South America Ch 9: THAT Gunpoint incident in Colombia

Hi everyone, well, as promised here is an excerpt from my South American ramblings ... might as well start with themost famous story first! This comes at the 8 month mark in my 9 month adventure ... nearing the end, and almost ready to go home to London.... enjoy :) Love Janine

August 2000 some time ...

I woke up to a pistol in the side of my face .. right by my eyeball .... I could just see this black roddy thing disappearing from my eye into the hand of a very young boy... “Plata, da me plata” (Money, give me money) ... “Plata plata .... “

Just a couple of weeks before, my hesitations about going to the o-so-infamously-dangerous drug-running and corrupt  Colombia had started to retreat ... with the encounters I'd been having with some travellers that had braved Colombia, and survived ...

Still fresh in my mind from Quito, the Swiss boy's words of encouragement and passion about Colombia rang through my mind .... he was so in love with the place, so overwhelmed by its beauty and its hospitality ... the incredible country side ... 'you'd be mad not to go .. it's the best place I"ve been!' ...

He was excited about its possibilities, realistic and encouraging about its safety ... he opened up his map and spread it across the floor of our dorm ... ”ok, the worst bit is this road between Pasto and Popayan (on the way to Cali),yet, it's one of the most beautiful in Colombia... don’t miss it. The Guerilla are in these hills" he said pointing enthustiastically at the map, "and they don’t bother any one ... because they have a good view of the road ... there is no police on that stretch, so the problem is the thieves ... the Guerilla don’t care if the thieves are there ... and there is no police to do anything about it".

He had convinced me, OK, why travel thousands of kilometres back south to Santiago to catch my plane, when I can just hop a few more hundred kilometres and 'risk it' by flying out of Bogota?

So, I journey my way north to the border....

The day before I cross the border... I am sitting at my northern Ecuadorian hostel table, sipping my coffee, contemplating my next move across the border in to Colombia ... I met a dark haired dark eyed gorgeous gorgeous guy at the other table ... Daniel ... we exchanged greetings and some chit chat, and then he discovered I was going to Colombia!

"Hey! I am from Colombia!" he smiled. An excited and surprised look on his face.

"Wow!!" Well, he sits down at the table and we start chatting and chatting...

He sensed my trepidation at the prospect of travelling to his country. In the end he kindly got a piece of paper and described just what the hell is going on in Colombia ....

He drew a little circle and put civilians in the middle. Then around the outside he put all the other significant groups .... first the two main cartels from ten years ago ... he said they aren’t around any more, but they were significant in how the Paramilitary groups came to be around, as they would providing protection to farmers from the Cartels and the like for a price... then he put down the not one, two or three, but four different guerilla groups that operate protecting the drug growing and exportation routes .... the national army and Police ... the Government of course, and then for the last final measure, the common thieves.

Hmm, what chance does a civilian have in this country? thinks me ... and I bravely begin my journey across the border in to this mysterious and interesting country ....

It's not long before I am at bus station, wading my way through the spanish to buy my bus ticket on the infamously dodgy road to Cali...

I was worried. As much as the five people I had met hadn’t had problems on the road ..... I knew it was a possibility, and I was travelling it alone. I have to say though, the $6 on the bus vs the $150 in plane was a big incentive to just brave it, so brave it I did!!

I thought fuck em! Lowly common thieves ... what could possibly go wrong? I stuffed the $50 US I had in my shoe under my insole, then split the 70,000 pesos I had ($35) between the two sides of my bra!

I put 15,000 pesos in my pocket .... bought my bus ticket to Cali, …. and hoped for the best.

I was worried the whole journey .... then getting super paranoid about using the Law of Attraction in reverse! "Crap, if i think about it too much then it will definitely happen!!! Visualise getting there safely or something helpful like that won't you?" .... in the end, I gave into sleep .... and was chiding myself because I couldn’t keep my eyes open for the most spectacular bit of scenery on this road !

