Colombia, Part 1

I hopped on the back of a motorcycle at the farm, La Independéncia, to get into town today to use the internet. The town is small and the dirt roads are rutted deeply from recent rains. Donkeys and horses carry potable water on their backs in large drums for purchase to businesses and homes. The air is thick and hot and carries the scent of cattle one moment and of tropical fruit the next.

I arrived in Medellin a little over a week ago. The airport was less of a fortress than I remembered it. No glass walls separating Esteban from me, no questions I didn´t understand about why I was visiting. It was all too easy, I was afraid I missed a step, didn´t get my passport stamped, never walked through customs...something. Maybe they are more used to seeing foreigners depart their planes than they were eight years ago, maybe the have improved systems at the airport like Esteban says, or maybe I was just lucky.

Like Mexico City, Medellín has seen a population boom in recent years. Traffic is relentless. They have begun placing restictions on license plates, limiting who can drive on certain days. Upon arrival I am both at ease and anxiously amazed by the choas of cars, motorcycles, trucks, bikes, busses, people on foot, people on horseback, stray cattle, donkeys, dogs, all swirling around me. It´s like watching a carnival ride. At first glance it appears that all the little parts will surely collide, that there is no way all they can maneuver such small spaces with such speed. It spins and spins and you wonder how all the pieces remain firmly on their axis. It´s enough to make your jaw bite down and your stomach drop, but after a few turns you know that as you round the bend, no matter how close the spinning cup appears to come, it will spin away from you safely out of reach. Those who know of my auto anxiety will find it especially interesting that after a few days in a Latin American country I almost prefer the driving to the States.

After a few days in the bustling city we got in Esteban´s truck and spent six hours driving through the mountains. Medellin sits at about 4,500 feet about sea level. The top of the mountain we were crossing sat comfortably at 9,000 feet. The cargo trucks ahead of us made a slow approach up the steep and curvy mountains. The next 4,500 feet we spent ´dodging trucks´ as Esteban put it. It was like a constant game of chicken. We passed caravans of two or three trucks around seemingly blind curves that no one in their right mind would pass on...no one except the Latin Americans. I have experienced this technique several times before, in Mexico, Guatemala, etc., and it´s barely something that can be explained because to me it lacks all logic, but somehow it works. As we climbed higher in the mountains we passed clouds that hung down from the rest and got caught in the hills like they were too cool for the sky. At the top, the cloud coverage was thick and the visability was lower than the worst blizzard you could imagine, with the added suspense of a 9,000 foot drop off a shear cliff. At least there was no threat of black ice.