Colombia: Medellin, Salento and Popayan

Juan Valdez Coffee Shop, Parque Caldas, Popayan, Southern Colombia

In Medellin, after we’d had the interesting experience of meeting Roberto Escobar, and I’d considered the circumstances in which my American colleagues in Afghanistan might have met him 20 years earlier, we then headed back to the hostel, to get back on the ‘Cervaza Truck’.  After stocking up at the ‘off-licence’/ ‘bottlo’ (bottle shop- but remember, Skippy and Sheilah have to abbreviate everything!) to warm ourselves up, taxis were booked to take us to some establishment on the other side of Medellin.  As we got into our cab, it soon became clear that the thing to do was to race the other cabs to the club- and I could not have asked for a more enthusiastic and competitive cab driver.  Unfortunately he appeared to have taken too much of the local export produce, and was on an entirely different planet.  The Aussies and South African in the back seemed to lose their national competitive instincts and went very quiet as the driver was hitting over 100k’s an hour weaving in and out of the traffic, while looking at me for encouragement, and I had to point out the fast approaching corners, cars, junctions etc.  I just remembered Bodie’s inspirational words from Point Break “It’s not a tragedy to die doing what you love”, and hoped for the best.

Despite the cab driver, we did actually make it to the destination, which was either a tango or a salsa club- I don’t know the difference, but it was something very loud and foreign.  Amongst all the other inevitable fun and games at the club, it was ironically the first time in my life some kind hearted druggy tourist offered me some of his cocaine, which seemed as appropriate a place as any to be offered it for the first time.  I thanked him very much and respectfully declined his offer- because I’m not a f*ck-wit.  As a point, apparently Pablo Escobar never used his own product, he just preferred to see the havoc it caused in America.

Anyway, the next day I snuck out of the hostel to the nearby ‘gucci’ San Fernando Plaza shopping mall to attempt to write up my piece on Pablo Escobar away from the distractions of Skippy, Jannie and the cervazas.  In the Juan Valdez coffee shop (Colombian Starbucks) I stumbleded into the path of a lonely expat.  He was a nice chap, American, ex-US Navy, had been to Iraq and Afghan (hasn’t everyone?) and had set up a business in Medellin.  Unfortunately he clearly hadn’t seen a gringo for months, and my US Marine Corps shorts were a clue for those in the know, so I ended up chatting with him for hours. 

After taking myself for a wander around the Poblado area of Medellin, where the Casa Kiwi hostel was located, I returned to the hostel about 5PM to find the ‘Cervaza Truck’ was already free-wheeling.  I had a beer in my hand, and had agreed to join the party to go to the stadium to watch the Atletico Nationale (Medellin) soccer/ chav-ball team playing Cali.  The standard assumption is that because I’m English/ British, I therefore love football, which is true, but only when referring to the oval-shaped ball.  I am proud to say I have never been to an Association Football game in England- and never will.  However, this is South America and it is something entirely different!!

The first part of the trip was getting the dozen or so of us to the stadium, in rush hour, using the Medellin subway/ tube system, which was actually more pleasant than either the London Tube or the New York City Subway.  They also don’t mince around, trying to be polite- if you want to get on the tube, and there’s space, you will get on, even if it means dropping the shoulder and driving forward.  This also means that you don’t need to hold on to anything as you’re packed in so tight and there is nowhere to fall over.

Once we got out at the stadium, we got some cheap tickets fairly easily, and I felt it was only appropriate to get into the spirit of the occasion by buying a garish, green and white, vertically striped Atletico Nationale top- you can’t go to these things and be impartial, can you?  We were then told that the cheap tickets we’d got were from for the ‘South Stand’ which is where all the crazy fans go, and there had been a massive riot there the week before, which made it sound more interesting- and how I’d imagined English football matches were when I was growing up in the 80’s! 

Team photo before the game- spot the good bloke in the proper top!
 

Soaking up the atmosphere
 

 

"Atletico Nationale!"