Then next thing I knew I woke up to a pistol in the side of my face .. right by my eyeball .... I could just see this black roddy thing disappearing from my eye into the hand of a very young boy... “Plata, da me plata” (Money, give me money) ... “Plata plata .... “

I hurriedly dig into my pocket and pull it out, my heart pounding out of my chest. This kid’s voice was so high I thought it was a woman. I couldn’t tell very well, he had a black balaclava over his head... and jeans on under his army top. He shoved the gun into my face a bit more, just as I saw one of his mates going past him in the aisle with a very big serrated fishing knife .... and demand more money when all I produced was a 10,000 note. By that stage I had turned my pocket out of my trousers so he could see I had no more .... and I was thinking “fuck fuck please don’t ask for my bra!”.... he continued onto his next victim.... and my curiosity to look back was overcome by the need to not look conspicuous.... I was in the very front row of the bus with a Lonely Planet guide on my lap in full view!

So in front of me was another boy with a bomb in his hand holding it next to the bus driver demanding that he drive the bus, and faster.

There were six of them, with knives and pistols .... all very very young, all with balaclavas and makeshift army tops over their trousers.

They had split up and worked their way to the back of the bus, making sure no passenger was missed. Once they had their booty, they all shuffled up the isle to the front of the bus, lined up, told the bus driver to stop to let them off, and they were gone.

It seemed that as quickly as it had started, it was over.

The woman in the seat over the aisle from mine was crying with her baby, and the girl about my age behind her was as well. I looked over and felt the sting behind my eyes and nose and the brief urge to go out in sympathy with them. And then it went away and all I felt was bewilderment through my pounding heart.

God they don’t switch the letters and call this place “Locombia” for nothing! Increible. (Loco is the Spanish word for crazy).

The whole bus exploded into animated and heated conversation. As good as my Spanish is getting, I just cannot cope with fast speaking. How frustrating! I gather the man was asking the drivers just why they stopped the bus for these guys .. ( asked the guy behind me how it happened at the start, as I had been sleeping, he told me they had all been standing across the road.) The bus drivers exploded into defensive and animated explanations about what else were they to do? They get stopped 2 to 3 times a week on average … on the same stretch of road.

They told us we were lucky. Sometimes they take everything, all the luggage in the hold of the bus, the daypacks, and then they take everyone off the bus one by one and search them (ie bras and underwear). Then if you have some particularly good-looking clothes (ie GAP combat trousers and $150 walking boots like I had)… they command you “saca tus pantalones” (take off your trousers) … in the middle of the highway!!

I decided the best strategy from that point on would be to wear a dress on my bus rides.

One passenger came up and looked proud of himself that he had managed to stuff his money behind his head in the seat cover, … and the girl who had been crying behind the baby had stuffed all her money in her mouth … mumbling through the money to the thief when he came “no tengo nada”!!.

She got away with it, and told the story so indignantl. It amazed me how much these local people just have to accept and prepare themselves for events like these!

Well, when my heart stopped pounding, and they told me there was still a risk that we would get stopped again before reaching Popayan, I decided there was only one thing for it … a very expensive makeshift tampon shoved in a place where the sun definiteldon't shine!

I can’t believe I just told you all that. I am sure the guerilla and common thieves haven’t resorted to cavity searches on roadsides yet!!!..

We made it to Cali anyway with no further noteworthy events. Except for the fact that our storytelling at the first available police point drew only unsurprised, ambivilent and all-knowing reactions to our plight. Hmm, this is a crazy place, thinks me.

Anyway, by the time my heart stopped pounding, I realized what a cool experience I had just had all for only $6!

Well …. After that exciting chapter…. I will save the rest of my ramblings for the next one ☺

Suffice to say, I am in Medellin now (after a few days in Cali, a Paragliding trip and some hot salsa dancing) where I came to visit Daniel and have been living here with his family for the last week! I’m about to head off for my third day of Salsa classes!! How cool.

Stay tuned … I am hatching my next plan to move off and head to the coast in a couple of days, but for now I am sat tight and safe here. (Re-reading my story I might just fly to the coast!! Har har).

