The Children Of Puerto Triunfo

Due to the closure of the main road, we didn´t make it from Bogota to Medellin in one day. Instead we find ourselves in the tiny town of Puerto Triunfo.

Sitting out on the malecon overlooking the Rio Claro, I glance up from my beer to see six little boys sitting in a semicircle around our table.

They are fresh faced, dressed nicely, sitting upright with their hands folded politely in their laps, and staring straight at us with an unsettling intensity.

Hola, I say,  Hola, they say. And then they shuffle their chairs a couple inches closer--twelve big eyeballs burning in our direction.

 I give Tree a look that says We're surrounded by little people!, but he is deep in work mode, and nothing shy of mating lions can distract his laser focus. 

De donde son? (Where are you guys from?) The youngest one asks me. Los Estados Unidos, I reply.  Como llegan aqui? (How did you get here?). Manejamos aqui en nuestra camioneta. (We drove here in our van). This last fact excites them WILDLY.

They shuffle their chairs again- closing the gap -and then start talking all at once. How long have we been in Colombia? Is this our first time here? Do we know anyone in Puerto Triunfo? Well, if not, then where are we sleeping? In the van? Do we have a bed?

And, then, their favorite question:

How do you say my name in english?

Most names are easy to translate, Jose becomes Joe, Juan becomes John, but the youngest one is named Camilo, which stumps me, so I tell him that his name doesn't exist in our country. Bad idea. He takes a gulp and his eyes well up big and round and watery at the thought of being The Nameless One. Ah, crap, he's gonna cry. But then, just in the knick of time, Tree says, "Oh wait, your name is Cameron, that's it, Cameron!," much to the boy's satifaction.

After the interrogation, they conclude that we know absolutely nothing and proceed to tell us everything we might need to know about their country.  At one point, Camilo, in all seriousness, pulls out a 1 mil Colombian peso note and explains to us that this is called plata (money) and they use it to buy food here in Colombia. Tree and I feign wonder at the idea, and then say that we have some of that plata stuff in our country too! This really gets them going, so Tree goes to the van to see if he can drum up some dollar bills.

Just then, mass lets out, and the adults of the town come spilling out the church doors. The boys hurriedly tell me that it's the Virgen's day and there's a procession and they gotta go, but they'll be back in an hour. Ciao!
 
By the time Tree gets back from the van, the entire town is lined up in their cars and motorcycles behind a pickup truck with a big statue of the Virgen Mary strapped to the back, heading out of town. We wave goodbye to everyone and head back to the van to cook dinner.
 
About a hour later, we hear them--all hoots and hollers and horns--coming back. 
 
Knock knock knock. I look out the window, and there they are, the little boys, but this time there's more of them. I tell them that we're eating dinner and to come back in twenty minutes, to which they reply, "No problem, we'll wait here." Realizing there´s no escape, we quickly clean up and step outside to join them. Our thought is that we'll give them their big surprise and then go back to the malecon to share a couple more cold beers. We count ten boys and we have ten one dollar bills. Perfect. We give them each a dollar, we take a couple pictures, and then we start moving towards the town square.

And so do they. They follow us through the town square, past the malecon to the far end of town and back, except by now, the group has grown exponentially. We are a sizable mass of two adults, one terrifed dog (Kiki hates kids), and no less than fifty village children. I feel like the woman in that movie Out of Africa.

 Watch our Out of Africa video here

We try to separate to see if we can shake them, but it´s like they operate as one mind. Without a word amongst each other, half of them break off to surround Tree as he walks away, forming two cells instead of one. Shit, mitosis! So, with no other choice,  for the rest of the evening we move as one giant lifeform. I take a step, they take a step, as if I´m wearing a fifteen foot bustle skirt stuffed with small children. So it goes...

The next day, we leave quietly during morning mass and head to Medellin. - STEVIE

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FARC Lashes Out - Terrorist Attacks In Colombia

Living Sprinter Life south of the border is a constant risk assessment.

Which border crossing should we use? Is that city too dangerous? Is this section of road safe? Should we eat at that food stand? Can we trust the cops in this country? Will this museum be the one where I finally snap and use my stun gun on an innocent ticket-taker?