 

Some of my fellow travellers seemed to lose their enthusiasm for the game at that point, but gritted their teeth and carried on, and as we went around the corner to the entrance to the South stand, we were hit by a massive wall of noise.  There was a full band set up in the stands and there was just a sea of green and white which did not stop moving for the full 2 hours we were there.  An Israeli chap with us observed that it was more interesting watching the crowd than the players on the pitch, which was a fair point.  Eventually the game finished with Atletico winning 1-0, which was possibly an anti-climax as it would have been extremely memorable if they’d lost!  Interestingly the police came over to our crowd of gringo’s and escorted us out of the stadium as they were obviously concerned for our well-being, and we seemed to stand out.  Some other people I’ve met along the way said that they’d seen me on the Colombian National News as the only Gringo in a green and white top at the match- another 5 minutes of fame…

Salento

The next day half a dozen of us got the 6-7 hour bus ride down to the small town of Salento, in the countryside about an hour from the bigger city of Armenia.  We’d been told we had to change in Armenia, but the bus driver said the bus to Salento came back up the same road, so he kindly dropped us at the side of the road, opposite the turning to Salento.  This meant the 6 of us (me, 3 Aussies and 2 yanks) had to cross the dual carriageway with all our kit, and sit at the side of the road, in the middle of the Colombian countryside, waiting to see what happened next- which I daresay, we would not have done so lightly 20 years ago!  Fortunately a Salento bus turned up about 15 minutes later and we went up and checked into the ‘Tralala Hostel’, which had been recommended to us.

 

Reckon we look like tourists, in the middle of the Colombian countryside?

Salento is a very quiet town in the middle of the coffee growing region, and it was the first place I’d been in Colombia where I could hear silence- if that makes sense.  The things to do are walking tours of the coffee plantations and the walks around the Cocora valley, and if you’re feeling energetic there would be some good runs to do around the area, and it is a good place to relax after Cartagena, Medellin etc.  There are also a couple of chilled bars, particularly the ‘Speak Easy’, which a friend of mine runs.  Salento’s main purpose is providing a weekend retreat for the rich Colombians to come to unwind, so consequently us gringo’s don’t get particularly hassled/ fleeced, which gives it a very pleasant atmosphere.

 

Salento's main street

Main square in Salento, with fleet of Wills jeeps in the foreground.

However, just to keep things lively, 5 k’s (3 miles) out of the town is FARC territory.  The result of this is that at the weekends, the influx of rich Colombians seems to make the place a nice juicy target for your old-school, left-wing revolutionary, so the town is flooded with troops.  The main TTP (Tactic, Technique, Procedure) that the Colombian security forces seem to employ in rural areas, is putting 2 guys on motorbikes, with the one on the back holding his Galil rifle, and nothing else, looking for something to have a cabby at, in a very Afghan style.  I truly pity the American soldier who has to supervise whatever attempt at a qualification shoot they do for that one!!

Sneakily taken photo of Colombian soldier with Galil rifle- an Israeli designed verson of the AK.

Meeting the local law-enforcement in Salento.

 

However, professional or not, if there was no need for them to be there, then they wouldn’t be there.  With this in mind, after doing a little stroll around the coffee plantations on Friday, an extended group of us went for the longer, 5 hour hike up the Valle de Cocora on Sunday- on the 1 year anniversary of the start of the Cambrian Patrol (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.com/2011/11/cambrian-patrol-2011.html).  The form for this was going by WW2 era Willys jeep up out of the town, past a clearly defined Colombian army Vehicle Check Point (probably marking the edge of their territory) to a Start/ Finish Point complete with shops and cafes etc.  From there we headed off up into the hills with a couple of locals who knew the way, and it was all good fun, and nice to get some fresh air. 

