Salsa, Coffee and Cocaine

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As with every border crossing there are huge numbers of stories that people love to warn or scare off other travellers with as they head to the border. We were told on a number of occasions, in no uncertain terms, that we were insane to be busing up through the dangerous area on the border between Ecuador and Colombia. Flying was out of the question, far too expensive and if the trusty LP says that its ok to cross the border then thats good enough for me.
The border was the easiest, nicest and most straightforward border we have crossed, you just walk across a bridge and catch a taxi into Ipiales - simples!
Apart from a small disagreement about the size of the bus, whether it was too small to be safe, and a hefty underestimation of the real journey time, our travels through the borderlands up to Cali passed without hitch. The only sign we were driving through guerilla territory was that all the lorries, especilly oil tankers, travel in convoy. The drive itself was immense, the road snaked along volcanic ridges and clung to the sides of steep ravines offering some of the most stunning views of the entire trip. Flying over this would have been a travesty. In hindsight we discovered the only foreigners who have died on this stretch are a few Israelis who refused to give up their possessions at gunpoint; realistically, few people are that stupid.

We arrived into Cali at some ridiculous hour of the morning, driving though the outskirts of town it was very much ´welcome to Colombia´ I cannot really describe it in words but dogdy doesnt quite cover it! I think we all did a bit of a double take and wondered where we had really ended up. Like Brasil the gap between rich and poor is enormous in Colombia, cities can be divided easily between shiny white western style apartment blocks that the wealthy inhabit, and plethora of brick and mortals shabbled together shanty shelters that the poor inhabit. However, everywhere has an energy and a vibe that is so full of life that I fell instantly in love with the place and its beautiful people.

Our arrival in Cali did not signal the end of that nights activities, there was the adventure of the drunk taxi driver! He seemed to know where he was taking us, made us get out of the cab so that he could get up the curb because we were too heavy, what a charmer! He then tried to drive us through a closed street, left the cab with the door wide open and wandered over to talk to a policeman before destructively removing all barriers so we could get through. While all this happening a unsavoury looking character started to approach the car, and we started having visions of us being robbed and more in this taxi. Eventually after driving around in circles for what seemed like hours we ended up at our hostel, where our driver in his drunken brilliance decided it would be a great idea to try to open the hostel front door with his own car keys. Yes thats right welcome to Colombia, where anything goes!

Our welcome to Colombia was not all great and entertaining, it is super expensive! A fact that was highly unexpected, with prices are similar to Argentina, bad news when all we have to look forward to in our budget constrainted situation is highly expensive Brasil! Nothing could be done about this fact so we have just got on with it, have had to avoid a few too expensive activities and curb nights out a little. However in Cali, the self-proclaimed Salsa capital of the world, it is all about the nightlife. The biggest salsa clubs are in the suburbs on the outskirts of the city, the most famous being Menga and Juanchito. We headed for Juanchito for some Salsa fun. We ended up in one club welcomed with open arms with free entry, escorted to a table and thoroughly well looked after by the club owner and everyone else there. I have to say that people from Cali are the friendliest I have met on my entire trip, behind us sat a group of friends all incredible dancers, who took it in turns to make sure we all had a go on the dancefloor, in between feeding us shots of Aguadiente - a clear sambuca tasting spirit that they love here. They had the patience of saints as they taught us all the steps and spent hours with us as we fumbled around eventually getting the gist of it all. Colombian Salsa is very different from any I have ever seen, it is incredible to watch, super fast and free, making all the salsa I have ever seen in the Uk, and elsewhere in South America ever, look restricted and stuffy. I could not have wished for a nicer Salsa experience in Cali.

The following day we were off to the Zona Cafeteria, to wander some coffee fincas and drink good coffee! We decided to stay in a city called Manizales, which was nice enough and seemed to have its own climate as soon as you left the city it stopped the continuous rain Manizales seems to love. It does rain daily in these regions, I guess obvious in how lush everything is. Far nicer was the day we spent out in the hills outside the city on a coffee finca. We wandered around the surrounding lush fields, getting bitten by ants, learning about how coffee is produced, drinking vats of the stuff, lounging around the pool and hammocks in the sun, before speeding back to Manizales clinging to the back of a battered old 4x4. No complaints it was a beautiful day. In our haste to get up to the Caribbean and to Medillin before elections we had to leave northwards the following day. Our transportation there came in the form of a trusty people carrier with the correct number of people - what a revelation after our earlier experiences on our trip! Despite our initial querying of this transport method, turns out it was brilliant idea as on our way we hit a massive traffic jam on a tiny bearly two-way mountain road and being a car were able to dodge past the miles and miles of lorries and buses and sneak down through a small village and back onto our travels again. We never did discover whether the obstruction was an accident or a roadblock in conjunction with the imminent elections.

People travelling Colombia seem very different to elsewhere, it is a very unique crowd. There are alot of what I would class as cocaine tourists - I doubt I need to explain why, who seem to be preoccupied with such activites over anything else or discovering what else Colombia has to offer. A fact I find pretty sad as unfortunately it only reinforces perceptions of Colombia as a dangerous drug haven. Medellin with its international party scene has huge numbers of these tourists. The travellers here are also predominantly male, we were informed 70 per cent male, you would think this would be heaven for us single girls but unfortunately I can report that there very little talent among the travelling fraternity up here! The locals on the other hand are a great improvement on our Andean friends!

