Quito to Riobamba

I arrived to Quito one week ago in characteristic fashion, having not done any homework on Ecuador. I haven´t used a guidebook throughout the trip, relying instead on insights and recommendations from fellow travelers as I move along.

Frankly, I wasn´t even aware of what the currency was in Ecuador. After picking up my backpack and wandering around the baggage claim area a bit, and feeling a little dejected finding my lock cut off by Ecuadorean immigration authorities, I realized the currency must be the dollar. A visit to the ATM confirmed this, as it spat out a bunch of fresh greenbacks into my hands.

Ecuador is a different world. All of my travels in Latin America have taught me that the indigenous culture was the minority, an often overlooked group of people in societies dominated by white Spanish blood.

The view from the cab on the way to my hostel proved that I had finally reached the Andes, the land once dominated by great native indian societies, the Incas being the most well known. Here the indian culture is king. It is a nice change.

I think Americans often think everyone south of Texas is a dark brown color and eats spicy food (i.e. like in Mexico). Actually I know this is true, because I used to be one of those people.

The dynamics of race and color in Latin America are much more complex than that simplistic outlook. Latin America is full of descendants of white Spanish colonizers, mixes of indians and Spanish blood, black Carribean peoples, and everything in between.

Physically, the indigenous have a very distinct look. They are almost always short, with dark brown skin, straight hair, and a rounded face.

In demeanor, almost without exception, indians are a reserved people. They walk with a characteristic slowness, as if they already know their fate and their is no need to rush, paying little attention to the random gringo passing by. I would learn more about the indigenous during my next week of travels.

Ecuador is cheaper than Colombia, and Panamá for that matter. It was in a conversation on the San Blas islands off Panamá that I first realized the change in prices I would see during this trip. ¨Oh it´s just gonna get cheaper and cheaper for you,¨ said a random Aussie to whom I had explained my route, traveling from Panamá to Bolivia over the course of roughly three months.

And so it is getting cheaper. In Colombia a room in a dormitory would cost me around $10 a night. Here in Quito, almost without fail, I have been able to find private rooms, with a private bathroom, and hot water for around $8 per night.

When faced with the option of paying $6 for a dormitory or $8 for a private room with bathroom, without blinking I choose the option for a private room. The hard-core backpackers almost always opt for the dormitory, anxious to save a buck and often looking down on those with more ¨expensive¨ tastes. And so I have left their ranks without looking back. I was never that into roughing it anyway. Heck...I´m on vacation.

Food has gotten cheaper too. Breakfast and lunch at a local family establishment cost between $1.50 and $2. And we are talking full, sit-down meals. Lunch almost always includes soup, meat with rice and vegetables, and a natural juice drink. I have no complaints about Ecuadorian cuisine.

Whereas in Colombia I was paying out roughly $40 a day for room, board, transportation, and other expenses, here in Ecuador I seem to be living quite well for $25 a day. A guy could travel for quite a while at that rate of spending...and so I will.

My first two days in Ecuador were spent wandering around Quito, the capital. The weather there was pretty cold due to the city being situated in the Andes at around 2,800 meters (9,200 feet) of altitude. I enjoyed walking around the old city, but in general my time in Quito was pretty unremarkable.

From Quito, I headed to Baños, a small tourist center in the mountains under the shadow of the active (recently very active) volcano Tungurahua. There I found another decent room and spent a couple of days wondering around the town and the surrounding hills.

Baños is an adventure tourism hub, full of advertisements for rock climbing, gliding, bungee jumping, rafting, and other random adrenaline-rushing sports.

I bypassed all of that, still marvelling at the fact that I had my own private room, and opting to read a book and turn in early. The highlight of Baños for me was a four hour hike up a mountain to try to catch a glimpse of smoking Tunguragua, which gave me some great views of the valley, but no sight of the volcano due to the cloud cover.


The town of Baños.

Riobamba, without a doubt, has been (and continues to be) the highlight of my time in Ecuador thus far.

On Sunday I took a bus from Baños to the nearby of city of Riobamba. I had coordinated my visit with a friend, Emily Webster, a Peace Corps volunteer who I knew from Costa Rica that had extended a third-year in Ecuador.

Emily (shown at the start of page) is living in Cacha, a set of indigenous communities in the mountains about 10 kilometers south of Riobamba. She has been there about 8 months in the community, working on environmental conservation initiatives, and a range of other things.

I had contacted Emily about three months before, letting her know I would be traveling in her area and would love to meet up. I wasn´t going to miss an opportunity to have an authentic in-country experience visiting a Peace Corps friend.

Fortunately, Emily was receptive to the idea, and so we coordinated our rendevous in the Riobamba centro across from the train station.

After exchanging hugs and some catching-up conversation, Emily showed me around Riobamba, the regional hub. It´s a fairly nice city, with around 250,000 people. As we toured the city, we ran into a group of American medical students who were in the area providing assistance to some of the local indigenous communities for a month during their summer break. Emily was familiar with them, and they were to pop up time and time again during our next few days.

Getting dark, we finally hailed a cab to take us out to Cacha. It was roughly a 25 minute cab ride, but only ended up costing us about $4.(again with the low prices)

Over the next two days I was able to get a feel for Cacha, as well as Emily´s lifestyle in her site.

With none of the local dwellings meeting Peace Corps standards for homestays, Emily was housed in the local casa communal, or community house. She has running water (although not potable), electricity, a propane gas stove, and a sink (but no shower). On a daily basis, she resorts to cold water bucket showers, and the occasional hot water shower at a home in a nearby town once or twice a week.

The primary language spoken in Cacha is Quichua, a variant of Quechua, the Incan language spoken throughout the language. When I asked Emily if she had learned much Quichua, she demurred and said that she hadn´t learned much. After watching her interact with some of her neighbors that first day, I learned she was just being modest, as I listened to her banter on in Quichua.

