part of Bogota. The closer you get to La Candelaria's main square, Plaza Simon Bolivar, the more strikingly beautiful the architecture becomes -- 16th to 18th century colonial, 19th century neo-classical, touches of faux Mudejar and Gothic as well as Art Deco.

...Want to read the remainder of this story? It is available in my book, 'The House on Lopez Cotilla - A Journey through Latin America' (Kindle Direct Publising, 2012)

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 :-)