Not a bad view

Valle de Cocora

Heading out for a stroll


 

 

The only note-worthy point was that the 3 Dutch members of our group were seriously lagging behind (well, they don’t have hills in Holland) and while we were having a coffee at a strategically positioned rest stop, they’d cracked on expecting us to catch up- although I hadn’t noticed them going.  While it was not exactly my ‘Command Appointment’, I would certainly have discouraged them from going alone, and sure enough, by the time we’d finished, they were nowhere to be seen.  Once we got back, and there was still no sign of them by the time it had got dark, I was going to go up to the Police Station to report them missing (hopefully someone would do it for me!!).  However, they did suddenly appear, more cheerful than I would have expected “You shouldn’t have done that left turn…”

After an ‘admin’ (rest) day, we all left Salento and went our separate ways.  I got the 3hr bus to Cali (I didn’t wear my Atletico Nationale top) and then got the bus from there to my current location Popayan, which is in the heart of FARC territory.  It was another 3 hour trip though on smaller roads, with troops every hundred meters or so. I was expecting Popayan to be some kind of wild frontier town, but it is actually extremely quiet and peaceful, and very pleasant to look at.  The town centre is just loads of very white, old buildings in narrow streets. 

Parque Caldas, Popayan

Central Popayan

 

More Popayan

 

However, just as a reminder of who the neighbours are, a tourist bus got pulled over the other day by FARC, with people in my hostel on it.  While they didn’t want to take hostages (that’s a bit ‘last year’ and an open invite for a visit from Delta Force, who they’re not keen on), they did want to get their attention and give the tourists a ‘Party Political Broadcast’.  Unfortunately some tourist of undisclosed nationality (I have my suspicions) thought it would be a good idea to take their photo…  Needless to say, that didn’t go down too well, he got the sh*t kicked out of him, and was relieved of his camera.

Right, now to go and find some locals to tell me about FARC…

 

Pablo Escobar and Medellin

Tralala Hostel, Salento, Colombia 26 OCT 12

Currently in Salento, a small, very pleasant town in the coffee producing region, between Cali and Medellin.

The other day a crowd of us went and did the authentic Pablo Escobar experience, which is clearly the centrepiece of any visit to the Colombian City of Medellin- pronounced 'Meda-jeen' by the locals.  Pablo Escobar, though dead for nearly 20 years, still defines the Western image of Colombia and to an extent the whole of Latin America, and this was his hometown.  He had immense power and wealth during a life that was defined by both glamour and brutal violence. 

Born in the late 40’s he began his ‘enterprise’ by stealing cars, then dealing drugs, got into the habit of killing off the opposition, bribing policemen/ judges etc and by the 70’s he was head of the Medellin cocaine cartel which was the most violent and most lucrative in the world.  Significantly, though, the cocaine itself was harvested outside Colombia in Bolivia and Peru and then processed in labs in the jungle in Colombia before being transported to the hedonistic consumers in America and the West. 

Parallel to his cocaine export he had various legitimate businesses in Medellin, all ran from a tower block in the city, known as ‘Dallas’- as a nod to the Ewing family, etc.  He financed Medellin’s Atletico Nationale football team (who we went to support on Wednesday night as they played Cali) which helped to launder the money, and he helped the poor in the city by building an entire residential neighbourhood for them.  He even managed to get himself elected to Colombia’s Congress in 1982.  The tour guide for the ‘Escobar Experience’ was trying to convince us all that nobody in Medellin realised that he was involved in the cocaine trade until he was thrown out of Congress in 1984- although that seems somewhat unlikely.

The focal points of Escobar’s subsequent bloody confrontation with the Colombian authorities were the murder of Colombian Presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, following his expulsion from Congress, and the extradition agreement with the United States, which would have seen him arrested and taken to face a Federal court.  The American government had taken the view that drugs were the cause of so many socio-economic problems in the States that they were going to do everything they could to stop the global drugs trade.  A naïve but noble policy, I would say, but clearly a policy that our own dear David Cameron has not always endorsed.

During this time a bloody terror campaign was carried out by Escobar’s men which saw bombings in Bogota, an airline being blown out of the sky and thousands of people being murdered.

A farcical agreement was eventually reached which saw Escobar and his senior men, including his brother Roberto, 'El Accountant' being jailed in Colombia in 1991, but in his own personally designed jail, ‘La Cathedrale’ on the edge of Medellin, with his own hand-picked guards.  He pretty much carried on business as usual from ‘La Cathedrale’, running his empire, throwing parties and even inviting the Colombian national football team to join him and his boys for a kick around.