The language was fascinating to me. Being a student of the Spanish language, I habitually listened intently to the conversation, but found I understood absolutely nothing. Quichua is from another world...the world before there was a New World.

Emily would always revert back to Spanish after conversing for a little while, her Quichua limitations being reached. The indians spoke Spanish well, and so they would switch back to Spanish with her. Still...I found it amazing to listen to her speak Quichua.

I evened picked up a few words myself. Ashtakamen: See you later. Kayaykamen: see you tomorrow. And mashi, or friend. As the members of her community would invariably ask Emily if I was her husband, or boyfriend, finally coming to visit her. We would respond ¨mana(no), mashi¨.

We had timed my arrival to coincide with an indian activity to celebrate the first day of summer, which was set to take place on Monday. I was told the celebration would include a lot of indian rituals, complex ceremonies, and native foods. Naturally, I wasn´t going to miss this.

We woke up early on Monday and marched up to the top of the hill above the town, following other groups of people headed in the same direction. On reaching the site where the ceremony was to take place, we were surprised by what we found - gringos...quite a few of them.

But not just any gringos, these were some serious hippies, the likes of which I have not seen in all my Widespread Panic / Phish concert going years.

As we were to learn later, the gathering had been announced to religious shamans all throughout the Americas...and these norteamericano-looking people represented different groups in the US and Canada.


Ceremony, with shamans in the inner circle.

But I gotta be honest, to me they just looked like a bunch of hippies.

That really kind of threw me, and while watching the different rituals taking place, I just could not seem to wrap my head around there presence.

Before the ceremonies ended we walked down the hill to a number of food stands that had been set up featuring indigenous foods. Indigenous cuisine is pretty basic, mostly consisting of root vegetables and grains. The medical students volunteering in the area would constantly complain of the malnutrition of the patients they attended to.

There were other sad things happening within the community. Emily had told me how almost all the young adults had moved to the city, and sure enough during my two days I mostly saw little children and older adults. Also, there were lots of abandoned houses in the towns resulting from this exodus, which made for an eerie setting.

On Tuesday, Emily and I hiked up the hillside so I could see the school where she had been doing some work. Our visit coincided with a parents meeting. Emily and I began to work on a world map she had been completing on one of the schoolhouse walls. The start of the meeting was delayed, so many of the parents and kids hovered around us as we worked on the map, then picked up markers and lent a hand. It was fun to see everyone crowding around the map, looking at it with serious consideration.





On Tuesday afternoon we came back down the mountain to Riobamba. It was to be my last night in Riobamba before heading farther south towards Peru.

But then, out at night with some of the medical students, over beers one of them suggested to me ¨Why don´t you climb Chimborazo!?¨ That majestic mountain, the highest in the country at 6300 meters, had been staring down at me for the last few days.

I decided it wasn´t a bad idea. Or that is, after shaking off a hangover the next day, decided it still wasn´t a bad idea. So I consulted a guide, who agreed to take me up the mountain. Tomorrow we have a practice / acclimatization hike, then Saturday we begin our ascent. If all goes well, after a few hours rest in a shelter in the afternoon, we will hike through the night and reach the summit around 6am on Sunday.

So it looks like I will be sticking around Riobamba a little longer.

Bogotá...and some commentary on Colombia

As expected, Bogotá, turned out to be even bigger and more sophisticated than Medellín. For the most part, I spent 3 very tranquilo days walking around the old section of the city, La Candelaria, where my hostel was located.

One of the most important landmarks in Bogotá is without a doubt Plaza de Bolivar (shown above). It´s an impressive square enclosed by the Supreme Court building, a cathedral, the Senate building, and the municipality offices. It was a nice place for people watching.

My first full day in the city I visited the Botero Musueum, an art collection whose primary works displayed are the paintings of Fernando Botero, Colombia´s most famous artist.

I´m not always a huge art fan, but I really liked his paintings. He´s most famous because of how he plays with dimensions in his paintings, most notably by making people and objects look fat or inflated. Case in point below.



In this painting you´ve got a really fat woman, lying on a very wide bed, with almost no space left elsewhere in the room to even walk, and she´s reading a letter from a lover and crying, all the while eating these silly, fat looking orange slices. It´s pretty hilarious.

The shapes, dimensions, and colors make his paintings a lot of...well...fun.

Also during my time in Bogotá I took a train up the mountainside behind the city to the Monserrat monastery which overlooks the capital. The view from there really gives you a healthy respect for the sprawl of Bogotá and it´s 7.5 million inhabitants.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I took a quick day trip two hours outside of the city to a town called Zipaquirá. Zipaquirá is nestled alongside a mountain that is basically pure salt underneath. It has been used to extract salt since the 7th century, when the indigenous began gathering the salt water that ran from under the mountain and drying it out to form salt cakes.

The mine is famous today because a huge cathedral capable of fitting more than 7 thousand people has been built roughly 200 meters underground in the old mine shafts.

It´s supposedly the #1 tourist attraction in all of Colombia, and was definitely pretty impressive. We walked along with a guide more than 2 kilometers down the mine shafts to reach the cathedral.

In the afternoon, I came back into town on the Transmilenio public transportation system, or basically a huge line of buses that shuttle people throughout the city via dedicated lanes that only they can use. It´s no underground, but I found the system pretty impressive.

Once back in the city, I checked out the Gold Museum, run by the National Bank. It is one of the largest collections of gold in the world, mostly from indigenous sites located within the country.

So I stayed pretty busy during my time in Bogotá. I think I was trying to get back to the basics after our partying in Medellín.

