Barely time to drop off the bags (oh, right, forgot, no bags) and I'm off on a bike to the Cyclovia - a weekly event in which long veins throughout the city of 7 million are unclogged of vehicles, and citizens bring out their bikes. Instituted by a popular mayor several years ago, Cyclovia has been a huge hit in Bogota, allowing the rich (few) and the poor (many) to co-exist in a form of transportation utopia. Together with a friendly Cyclovia guardian named Julian, I rode the streets of Bogota and quickly realized that it's really not that dangerous to explore any city so long as there are heavily armed police/army personnel on every corner. The real danger were the brakes (non-existent), gung-ho bikers with little patience for red-eyed writers, and potholes crushing my emeralds against the hard seat. We passed a bike mechanic who wore an eye patch made from sunglasses. Kids in front, kids behind, expensive bikes, homemade bikes, cheap bikes, stolen bikes. Thin people, fat people, happy people, sad people, friendly people, nasty people, beautiful people, ugly people. Two wheels is a great way to promote democracy, and as a traveller, there's no better way to discover a city. Especially when you ride directly into a massive carnival procession, vibrating with passion as Bogota celebrated its 469th birthday.
But first, Colombia, Colombia. Named after Chris Colombus, the explorer, not the guy who directed Home Alone. Like the rest of Latin America, ravaged by the Spanish, disease, slave-owners, pirates, reggaeton. Prosperous few, impoverished many. FARC me? FARC you! Civil war, death squads, and let's throw in cocaine, just for the hell of it, and what's this, cartels and corruption and assassinations and now you're the mayor and now you're dead and here comes the USA with their war on drugs only it seems a lot more people are dying these days, or starving, and there goes another mayor and a politician who thought he could take on the cartels, and where is the Romeo of Medellin and the Juliet of Cali but hey they got Escobar and Ochoa only who's this new guy who likes to dismember anyone who looks at him funny and the FARC, viva la revolution, take this land but the army took that land and sucks to be anyone who actually lives on the land, or the CEO of a petroleum company because if you think picking your kids up from school is a bitch try bargaining with kidnappers every other week, and here's paradise on the Caribbean but international tourists are so scared they're teleporting themselves to Costa Rica and 10,000 pesos is only $5 bucks and a beer here costs six times more than a beer there but what's this, this oldest democracy in Latin America, things settling down, the cities become safer, cleaner, international investment returning and even the FARC (Che! Che! Che!) are becoming more attached to their villas than the jungle and tourism is picking up and what to do when you have the most beautiful women in the world, Afro-Spanish-Indian cultural soup and the genius of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who invented magic realism here because it could be invented in no other place on earth. It's magic to be walking these streets, considered amongst the most dangerous in the world, and feel safe, welcomed. A guy tells me in broken English that his friend, a pretty young girl, likes me and would like to have her cellphone photo with me. A scam? No, the only scam was that I moved on to two beautiful girls on stilts, and hello, a topless girl dances and shakes, painted in green atop something that looks like a paper-mache vegetable. People are smiling and saying "welcome to Colombia" and I see NO other tourists around, which means I'm either doing something very wrong, or most likely, very right. I take a picture of the fairy waifs, the industrial goths, the marching band playing Yellow Submarine, and all around there is a beat and a smile, and really, this is not what I expected of Colombia at all. Systems break down when there's no community, and judging by the amount of groups in the parade, this community is flourishing. Check out the picturesTo let the cat out the backpack, to let the cat release my tongue, I must reveal I am travelling with Julia Dimon, a travel writer from Toronto, and also a small crew who are documenting our journey to 12 countries on 6 continents. This presents certain challenges, but that is another story, and for the meantime be content to know that Julia decided to investigate a story about emeralds, which are sold here like opal is sold in India or jade in New Zealand, or whatever precious stone is sold anywhere, in the back room of some overpriced kitsch jewellery store marketed to tourists desperate for a deal on yes-sir-100%-real-sir gems they didn't know they needed before the tour bus dropped them off outside the store. I've seen it before, the Thailand hustle, hello-friend-want-to-buy-a-rug inTurkey, and so on, and so I wandered off into a local bar where some university students were having lunch, and we spoke about this and that, and I asked them my three questions, quickly discovering that Colombia's image needs a desperate makeover. This looks like a normal place (well, normal in South American terms) with normal people, although everyone warned me that wondering into the wrong area is putting a noose around my neck, but that applies to anywhere, doesn't it? Yes I generalize, but no more than a newspaper that tells you that Colombia is dangerous to tourists. I swear I heard machine gun fire from the bed of my hotel, but I felt more bad mojo in Rio or Johannesburg than Bogota, and trust me, the mojo in these fantastic cities is well worth checking out. If we fear the world, we fear ourselves.
