More government terror in Colombia

Earlier this year the Colombian army kidnapped 11 young men from a poor Bogota suburb. A couple of months later their bodies were discovered in a mass grave near the Venezuelan border. The reason: to inflate success figures in the fight against 'terrorist' rebel groups. Hundreds more extrajudicial killings are under investigation. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7709073.stm.

The government has finally bowed to pressure to dismiss a number of army personnel, though criminal procedings seem unlikely at this stage. And it is a fair bet that President Uribe won't be organising nationwide marches with free music concerts to protest against these kidnappings, as he did to stir up public discontent at those carried out by FARC.

Chicha

Perhaps the best thing about this adventure has been the people I've met. Riding an unusual bike into a village off the beaten track you do get some hostile/suspicious stares, but on the other hand it can be a real ice-breaker, and I have been able to socialise with a diversity of people, despite my normal shyness and poor Spanish.

This afternoon, for example, I was a quarter the way up a 1,500 climb, struggling with the steep gradient and the intense Andean sun, when I passed a group of people sitting under the shade of a straw canopy at the front of a mud-brick house just outside Limatambo, and drinking what looked like turbid fruit juice. They invited me to join them and, with my throat as dry as a (insert preferred idiom here), I didn't hesitate. One of the women poured me a glass of the beverage from a large plastic petrol can, explaining that it was chicha, made from fermented maize. It is a drink originating from pre-Colombian times, and it is a daily ritual for many indiginous people to gather in the afternoons to enjoy a few glasses. Of course they waited until my glass was half empty before explaining that the preparation involves someone chewing on the maize (saliva helps the fermentation). There wasn't much I could do except shrug my shoulders, offer a toast, and accept a top-up.

Faced with a choice of continuing the steep ascent, or staying and hanging out with this friendly group drinking chicha, I opted for the latter, hoping I'd be able to find somewhere to stay in the village. A few of them didn't speak Spanish, only Quechua, but the others were able to translate. And my concerns about finding somewhere to stay were short-lived. Within half an hour I'd been offered a room in a finca just outside the village.

(Later I wondered whether the chicha tradition would survive. In Colombia, the government has introduced strict hygiene laws for the production of panela (a sugarcane drink), under pressure from agri-businesses keen to shut down small-scale producers, and now soft drinks like Coca Cola are slowly replacing the tradititional beverage (see http://benjaminball.blogspot.com/2007/06/aguapanela.html).)

However, not all my meetings have turned out so well. Last week in Trujillo I met a couple of guys who said they were from Lima and were in town with their salsa band for a festival. We went for lunch and then to a bar on the outskirts of town, where one of their friends joined us. After a while, one of them asked me if I could exchange some Soles for US dollars for them, as they were continuing on their tour to Ecuador (where the dollar is the official currency), and they couldn't get a good exchange rate at the bank or from local money changers, whereas I, with a foreign ATM card, could withdraw US dollars from a local ATM (and they would even pay my transaction charges). There was no way I was going to go to an ATM with them, and I flatly refused, at this point realising something was amiss.

He subsequently told me he collected foreign banknotes, showing me some from Vietnam and Cambodia, and asking if I had any Australian money. I lied and said no, and showed him instead a Colombian 20,000 Peso note (worth about $10 or 30 Soles) that I've been trying to get rid of. He offered to buy it, but said he only had a 100 Soles ($33) note on him, and so suggested exchanging it for the 20,000 Pesos plus 70 Soles. I again lied and said I only had 40 Soles on me, but he said that I could give him the rest later and handed me the 100 Soles note. I took one look at it and saw that it was a fake.

It was now very obvious that they were trying to scam me by exchanging fake notes. I felt a bit stupid to have spent the previous couple of hours with these guys believing their story, and that they were just interested in my company, but I was quite happy with my riposte: I handed the 100 Soles note back, saying I wasn't sure if it was genuine or not, announced that I had to go and meet some friends, thanked them for the beers (implying that they could pick up the bill), and hurried away. (In retrospect I think they may have seen me coming out of the bank earlier when I'd gone to change some money.)

Incidents like this make me more cautious about opening up to the people, but will not stop me from trying. I guess that in popular tourist towns like Trujillo you are more likely to be targetted and should be more guarded.

Llamas and volcanoes

One evening in Baños while eating dinner in my hostel, Jose, a Quichua artist from Quilatoa, turned up with a collection of his paintings and carvings that he was trying to sell. I liked his work, but didn't want to add to my payload, so asked if we would be able to add to the artwork on the bike, and he agreed.

So I turned up the next morning at his home/workshop/studio and left the bike with him for the day, a little concerned about leaving it in the care of someone I hardly knew. My fears seemed justified when I went to collect it at the agreed time of 6pm and there was no sign of him. After waiting half an hour I went back to the hostel and found him waiting for me - he thought he'd surprise me by delivering it to me in person. I was very relived and also very happy with the work.

I wondered how he and his family survive - it takes him about a day to produce one piece of work, and then he spends the evenings visiting various hotels and hostels trying to sell them to local and foreign tourists. He wan't much of a salesman, just seemed to want his work to sell itself, and hadn't made a sale in over a week when I first met him. He said they were better off than when he'd worked as a farm labourer in his village, though he's concerned about President Correa's planned crackdown on ambulantes (street vendors).

Photos - Recorrido al Oriente

Wonder if this would make a good tourer. The lack of gears may be a problem.
Thank Mary I made it to the top of the Papallacta Pass (4,080m).

Hotel Sumaco (National Park between Baeza and Tena)

Crossing the Rio Napo to the jungle town of Misahuallí. The Amazon is 1,000 or so kms downriver.

Cheeky monkeys. After stealing my water bottles, they set to work on the pannier.

One of the many tunnels along the 'Waterfall Way' from Puyo-Baños.