Pablo Escobar's luxury 'Cathedrale' prison outside Medellin

 

Needless to say, the Americans were not impressed by this and eventually in July 1992 the Colombians went to move him from 'El Cathedrale' and extradite him, but by the time they got there he, Roberto and the various other Medellin Cartel players had ran off into the jungle.  Escobar then spent the next year and a half on the run in and around Medellin, where he enjoyed enormous popular support as ‘El Robin Hood’.  President Bush Sr. ordered American Intelligence and Special Forces to join the hunt.  The principal Colombian organisation responsible for hunting down Escobar was a 600 strong unit known as 'Search Bloc', which was trained and mentored by the American Delta Force.  This was at the same time as other members of Delta were leading the hunt, on the other side of the world for Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aideed.  

Delta Force (as portrayed in 'Blackhawk Down')

 

There’s an organisation within the American military/ intelligence world referred to as ‘The Activity’, responsible for high-tech intelligence gathering with a view to supporting Special Forces operations.  Among other tricks up their sleeve, they had the capability back then in the early 90’s to not only locate a specific cell-phone when it was turned on, they could also remotely turn it on to find out where it was.  Obviously, Escobar himself was not aware of this.

Parallel to the legitimate hunt for Escobar, there was a move being made against him by those within Colombia who opposed him for more morally questionable reasons.  These included not only his main rivals in the Cali cartel, but also various individuals who had a score to settle, and were known as ‘Los Pepes’.  They set about targeting all of Escobar’s family, associates, businesses etc and destroyed his headquarters, ‘Dallas’ with a vehicle bomb.

Escobar's Medellin HQ, 'Dallas' having been destroyed by a vehicle-bomb in 1992.

On the 1^st of December 1993 Pablo Escobar was having a meal in a Medellin safe house to celebrate his 44^th birthday with his aunt and his body guard.  According to the aunt, at one point the body guard accidently dropped his wine glass onto the floor, but it didn’t break.  The bodyguard thought this was bad luck and a sign they should leave, but Escobar reassured him everything was fine, and in the morning he telephoned his daughter...  As the forces of righteousness descended on the house an hour later, and Escobar and his body guard climbed out of an upper window and attempted to flee across the rooftop, they may both have had the opportunity to briefly consider the superstition- before they were cut to pieces in a hail of gunfire.

Members of 'Search Bloc' posing on the rooftop with Escobar's body.

Today Medellin is a vast, incredibly wealthy city, which is regarded as the friendliest in Colombia.  The city has its own subway network and there is a far lower police/ security forces ‘foot print’ there than in either Bogota or Cartagena.  There is no overt evidence of Medellin’s history as the heart of the global drugs trade beyond the obvious wealth, with the ‘Escobar Experience’, in its various guises, being the obvious exception.  Apparently the house from which he was trying to escape is now a privately owned house, and the owners don’t appreciate tourists, so we didn’t go.  Fair enough, life goes on etc.  We did have the opportunity, though, to visit one of the other safe houses he’d had on the edge of the city, where we got to meet his brother Roberto- ‘El Acountant’.

Roberto 'El Accountant' Escobar, with some kiwi and British tourists.

Roberto had been captured and jailed before Pablo was located.  While in jail he was blown up by ‘Los Pepes’, so today, in his 60’s, he is a frail old man.  Before he’d got stuck into cartel life, he had been a top-level cyclist and in the Colombian national team.  This amusingly got one of the Americans on the tour to ask him, in a Southern drawl, what he thought about Lance Armstrong- he thinks Armstrong is an innocent victim.  The thing that struck me most about ‘El Accountant’ was that under all the charm, claims of repentance, apparent community work (the US$30 price of the tour all goes to HIV research… honestly), I personally didn’t get the impression he regrets a thing, beyond getting caught.


Modern day Medellin

Following Escobar’s death the Cali cartel became the principal supplier of drugs from Colombia, under the leadership of the Rodriguez brothers.  However, it obviously was a short-lived victory for ‘Los Rodriguez hombres’ as they were arrested in 1995 and extradited in 2006 and are both currently contemplating the error of their ways in a Federal Penitentiary in the United States.

