Locombia - the crazy country

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  Santa marta, Colombia
Friday, December 16, 2005

8 December, 2005

Locombia - The Crazy Country

Santa Marta, Colombia - Choking dust fills the air. Plastic bags swirl over bony, lifeless stray dogs. Shanty towns made of tarps, sticks, mud and garbage line the road. Shoddy merchandise piled high on pallets waits to be moved. Locals stand around looking distraught but edgy. Cripples limp up to our car begging for something; anything. These are all sure signs we are nearing the border. It's not the best or the worst conditions I have seen at a frontier; just about average. Our old black Chevy Malibu rumbles through the scene unfazed, leaving the desperate to their misfortune. The border always harbors some of the poorest of the poor; those with little hope. One thing has brought them to this arbitrary line which they will likely never cross: desperation

car

. Or maybe it's two things: desperation and the small glimmer of hope that they may find their way out of it. In the mean time they can subsist on the scraps of others profits from the retail, resale and transport of whatever cheap electronics, illegal drugs or other goods which are being moved from country to country.

It's always basically this same story at the border. But when crossing form a better off country to a poor one, like form the US to Mexico, the divide, the desperation and contrasts are much more apparent and vivid. As like anywhere else, each side of the Venezuelan-Colombian border has its impoverished inhabitants trying to eke out a living. But in this case, the econocline - the stark line of contrast separating two groups of people of differing economic levels divided by the border - reveals economic disfavor on the Venezuelan side. Those who happened to be held up there are thinner, poorer and more downtrodden than their counterparts on the Colombian side. I don't feign to understand the economics of poverty so I can't explain the origins of this econocline. I only know that our group which is piled into the Malibu has the economic and political privilege to pass right through the heart of this border horror as if it doesn't exist.

Idealistically, our passing across the cline should shatter its uneven balance, allowing the people to cross and mix freely and for poverty to vanish

santa marta

. But our mere crossing isn't powerful enough to break the strong barrier between the two levels divided at an artificially drawn line. The econocline persists, as penetrable but stable as an aquatic thermocline. It takes forces much stronger than ours to equalize the economic pressures along this political boundary, which decides the fate of men based on which side they happened to be born on.


I arrived in this situation the old-fashioned way: blind, dumb luck. I knew I wanted to cross the border in to Colombia somewhere, but without any real guidebook I had no idea where. Arriving at the closest major city to the border, Maracaibo, in the Northwest of Venezuela, I was told that there was no bus to the border and that I would have to find a ride the last 150 kilometers or so of Venezuelans pavement leading to the frontier. Not a problem in this country full of old cars and nearly free gasoline. The parking lot of the bus station looked like a muscle car show circa 1975. Every type of classic American-made gas-guzzler produced form the early ´60´s to the mid-'70's was lined up and full of cheap gasoline and ready to head to the border. So I jumped inside the coolest looking black Chevy Malibu I could find, and once we had a full load we were off.

I had no idea what the crossing procedure was except that the driver would take us to the bus station on the other side of the border for buses into Colombia

taganga

. The driver knew the score, however. He drove past gun-wielding Venezuelan federal police at innumerable checkpoints. And every time they stopped us, told us to get out, show our passports (there were four other Venezuelans crossing with me), and made the driver pop the trunk, he just slipped the cops a 1000 Bolivar note (50 cents) and they smiled and waved us past. He bribed the federales, the tourist police, the highway police, the municipal police, the state police, and the narcotics force. He even paid his dues to a religious shrine on the side of the road. So the Lord was on our side. Surely he was illegally transporting 50 or more gallons of gasoline in his trunk, but the bribes kept everything quiet.


So without much hassle we made it to the border. But no bribes could get us beyond that point without passports. I ran in and obtained my exit stamp which was needed in order to leave Venezuela and we drove off. It was only 11 kilometers to the border city on the Colombian side. I looked out the window as we passed the compulsory over-sized flag and a giant arch with a sign which said ´ˇBienvenidos a Colombia!`. We passed friendly Colombian guards who waved us on enthusiastically and smiled. These guards didn't ask for anything or stop us for a bribe. But they sure had more fire power on this side of the border. When we finally did get stopped, a young Colombian guard carrying a cannon of a weapon thumbed through my passport and - probably confused by the dozens of stamps and visas - just handed it back to me. The car drove on. But something was not right. I was well into Colombia now but I had never received an entrance stamp. These stamps are always compulsory at any border crossing. I wasn't too worried, however, because the driver knew this game. I am sure he would alert me of what I needed to do and when. Besides, border crossings are always confusing events shrouded in bureaucracy, uncertainty, noise, and illegal money changing. But they always worked out in the end. A few examples:


When I crossed into Syria from Turkey I was lost and confused for at least 18 straight hours. Three different bus companies drove me to a certain point along the way toward the border, discarded me in the middle of a deserted stretch of highway in the dark and told me to wait for the next bus. It was if nobody wanted to be the one caught transporting the 'American Devil' into the 'axis of evil'. When I finally arrived at the Syrian border I was told to sit and wait in a plain white room full of men, all of whom spoke not a word of English; and me not a word of Arabic. So several mustached Arabs and I sat for six hours in the boring square box adorned with only a hanging light bulb and a few chairs, only exchanging formalities when handing the teapot to the closest guy. But eventually, despite all this lag and confusion, I made it across.