Love to you all
J9

8 September 2000


Oh, ps I am now booked into London 11 October 2000. So anyone who wants to babysit me, I’ll take the best bidder!!

South America Ch 3: Monkeys, big cats and lots of jungle

Friday 6 April 2000 

(Yep, this is a bit out dated now, we're in Peru and have trekked a huge volcano ... but that's for the next installment ... we ended up paying a taxi driver lots of dosh to get us out of Bolivia. Oh, the photos I promised lower down are coming later too ... couldn't find a scanner in this town) Enjoy!  I’ll apologise in advance, this one's a bit long... but make sure you read the bit about the jaguar ok? (tee hee).

Hola everyone

Here’s another exciting instalment of my latest adventures ...

Our final days in Sucre ....

Lizzie trekked off to visit an orphanage she'd been given a contact for, returned with a project in mind and gathered the rest of us to go and help out ... five of us went up to visit these young orphaned boys armed with balloons, newsprint and lots of flour, water and paint ... yep, you guessed it, we were going to have a paper mache session!

They loved it.  There must have been about 20 to 30 of them, and I have never seen such a young group of boys behave and enjoy themselves so well before.  I never got to find out a lot of their stories, and they were all so appreciative that we had taken the time out to come and spend the afternoon with them.  We went up there three times in all, either doing crafts, or playing games outside.  There was such a level of respect and support they all had for each other ... geesh, if we put a bunch of Australian boys from age 6 to 16 in one room, all hell would break loose I’m sure! The last day we all had our photos developed and took them up to lay out for them all to have one each... no fighting!  They all took one each and maybe two, made sure their mates all managed to get one of themselves as well, and were all very chuffed with the results ... we left feeling that we had at least brought them a few smiles and some satisfaction during our short visit.

Next day, our little tribe all set off to the local festival in Tarabuco.  It was a lovely day.  All of the local indigenous communities were there in full costume.

We all had a hat trying session, and I bought one from Tarabuco.  It is covered in sequins and has a funny pom pom thing on top.  It is the hat the young single women wear.

Roberto, the guy running Kaypichu restaurant closed up for the day, and brought our whole group of about 8 a picnic.  We sat in the outskirts of town and ate together before returning to Sucre on a Camion... these are great.  They are a more basic form of public transport in Bolivia ... an open air truck!

Transporting yourself on one of these means your travel companions could be anything from your basic stock standard men and women from the country side (campesinos), the women with their funny bowler hats, short puffy skirts and long black plaits, huge sacks of potatoes, corn, rice and other produce from the market, sheep, pigs and most commonly, three or four chickens neatly tucked into a bag with only their heads sticking out!  The poor sheep on the last trip was well unimpressed as her lead was so short she could hardly move around and every time we went over a bump, she slipped in all her poo and piddle, and strangled herself... fortunately our journey was more comfortable wobbling up and down on the makeshift plank lodged across the top edges of the truck ... this made convenient holding points for the black plastic rain protection when the heavans decided to open.!  A fantastic experience....

Well... I said my sad good-byes to Sucre ... I really enjoyed my time there (all except for my brief period of paranoid delusions about having some weird and horrible immune system attacking disease, after three weeks of constant illness of one sort or another!)I got over that anyway, and Lizzy and I head off for the jungle...

An overnight bus ride, in a bus cama {bed} that had very very reclining seats to Cochabamba, and then after a brief email session in the city, boarded our wee little Micro bus for Villa Tunari... in the jungle region of Chapare.... whoooeee!!

We were dropped off on the side of the road, absolutely dying of the heat (we’d come from about 22 degrees per day, mountains, clouds, quite dry, to 30 degrees in the shade, and quite humid)...

We saw the sign, "Inti Wara Yassi", refuge for wild animals and trekked our way up the path...

http://www.intiwarayassi.org/

We arrived to a beautiful spot next to the river.  We were met by a very friendly black spider monkey called Pancho, who immediately climbed up and over my head to sit on my shoulders ... and see what he could pick out of my back pack!