Today Colombia has been eclipsed in terms of drugs-related brutality by the Mexican cartels, such as the ZETA’s who’s own leader was killed by security forces just a couple of weeks ago.  The official line here is that what remaining cocaine trade exists in Colombia is done by the left wing guerrillas ‘FARC’, who kicked off their left wing insurgency at around the same time as the Viet Cong kicked off theirs  in the 60’s.  FARC were hammered under the previous Colombian President Uribe, and I can’t help thinking that they are the ideal ‘catch all’ excuse for anything negative in Colombia.  No doubt once I get to Popayan in the South of the country I will get a better idea, although I don’t particularly want to experience their ‘hospitality’…

Bogota: Welcome to Colombia

Holiday Inn, Calle 94, Bogota Colombia

After 2 weeks of civvy life away from Afghanistan it would have been an absolute joy to have been woken up at 3AM yesterday, by my alarm clock, to get the cab to Heathrow.  Fortunately, my mate who I’m staying with saved me from that particular unpleasant wake-up by crashing back into the flat p*ssed out of his head at about 10 minutes to 3, so all was good…

The initial flight to Paris was pretty uneventful, apart from wondering if Air France were up to transferring my bag from one plane to the other at Charles de Gaulle.  Once on the next plane, which was about a 10 or 11 hour flight to Bogota, I found myself sitting next to a Colombian chap who was studying for a PhD in Holland, and he was helping me in my crash course in Colombian history via the Lonely Planet- and ‘The Candy Machine’.  His reason for travelling was somewhat different to my own, and definitely worth a mention- he was having girlfriend trouble so was going back to Colombia to surprise her, and try and save the relationship.  I felt it was probably not the right time to give my default ‘agony aunt’ advice to anybody having bird issues:  “Tell her to go and f*ck herself!”

The first impression of looking down at Colombia as we made our descent was just how green, and North European it looked.  There were areas that were clearly cultivated, while the high ground was covered in either grass or woodland, and reminded me of my spiritual home- Brecon.  There were a large number of fields covered with plastic sheeting/ green-housing and it did occur to me that there is only one product everybody knows is cultivated and exported from Colombia!  However, he told me it was the wrong area for that, which is concentrated around Medellin, and this area was apparently well known for producing potatoes.

Once at Bogota airport, it was fairly painless to pick up my bag and clear immigration, but the first remarkable thing was that obviously nobody is allowed to wait for passengers inside the terminal.   Once you get outside, though, there is a massive scrum involving people ‘meeting and greeting’ mixed in with the cab rank.  Some American business types came up to me and asked if I was ‘Ross’, and were mortified when I told them I wasn’t- I wonder what would have happened if I’d said I was!

I’d booked a room in a Holiday Inn as I was pretty much flying ‘blind’, and I spotted a senorita holding up a Holiday Inn board in the crowd, so I went over and chatted to her.  Unsurprisingly, she and her colleague, who had just moved back to Bogota after 3 years living in Stockwell, working on the South Bank, had nothing to do with me or my Holiday Inn.  Surprisingly, they went out of their way to sort me out with a cab that wasn’t going to rob me or rip me off, which was actually a promising start.

The airport is located to the West of the actual city, and we headed to the Northern part where my (current) hotel is located.  I did notice there were a couple of soldiers at the end of my street when we arrived, though I hadn’t noticed any on the way through the city.  The city is encircled on 3 sides, from the North around the East to the South, by a mountain range which can be a significant aid to navigation- if you think you’re going South, but the mountains are on your right, then turn around!

Once I got to the hotel and had unpacked it was 6 o’clock and being pretty close to the equator, the lights went out pretty quickly and it was night time.  However, I felt I needed to do a quick ‘clearance patrol’ leg stretch to see where I was, so I just walked up and down the street, Calle 94, a couple of blocks in each direction, which seems to be part of the Diplomatic Quarter.  As I got close to where I’d seen the soldiers I noticed 1 of those 7 candle, candle-stick holders you associate with Synagogues etc, in the street and I imagined it was a clue that the Israeli Embassy was in the vicinity, hence the soldiers.  Good news and bad news:  the most heavily defended place- because it’s the place with the biggest threat.  As I approached the junction I’d decided I would turn around at, I made eye-contact with one of the Colombian soldiers who was holding 1 of those Galil/ R4 rifles originally made by the Israelis, then the South Africans.  Nothing arouses suspicion in an alert or jobsworth soldier/ policeman quite like making eye contact and immediately turning around and walking away, so I thought it best to walk past him, do a left, and then double back on myself.