Despite the huge drug scene we were still determined to have a good night out, with some good music, rather than purely reggaeton and salsa! So we ventured out to Casa House and raved the night away in fact I danced with such enthusiasm that I pulled all the muscles in my right arm! Has to be said how often can you do that?! We also had a good ogle at all the beautiful people and marvelled at the levels of plastic surgery. One of Medellin´s claims to fame is as the plastic surgery capital of the world, and they go for it big time. Fake bottoms, breasts, and facial work galore. One unfortunate woman had so much work done that she looked like a frozen drag queen.

Aside from a good night out the main reason to visit Medellin was to learn about infamous druglord, politician and businessman Pablo Escobar (1978 -1993). He instigated the cocaine route between south america and europe via north africa while a political on a trip to spain. Thereby, contolling an obscene amount of money, apparently calculated at about 42 billion a year. He was jailed twice - after the first occasion he destroyed evidence through bombing the police headquarters where all files and paperwork were ruined enabling him to enter cabinet years later. On the second occasion he made a deal with the government that he would stop the trafficking drugs and violence in return to not be extradited to the states. He also had to pay for the construction of his prison - its was known as El Catedral and was the sites of many of his infamous parties. His death in 1993, a shooting on the roof of one of his houses, signalled the end of this troubled period of Medellins history, although his death itself was highly ambiguous as to whether it was caused by the police, a CIA sniper, or even his own suicide.

So we clambered into a mini van and got taken around the city looking at various important sights connected to Escobar while we were regailed with stories about him, the Medellin Cartel and life in Medellin during this period. Most of the tour was based around El Poblado, the wealthiest area of the city where we were staying. His former house, and cartel headquarters were all within this area. His house looked just like a massive apartment block complete wth 14 telephone lines, satelites and a bunker. Ironically his former house is now a prosecutors office, and the cartels headquarters are now a drug rehab centre - unsure whether this was intentional irony or not. Listening to our guide it became apparent that life in Medellin at this time was incredibly hard, as boy himself he had had a near miss from a bomb as he was leaving hospital. Every person he claimed knew someone who had died in this period. With an average of 46 bombs per months and thousands of deaths a year through car bombs and shoot outs it was a very different city to the modern day Medellin. He was keen to make it clear that the government was equally responsible for the killings - Escobar and the methods he encouraged were by no means angelic but it was not unheard of for the goverment to equally well plant bombs and cause widespread destruction. During the Escobar era cartels maintained all control of drug trafficking and related activities with the Cali and Medellin cartels the most influential and famous, since then paramilitary groups have replaced the cartels in control of drugs. In Medillin today, there is a return to previous levels of violence with 2400 people killed in related violence last year as paramilitary groups have come to outskirts of the city. The purchase of weapons is all too easy - it is possible to buy a grenade for a mere 40 dollars on the black market, insane! Although according to him the government is trying to conceal this fact by pretending nothing is happening, there is no denying the city´s massive improvements in the past ten years.

Support for Escobar was widespread especially in poorer areas, where he poured money into these areas in physical cash and development, one such barrio has been named after him in honour. Huge numbers of people turned out at his funeral to honour him, a pure sign of his popularity in some quarters. Asking people about him now and you will get a mixed response, some will say he never killed anyone himself, was the friendliest man. Others hate him and blame him as the reason Colombians and Colombia has a reputation as a drug heaven and for drug trafficking. Our guide regailed us with the story of how one woman as they were stood outside the house he got shot in shouted abuse that tourists should not be seeing these things, that it is bad for Colombia s reputation. While the Medellin tourist board apparentely does not love to draw on the cities connections to this man, we were also informed that they were considering repairing one his old buildings into the 'Escobar hotel'. Attitudes towards him are very devisive.

It was also interesting to hear somoene talk more positively about FARC and other paramilitary groups, many times he claimed the group has been blamed for others actions. The fight is all about land, and the control of land - drugs purely to fund these activites. He was strong in his argument that FARC were not purely narcotraffickers, that drugs fund both sides of the wars - government and guerilla. His claim was that current government propaganda and personal Uribe, former Colombian presidents, hatred of Farc stemmed from family connections and his fathers murder at the hands of the group. He was keen to point out as well that politics is still linked in to families of the former Medellin cartel. Uribes successor Santos, who won the elections this month, is cousin to Pablo Escobar.

Our weekend in Medellin happened to coincide with elections, and therefore the 'dry weekend'. In most Latin American countries over elections it is illegal to sell alcohol. Therefore, from 6pm on the Friday night until Monday morning all shops, bars and restaurants were banned from the sale of alcohol. We, along with most of the cities residents it seemed, rushed to the supermarket to stock up on some rum. There was a huge rush on alchohol I swear more alcohol is probably bought and consumed during these dry weekends than any other weekend of the year!

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