Everywhere else around there were mischievous and very cute little cappuccino monkeys, and even smaller yellow monkeys ... playing on peoples heads and in the trees...

Nena greeted us, the woman who runs the park, and was very cool and calculating when we said we wanted to volunteer ... "the days are long, you must stay 15 days, start 7.30am, finish 6pm, there is a lot of shit, lot of caca! and a lot of monkey bites, cleaning, walking, is hard work ......."

You still want to do it?

Har har, of course we do silly, you’re not going to put us off that easily!  (Apparently many volunteers come in good faith and then piss off when the going gets tuff a few days later).

So, we returned the next day to start our duties... it is each volunteer's responsibility to see that their jobs are done, and when they leave, to pass them on to another willing volunteer. I ended up with the responsibility of looking after the Cuchis!  (Yes that’s just like Coochi coochi coo in English!), and believe me these little animals are so cute ...

These little beauties who look a bit like ring tailed possums, with paddington bear faces ... were all orphaned babies from independent mothers, brought to the park.  They are quite special because they are one of the few animals that may be able to remain completely wild and free of human taming, once they’re old enough to be released.  Hence, the main objective of the morning and evening feeding exercise was to sneek, on tippy toes, vewy vewy quitely up to their cage, and give them their food without them waking up....

A simple task you may think.

Morning time, easy peasy japanesy ... just stick their food through a little door on a feeding table in the side, brush the table off of waste, and go away again... easy.

The afternoon wasn’t quite so easy... because in order to teach them some kind of technique to fend for them selves, it was necessary to strategically plant bananas, honey, egg nests and chicken pieces around the cage, so that they actually had to look and "forrage" for their food!!

So, creeping vewy vewy quietly into the cage, I would begin my evening banana spiking ritual, on all the conveniently placed spikes on their branches ... very authentic indeed... then try to balance the half shawn off water bottle container containing eggs in a tree somewhere!!I would give up with the papaya and just stick that on their feeding table, along with a wee little bowl of honey ...

Generally though, they would sniff it as soon as I go in there, and I would have cuchis, all four of them climbing all over me ... and I wasn't allowed to cuddle them or pat them! Arrgggh ... vewy vewy difficult because they were all soo so vewy vewy cyoot!  All I could do was pick them up from their tail and plonk them back on to a tree and hope they wouldn’t come back ... and make a very very fast exit!!

So... that was the story of the cuchis ...

The middle of my days were for generally helping out.  Cleaning cages, building or repairing the wooden feeding tables .. . which rot so fast with the rain and humidity ... or um, other stuff!  Got a bit boring in the day time with not too much to do,so on one day I went walking with Gato the Puma!

He was rescued from a travelling circus by accident, as Juan Carlos and Nena had gone to rescue some monkeys they’d heard about ... while investigating they found Gato, a baby puma in a cage, looking very sad and forlorn.  On their subsequent returns they took Gato as well, only to discover when they went to let him out of his cage that he couldn’t walk any more.  His legs had been so badly beaten to make him jump through hoops of fire that they were broken....

Gato, when I was in the park was being beautifully looked after by Hella, a Swedish woman (now living in London), with much support from her partner Dave.  Between them they had started a very regular and well organised walking regime for him, and Dave built him a fantastic new big cage (before he would spend the whole night in a tiny little box not big enough to stand up in, until someone came in the morning to let him out for his walk) ...

So, Hella would go every day, and unless someone was in training, would take another volunteer with her.  This person would be the person Gato could chase as an incentive for his exercise!!

I never thought I would be running through the  jungle being chased by a puma.  Fortunately, Gato wasn’t feeling super energetic on my day, so we just got up to a brisk walk ... but when this is up very steep inclines on very dodgy track ... it was tuff ... I have every bit of admiration for Hella, who only has one hand free and a very keen puma on the other end of the lead, how she didn't fall and break her neck I don't know!!