RISK, RISK, RISK, a constant balancing act.

On June 29th FARC attacked police on the Pan American highway north of Medellin, killing one cop and wounding 4. Then on July 9th, the FARC executed five near-simultaneous attacks, including a deadly bomb. A car loaded with 220 pounds of explosives was detonated in a town plaza killing 6 and injuring over 70. The attacks occurred in the Cauca province, approximately 200 miles southwest of Bogota.

Time for a Sprinter Life risk assessment because Cauca happens to be directly in our path of travel.

Our crux is that we have to move south. In 2 weeks we fly out of Quito, Ecuador to the U.S. for a month long vacation. Quito is a long way from our current location when you're driving in the Andes.

But this is no joke. We need to be careful south of Bogota. Roads have been closed intermittently and the military is reacting to the situation. The advice we’ve been getting from locals is that you don’t want to F@ck with FARC.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is the largest rebel insurgency in South America. It has long financed its political and military battle against the Colombian government by kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking. Since the early 1980s the FARC has been a top supplier of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs to its number one customer, the United States of America

In recognition of this, Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside of the Middle East and receives significant support in military funding to combat the guerrilla force.

The FARC has an estimated membership of 18,000 troops along with 200,000- 300,000 million in yearly drug revenue (mostly cocaine). In Colombia they are a force to be reckoned with.

Note: I've already established that The War On Drugs Cannot Be Won. But, if the U.S. would legalize drugs, the FARC revenue steam would be decimated and the organization would most likely follow. The same thing would happen to the cartels in Mexico - read more here

The current violence that just sprung up in Cauca demonstrates FARC's willingness to engage in heavy combat with military troops. But why? What do they want?

It's simple. They want control of the roads.

This entire region is vital for the FARC’s drug interests. It is a key drug trafficking corridor, connecting inland cocaine-covered mountains to the Pacific coast. Yes, the OCEAN!

Did you ever wonder how these guys are able to move so many drugs to the US? I did, especially given the hundreds of road blocks we’ve been through. When we were in Venezuela we started hearing for the first time that the drugs are sent by submarine! I was like, yeah right! But we heard it over and over again. A few days ago authorities here in Colombia seized 3 submarines in a craft workshop in the coastal town Neococli.

Each one of these vessels is capable of smuggling 3 tons of cocaine to the United States.

There are not a lot of roads that link the mountains to the ocean in Colombia, so it's no wonder that the FARC wants to secure this southern corridor, nor that they are willing to fight the military.

On Friday, July 15th, 460 members of the Colombian special forces, along with the newly formed High Mountain Battalion, arrived in Cauca. We're told they will install checkpoints and roadblocks at critical points throughout the region in order to limit guerrilla mobility. This will surely result in more violence.

So what is our risk assessment? Well, our plan is to backtrack 10 hours from Bogota up to Medellin and hang for a few days. We'll wait and see how things shape up in the south. My hope is that the military will secure the Pan American south, and we'll be able to cruise through without incident. 

In the meantime we're looking forward to checking out Medellin.
TREE

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Bogota, Colombia - A Beautiful City In The Sky

Just about everyone we spoke with, including these two paisas below, told us not to go to Bogota, the capitol city of Colombia. They said that it was too big, really cold, somewhat dangerous, and hard to get around--all of which turned out to be true.

Nonetheless, our family motto is to see shit, so Tree and I are here.

And boy have we seen shit.

On our first day here we drove right through the guts to the center of town. We accidentally went through the red-light district and saw more working women in broad daylight than I have ever seen anywhere else in the world, including Las Vegas and Amsterdam. Maybe it's because prostitution is legal here (as it should be, but I will address that issue in a later post), so the ladies don't hide. In fact, similar to Amsterdam, they sit or stand in storefronts to openly solicit themselves, staring out at you with that vacant hooker look--call it bored contempt--from an all too contrived veneer of sexuality. I don't know about you, but I usually prefer my lover to not look at me like I'm yesterday's gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. (Sorry, no pictures. I wanted to take some but Tree thought it would be impolite. I love really that about him.)