1500 words in here folks and I've hardly got to the good stuff. Like. Luggage arrives safely. And. The Bulletproof Tailor of Bogota, Senor Miguel Caballero, the Armani for moving targets, manufacturer of fine bullet proof fashionware. Here it is, in a squat, white, low-rise building decorated with stylish discretion and armed with strict security. When your clients include the wealthy elite and world leaders, it's best not to advertise too much in a city with the highest kidnapping rate in the world. The same way it's best not to advertise you're nervous of getting shot, which is why Caballero makes the only tailored, bullet-proof suits, sweater, leather jackets and hoodies in the world. Considering over 100 people work at the factory, it has shot to the top of the pile, exploded on the world scene, a real bang for the buck. The walls are covered in press - CNN, Wired, BBC - but Miguel's in Mexico, so instead I'm shown around by Andres and ballistics director Ignacio and these guys are just great, answering my questions (yes it can stop a 9mm bullet, yes it can deflect a knife, no, it's not too heavy, yes, but only Mr Cabillero can make the shot that lets clients test the vests, no, it won't stop AK-47 rounds, yes, that is a bullet-proof tie, yes, the fabric is unique to the company, no, we can't shoot you, sorry, no, sorry, no, sorry, yes, we'll let you shoot a vest but only if you stop asking us to shoot you por fevor). I try on various vests and outfits, and I feel powerful knowing that for a brief moment I could survive a shootout, providing I don't get hit in the neck, head, groin etc. The aim, Andres tells me, is to save lives, not prevent injury, but even so he tells me that the impact of the bullet is no harder than a finger flick. He should know. All employees at the company have to put on a vest and get shot by Senor Caballero, because they should believe in the product like he does. Considering everyone seemed happy and healthy, he's made a lot of believers. There's even a club for people whose lives have been saved by a Caballero vest, which makes a mockery out of St Andrews Golf Club membership requirements. Miguel Caballero only sells 20% of its product in Colombia, but, as Andres point s out, a bullet proof vest made for life in Colombia is made for life wherever you want to take it. The company has boutiques in Bogota and Miami, and another one opening up in Paris. So they lead me into the testing room, where a vest is strapped onto a square of soft clay. They scientifically test the velocity, the speed, the depth of the impact. After a demonstration, I'm handed an Uzi machine gun, loaded with a single bullet, and take aim a few feet from the vest. Wearing an armour-plated vest, holding a gun, for that moment, every misguided male hormone was going mad with mistaken machismo, and I fired, and oops, almost missed the vest but did manage to knick the bastard. We measure the impact, and fack the finger flick there's a one inch dent in the clay. Save lives. Not prevent injury. Now they want to take the gun away but I know I can land the shot in the middle of the vest, so I huff and puff and all eyes are on me, a small crowd gathered at the window in the hallway, because I have to make this shot, a true test to the nature of my testes. Fire! A blitz of violence, and Ignacio congratulates me. I think he's being sarcastic as I could have missed the vest altogether and sent a bullet flying through the wall, but instead, I've hit the vest panel dead center, a perfect shot. I strut like a proud killer, and then it hits me, why young boys make the perfect soldiers, why there is so much gunfire and death - in the hands of a boy, a weapon becomes a toy, and death becomes a game. In the hands of a man it is no different. Check out the picturesTouchdown in the T-Zone! It's the night before another public holiday and the streets of Bogota are ablaze! A crowd has gathered outside the old church in Simon Bolivar Square, as we drive towards the T-Zone, an area of top-notch bars and clubs. It could be Miami, it could be Madrid, neon lights and silver service. Ricky and Maria take me into a club called Giavanna, where I am frisked three times and enter to find what every man dreams of but seldom discovers - a bar full of beautiful women (none of whom, I should add, are hookers.) You can only buy liquor by the bottle, and everyone's slugging back aguardiente, Colombian moonshine, or literally, hot water. I meet some guys in the line-up and before long I'm partying in their extended crew, literally surrounded by girls so beautiful they're in my dreams days later. House music, Latin music, a little rhumba, a little salsa, 80's remixed, lasers, smoke machines, a cannon fires confetti in the air, and girls, who all seem to be named Maria, take my hand and make me dance, and guys take my hand and give me drinks, and this isn't a scam or a setup, just the dream night out. Except I have to leave to catch a plane to the Caribbean in the morning, so I have to leave Maria-something here and say goodbye to Maria-something there, and any one of them would be reason to flush my passport. "Normally" I tell Maria-somethingelse, "I'd ask for your number and we could go out and I'd get to you know you and meet your family, but I'm a travel writer and tomorrow I fly to Cartagena and that's it for Bogota." She can't hear this over the loud music, just smiles warmly, her eyes sparkling, and I take my leave, but my heart lingers and fades behind, until the music stops and everyone goes home, and it lies on the floor, like a discarded business card.
