Blog Entry 1 - 23 agosto 2012 – Bogota, Colombia
Tuesday August 7 flew to Bogota from Toronto via Miami. Uneventful. Sat with a young female economist from Bogota returning from a shopping trip to Miami. Got a bit of an idea about the country. Was on alert after getting a call from the company I had just bought travel insurance from letting me know that their insurance would not cover me in parts of Colombia due to kidnappings and murders in those areas.
Met with my friend Bruce and his daughter Wasena in Bogota at the hostel we had reserved at in the Candelaria district. Went out for a walk in the evening although had been warned about this area after dark. It was a bit like a zombie film. People hiding in the shadows and going through garbage, and incoherent (in Spanish), some of which followed us. I am told that these people are mostly drug addicts that come down from the hills in the night looking for money and drugs. I do not know if this is true but it is not hard to believe.
First impressions of Bogota. Coming into town by plane in the evening, the city has a population the size of Toronto, and yet the night lights are relatively sparse. So different from Canada/US. Beautiful mountain surroundings including a church on top of a 1000 ft high cliff overlooking this part of the city (the downtown). Weather is cool here at 2600 m altitude. The countries I will be visiting are all Andes/Amazon countries: warm on the coast, cool and even snowy in the Andes (in Bolivia), warm and steamy in the Amazon. I did not bring much in the way of warm clothes, but will have to find a warm jacket and hat and blanket ASAP as I have already been pretty cold a few times. Surprising this close to the equator.
Before we fly out Wednesday, I realize that I will have to get a computer to do the writing and blogging that I want to do. (You were right, Abe.) I purchase a used netbook from a tiny shop in a two-story maze of tiny shops. Unfortunately it crashed the first time I tried to use it. When I got back to Bogota a week later, I went back to the shop and had it fixed (a chip needed replacing). It is a pretty basic computer but was cheap ($160) and serves my purposes. As well, the operating system is in Spanish which is helping me to learn…
Bruce is looking very serious here
Wednesday we flew to Leticia with several members of our group, a town of 30 000 on the Brazilian border, with the attached Brazilian town of Tabatinga. In fact, we walked down the street and into Brazil for supper, for a meal of Amazon fishes, beef tripe and tongue with fried vegetables. Landing in Leticia after flying over virgin rainforest for much of the 1:45 flight and many meandering muddy Amazon rivers, the heat and humidity hit us like a wall. This is the dry season and the Amazon is low. Still, in the week we were there, it rained most days, usually incredibly hard lasting from a few minutes to a few hours. The rain water is collected in raised tanks providing relatively clean gravity feed running water.
The group get together was scheduled for about 5 days in Puerto Narino, a very small town along the Rio Amazonas. It has been declared an Ecotourist town. Among other things it means that there are no motorized vehicles in town (except 1 tractor). So much quieter and sweeter smelling than Leticia with its thousands of motorcycles. We get there by ferry: a fast powerful boat crammed to capacity with people (about 60 or so). Two memorable things along the way: many thatched buildings in many little communities on the way; and having a small fish go flying out of the water and landing by my hand (this seems to happen a lot). I would have grabbed the fish but did not think it prudent without first seeing its teeth!!
Our group consisted of a Colombian dance troupe, a Colombian theater group from Toronto, Bruce representing the National Arts Council (Canada)-Theater section, some Colombian musicians, a Bogota anthropologist, a Bogota dancer who is from the Colombian Ministry of Culture and a small group of film-makers making a film about the struggle to maintain Indigenous cultures in the Amazon. It was organized by Flores-Miro, an Amazonian Indian who is a choreographer and community organizer and who is involved in issues of indigenous rights in Colombia, and is trying to create connections and exchanges internationally. His partner, Ismenia, runs an ecotourism business in Puerto Narino, teaching tourists about traditional plant uses. Their 3 yr old daughter, Serene, will be at the centre of a coming of age (moving from infancy to childhood, for girls only as this is a matriarchal society) ceremony in the Ticuna Indian tradition to be held this week at a Maloca, a traditional thatched roof open air structure (about 100 x 60 ft) about a 20 min walk into the forest. In turn, this ceremony will be the centre of our get together, a ceremony which has been done for centuries. I am glad to be here and with this group although I feel a little out of place as I have little to contribute to the schedule of music and dance workshops and the 2-day ceremony at the Maloca, and can only join in in the dances and drumming, and contribute to group discussions and those with community members through an interpreter: I can muddle through with my Spanish but it will be months before I can have a fluent conversation. Learning the language is fascinating and very frustrating, and at times I do not have the energy to try. I do occasionally act as an interpreter for Bruce and Wasena, whose Spanish is non-existent. But Wasena´s improves rapidly over the week.