No, ladies, he is not for hire. 

After driving up and down one way streets in bad barrios and serpentining through endless construction zones for no less than three hours, we finally found a safe place at the Hotel Nacion in the north side of town that has wifi, a kitchen, hot water, a secure parking lot nearby for the van, and accepts Kiki. Bingo! Our little apartment is behind this church.

On our second day in the city, we took the cable car up Cerro de Monserrate to get a birds-eye view of the third highest capital in South America. Only then did we fully comprehend just how enormous it really is. Bogota sits above 9,000 feet and is home to over 7 million people. It's become known as the Athens of South America.

Amidst its big city problems of drugs, crime, pollution, overpopulation, and poverty, beauty abounds. The churches below are in La Candelaria, the cobbled historic center where most of the city's attractions can be found. The church on the right, the Catedral Primada is the largest in Bogota and sits in the grand Plaza Bolivar. 

 

But gorgeous churches are par for the course in Latin America. What I've been most impressed by in Bogota is the street art. It's colorful, angry, loud, expressive, playful, and full of hope. In the past decade or so, Bogota has made many surprising advances- the murder rate is down 70%, construction of a new public transportation system is underway- commencing a new era for Colombia's capital. In result, the people are starting to take pride in their city again, and I think nothing expresses this love more than the art that adorns the city streets.

I also went to many of the museums, but I have to say, nothing surpassed the street art. That being said, I enjoyed the collection of Mexican artists at the Museum of Modern Art. (I went to the Museo d 'Oro, the most frequented museum in Bogota, but was not particularly impressed.)

The below image is from a collection by Dulce Pinzon. Each photograph depicts an unsung hero of daily life. Aside from the superman shot below, there was a picture of a mother dressed up as cat woman nursing a child, a spider man washing windows, among others.

And here is life imitating art. These superboys on bikes are transporting gigantic sacks of potatoes through Bogota's fierce and relentless traffic.

 The below photo was taken by Nacho Lopez.

Tree decided to go to the Botero museum with me in an effort to earn back some brownie points. Botero, a famous Colombian artist, had a fetish for all things fat. He painted fat men, fat women, fat horses, fat fruit, fat everything. Tree did good...on the first floor. He refused to go to the second floor, though, insisting that we'd seen the whole exhibit. I gave him half a point.

So I took him to a gay bar that night, worth another half point. 

I leave you with my favorite photo: A homeless man goes through the trash looking for food. Glorious street art covers the brick wall behind him depicting two opposing worlds fighting for space. The top of the wall is lined with shards of broken glass to deter would-be thieves. A Cathedral breaks above the urban skyline. This is Bogota in one image...STEVIE

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The War On Drugs Cannot Be Won

If you like this post, please share it with the Facebook button above. Thanks - TREE

My name is Tree Trujillo and I'm asking for your vote in the 2012 Presidential Election.
I probably won't be winning any national party conventions, so just write me in on your ballot.

In my first act as President of the United States I will Legalize all drugs!

Yes, you heard me right. ALL DRUGS! LEGAL!

The reality is, the War on Drugs is f#cking stupid. We need to wake up and realize, THE WAR ON DRUGS CANNOT BE WON.

Apparently I am not alone in this epiphany. A CNN poll reported that 74% of American voters believe that the drug war is failing.

But how can we possibly be failing?

We are talking about a war that consumes an estimated $54.14 billion dollars per year of tax payer money, which is, incidentally, almost enough to pay for universal health care. That's $1,716.77 each and every second of 2011. This war exacts an estimated $70 billion a year from consumers, is responsible for nearly 50% of the Americans in jail, occupies an estimated 50% of the trial time of our judiciary, and takes the time of 400,000 policemen. And things are getting worse, not better. 

Wow, where are we going wrong? How can we be losing this war?

Michael said it best...

"We cannot win the War on Drugs because the enemy -- is us -- the American family." - The Drug Czar Michael Douglas, Traffic

We make rigid laws to protect ourselves from ourselves, but why aren't they working? Let´s do a quick comparison. The Netherlands has some of the most liberal drug laws in the world and we have the toughest. How do we stack up...