Still, I managed to stay at a very active hostel, and every day found myself sitting down for beers to watch a World Cup match or the NBA finals.

Colombia´s History of Violence

I´ve been meaning to write some kind of commentary on the state of things in Colombia...so here goes.

Colombia has a pretty bad image as a very dangerous place to live or travel, and with good reason. It´s important to understand the country´s past to better understand what is happening now in Colombia.

I´ll only go as far back as 1948, when the Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was poised to come to power, with a promise to unite the people of Colombia. Imagine someone with three times the charisma and popularity of Obama in a period of tense, uncertain times.

On April 9, 1948 Gaitán was assasinated while walking out of his law offices, unleashing massive riots in Bogotá. This unleashed a bloody conflict between Liberals and Conservatives throughout the country from the late 1940´s to early 1950´s, resulting in the deaths of more than 180,000 people. The period is simply called La Violencia.

In the late 1950´s a fragile peace was finally reached, but it could not stop the rise of guerilla groups, the most famous of which is the left-wing Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or the FARC.

In Colombia, the central goverment has a long history of not being able to extend control over it´s own borders. Or that is, to provide even basic security throughout the country. You can understand why this is once you realize Colombia is the size of Texas and California combined, and thick with jungle, mountains, rivers, and many hideouts for guerilla movements.

So the left-wing FARC and conservative central government waged what amounts to a constant civil war for decades. Bad, right? It gets much worse.

In response to the central governments inability to crush the FARC and left wing groups, rich landowners and members of the oligarchy took matters in their own hands, raising private armies known as paramilitaries.

These paramilitaries were allowed to operate in certain areas of the country against the FARC with the tacit approval of the national army forces. But as you can imagine the paramilitaries soon resorted to some very shady practices, such as organizing outright ¨death squads¨ to pass through areas known to harbor FARC forces, and eliminate suspected collaborators. (some members of a small village Derek and I visited outside Valledupar told us of past visits and killings by paramilitaries in that area)

So the country was now swarming with government forces, the left wing FARC, and right wing paramilitaries. The advent of cocaine in the 1970´s heated things up even more.

Once the size of the cocaine market became evident, cocaine cartel leaders began making hundereds of millions and investing them in their own set of armed groups and hired assassins.

As the FARC and even right-wing paramilitaries became aware of the huge potential profits, they too began operating in cocaine production to finance their organizations. Pretty soon the right wing paramilitaries had completely shaken free of their masters and become an end unto themselves. Following the fall of the Soviet Union and the drying up of it´s funding sources, the FARC would also take on cocaine production (not too mention kidnapping) as it´s primary financing mechanism.

It can probably be safely said that rock bottom was reached on November 6, 1985, when the Palace of Justice (or the building which houses the Supreme Court) was raided by the left-wing armed group M-19. More than 300 lawyers, judges, and administrators were taken hostage by 35 M-19 guerrilla fighters.

The building was surrounded by the national army forces, and after hearing the demands of M-19 and determining that negotiating or giving in to the group´s demands would only further weaken the government, it was decided the army would be allowed to try to remove the rebels by force.

During the raid by government forces, the Palace of Justice caught fire, and more than 100 hostages were killed, including 11 of the country´s 21 Supreme Court Justices.

Stepping back for a moment...Can you imagine what that would be like? It would be as if an armed group suddenly raided the US Supreme Court and killed four out of the nine justices.

Between the M-19 raid and assassinations of judges and lawyers by cocaine cartels, the Colombian justice system was effectively crippled. It took years for the justice system to regain it´s strength.

Assasinations of political officials (including the 1989 Presidential candidate) continued to afflict the government throughout the 1980s and 90s.

Why does all this matter? The point of this review of Colombian violence is not to romanticize or glorify any of this. Quite the opposite, the real reason is I personally simply can´t imagine violence of that scale.

It´s also important to taking into account the present circumstances in Colombia. The eight years of Alvaro Uribe´s presidency have seen incredible changes in the security conditions around the country.

Uribe´s government effectively cleansed itself of some corrupt elements, waged absolute war against the FARC and other groups that couldn´t be negotiated with, and also coordinated negotiated surrenders with many right-wing groups.

It has not always been pretty or clean. Many people argue (probably correctly) that some paramilitaries have been able to literally get away with murder.

However the changes speak for themselves. The number of yearly kidnappings has dropped from 3,700 in the year 2000, to less than 175 in the 2009. FARC, the only remaining active rebel movement, has dropped from a force of 16,900 to 8,900. More importantly, the have been pushed deep into the mountains and cannot strike at vital regions in the center of the country.

The last 8 years have seen Colombia rescued from a nightmare, and it appears ready to experience a boom - especially economically. During the next 5 to 10 years, I expect the country to become a major tourist destination. I´m really happy to have been able to travel in Colombia some before word gets out, and the masses come flooding in.

Culturally, Colombia has always been a regional leader - with writers such as Gabriel García Marquez, musicians like Juanes and Shakira, and it´s impressive architecture and art in it´s cities. However, in the future, look for Colombia´s image to change in a big way.

I think that about does it for my Colombia rant.

Quito, Ecuador

This morning I arrived in Quito, Ecuador after flying Bogotá. I´ll be in Ecuador roughly two weeks. One of the highlights that I´m really looking forward to is visiting a Peace Corps friend from Costa Rica who extended her service for 1 year here in Ecuador. This weekend I plan to visit her in her community (high in the mountains) and be around for an indigenous festival celebrating the first day of summer. Should be pretty awesome.

Medellín

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. – Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain had it right. This quote definitely holds true for my experience in Medellín. Maybe not so much for dispelling prejudice or bigotry, but definitely for giving me a new perspective on Colombian society.