It's a relaxed, one-hour flight to Cartagena, where Bogota's cold nights trade in for sticky sweat, its low-rise buildings become high-rise holiday apartments, and the green jungle hills of Colombia dissolve into the pee-warm Caribbean sea. It's the Cancun of Colombia, yet also a UNESCO Heritage Site that protects a historical walled city dating back over 500 years. From the plane window, I see the slums first, and then the Old Cartagena, and then the new Cartagena, and immediately I can see the different worlds that inhabit this beautiful town. Tourists pay European prices for hotels, meals and activities. Locals, earn and can only afford to pay a fraction of that. Tourism drives this town, and there's no problem with FARC (Che Che Che) and death squads because everyone here appears to be making a killing. Sipping a $10 Pina Colada atop the old fortress walls, a warm ocean breeze so thick you could paint the notes of the Thievery Corporation tune in the air, it's undoubtedly stunning, if a little hard on the wallet. The cuisine is all fresh fish and coconut rice, the tropical juices squeezed and palm trees tall. I've seen this before, in northern Brazil, only there, it didn't cost $100 to buy a ticket on a boat to visit the islands, or $15 for fish and rice, or $6 a beer, or $7 an hour for Internet. But then you step one block beyond the tourism zone, or even next door to the hotel where old and young whores gather, and here are the locals, paying $1 a beer, $2.50 for a half roasted chicken, and 75c an hour for internet. Different worlds, same city. It's rainy season so the sky is foggy and the humidity is overpowering. I jump into the Caribbean and it's like swimming inside the bottle of water you left in the sun for half a day. On the patio of a bar, I'm looking at old Spanish forts, when Cartagena was a pirate town, a major trading center of the old world. Colourful bustling party buses drive in the night, and the plazas in the old town are full of excellent outdoor seafood restaurants, weathered buskers playing traditional songs, dancers with hard stomachs as flat as a brick, hippies selling trinklets, pretty girls in short summer dresses. Basically paradise, providing you can afford it, and keep to the right parts of town. New developments in Cartagena pierce the sky with skyrise holiday apartments, but major hotel chains have yet to carve up the charm for their shareholders. I'd suggest you get in before they do. Check out the picturesI'm all over volcanoes. Sandboarding a cone in Nicaragua, hiking amongst lava flows in Guatemala, climbing an angry mountain in Chile. So I naturally had to make my way to the Volcan de Lodo, a mud volcano about an hour outside of Cartagena. The idea: You climb a ladder to the top, and inside the small crater find a pool of thick volcanic mud. Take a dip, rinse off in the lagoon. Sure, sounds like fun! So the bus arrives at the volcano, and the "volcano" looks more like a termite hill, an ant trap. I'm nursing a hangover from the previous night, in which I joined Ms Dimon as she let loose with vigour, and a few bottles of rum later, ended up in a club called the Diva Bar, which is basically a clue because that's one vowel short of what it actually was, vis a viz, a Dive Bar. At first impression, the mud volcano resembles a seismic tourist fantasy. Then you take off your clothes, and climb into the thick goopy mud. Bye bye hangover. Here was a dream fulfilled, to float in thick milk chocolate. Refreshingly cool considering the furnace of the early morning sun, the mud invades every pore with pleasure. It's what we imagine it must be like to sleep on a cloud, only you'll fall through a cloud and freeze and die, where here the mud moulds around your body, and cushions your head. It covers your skin like liquid latex, accentuating muscles and tone. Not only are you totally relaxed and cooled off, you feel like a supermodel. Operated by an association from the nearby village, smiley men exfoliate you by rubbing your skin, and only then, only then, do you notice the incredible view that surrounds you. Like the creature from Uranus, the mud covered me head to toe, and began to work its magic. 