Cannabis use (ever used):

19% in the Netherlands
41% in the U.S.

Cocaine use (ever used):

2.6% in the Netherlands
14.7% in the U.S.

Heroin addicts as a percentage of population:
160 per 100,000 in the Netherlands
430 per 100,000 in the U.S.

Murder rate as a percentage of population:

1.8 per 100,000 in the Netherlands
8.22 per 100,000 in the U.S.

Incarceration rate as a percentage of population:
73 per 100,000 in the Netherlands
645 per 100,000 in the U.S.

Per capita spending on drug-related law enforcement:
$27 per capita in the Netherlands
$81 per capita in the U.S.

It's embarrassing how bad we suck. We have 5% of the worlds population yet we consume 60% of the world´s illegal drugs. Something is wrong people.

The truth is, this is not a hard problem to fix. It just requires that we let go of the fear that binds us to this predicament.

As President of the United States, here is exactly how I will solve the drug problem.

1) I will legalize all drugs immediately. The production, sale, and use of drugs will be regulated like alcohol and tobacco.

Note: The only way to eliminate the violence of the drug trade is full legalization. How many alcohol bootleggers do you see shooting up the streets these days? 

2) I will make it illegal for companies to advertise drugs, period.

3) All drug sales will be heavily taxed and 100% of the revenue will go to FREE drug rehabilitation and to job training for recovering addicts.

Note: the Clinton administration ordered a major cocaine study by the Rand Drug Policy Research Center that concluded treatment is the cheapest and fastest way to massively reduce drug use and demand.

4) I will immediately release all non-violent drug offenders from jail and put them into drug treatment programs. According to the American Corrections Association, this will save an estimated $6,186,127,675 per year. I will put 100% of that savings toward law enforcement and incarceration of real, violent criminals.

Note: 1.5 million Americans are arrested for drug offenses every year. Roughly 700,000 of those people are arrested for marijuana and 500,000 are imprisoned. That is beyond ridiculous. It's INSANE.

5) I will immediately reallocate the governments $54.14 billion dollar drug war budget as follows...

40% to an aggressive preventative drug education campaign, specifically targeted toward youth. If we spent this amount of money on preventative education, we would all but eradicate the drug culture in 5-10 years.

30% to building viable and sustainable economic opportunities in poor neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the US. When people have hope and opportunity, they will usually choose that over joining a gang and being killed in a drive-by shooting.

30% to building viable and sustainable economic opportunities in the poor drug producing countries of the world. (Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, etc).

Note: Currently in the U.S. financial aid package to Colombia, 78% of the funds go to military operations as opposed to economic and social projects. We need to understand that military violence will not deter a man from joining a drug cartel to feed his family.

As a matter of fact, the US Defense Department funded a two year study which found that the use of the armed forces to interdict drugs coming into the United States would have minimal or no effect on cocaine traffic and might, in fact, raise the profits of drug cartels and manufacturers. Nevermind the untold suffering that this military war wreaks on innocent civilians.

In conclusion, I believe that my plan will dramatically reduce the drug and violence problem in a few short years. What do we have to lose by trying something new? We already know the Drug War is a disaster. We can solve this problem through education, treatment, and economic opportunity. It's really not that complicated right? It just requires thinking about the problem with our brain instead of reacting with more violence.

If you believe in me, I'm asking for your vote. (Simko, you're my best friend so you have to vote for me. You don't have a choice.)

If you don't believe in me, I'd love to hear your suggestion on how to solve the drug problem. What would you do different to END THE WAR? I want to know. Write your thoughts in the comments field below. If you receive Sprinter Life via email, click here to comment

Final Note: My plan outlined above is a simple solution for solving the drug problem and ending the war. But understand, some wars are not meant to be won. There are far too many powerful people making way too much money who will never allow this problem to be solved. The American media would have you believe that the U.S. and Mexico are in this big fight against drugs. That's bullshit. Most people in the US don't even realize that Mexico's president, Felipe Caldéron, isn't fighting drug trafficking. He is fighting for CONTROL of drug trafficking. Caldéron is in bed with the Sinaloa Cartel and they are using the military to take out the competition, the rival cartels. This has caused horrible spill over into counties like Guatelmala, learn more here. As for the U.S., we have a long history of using the drug war as an excuse to mettle in the affairs of Central and South American countries. It gives us a lot of leverage and control. And don't even get me started on the money being made by the military in this war.