Colombia, frankly, has an image problem, and with good reason. The new tourism pitch being shown in the US and Europe is ¨Come to Colombia. The only risk is not wanting to leave.¨

As opposed to the old motto ¨Come to Colombia. The only risk is someone else not wanting you to ever leave.¨

He he. Sorry…forgive a guy a little backpacker humor.

In the past, whenever I heard mention of Medellín, only one word would come to mind – cocaine. Okay, cocaine, and possibly the name Pablo Escobar.

Unfortunately, Pablo Escobar, dead since 1994 when he was gunned down, is still Medellín´s most famous citizen. His story is a fascinating one, but also extremely violent. I won´t go into it, but basically he was head of the Medellín cartel for more than a decade, at a time in the 1980´s when cocaine first came to the masses.

At his height he controlled more than 70% of the cocaine trade, and was ranked by Fortune magazine as one of the top 10 richest people in the world during the 1980´s, with a fortune of over $7 billion.

But back to the topic of getting a new perspective on Colombia. Derek and I arrived by bus around 9am on Tuesday morning, and very quickly boarded the Medellín Metrorail, a very modern public metro system running through the center of the city.

We made our way to our hostel (Casa Kiwi…which was to be our glory and downfall), and then headed back out to get a glimpse of the city.

Medellín is Colombia´s second biggest city behind Bogotá. It is home to about 3.5 million people, situated at 1500 meters above sea level, in a valley between two tall mountain ranges.

It is home to universities, museums, art galleries, a botanical garden, fine hotels, colonial architecture, a metrorail system, and all kinds of other cultural ¨stuff¨ that I wouldn’t even begin to know how to appreciate.

Basically, I was really impressed! The city was trendy, modern, and clean. The kids were all dressed in the latest styles. For a moment, I felt like I had wandered back to Spain. It was easily the nicest city I have been to during my travels in Central or South America (including Panama City).

The cool weather was also extremely welcome after a week and a half of sweating it out in the steamy, low-lying region around Cartagena.

The people of Medellín are known in the country as paisas (pronounced pie-zas), a title which they are truly proud to hold. Being a paisa means you are down-to-earth, middle class, and most importantly…not from Bogotá.

I never realized it before coming to Colombia, but the two leading Colombian cities have a fierce rivalry. It can almost be compared to the relationship between Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, or Florence and Rome.

Here in Colombia, Bogotá represents power, the rich oligarchy, and white-Spanish decent. Bogotá, since colonial times, has been the seat of the government.

Medellín, one very tall mountain range away, has always somewhat resented the snobbishness and control of the capital. It is a constant source of conversation when talking with people from Medellín.

¨Medellín has the best people, tastiest food, most comfortable weather, and most beautiful women in the country¨, they will say to you. When I told my cab driver this morning that I was headed to Bogotá he said, ¨Why are you going there?! They´re all a bunch of snobs. And the women all have flat asses!¨

I was in no position to argue with him, so only complemented him on the beauty of the paisa women, and promised to continue on to Bogotá so I could find out for myself.

Derek and I didn´t get into many cultural activities during our four days in Medellín. Unless drinking can be included as a cultural activity…which I think it probably can be.

As previously mentioned, our hostel, Casa Kiwi, was to be our downfall.

The hostel is situated in the hills above the city, in a very rich, trendy neighborhood called El Poblado. The streets were lined with stylish cafes, restaurants, and bars. In addition, the hostel boasted a bar ($1 bottles/$1.50 micro-brew beers), a large 3-tiered TV room, a kitchen, pool table, extensive deck overlooking the street, and rooftop pool and patio.

It was obviously a recipe for disaster.

To be fair, the start of the World Cup also played a part in the resulting debauchery. Starting on Thursday morning, a bunch of hung-over, smelly backpackers would clamber down the stairs, filling the TV room before the 8:30am start.

This may not seem like a very impressive feat, but it is when you know a lot of the crowd didn´t go to sleep until 5am, and has been going at that pace for several days.

Irish-accented streams of curses would fill the air, insulting some French player, followed by all kinds of chatter and shouts in Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, German, and the occasional Isreali ranting in Hebrew…which is worth hearing if you ever get the chance.

Up until a couple of days ago I had underestimated the impact the World Cup was to have on my travels.

We met one American traveler, Jeff, whose sole plan for the next month was to hole up in Medellín so he could watch all of the 64 World Cup games. I have to admit, it didn´t sound like a bad plan, especially considering the $1.50 microbrews.

Ironically, none of the five countries I am traveling through qualified for the World Cup. But I don´t think it matters. Between the motley crew of backpackers and Latin American love for football, it should make for some interesting World Cup viewing.

Unfortunately, this morning I had to say goodbye to Derek, as I had to press on to the airport for a quick flight to Bogotá. Derek has to head back to Costa Rica on Sunday to continue working for Peace Corps, which leaves me traveling alone for awhile.

Now after a quick 50 minute flight, (as opposed to the 10 bus ride through the mountain) I´m installed in another trendy hostel in the Bogotá city center. I´ll be here until Wednesday, before flying on to Quito.

I´m kind of looking forward to a few days traveling alone…going at my own pace. I´d also like to get out more than we did in Medellín to understand the historic sites around Bogotá a little better.

But this hostel is also equipped with a bar area selling cheap beer, a large flat-screen TV, and a bunch of soccer loving backpackers…so we´ll see how long that plan lasts.

I keep intending to write a little background on Colombia´s violent history, which is important to understanding the country today, but I seem to have run out of steam again. (i.e. time for a beer and conversation with fellow travelers.)

Cheers.

Cartagena and Around

My Colombia travel partner, Derek, and I met up at the airport in Panama City and boarded a plane for Cartagena on Saturday, June 29th.