In the forest, most people in the community practice slash and burn agriculture with cassava, plantain, maize, beans, papaya and bananas being the main crops. We pass by many small fields at different stages (called chagras) on the way to the Maloca. Most people fish as well. At this time of year, the Amazon River is low and the fish are present in huge numbers, making fishing extremely easy (mostly with nets). In the rainy season (our winter) the river floods the forest and the fish move into the forests to feed on many forest fruits, and fishing is practiced much less. The most common fish eaten appears to be Pacu, a laterally flattened but deep fish which is commonly 14-20 inches long and is very tasty. Also eaten are a wide variety of other fish (see my photos). Since we eat as a group, we eat fish cooked over a kitchen fire at every meal, with a lot of cassava, fried plantain, and rice. On our last morning, we are served a whole barbecued piranha each. It is oily and very tasty. Of course, I extract the lower jaw and keep it. The teeth are very impressive. Lots of fruit juice is served, and we have drunk fermented cassava juice (and other kinds) frequently out of gourd containers passed around. The cassava (yucca) vino is very good, the others less so. We also drink shots of local rum while hanging out outside. This is a Colombian custom.
On our last morning we are also offered a bowl of live grubs (length of my index finger, diameter of my thumb) which live in palm tree trunks. They are relished by the locals and are eaten live or fried. After Manuel, a Bogota musician and bar-owner shows us how it is done, I try one pulling off the head first and then eating it in two bites. Very mild tasting although the skin is a bit tough. I try another. Not bad but I think I would prefer them fried. Gabriel, the archeologist, also tries one but has to fight off his gag reflex, using his omni-present Coca Cola to help wash it down: gives new meaning to the slogan, “Things go better with Coke”.
The indigenous people in different parts of rural Colombia find themselves in the middle of armed fights between govt troops, paramilitary, guerilla groups and narcotrafficers. The US war on drugs is fueling the violence by supplying a great deal of arms to the army. Mining companies (including three Canadian ones) are making matters worse, pushing people off land so that they can set up mines. Canada’s involvement is especially important since we signed a Free Trade Deal with Colombia last year. This week is the scene of a 15 000-strong march in the Cauca region of Indigenous peoples calling for the armed groups to get off their territory and leave them in peace. Indigenous leaders are being regularly murdered in this country. Reminds me of the silent walk for healing which happened last week through the Tar Sands projects by Indigenous leaders from different parts of Canada and the US with a mixing of waters ceremony to promote healing. Native leaders in Canada are not being murdered though; harassed but not murdered.
Churches are problems in the Amazon as they are in northern Ontario for the survival of native culture. In this small town in the Amazon there is a Jehovah’s Witness church as well as others. I was speaking to a priest who runs a tourist cabana operation outside of town. It was clear that he had no respect for the indigenous ceremonies or their spirituality. At the same time, there will be a ceremony for animal spirits to be carried out later this month that had been outlawed for a very long time by local authorities. The aforementioned Coming of Age ceremony has never been banned although one aspect of it has been. Until recently it included pulling out all of the 3 year old girl’s hair one by one, after getting her intoxicated. This is no longer permitted.
Since arriving in Puerto Narino, I have been running daily, mostly with Bruce, through town and then beyond on small trails to neighbouring communities. It would appear that there are regular mostly very small communities stretching for many miles along this part of the Amazon. (The Amazon region is so separate from other parts of Colombia. It is a vast roadless area of forests, rivers as well as small agriculture, and the inevitable large, resource extraction activities.) Running in the morning feels good before it gets too hot but sweat is pouring off of us by the time that we finish. On the last morning we run, while Bruce is in the lead, he spots a small blue and yellow striped frog, undoubtedly a highly poisonous variety.
Over the week, we make two trips to Altura Aguila (Eagle Heights) where a priest/teacher rents out cabins. It is along the Amazon, high up and is on our running route. He has a pet gaucamaya, a large, parrot-like bird with amazing red, blue and yellow plumage. (A lot of people seems to keep them and I have also seen wild ones flying around.) He also has a group of tame, yellow-footed monkeys that hang out there, which have been taken from pet owners and are allowed to return to the wild (if they wish). They are cute and fascinating to watch and very vocal to us and to each other. I never realized that monkeys do not have opposable thumbs on their hands; only on their feet. I get lightly bit by one when I pick it up and it does not appreciate it. I am assured that these monkeys are regularly seen by a vet and vaccinated.
