The other face of Colombia: a journey into South American hotspot

JAN WESTMAAS

Sitting in front of my desktop this morning, I’m feeling nostálgico (homesick) for Colombia, as I view on YouTube Alberto Barros and his orchestra perform Colombia’s most well-known Cumbia – Mi tierra querida (My beloved country). This patriotic song is as close to a national anthem you can get. Colombia has always enthralled me ever since my first visit in 1974 to that vast, geographically and culturally diverse nation on the South American continent. That journey was part of a two-month honeymoon adventure on our own by land across four Andean nations – Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

My wife and I flew from Piarco by Linea Aeropostale de Venezuela (45 minutes) to Maturin, Eastern Venezuela where our ground tour started and ended. Most of the journey was on public buses and trains (Peru) but when the need arose, we hitchhiked. In Venezuela and Colombia (Bucaramanga and Bogota), we stayed with friends or with friends of friends. Otherwise, for the majority of the journey, we sought accommodation in hostels or cheap hotels. One particular hotel in Neiva, Colombia turned out to be a burdel (brothel). In a flash, we made our exit. Fortunately, the bus station was nearby. What a life saver! The driver of the very bus we planned to travel in to our next destination allowed us to board hours before it was due to depart the following morning.

That was 49 years ago. In mid-July this year, under vastly different conditions, luxurious in comparison with our journey in 1974, we revisited Colombia with a group of 30 Trinis on a 13-day overland bus tour. We traversed eight of the country’s 32 departments, to wit: Cundinamarca, Huila, Caldas, Quindío, Tolima, Cauca, Valle de Cauca and Risaralda. The tour started and ended in the country’s capital, Bogota, formerly called Bacata, the base of the Chibcha Indigenous people before the Spanish conquest in the early16th century.

Brave and daring (the vast majority in their 60s and over), our well-travelled group was up to the task. As I look back at our odyssey, the veterans with their infectious enthusiasm, their passion for travel and their willingness to adapt, would put to shame people far younger than they are. “Colombia? You must be crazy”, was the reaction of a friend of a member of our group when he heard of his plans to travel there.

Tainted by images in the media of political instability, violence (guerilla activity) and narco-trafficking, among other things, Colombia hardly features in the bucket list of many “uninformed” and unadventurous travellers. Without exception every member of our group returned with an alternative or different view of Colombia – “la otra cara de mi pais” – the other face of my country, to quote Paul, our affable and tireless bus driver.

Colombia is the only country to be named after Cristobal Colon, the famous or infamous “discoverer” of the New World. Whether this is worth shouting about is debatable but without rewriting history, it is worth remembering the negative impact of European “civilisation” on Colombia’s indigenous people. Our visit to the Museo de Oro on the day after we arrived showed the high level of civilization achieved by the Muiscas and the Chibchas.

Colombia is also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the South American continent (51.52 million inhabitants), according to a 2021 census. Its language comes in different varieties and accents. Highlanders or inhabitants of the Andean region tend to spoke more slowly and less clipped than their counterparts, the costenos (dwellers of the coast) but the language remains Spanish and is understood by locals everywhere. Que chimba! That’s cool! And if you happen to “mama gallo” (suck a rooster), you’re simply procrastinating. This may sound familiar to us in TT. With our part Hispanic heritage, we also use the term mamaguy (really mama gallo) in our own way.

Geographically, the country is unique. It’s the only South American nation to border both the Atlantic Ocean (the Caribbean Sea) and the Pacific Ocean. Colombia also shares a land border with five countries – Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Panama. In 1903 Panamanians revolted against the Colombian government and declared Panama an independent republic. Colombia is also the only South American country where the steep and rugged Andean mountains split into three distinct chains or cordilleras- the Oriental, the Central and the Occidental.

If all this is not impressive enough, up to May, Colombia was ranked among the most bio-diverse countries in the world. And with 1966 species of birds, representing 20 per cent of the world’s total, it topped the list in variety of birds. Located in the equatorial tropics with a variety of climates and eco-systems from Amazon rain forests to freezing paramos, Colombia is highly rated as an eco-tourist destination.

The formal economy – narco-trafficking aside – is fueled largely by petroleum (34 per cent of exports), mining (coal and copper), manufacturing, a fast-growing info tech industry (the largest fibre optic network in Latin America) and agriculture (16 per cent of labour force). In coffee production, Colombia ranks third in the world. We experienced this first hand as we drove along the mountainous roads of the country’s Unesco decreed eje cafetero (coffee axis) that linked the towns of Manizales, Ibague, Pereira and Armenia.

Politically, Colombia has been on a roller coaster ride since it declared independence from Spain on July 20, 1810. Full independence did not come until 1819 when Gran Colombia was formed. This was a union of four entities (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) that was conceived and crafted by the Venezuelan-born, Simon Bolivar. In 1831 in response to the liberator’s dictatorial tendencies, the union was dissolved. In effect, the four states failed to agree on how power was going to be distributed. Colombia’s liberator Francisco de Paula Santander turned out to be Bolivar’s chief adversary. Arguably, Colombia achieved effective independence as a separate state from that point on.

Torrents of water – clean and dirty – have flown under the multifarious bridges of this fascinating country since then. After multitudinous years of violence (the period referred to as La Violencia) between the main contending parties- the Liberals (the Reds) and the Conservatives (the Blues), Colombia’s nascent democracy has been able to resist persistent threats from the narcotraffickers and from the extreme left- wing guerillas (the FARC).

Negotiations between Colombia Humana, a party formed by, Gustavo Petro, an ex-guerilla and the FARC, led to the formation of the famous Pacto Historico which propelled Petro to victory in a coalition in 2022. Petro won the popular vote for president by the highest margin in Colombia’s electoral history!

Yet it’s not all honky dory. As I write, news has just come to hand that Petro’s son, Nicolas, is being charged for corruptly receiving money from drug lords to finance his father’s campaign. Dirty water indeed but the reassuring news is that his father has asserted that he will not come to his defence if the allegations prove true. The president has two years left in office and by law cannot serve a second term.

To get to Bogota from Trinidad we departed by Copa Airlines via Panama at the ungodly hour of 4 am. By mid-afternoon we had settled in to Hotel Dann on Avenida 19 as close to city centre (La Candelaria) as you can get. The entire city, greater Bogota included, covers 1,587 sq km and has a population of close to 11 million inhabitants. It is located roughly in the centre of the country and sits on a high savannah and upland basin 2,640 metres above sea level at the foot of the Cordillera Oriental. Because of its height, the climate year-round can range from cool to chilly, or even cold when it is windy.

To the east, overlooking the city is Cerro Monserrate (3,152 meters above sea level). On it stands a 17th century church with a shrine. The day after we returned from our bus tour to the south of the country, we took the teleferico (cable car) to the top. From there, despite the cloudy evening, we had a commanding view of the city. In the misty madness below, traffic was bumper to bumper as endless streams of motorcycles weaved in and out of their lanes while the lengthy, articulated buses of the transmilenio, Bogota’s answer to the metro, moved unencumbered in their dedicated lane.

And with a little effort, I was able to guess where the narrow streets of downtown Candelaria, the Plaza Bolivar, the Alcaldia (town hall), the Archbishop’s Palace, the Cathedral and the Capitolio (House of Congress were located. It was easier to identify the sprawling south where the low and middle classes lived and the expansive north where part of the city’s Gran Sabana was taken over by numerous skyscrapers, shopping malls and well-heeled neighbourhoods.