Derek is still a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. He has extended for a third year as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader, which means he is based out of the central office in San José supporting our project leader.

We arrived to Cartagena, took a taxi to our hotel, dropped of our stuff, and then started walking around to check out the city for the remaining two hours of daylight left.

We made our way to Cartagena´s old city, to the old city wall by the sea, and then started hovering towards a bar to watch the sunset. We were instantly disappointed after talking to the hostess. ¨No estamos serviendo liquor hoy¨. Or that is, there would be no sale of booze for the next two days due to the presidential elections. Talk about disappointment! :)

So we spend the next two days wandering around the city, checking out the beautiful architecture of the restored Old Quarter, but without being able to enjoy a little badly needed alcoholic beverage. And we had the perfect chance to buy a duty free bottle of whiskey in the Panama City airport, in basically a duty free country...so dumb!

After two days we got tired of Cartagena. It was, frankly, too posh and touristy. Cartagena is the major tourism hotspot for Colombia national tourism, and is also growing pretty popular with some Europeans and random travelers. The Old Quarter was filled with expensive hotels and restaurants (or at least relatively, considering our budget constraints). A full meal at a good recent would probably run you between $40-$50 a person.

We were able to find some family run places out of the Old Quarter with full sit-down meals for around $5. To Cartagena´s credit, they had done a very good job restoring the old section of the city to its original styles. It looked like a refined port city your would expect to find in Spain.

On Monday, we headed up the coast about 4 hours to a port town called Santa Marta. It was not what you would call beautiful, but it was more authentic, and there was a really cool backpacker hostal located there, so Derek and I were happy.

We stayed there two nights, taking one day trip to see a nearby fishing village turned tourist outpost, Taganga. Once again, we were not that impressed! The village was filled with Colombian and European tourists, mostly there to do scuba diving. So we retreated to Santa Marta again to regroup and formulate a new plan.

Derek wanted to find a more authentic Colombian town in the interior of the country, so after a little looking around on wiki-travel, we set our sights on a small city called Valledupar (pronounced Va-yay-du-par), located about 5 hours inland not far from the Venezualan border.

On Wednesday we set off for Valledupar. As soon as we boarded the bus/van that was taking us, we started talking to our fellow passengers, and getting a better feel for Colombians.

The gentleman sitting next to me, about 50 years old, was going to a town located just before Valledupar. He was headed there to manage some affairs of a pension that he received from his wife´s work. His wife had died two years ago from hemorragic dengue fever, and the pension had been left behind to the family. I felt bad for him, as he had three young kids at home with no mom.

We began talking about politics, as well as the situation of tourism in the area. ¨You would not have come here 8 years ago,¨ he told me. He explained to me that up until 5 years ago, paramilitaries based in the area were very powerful, and they would come out of the mountains to block the same highway we were traveling at that moment, and then ¨go fishing¨, as they called.

This meant they would basically pull everyone out of the cars and buses at gunpoint, find out who were the people of value - lawyers, politians, police men, soldiers, and some tourists - and then once they had rounded up several dozen people, they would march them off into the mountains, later asking for ransoms from the families or appropriate authorities.

My follow-up question was naturally, ¨Well do they still do that?!¨ ¨No¨, he said, ¨they have been pushed back into the mountains since several years ago.¨ So I breathed a little sigh of relief at that news.

We arrived to Valledupar, encountering some rain along the way, but without problems. And as I am writing now we have been here for 5 days!

Here in Valledupar we have found a very unique city. The city is extremely safe, with security having been restored to the region within the last few years, and has basically been untouched by tourists.

As we´ve walked around the city the last few days, doing different activities like swimming in a couple rivers, or going out to eat, the people have taken a lot of interest in us. It´s obvious that most people do not see many foreigners in the area. And once Derek and I begin talking, they are usually even more suprised. ¨Hey! The gringos speak Spanish!¨.

We have been asked several times, ¨How did you decide to come to Valledupar?¨ We usually just respond that we´ve always been interested in the country, the history, and the culture, but the security situation was never good enough to want to travel in Colombia. ¨How do you like it?¨, they then ask, to which we reply that it´s been fantastic.

During our second day in Valledupar we visited a swimming hole about 1 hour outside of the city, in a small town. There we went swimming and diving off rocks into a local river. We were there alone with just a few locals. It was a lot of fun.

After swimming, we ran into a lady in town that was friends with the hostal-owner in Valledupar, and she invited us back to her house for coffee.

While we were there conversing, a patrol of 5 soldiers came up to the house, they were friends of the lady. She gave them coffee as well, and we began to talk with them. One of the young guys was carrying a machine gun. ¨That´s looks heavy!¨, I said to him. His response kind of suprised me, ¨Here..pick it up!¨ So we posed for a few photos with the soldiers.




The talked with us for about 20 minutes, finished their coffee, and then continued on their way. They had been patroling in the hills since around 6am, and considering it was around 3pm, they had walked quite a ways carring some heavy guns.

The lady spoke very well of the soldiers after they had left. She explained to us that before the government had negotiated a truce with the paramilitaries (or basically, privately armed groups) they used to pass through the countryside from time to time killing people, rich or poor.

Pretty much everyone has acknowledged the security situation has improved dramatically under the eight years with Alvaro Uribe as president. It is probably for that reason that during the elections last week, the candidate from Uribe´s party, Juan Manuel Santos, received about 48% of the vote.

This was still not enough for him to win the presidency, but he will almost surely be the next president following a run-off scheduled for June 20th.

While I´m still in Colombia, I´d like to get into a little more detail about the history of Colombia, about the left-wing FARC, right-wing paramilitaries, government forces, and drug traffickers that have made this country such a dangerous, violent place in the past. This violence is something that still exists within the country, but is much smaller in scope.

