JJ's Travelogue

After haggling with the police I headed a few hours down the road to Otavalo, a pretty little town set amidst several volcanoes. Along the way the bus got pulled over at a police checkpoint. A lot of people dutifully got off and had their bags searched. I wasn’t about to go through that again, so I just sat there hoping they’d forget about me. They came on and checked my passport, but my bag was forgotten about in the shuffle, thank goodness. I’m going to have to split this country if these searches keep happening – it’s intimidating and imposing. But I think it’s probably only near the border – there has been a lot of guerrilla activity in that area in the last few years. Rick (the guy I walked around San Agustín with) said it was unusual for this not to have happened to me in Colombia – apparently his buses were frequently pulled over.

Back on our way and we dropped in altitude, thereby raising the temperature. Thank gawd – that border town I stayed in the first night was freeeezing. But as in La Ceiba, the bus went flying by my destination. Odd, since Otavalo is the biggest town around. I’m thinking oh, there must be a bus station outside of town, I’ll just wait. But after several more kilometres, I go up and ask the conductor, “I’m going to Otavalo, wasn’t that Otavalo back there?” No, he says, it’s coming up. Huh, there sure were a lot of signs for Otavalo. Maybe there are two of them?! Then I start asking other passengers – “Otavalo? It’s way back there!” This conductor was on crack. He kept insisting it was in front of us. Finally he dropped me in the middle of the highway, and I flagged down another bus going back to Otavalo. I think this country is testing me.

I decided to try one of the hostels listed in hosteltrail.com, my new favorite site. This place wasn’t listed in my guidebook, but I was glad I took the chance. Check it out – my own private room with TV including bathroom with hot water, good quality bed, windows on both walls, free laundry, use of kitchen, etc – $7/night. Wow! I’m loving Ecuador already. The sun was in “golden hour”, and the hostel has a 360 degree view over the town. Absolutely gorgeous.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into things having only been in Ecuador for 48 hours, but already I notice differences from Colombia – the vibe seems to be much mellower. Take the garbage trucks – in Colombia, they incessantly clang a loud bell telling you to bring out your garbage as it rolls down the street. Here, the sound is akin to glass harps. It’s beautiful – I went chasing for blocks after the music, only to discover it was coming from the garbage truck! There is a lot less honking, and generally people are relaxed and chill. It reminds me of crossing into Belize from Guatemala – releasing the pressure. I may revise my opinion tomorrow when I roll into Quito, but for the moment I have a great opinion of the country.

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“Welcome to Ecuador, where we cut out the middle man – the police just rob you directly!”

They stole my iPhone.

To start at the beginning: After a lovely breakfast this morning of whole-wheat pancakes topped with fresh tropical fruit (and a weird event – as I’m squeezing the bottle of honey, a dead bee comes out the spout. Now I know it’s apropos, but how would a whole bee get into a processed bottle of honey??), I catch a bus to the border. Perhaps because of the strained relations between the two countries, one can’t simply take a bus directly between cities – you have to take a series of local buses and taxis, walking across the border yourself.

I’m a bit nervous, because I woke up in a panic realizing that my Colombian visa may have already expired. Sure enough, I was one day over my stay. Nervous about possible fines or hassling.. but no, exiting Colombia was no problem. He saw the date, but didn’t say anything.. just gave me an exit stamp. Changing money with one of the hagglers was no problem, either – even got a good rate.

A short walk across the bridge to Ecuador, and immediately one of the border police takes me inside a small building and starts interrogating me and going through my stuff. I’m trying to be friendly and chatty, but he’s not smiling. He’s looking at each of my electronics, asking how much stuff cost, how much was my airline ticket, etc. Of course I low-ball everything, not wanting him to think I’m rich. He wants to see photos on the camera, asking where I’m going, how long I’m staying, etc. Finally he’s satisfied and I stuff everything back together and head off for the immigration office.

This part was easy – no cost, and they gave me a 90-day entry instead of the usual 30-day, which was nice. I walk over and catch a taxi to the bus station for my onward journey. Along the way, I go to take a note on the iPhone. Look in my bag, and it’s not there. Fuck. I’m very careful about always putting it back in it’s case, which lives within my security purse with my other electronics, which lives within my day pack. I had just been using it on the bus to the border and remember putting it away, so that border cop must have palmed it. I’ve gone over the sequence of events a hundred times in my head, and can’t come up with any other explanation.

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It’s been fun watching the tracker count down the latitude these last few weeks as I near the equator. I’m now only 1 degree North!
As I prepare to cross over into Ecuador, here are some random things I’ve noticed or learned about Colombia in my time here.

Re-reading this list, I realize a lot of it is just plain bitching. I thought about deleting a lot of it, but I’m really trying not to censor myself on the blog – for it to be an accurate record of my travels, it needs to be truthful. The fact is, I really do like this country, or I wouldn’t have spent the last four months (how did that happen?) here, as longtime readers have hopefully been able to tell from past postings. There are just some things that get on my tits.