It was fantastic though, he is like a big pussy cat, who demands a lot more respect and admiration ... a beautiful creature... didn’t feel at all threatened by him ... it was fun to play with him, as if I fell behind and tried to get back up front, he would playfully try and eat my leg to stop me!! I just laughed along with it and he loved it.

Anyway, in my search for something more significant to do in the park, I decided I could prepare a fund raising dinner for all the volunteers (at 15 boliivanos a head, very expensive in bolivia, but only $2.50, nothing really),.. so Nena and Francisca helped me in Nenas house, and we prepared a veritable feast... it  was also great for me because I actually got to speak some Spanish for a whole afternoon, rather than English with all the volunteers (my Spanish has kind of halted since Sucre!)

It was a huge success, and we raised enough money to build the night monkeys a new cage.  The pooor little darlings were stuck behind the day monkeys, who would play and jump around on top of the tiny little cage all day and the little things could never get any sleep.  If you cuddled one in the evening they were perfect examples of hypertensed stress cadets...

So ... Dave and I, found a beautiful new spot for their cage, right near the track, on the other side of the hill, conveniently placed trees, not much hacking through the jungle.  Unfortunately, Nena didn't think it was so perfect ... instead she found the new spot ... a huge bloody trek through the jungle, up through un cut path to the top of the hill!  Thank god I was leaving the day after we found this spot, and only had to carry a few of the planks of wood up the path!!  Horrendous it was... but a fantastically keen Israeli guy came a day before I left and seemed very keen to build the cage ... phew

Oh I could keep writing for ages....

I really started to understand and appreciate the monkeys in the park just as I was leaving ...

They are the most beautiful and human like creatures... with personalities, likes, dislikes, jealousies, emotions ...

So many had come from terrible back grounds, with families who didn’t feed them properly and left them in cages all day... cappuccinos who had been taught to perform and earn money for numerous bosses in market shows ...

Some of them had been abused physically, beaten, had cigarette butts stubbed on their fur ... apparently the head honcho, Pancho when he first arrived had no fur anywhere and wouldn’t leave Nena’s side for three months. Now He’s king pin and greets everyone in the park!!

So ... to see them all learning to socialise with the other monkeys and swing around in the trees was sheer joy.  Some of them hate women, and have to be tied on long leads (so they can still get up in the trees, and they’re so clever they can untangle the cord them selves), and my favorite little cappuccino (the one in the photos attached below), Chayenne, hates children... he’s the sweetest little thing but apparently will attack children at first sighting.

If and when the odd monkey who isn’t able to be off a lead does manage to escape, the first place they usually go is into town, so they can steal some coca cola and cigarettes!! (So someone told me), that’s what they were often fed on when in captivity....

That conjured up images of the bar scene from the Gremlins for me!

I think my favorite thing about the Cappuccinos though, particularly my favorite, Chayenne, was that he would come and sit on my shoulder and ruffle through my hair with his fingers, pick my scabs, protest wildly if I stopped him from lifting up my trouser legs so he could attack the literally hundreds of mozzie bites and scabs on my legs, and best yet... he even picked my nose for me one day and ate what he found all up!  Just beautiful. Lanny, you'd love these monkeys, if you have big pimples, they squeeze them as well!! tee hee

So, that’s a brief account of the monkeys ...

Only one thing left to talk about, the sheer highlight of my trip..

On my last day I got to swim with the jaguar!  Yes the jaguar!

They don’t tell many people about Sama, because he doesn't handle too many peering tourists very well. His mother was killed when he was a cub.  The family who killed his mother found him and took him back to rear him in a tiny flat in La Paz!!! E Gad.

Many people are down right scared of him, lots of volunteers won’t consider working with him (and considering that jaguars are the most aggressive and dangerous of the cat world, it’s no wonder!), but I really like him.  He liked me when he met me too, probably because he could sense that I wasn’t afraid.  Nadine is the one who looks after him at the moment, she's amazing.