For now, Derek and I have to head out the door to catch an overnight bus to Medellín, Colombia´s second biggest city. Medellín has a pretty terrible reputation, considering it was the center of the cocaine trade during the Pablo Escobar years, however I think we are going to be suprised by what we find. Everything we have found about the city by talking to people and doing research suggests it is an extremely modern, prosperous, and safe international city.

So we are going to find out. I look forward to writing about this next leg of our trip...and seeing the World Cup matches starting on Friday!

Boquete

Just returned to Panama City after having spent 3 days in the beautiful mountain town of Boquete, near the western border with Costa Rica. I wasn’t crazy about taking a bus 7 hours back towards CR, but the cool mountain air more than made up for it.

The town is situated at about 1200 meters of elevation, surrounded by mountain streams and lots of cloud forest. On Thursday we went for a hike, with my goal being to site the famed quetzal, a colorful bird native to the area (photo above, as example). But unfortunately, no quetzals were spotted.

On Friday, Mike and I went our separate ways. Or that is, he went his way and I stayed behind in Boquete. Mike has a couple more days than me in Panama, so it made sense for him to work in one last leg of the trip. So yesterday morning he took off for the islands on Panama’s northwest coast, known as Bocas del Toro.

With Mike gone in the morning, I lounged around the hostal with the staff and a few other travelers. Some of the hostal “staff” had come to Boquete with plans to stay only a few days, then ended up being recruited by the friendly and gregarious owner, Miguel. So two of the would-be backpackers ended up staying there a couple of months.

Later in the day, several of us hopped into Miguel’s truck, to drive up the mountain for a quick hike and a few afternoon beers. It was clear after the first few minutes that they intended to lure me into sticking around Boquete. “Don’t take the morning bus tomorrow. It’ll be full and makes a million stops. Go in the afternoon,” says Miguel.

They were a lot of fun, but I assured them I would be leaving in the morning.

So now I am back in Panama City at the same hostel where we started the trip, getting ready for a new leg of the adventure. At 3pm I head to the airport, to meet up with a Peace Corps friend coming from Costa Rica, and then board a flight to Cartagena, Colombia.

A few words should probably be said about my Panama travel partner, Mike, who I’m going to miss. Mike and I had not really hung out much for more than 5 or 6 years, ever since we studied abroad together in Valencia, Spain. However, when we spoke at Christmas and he mentioned he was interested in making a trip to Latin America, I jumped at the chance to travel with him.

My instincts did not fail me. He’s been a lot of fun to hang out with these days – always game for an adventure and meeting new people.

On the islands in San Blas, Mike kept myself and our fellow islanders marveled by his knowledge of all kinds of subjects – from biology and geography, to astronomy and Spanish (Mike is fluent). At some point during the trip Mike mentioned that he was interested in possibly seeking work as a teacher for his next job.

After listening to him talk very articulately about a variety of subjects for two days, it became clear that he would make an incredible teacher. So between myself and our other island friends, we encouraged him to go back home and become a teacher. The regular hours of a teaching job would also suit him, as he is coming from a job where he burned out due to the extremely demanding and unregular hours.

By Boquete, it looked like our lobbying was starting to bear fruit. Once we said our goodbyes, Mike had decided he would go home to begin the process of qualifying to become a teacher, which first involves taking a few required education courses at a university.

So I’m excited for him, and the kids that will benefit if he does go on to teach. I also look forward to seeing him later this year in Melbourne, FL, where he currently lives, to watch one of the last shuttle launches.

Colombia / Presidential Elections

Now, it’s on to Colombia. I’m extremely excited to be going to this country, where the Latin feel should be much stronger than Panama, which has had so much American influence.

We fly to Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast. Today, Cartagena is know for it’s tourism. It was recommended by a State Department friend, as it is friendly to tourists and safe.

Also, we will be fortunate to be present for Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday. The two frontrunners are the Conservative Party candidate, Juan Manuel Santos, and the Green Party candidate (not related to the American Green Party), Antanas Mockus.

The election comes at an important time for Colombia. The previous 8 years under the Conservative president, Alvaro Uribe, have brought great gains in the security situation throughout the country, as the military has greatly weakened the left-wing FARC.

Because of these changes, the conservative candidate should, and does, hold an advantage. Santos is up by roughly two points (38% to 36%) over Mockus in the latest polling.

However, it is extremely suprising that Mockus has even been able to achieve these numbers. Somehow, by campaigning with an emphasis on human rights and environmental protection, he has been able to strike a chord with Colombians, especially young voters.

It appears that after the recent security gains, Colombians are beginning to demand something more from their government.

Also, Mockus is no pushover on defense. Pretty much any presidential candidate in Colombia must have a proven defense record to be a serious contender, with the country’s history of violence. Mockus is a former mayor of Bogota, credited with reforming the local government, and ex-university professor in Mathematics and Philosophy.

Santos, on the other hand, is the establishment candidate. He is known as Uribe’s hand-picked sucessor, as he was Defense Minister under Uribe.

Colombia appears to be on the cusp of some very important changes in its society. I’m really excited to see what this presidential election will bring. Also, I’m interested in being around the atmosphere of the election, and seeing if it is at all similar to the Costa Rican attitude towards elections.

Costa Ricans mainly treat the elections as they would a football game, taking to the streets with flags of their party (or team), driving down the streets honking, and yelling for their candidate. I imagine it might be something similar in Colombia. It will also be an opportunity to talk politics with some Colombians.

The election winner must receive at least 50% of the vote to win, which would be extremely difficult for Mockus or Santos to achieve, so we can most likely expect a runoff.

Will come back in a few days with some thoughts on Cartagena and the election.