This morning I treated myself to the complimentary fat-boy’s breakfast, which is rather more robust than hostel food, before heading out into Bogota, to try and get my bearings, and get a feel for the place.  Tonight I’m due to meet a friend of a friend at an Irish bar around Calle 83, so my first priority was to do a quick recce around there, and discovered this area is the obvious playground of the better off Colombians and Ex-Pats as all the shopping malls, bars, designer labels were in this area. 

The roads in Bogota are called Calles and Carreras as Streets and Avenues, so addresses are kind of like 8 figure grid-references.   The Calles run East-West and the numbers go up as you go North- and I was told any Calle between 80 and 100 is ‘safe’.  So once I was happy with where I’m heading later (f*cking Paddy pubs, Grr), I headed South, to see what it was like, and my impression of Bogota as a whole is that it is much like Johannesburg was when I lived there 12 years ago.  Normal life goes on, but you can see the clues as to what might happen.  Every building seems to have a secure underground car park- with some pretty steep ramps cutting through the pavements.  There are also policemen and armed to the teeth security guards at various locations.  Pump-action shotguns are clearly a local favourite, but outside one bank I also saw a particularly unpleasant looking muzzled Rotweiller!  Even in my own hotel, I noticed the security guard had not only a ‘6-shooter’ revolver, but some very quaint loops sewn into the blue fabric of his uniform to put more rounds into, in pure Mexican bandit fashion.  Totally impractical and if he was really worried that he needed the ammo, he should have bought himself a Sig or a Glock, with a couple of 15 or 17  round mags, but hey ho it’s probably the height of local bling!

At about midday I needed my caffeine and internet fix, so I found a coffee shop.  However the waitress not only apologised (I’m guessing) for their lack of internet, but she directed me over the road to the local version of Starbucks, called Juan Valdez.   Again, like the Holiday Inn staff at the airport, a very kind and unexpected gesture, possibly a national characteristic?

Anyway, once at the other coffee shop there was enough of a language connection for me to order a Latte, but we hit a bit of a barrier when he tried to tell me how much to pay.  Fortunately, on cue, a blonde, blue eyed girl came in and as I suspected she wasn’t a local and could act as a ‘terp’, and everyone was happy.  She was a German PhD student (2 in 24 hours- maybe such intellectuals regard me as one of their own…) and I sat down with her for a bit.   She was the first ‘Gringo’ I’d seen since I’d been here, and I got the impression she was quite pleased to speak to a Gringo as well.  She was telling me that she’s here doing a study from a sociological perspective on the native tribes, which I didn’t fully understand.  However, I got the gist that in the next few weeks she was planning to go to visit one of their villages near Popayan further South- but there’s a bit of a problem as it is an area controlled by FARC. These are the left-wing guerrillas who have been fighting a civil war since the 60’s, but militarily have been routed in the past few years apart from a few small pockets around the country.  Parallel to their workers’ rights, Guardian friendly ideology etc, FARC also make a tidy living from the cocaine trade and kidnapping people- especially Gringos.  Needless to say her face lit up when I said I’d just come back from Afghanistan, and I had an amazing feeling of Déjà vu from my trip to Nablus (http://charliecharlieone.blogspot.com/2011/11/one-reason-to-visit-west-bank.html).  However I certainly did not commit myself to anything as, unlike in the Middle East where I know the situation better than most of the locals, here I feel extremely ignorant of the whole place and need to learn an awful lot.

My next move tonight is to go and meet afore mentioned British friend of friend, before tomorrow taking a downward step in accommodation to the backpacker hostel area in the ‘Old Town’.  After that, I want to fly up to Cartagena on the North Coast, and I’m trying to get myself on an intensive, week-long Spanish language course.

Right, that’s it for now- bring on the Paddy Pub…