100% natural, although the shape of the cone is maintained by villagers with sandbags, legend calls this the "Volcano of Youth" where a man can enter at age 50, and leave as a 30-year-old. Tourists have only been coming here for the last three decades, and the volcano does bubble up a small eruption of mud up to 3 times a year. But the word is out, as bus loads of tourists arrived and the small crater got full. It was time for the lagoon rinse, whereby a lady from the village douses you in nearby water, still and murky like the water in a latrine (which unnervingly are located nearby). More so, my Lady of the Lagoon had no problem ripping off my shorts to give them a thorough washing, and I almost lost consciousness holding my breath as she dipped me in and out with all the grace of a torturer. Julia was clutching her bikini for her life. Thoroughly submerged in mud, rubbed, doused, shaken and dehydrated, the sun punching us with strong rays, I meet two English guys who have ridden through South America for six months and are two days from finishing their journey. "We haven't had a single problem," says Dave, "although we were nervous to ride through the jungle parts of the country." I repeat: Two bikers, long remote roads in South America, no problems. Here's Marina, with her two kids from Canada. Marina's Colombian, met her Canadian husband and moved to Toronto, and brings her kids back every year. "There's been a definite improvement in safety these last few years," she tells me, and I've heard this a few times during the week. "We invite our friends every year but their parents are worried about the danger," says her daughter Melissa, and we both wonder why. Reputations can be nasty things, to people and places. "This is better than the Dead Sea," remarks Julia, and I can't argue. The mud volcano is the perfect type of unusual Gonzo adventure I'd expect to find in a place like Colombia, and possibly, the long-last cure to the vicious traveller's hangover.
Slowly getting used to the heat, the stickiness, the loud horns of the traffic, the second-hand smoke from the people in the room next door who blast their TV all day. Perfect time to visit paradise, in this case, the Rosario Islands, an hour or so by speedboat from Cartagena. Today, I am inspired by lying up front, arms stretched over the bow, warm wind blowing hard through my fingertips, passed my hair. All I can see is the Caribbean, turning brown, then green, the blue, then turquoise. Would Superman fly low to see the colours of the sea change? In the morning the sea is calm, and the speedboat hauls ass, pausing at the imposing walls of the old Spanish Fort, connected by an ancient underground tunnel. On either side, six boys row up from nowhere screaming something in Spanish. Nico, our guide blessed with an even wider smile than Danny Glover, explains they want us to throw coins in the sea so they can dive and retrieve them. This provides some cheap entertainment, but Julia feels we're taking advantage of them. She argues it's like begging, I argue it's a couple kids having fun and making some coin in the process. To show solidarity, I dare her to throw in some pesos for me to collect, and sure enough, I'm diving into the sea to fetch it (admittedly, it was a lot easier to catch a floating note than a sinking coin). The engine kicks it up and the sun and wind dries me, and soon we arrive in your dream island of my reality - blue waters, palm trees, fine white sand. I once wrote about the cocaine-like sand of Sihanoukville Cambodia and here that description would perhaps be more apt, since this particular island was once owned by the notorious Ochoa, a peer of the equally notorious Pablo Escobar. Today it's all but deserted for tourists to spend some time, before boating off to another Rosario island, where tables and chairs sit beneath shade-tarps right in the shallow sea, and you can eat lunch half submerged in crystal water, tiny fish swimming between your legs. Across the channel, on the island of Baru, I find the perfect backpacker paradise only it costs a lot more than a backpacker could afford. Hammocks, lounge chairs, kayaks, chill music, fresh fish on the grill. I've seen something similar in Brazil, in Costa Rica, in Thailand, in Cambodia, only there they charge considerably less, and I still cannot make sense of the cost here. But whining about prices in paradise is like complaining about your grocery bill at your Academy Award speech - how does another Mary put it, "Gonzo, stop crying your velvet tears!" Check out the picturesSo I understand now, this fascination with Colombia amongst those that have been here. The cities are as safe as any other city in South America, sure, and unless you're desperately unlucky don't count on getting into trouble whatsoever. If you do, you'll be amazed how quickly locals will be on hand to help you out. "In New York, people around the world know there are some bad places, but they also know there are amazing places too. Here, they just know the bad," sighs Maria-Jose, rolling her beautiful brown eyes across the sea. At a road block on the way back from visiting Monserrat, the mountain that overlooks Bogota, my taxi hits an armed road block. The soldiers frisked me, but on finding out my gringohood, were all smiles and innocent questions. It's when the soldiers are not on your side that you have to worry. Here in Colombia, a nation that prides itself on passion, on hospitality, on looking ahead and regretting the past, you can safely dismiss the bad news, and believe my hype.
Hotel Monterrey