The San Blas Islands

To understand our last three days, you probably have to know the people we spent time with, considering how an island with an area of roughly one square kilometer has very limited space and brings you face to face with your fellow inhabitants.

Setting: Robinson Island, the indigenous reservation of Kuna Yalah. Or basically, an archipelago along the Caribbean coast of Panama.

Cast of Characters:

Michael – Age 25. Ex-manager of a Residence Inn in Melbourne, FL, and my traveling companion for these two weeks in Panama.

Elan – Age 28. Works in Real Estate in New York City. Parents are from Isreal. Fluent Hebrew speaker. Extremely funny.

Etsy – Elan’s wife. Works in software development.

Kale – Age 19. Ex-construction worker. Just wrapping up four months of backpacking through Central America. Young guy, but very mature and curious nature. Good sense of humor.

Jaquelyn – Age 18. Traveling with Kale. Also a very mature person with a great attitude and sense of humor.

Anna – Age 25. British, from Manchester. Spent the last 6 months traveling around the work through Southeast Asia, South and Central America. San Blas is her last stop before returning to England.

Tal – Age 27 (approximately). Isreali. Ex-Captain with an Intelligence Service in the Isreali Defense Forces.

Anel – Age 20. Kuna Indian. Spent all his life among the islands. Often our captain when traveling by boat.

“Robinson” – Age 55 (approximately). Kuna Indian. Manager of the island where we were staying. An amateur historian, he studied philosophy and history at the University of Panama.

Some others that deserve mention are a trio of South Africans, an older Swedish gentleman, a Dutch man, two Dutch women, a young Isreali woman, and roughly 40 Kuna indians that inhabit the islands.

On Friday morning, after a long jeep ride to the Caribbean Coast, we boarded a set of boats piloted by the Kuna indians. After a quick trip for gas at one of the islands, we headed further down the coast towards Colombia, to one of over 300 islands that form part of the Kuna reservation.

After arriving to the island, we each talked to Robinson, the island business manager, to negotiate our rate, ($20 a day with three meals a day included), and be assigned to a small cabina.


The huts where we stayed. Ours is on the left.

Roughly 10 minutes later, after accommodating our things, and taking stock after the travel, everyone plodded back out onto the beach to check out our surroundings.

The expanse of approximately 100 meters of beach in front of us, dotted with coconut trees and the occasional hammock was to be our world for the next 72 hours.

Most of our days were spent sitting alongside the beach, or taking a dip in the cool blue water, watching small rain clouds move across the panorama as they passed over the other islands and coastal mountains. (see opening picture)


Typical day by the water.

Fortunately, our fellow island guests were a very open bunch. We spent the nights drinking rum and coke, and playing card games under a bright lamp that provided us with illumination until the generator ran out of gas around 10pm each night.

After that, the only two options were to go to sleep, or sit out by the beach looking out at some of the clearest views of the stars that I have ever seen.

The food we were served completely depended on what the Kuna could catch. Luckily, during our stay they served us red snapper the first night, then lobster the second day, followed by crab the last night. They also provided some vegetables and rice as a side. Not bad!

It was very interesting being on such a small island in a remote area, yet hearing conversation in English, Spanish, Kuna, Hebrew, and Dutch. While most travelers spoke English well, we would sometimes have to go through two different translators to tackle the intricacies of a certain situation – such as the rules of a card game or a financial transaction.

During the days we took two trips, one to visit another island where there was a shipwreck that allowed for some great snorkeling, and another trip to a local Kuna island village, to see the living conditions and also hunt for some local Kuna artesanry.

On the first trip, I finally got a chance to chat up our driver, Anel. He was a very pleasant, sincere young man, and I really enjoyed talking to him. He spoke Kuna, as do most of the indians, but he also spoke Spanish perfectly well, so that’s how we conversed.

He told Michael and I about some of the Kuna beliefs about nature and their religion. About how the sun was actually a Kuna warrior, Ibe, that was ordered by mother nature to the sky. Ibe is red in the morning because is always angry, and at night he drifts down below the earth to battle with evils and sicknesses.

Anel also told us about how according to their legends that were passed down orally from generation to generation, the Kuna had come down to the Earth from a golden flying saucer. (No kidding!) And also that one day, they will return to the mainland to live in the jungle.

The Kuna have also noticed the rising sea levels, as any change has a great effect on the land where they live, and that many believe it is the beginning of the Kuna prophecy of their return to the mainland.

He was a very young man, and he liked to joke and had a good sense of humor, but he spoke so freely and with a matter-of-factness about his beliefs.

I commented to him that to me it was impressive that he had such a solid faith in his beliefs at such a young age. He responded back, “It’s not only about believing in your religion, it’s about loving it.” I found that to be a pretty powerful statement, and could think of no response.

At the end of our three days on the island, I ran into Anel in the morning and told him I enjoyed talking with him, and gave him my green Peace Corps hat which I had worn for more than a year and a half, and had always been important to me.

About 10 minutes later he came back to me and told me he would have to return the hat, and he couldn’t offer me anything as well. He explained that according to his beliefs, if you are given an important article of someone else’s, like a piece of clothing, it carries with it a part of their being, or intelligence. So by accepting my gift, he would be taking something from me, and neither could he offer me something of his.

I was disappointed but wasn’t about to tempt the karma of the Kuna indians.

So we reverted to the next best alternative. Or that is, we exchanged email addresses and promised to become Facebook friends!

The trip to San Blas and the Kuna Yalah reserve was incredible. I don’t think Mike or I expect to beat that during our remaining week here in Panama.

Tomorrow we take a bus west for about 7 hours, to a small town called Boquete, near the Costa Rican border and Volcan Baru, to enjoy the freshness of the mountains and some great hiking.

But for now I’ve got to go Facebook my new friend, Anel.