The drug problem is solvable, but that really isn't the problem, is it? 

- TREE

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." - P. J. O'Rourke

Related Sprinter Life Posts:
- La Paz Baja - The Drug War in Mexico
- Good Bye Mexico - How dangerous is Mexico?
- The Drug War Spills Into Guatemala

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Whitewater Kayaking Colombia - Why I Don't Huck Drops

Lately I've been feeling the need to huck some drops.

I don't kayak very often any more. Maybe once every 2-3 years. I was trying to think of the last time I had a real fix and it was probably when I soloed the Grand Canyon, see photos here.

Owning Outdoorplay.com has its advantages. A quick search into Outdoorplay's customer database turned up one kayaker located in San Gil, Colombia. His name was Cesar. Another email to an Outdoorplay customer on the other side of the country confirmed that this was my guy.

As it turned out, Cesar owns Colombia Rafting Company. When we met he informed me that none of the super-nar rivers were running, but he invited me to tag along as a safety kayaker on one of his commercial raft trips. Class 3, sure, sounds fun.

He took me to his warehouse to pick out some gear. I was stoked to see that Cesar was flying the old-school Outdoorplay flag. Apparently the empire knows no bounds.

Cesar was running a trip with 3 rafts, about 20 customers. I was expecting a nice class 3 run and an easy day on the river. After dropping in I quickly realized that Colombian class 3 is more like technical class 4.

Humm. I had flashbacks to our canyoneering experience in Venezuela and my mind went to work. 1) Nobody was asked to sign a release 2) Nobody was asked if they knew how to swim 3) The safety talk covered every nightmare possibility.

I'm starting to get the feel for how things work here in South America.

It didn't take long for the shit show to unfold. It was a bony class 4 drop that you wouldn't ever want to swim in. I saw it coming and quickly got out of my kayak to assess the situation. By that time one raft was badly pinned with all 6 passengers stranded on a tiny rock in the middle of the river. Did I mention you don't want to swim here?

My first thought was "Thank god I didn't bring Stevie. I am all out of brownie points." My second thought was, "Damn, these people are in trouble. How does that z-drag rescue system work again?"

As I waited to see what the guides would do I snapped a couple quick shots and took this video.

Watch Video Here

It didn't take long for the situation to escalate. For some reason the second raft decided to come down and got pinned on the other side of the river. Although the photo makes it look like they were near shore, they were not even close. They were just as stuck as the other rafters.

The guides went to work setting up a z-drag to free the pinned boats. I realized that nobody was set up as safety at the bottom of the rapid. Not good. I hauled ass down there just in time to pick up my first victim. One of the guides had fallen in and swam the entire lower section. I pulled him to shore and headed back up just in time to see one of the rafts flipped up-side-down coming through the rapid solo. I really had to bust ass to push that raft to shore with my kayak before it went around the corner and into the next rapid. It would have been long gone. By this time I was exhausted.


After about 2 hours everyone was rescued and we continued down river. The fun continued in the next rapid. I set myself up as safety at the bottom and watched as one of the rafts lost a guide and a customer off the back of the boat.

I got in position and fixed my sights on the customer. He had already gone deep a couple times. You can see his blue helmet in this photo as he pops up 15 feet below a huge hole. Big down time. I pulled him to shore and he coughed up a fair amount of river water. At this point some of the English speaking customers started asking me if this was "normal for a rafting trip." I said "SMILE, this is supposed to be fun god dammit!" They laughed.

At the end of the day everyone was pretty tired and hungry, but in good spirits. If you're in Colombia and want a really extreme rafting experience, please contact my friend Cesar at Colombia Rafting. He'll deliver. I promise.

As for me, I feel Old, and worked. My shoulders hurt, reminding me why I don't huck drops anymore. Am I finally getting too old to off-the-couch my adventures? I'm gonna take a 2-3 year break now and think about it. TREE

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