He goes swimming most days in the river, and you can go and be his play partner!  Whooeee ... he wouldn't get in when the other two went in (at which point I was just going to watch), and when I went in, convinced I wasn’t going to see Sama swim that day, and just have a cool off my self, he decided he wanted to get in!  Arrgggh ... the sight of a jaguar swimming full pelt through the water towards you is quite a disconcerting sight believe me!!

He has f$*king huge teeth and claws.... When he swam over to me, I just held him under his tummy in the water .. it was so amazing! He loved it. .. I nearly cried.!

Then Nadine said, ok, run away from him so he can catch up with you, splash around, he likes it ...

God .. I did this and as soon as he caught up with me he decided to have a playful chew on my right boob!  I still have the tooth mark on it, (most proud of that I am)!  Fortunately I’d heard the trick was to grab his lower jaw and prise his teeth open (this was just a play bite by the way, didn't hurt and wasn’t aggressive in any way), but I must admit, after that point I was a wee bit scared ...

If you play with him well, you can both get quite rough, and he has a fantastic time ... but I hadn’t actually seen him play before and so didn’t quite know what to expect ... after that point I got very good at running away so fast he could never catch up with me!!) ...

Such an amazing experience, one I will never forget.

E Gad, I’ve rattled on for ages ...

I didn’t see much of Lizzie, because she was looking after the parrots on the other side of the hill!, a very long and demanding job, so she was stuffed every night, and with her Englishness and all, don’t think she coped super well with the heat!!

We lived in the volunteers house together, which was a lovely home away from home, so when we said goodbye after about five weeks of being together it was quite sad and weird... I hope to catch up with her some time in Peru or the rest of Bolivia...

So... I said my good-byes, having considered quite seriously to return at some point to help them build a cafe at the park entrance and some of their PR admin stuff.  We’ll see on that score.. Greg’s convinced now though that he wants to go and play with Sama too!

So that brings me to La Paz!!  Greg and I met up very smoothly to plan on Monday morning.. I had just got off a night bus from Cochabamaba at 5.30 in the morning, and him, his plane from Australia (via ten different stop off points and 42 hours of flying!)

It was weird seeing my brother get out of a taxi below my balcony in a strange Bolivian city!.

So, .... here we are!  In La Paz... 4000 odd metres high ... snow capped Andes in the distance.  The whole city kind of sits in a basin, with cliff walls surrounding, incredibly steep, which leads up to the Altiplano...

Very surreal city.  Even more so when you're head's about to explode with the altitude sickness and nausea and dizziness are not uncommon!

Fortunately I didn't suffer too badly .. headache and nausea, but Greg managed to have an intolerable headache for 4 days, and on top of it all managed to eat something that didn't agree, and yep, got his first bout of South American diarrhea under his belt.... har har.

Fortunately today he's looking alive and well again, and even sounds ever so slightly excited about seeing some sights ... now that would be a great idea, except the campesinos are revolting against harsh economic measures, and have blocked all the roads in and out of La Paz!!  So, now Ange is here as well. Will see her for first time in about half an hour... yeee ... and we all want to go adventuring to the mountains, but can't get there! ... hmm, where there's a will there's a way they say...

Our current option under investigation is the Gravity Assisted Mountain biking company... they take you to the top of a very very high mountain, and then give you a mountain bike, helmet and gloves and let you go for it!! The one we want to do is the death road to Coroico!!  Tee hee, Coroico is in the mountains and apparently has some great trekking opportunities... it's just how to get there ...

Hmm...

Anyway, there you have it... the latest instalment.  If you've made it this far you're doing really well.. Congratulations ... i really have waffled his time!

Thank you everyone for all your fantastic emails... when I returned from the jungle, I had so many wonderful long, newsy and supportive emails, and it was such a pleasure to read them all [It took me three days mind you, but I got there in the end!].

Keep it all coming... I love keeping up with what's going on.

Lots of love, big hugs and kisses

Janine

PS, I had my first wee little salsa with an Argentinian hombre the other

night... they can really move...