Crossing into Laos from Thailand was an interesting experience because the only border formality was simply paddling across a river. Once that 30 second row boat ride took place we were basically official. The only problem was changing money. There were no ATMs in the country so we had to obtain all our money at the border. The largest bill printed in Laos, however, was only worth about 25 cents. I boarded a boat down the Mekong with literally a suitcase full of Lao currency.


A more sobering experience was crossing into Cambodia from Thailand. This crossing was subject to a severe econocline - the roads in Cambodian becoming dirt and the faces becoming hardened. I even think there might have even been a cartoon rain cloud which only hovered over the Cambodian side. But one of the absolutely most horrifying and intense experiences in my life occurred just as I stepped across the border into the country. I noticed that probably nearly half, one in every two men, women and children, young or old, was missing at least one limb. It was like walking into a hospital ward for the crippled, except none of them had proper treatment; no crutches, canes or wheelchairs. Just limbless masses crawling after me in the dirt or struggling to hold out their one hand for a gift. During the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970's, the entire country was caught up in a civil war and mass annihilation. An estimate 1.7 million people (20% of the population) were thought to have been exterminated. During this period landmines were scattered across much of the country. Since then, the mines had continued to explode and disfigure the inhabitants of all ages as they struggled to repopulate. Seeing a six year old kid with both legs flown off is sad and unforgettable.


But most of my border crossings have been less intense. Most consisted of a confused border officer flipping through the pages of stamps, hurriedly looking for a visa, then submitting to confusion and just surrendering the entrance stamp. But that scenario was what was missing from this ordeal so far. As we neared the bus station, our stopping point, I asked the driver where I was supposed to be stamped for the entrance into Colombia. "Oh, we passed that at the border." Sirens rang in my dome. It was time to find some help before I went any farther into the country. But nobody at the bus station was interested in giving me any help outside of exchanging my Venezuelan currency for Colombian currency at an obscenely low exchange rate. Finally a 'go with god' kind of guy told me I had to go into the central market of the border town, six kilometers farther into Colombia, and catch a minibus back to the border. Arriving into a Colombian border town's central market with all of my belongings and without a proper entrance stamp (I was now very much illegally in the country) sounded like a terrible idea. It was. My taxi was mobbed by money changers and pineapple sellers in the market, whose roads didn't even seem wide enough for a taxi. Some guards wielding large automatic assault weapons came over to break up the commotion. Oh shit, the police. If they asked for my passport I was in Multa City...at least.

"What are you doing here?" asked the guard.
"Nothing. Leaving."

I told the taxi driver to get the hell out of there and go back to the bus station. I was not going to hang out in the middle of that town illegally with all my things and no money. No, there had to be a better way to get back to the border. I guess this was better: At the bus station I flagged down a truck heading the 11 kilometers back to the border. It was full of kids carrying five gallon jugs to the border to siphon gas - probably from my Malibu. They seemed nice enough to this clueless gringo carrying a backpack. We passed through the Colombian check points once again without being asked to stop by the guards. The driver told me to jump off at the border station. I quickly found the office and got my stamp and crossed the road to wait for a ride back to the bus station.


Things were much mellower now that I was legal. I waited quite a while for a ride because all the cars which were crossing into Colombia were arriving as I did: full. Finally, a private car stopped and the driver honked and waved to me. "Where you headed?" asked an absolute Colombian goddess with straight, jet black hair, leaning out the window of an old Chevy, her enormous breasts nearly falling out of her tight black skirt as she leaned. "Apparently to heaven," I thought but instead stuttered something lame about the bus station. "Well, hop in!" she beckoned in perfectly smooth, sexy Spanish. I jumped into the front seat next to her and she began firing questions at me. She was the first high-class well-educated local I had come across and she was from the capital, Bogotá. She had been on vacation in Venezuela. We cruised, chatting. I was mesmerized. But the drool stopped pouring out of my mouth and the dazed look was wiped straight off my face - which had been there since I realized I was sitting next to one of the world's most overwhelmingly gorgeous females - when the Colombian guards waved us off the road. Damn. The cop told me to get out.

"What are you doing? I've seen you pass this point three times today! It's pretty hard to miss your blond hair. What's going on?"
I tried to explain my long story but midway through hearing my broken Spanish his face cringed and he said, "No hay problema, amigo," smiled and slapped me on the back. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."


Wow.