There is an astounding variety of original music being produced and consumed in Colombia. This was especially noticeable coming as I did from Central America, where everyone solely listens to Mexican pop – there is next to no original music being produced in those countries. It’s the complete opposite here. You turn on the television to discover eight music video channels, only one of which is MTV. All the rest are locally produced videos, with each channel specializing in a different genre. On the Atlantic coast, they play cumbia; in the northeast, vallenato; in the Andes, bambuco. Only three of dozens more distinct musical styles native to Colombia. Then there is the embracing of other musical styles, from salsa to reggaeton to rock – all recreated in local style.

Being a still somewhat “developing” country, Colombia has not signed on yet to the consumer culture of the U.S. as it relates to throwing something away when it breaks and buying a new one. In the center of every city in Colombia you’ll find an enormous array of repair shops, each specializing in a different appliance. Radios, TVs, cell phones, fans, lamps, stereos, computers, DVD players, clocks, toasters, everything gets repaired, reused, recycled. I keep thinking of how we could get first-world “trash” into the hands of the third-world who has the incentive and the ability to use it. A win-win for everyone, including the planet.

I had a fun time walking around Manizales trying to get my travel speaker fixed (which died two days after receiving it from the States). The cool thing was that I knew I actually had a chance of getting it fixed. If I were living in any North American or European city, I would have said forget it – it’s going to cost more to repair it than to buy a new one, even if they’d agree to look at it for a reasonable fee. Here, they didn’t want any money unless they were actually able to fix it. In the end it turned out to be the main chip which they didn’t have a replacement for, but I was impressed with the attention to quality and the skill of these tradesmen as they metered and tested the electronics.
Now electronics might be beyond the ability of most people to repair, but when a simple appliance breaks in the house, or the gutter needs repairing, or the door is falling off it’s jamb, I posit that most North Americans will call a specialist, whereas most Latin Americans will do the repair themselves. George impressed me in this way in this story I told from El Salvador.

It was only fairly recently that we lost the ability, or incentive, to repair things ourselves. Until the mid 70′s, every home in America had a workbench. You’d put your broken hairdryer on it, and dad would repair it. We had one when I was a kid, and I’m not that old. With the technology revolution we invented the media toolbox, but forgot about the physical toolbox. This is one of the reasons I question the race of countries towards becoming “developed” nations. A society ends up losing a lot that they don’t realize they’re losing in this race.

What’s encouraging for America is the resurgence of the DIY culture that never went away in developing nations. Beginning most notably with the Whole Earth Catalog in the 60′s and building steam today with things like Make Magazine and the Maker Faire, and spurred along by the down economy, people are realizing again the intrinsic value in making or repairing things themselves. There was an excellent essay in the Times a few weeks ago about this subject.

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Riddle me this: why is the explorer spelled “Columbus” but the country is spelled “Colombia”?

From Popayán I made a quick loop to visit two of South America’s most important archaeological sites. For being UNESCO World Heritage sites, surprisingly little is known about the civilization that left these remnants. Although radio-carbon dating has been done, archaeologists can’t even agree on what centuries we’re talking about. I’ve seen anywhere from 500 BC to 1600 AD, although most accounts place it from the 1st to the 8th century AD. Regardless, the civilization predated the Incas and was long gone by the time the Spaniards arrived.

San Agustín is famous for some 500 large carved stone statues that were laid to rest with the deceased. These statues are in the shape of animals, warriors, and faces, average around 2 to 4 metres tall, and weigh several tons. It’s estimated only about 10% of the ruins have been excavated. The iconography bears some similarity to the Mayan ruins I saw in Guatemala, and indeed some archaeologists theorize both groups are related, along with those who built Ciudad Perdida. According to one of the tour guides I met:

The San Agustín people treated women as equals and superiors (they had female leaders), they had a grasp of advanced mathematics, they attempted complex surgeries and they were obsessed with the idea of life after death. People were ritualistically sacrificed, burned alive and sometimes buried alive under the influence of hallucinogens.

The journey from Popayán to San Agustín is less than 100 km, yet takes six hours due to the bumpy dirt road. The scenery is beautiful – lush green hills fronting dramatic mountains. Near the end of the ride the bus suddenly stopped, the driver pulled (only) me off, and told me to get in the back of the pickup he had pulled up next to. Although 90% of the time they do have your best interests at heart, there is that moment of, “am I being kidnapped?” Turns out nobody else on the bus was going to San Agustín, so he flagged down a passing truck to drive me the rest of the way. He paid the driver, I got dropped in the center of town, all was fine. Actually, more than fine – assuming it’s not cold or raining, riding in the back of trucks is my favorite way to travel. It was coming on dusk with the mountains in silhouette and the sweet smell of flowers in the air.

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