Panama City

My friend and travel companion, Michael Schaaf, opened the door to our hostel room at 2am after arriving on a late flight from Miami. I was sound asleep, but had rehearsed the moment in my head beforing going to bed. Following my somewhat pre-scripted plan I looked at his silouette in the doorway, dragged myself out of bed, walked over, gave him a hug and a couple guy-pounds on the back, and said something that was supposed to be encouraging, but I’m pretty sure was unintelligible.

And so our Panama adventures had begun.

The next day, Tuesday morning, we grabbed a cab down to Panama City’s old quarter, called Casco Viejo. On the way we drove past several dozen high-rise apartment complexes and hotels. The air was filled with the sounds of workers yelling from scaffolding, cranes groaning overhead, and the banging of hammers. Panama seems to have not noticed there has been a worldwide economic downturn.

Arriving to Casco Viejo, we hopped out of the cab and began walking around. After about 30 minutes of aimless wandering, on our way to Plaza de Francia, a Panamian guy walked up to us and started jabbering away in Spanish, going into a lengthy explanation about the history of the buildings we were walking past.

He finally stopped talking an hour and a half and a 4-kilometer walk later, after walking through half a dozen churches, the intact home of a pearl merchant from the 18th century, a couple of courtyards, and by remnants of the old city wall. !Ya…es todo!” From the fact that he had stopped outside a local cafeteria, it appeared that it was his lunch time as well.

We were quite pleased with our guide, and since no negotiation had been made beforehand, we were in a pretty strong bargaining position. The guide, whose name was Andres, hinted that in the past he had been tipped up to $20 for his services. I politely informed him that those people most likely had jobs, and more money than we did. We each handed him $3, which he seemed satisfied with, and went on our way.

I suppose another thing worth mentioning is that both Michael and I are unemployed right now. He just resigned from a position with Marriott Residence Inn after 3 ½ years as an assistant manager. So...we got that going for us.

On Wednesday, we went out to the Panama Canal visitors’ center, located alongside one of the locks, Miraflores. A Peace Corps friend, Josh, who had already visited the canal a year before had helped manage my expectations regarding our visit to one of the world’s most impressive engineering feats. “Have you been to the airport and seen planes take off and land?...It’s pretty much as exciting as that,” said Josh.

Despite my friend’s blasé attitude towards the canal, Michael and I thought it was pretty damn cool. Three massive ships passed through the locks as we stood watching from the observation deck.

It was also interesting to learn the history behind not just the canal, but the trans-isthmus crossing. Back in the 16th, 17th, and 18th century the Spanish shipped gold and silver coming from Mexico and South America to the Pacific Coast of the isthmus, and then packed it across with mule trains (heavily armed). Then in the mid-1800s the isthmus experienced another boom as American miners headed to California during the gold rushes.

The miners traveled to the Caribbean coast by steamer, boarded a train that ran from coast to coast, and then hopped on another steamer on the Pacific side that took them to the American West. The isthmus was an extension of the Wild West during those days, with hold-ups and armed gangs being very common.

As all of this was going on, what today is known as Panama, was part of Colombia. Panama did not become a country until 1903, once the U.S. had finally committed itself to building a canal across the isthmus, and Theodore Roosevelt helped engineer a coup which lopped off the section of land that forms the country today. A U.S. friendly Panamian president was installed shortly after. Roosevelt supposedly even bragged about creating the republic out of nothing.

So when I’m in a conversation with a Latin American, and the creation of Panama is used as an example to point out the U.S.’s imperialistic ways, it might be best to cede the point.

I was also unaware that the crossing of Central America through Nicaragua competed with the Panama isthmus crossing, and it was first considered the logical place for a canal to be placed.

All together the canal is 51 miles long and took more than four decades of labor to finish, after the French had their try, and then the Americans completed the work.

In 1914 the canal was opened, and it has been in operation ever since. Actually, the original doors are still used on the locks, so they have been in use for almost 100 years. In 2014 the canal administration is scheduled to complete a new set of locks that will allow some of the bigger boats that are under construction to pass through, thereby keeping the canal competitive.

As for my impressions of Panama City itself, I like the low prices, metropolitan atmosphere, and American food. But at the same time, it puzzles me that they can continue building with such intensity here. It seems they have so much excess capacity in terms of housing and office space, I wonder if they are not fueling their own real estate bubble.

The average Panamian living in the city seems fairly affluent and worldly, with lots of nice cars on the roadways and plenty of jobs in the service sector.

Although on the other hand, we’ve met some Panama Peace Corps volunteers here in the hostel, and they assure us that there are two sides to Panama. The prosperous, bustling city, and the very poor, stagnant small towns and indigenous villages. Here in Panama a significant portion of the Peace Corps volunteers work in indigenous communities, living out of huts and using latrines.

This seems so amazing to me while being surrounded by all these high-rise buildings here in the city. So Panama is definitely fairly affluent, but there are huge imbalances in income distribution.

Some of the volunteers have hinted that it would probably be possible to visit their communities, as most of the small towns have their hand in rural tourism to some degree, but we haven’t been able to define anything at the moment.

Tomorrow (Friday), Michael and I leave the city for the San Blas islands on the Caribbean side. The San Blas islands are governed by an autonomous tribe of indians called the Kuna. The embarcation point by canoe to the islands is only accessible by a 5 hour trip by 4x4 to the coast.

Once reaching the island, visitors have the option of staying on the main island with the majority of the tribe, or being transported out to one of hundreds of tiny islands along the archipelago. Just you, a bunch of palms trees, a latrine, and a hammock on an island the size of a football field.

Or at least that is what I have pieced together from Peace Corps friends and other travelers. But Michael and I will find out for ourselves.