My luck had surely taken a turn for the better. I hopped back in the car next to my beauty charm and they drove me to the bus terminal, dropped me off and wished me a nice trip in Colombia. I knew with 100% certainty their wish would come true.

Bonus section for the bored, delusional, insomniacs or those with Internet at work


I had traveled by bus 70 hours since leaving Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil about a week ago. Allegedly I had just four hours to go and I would be in the Promised Land - Colombia's Caribbean coast. For the next three weeks I would never take a bus more than an hour or two - and usually only to the beach - if I couldn't just walk there. All I needed was one safe bus ride to the coast. And with my fantastic luck so far in Colombia I had the feeling all would soon be well. But I had to shake off the rumors and stereotypes and paranoia I had about Colombia and it's kidnapping guerrillas, paramilitaries and vicious drug cartels. Years ago I had scared myself by reading statistics about how many Americans have disappeared in Colombia, but now I was without a guidebook to keep me frightened...or informed about the current political situation in the country. Going into the country blindly was a good excuse to remain complacent but also a reason to fear the worst case scenario. After gaining the unfortunate knowledge that trouble does brew in this land for many foreigners and locals alike, I consulted the few folks whom I knew had visited here - and the one I knew who lived inside the country. From what I had been told, I didn't want to be stuck on a bus at night. At least the odds for safety decreased significantly during those hours.

But why worry about all the statistics? Generally, people in all countries are always cool. Worrying is a waste of my time. If I constantly worry about being kidnapped or my own personal safety I wouldn't have any fun. It's not like I had any control over the situation anyway. But after my delay at the border night was falling quickly. And I was a little concerned. The bus ride was going well, if well means excruciatingly slowly and painfully. But it could be worse. We could be broken down. The sun was fading over the mountains as we were driving over a windy, desolate mountainous jungle pass, still a hundred or so kilometers from our destination and far from civilization. The vehicle I was riding in was a minibus with a partitioned section at the front so the passengers could not interact or even see the driver. This is only important because I didn't know what happened when I heard what sounded like a huge bag of crushed ice exploding on the bus' windshield and hood. This shattering sound was followed by a quick swerve of the bus and the screeching of the brakes. After we skidded to a halt there was dead silence. Then the door to the closed off the front section of the bus flung open and I stood up to see what happened.

The bus no longer had a windshield. A boulder had gone through it. The windshield wasn't one of the shatter-proof varieties which are used in newer models. It was quite the opposite. The glass was smashed into ultra-small fragments (better than shards, I guess) and covered the entire drivers area of the bus, showering the conductor and his assistant with glass. They were already busy sweeping the pieces onto the highway which we were parked in the middle of. This is it, I thought for a minute. Some group of guerrillas or criminals had thrown a rock into the bus in this isolated spot on the highway and was coming to rob us. In my paranoia I looked behind us but nobody seemed to be approaching. No, they wouldn't go through such violent means to stop our bus. They would just set up a road block...I hoped. Besides, the other passengers didn't look very concerned. I was still a little worried, though, because light was fading fast.

Quite a few passengers filed off the bus while the driver continued to sweep the fragments from the dashboard and his seat. Nobody had any idea if we would continue but I didn't see how the driver would keep going without a windshield. After 15 minutes or so the passengers climbed back on and the bus started forward - albeit at a reduced speed. The stares and points we were receiving from those we passed on the side of the road were of shock and awe. Soon the bus stopped again. This must be then end of the line for this bus. The driver can't go on with the wind blowing in his face and nightfall approaching. The driver's assistant opened the partition door and yelled into the cabin, "Does anybody have glasses?" I did. I saw this as my one chance to take charge of my destiny and help myself arrive in a major city before complete darkness arrived. I offered up my aviator sunglasses to the extremely grateful assistant, who took them up front. We were off again. I could only imagine how hilarious the scene of our bus cruising down the highway in a windshield-less vehicle at dark, captained by a pilot wearing over-sized sunglasses must have been. But I was also busy trying to avoid thinking about the inherent danger of a sunglasses-wearing driver at night. Obviously the driver wasn't overly concerned. He continued picking up willing passengers on the side of the road like nothing had happened. In fact, I found out the hard way that this bus had a much longer journey scheduled than just to my coastal destination when the assistant came back and told me I had to pay more since I had gone beyond my stop, the city of Santa Marta.

"We already passed Santa Marta?"
"Long ago."

I let out a frustrated sigh. Grabbing my backpack, I jumped off the bus, not forgetting to take back my glasses from the thankful driver, and crossed the street to wait for a bus going back toward Santa Marta. My injured bus intrepidly limped off in the dark to who knows how far away, the driver squinting in the wind. Eventually a colectivo (shared minibus) picked me up off the side of the road and took me back the way I came, finally to deposit me at my intended destination. I shook my head as I arrived in the city of Santa Marta, trying to make sense of the entire day's happenings. Now I know why they call this country Locombia - the crazy country.

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