Wasena and three juvenile monkeys
The ceremony finally arrives on Sunday. We hike out to the Maloca around 5, and spend the evening alternating between the traditional dance and chanting and some jamming by members of our group. At different times people lay down to snooze on boards along one side. Mosquitoes are present but not bad but I pass around my bug repellent to several interested parties. There is an outhouse there and Bruce mentions that there is a huge spider there. I go to look, and while not huge, it is very impressive. The ceremony begins in earnest at about 3 AM when the children are awoke and preparations are made. There are both a boy and a girl in the ceremony although most of the practice is primarily aimed at the girl. Some palm and banana leaves are laid on the ground and a number of round dark green fruit are place there along with a container of water and a half gourd. A length of trunk from a spiky species of palm is laid down. This is used to grate the fruit onto the leaves, which we each take turns doing. The mash is mixed with water and placed in the gourd. We are each in turn called to rub some of this paste into the two young children’s mostly naked bodies, until they are largely coated. What we do not realize is that this mixture is a blue-black dye. Our hands are this colour by morning and this lasts for me for 10 days. Then with a lot of chanting and drumming, we dance around the children are gradually dressed in head dresses, and traditional clothing (mostly made from tree bark) as well as painted with plant dyes and feathers. The dances consist of arms linked running about, forward and back regularly changing direction with a drum beat going all the while and a lot of singing in the Ticuna language. This goes on through the night. In the morning, I hike back to the town with Wasena to get her some antihistamines for an allergic skin reaction. I am glad to be out for a while and we both take the opportunity to shower and change and have some breakfast before returning. When we get back later in the morning, a number of school groups have arrived and the ceremony continues including the arrival of dancers in traditional costumes. It ends in mid afternoon with a few speeches which are quite moving, by Serene’s parents (Flores-Miro and Ismenia), her grandmother, Alba, who is in charge of the whole thing, and Bruce, who puts his own Metis (Cree) spin on things. It is all quite moving.
Leonardo making more roof thatching for the maloca
Dancer in traditional costumes made of Llanchama bark
Leonardo making more roof thatching for the maloca
On the last day that the whole group is together, we take a boat (a 30 foot long narrow wooden boat with a canopy) to a nearby lake, one that is considered sacred, although I did not really understand why. The lake is named after a ship that sunk here some years ago. We stop in a very tiny village and the musicians in our group decide to jam with a local group of musicians. I am not sure if this was pre-arranged or not. In any case, I am not really interested but I notice that there is an amazing amount of fish feeding activity in the lake (as evidence by the surface ripples). In fact, at frequent intervals I see what appears to be schools of fish apparently coming to the surface in their race to escape predators. I notice our boatman is passing the time by doing a little fishing himself with a stick, a piece of line and a hook. He has picked up a fish from the bottom of a nearby boat and is using pieces to use as bait. He swirls the stick in the water then drops the hook and within seconds has a bite and he yanks the line. Two thirds of the time he loses the fish but the other times he pulls in always the same kind of fish: a small piranha which is silver with orange highlights, generally about 6 inches long. He throws them back and I notice that he is very careful about how he grabs the fish before removing the hook and throwing them back.
Piraña being unhooked
Later in the day we stop on a large sand bar which extends for several 100 meters and has a flat top about 20 feet above the water (will be mostly under water in the rainy season). We swim and hang out and walking along the top I see that it has mostly been planted: to cassava, maize, and beans. Our main reason for stopping here is that it is a good place to see river dolphins: presumably because the point of the bar is a good fishing spot. There are two species here. A gray dolphin about 5 ft long or so and a larger 10-foot pink dolphin. Eventually a pod of the gray ones comes by and they are clearly fishing. At a rough guess, I would say that there are 5-10 of them. At times you can see a wave caused by them swimming underwater close to the surface and you can at the same time, see ripples caused by fish trying to escape and occasionally leaping into the air. We do see them nab fish as well. They are fishing there for an hour or so before moving on and it is time to go for us, too.
That evening we plan to have a game of soccer, in the main local soccer/basketball court which is made of cement. There has been an inter-community soccer tournament going on all week, and so we have to wait until late to have the court (which is lit). We do play, against some locals. Most of the Colombians are very adept, the Canadians less so. Some of our group does not play, others only for a bit. Some players like me have runners while others play in leather shoes or sandals or barefeet. I am not a soccer player but I play and although I cannot move the ball well, I can snatch it, pass it, and I do manage to score two goals. Later that evening a few of us have some beers and dance in a tiny local bar with music videos played on a computer. I was going to go to bed instead, but Miguel convinces me to stay and I am glad I do. After the bar closes, a few of us sit in the stands of the soccer court and drink and talk. About 3 AM, we see lights moving down toward the river. At first we think it is fireflies which are common and much brighter than the Canadian species I am used to. But these are too bright. Eventually we realize that they are the flashlights of fishermen getting ready to go out. Makes sense as the fish are in the market between 6 and 6:30 AM. We realize it is time to go to bed. By the next morning, everyone has sore legs although Felipe, one of the film-makers, who played in bare feet can barely walk due to blisters. I lend him my antibiotic cream to supplement the healing brew rubbed on his feet by Alba and I also lend him my hiking shoes as his sandals are his only footwear and are pretty much worn out.
After most of the group leaves the next day, Alba tells me that she will meet me at the Maloka to teach me more about how plants are used here in the afternoon. In the late morning, I move to Altura Aguila, where I rent a tiny cabana. Then I head back to town and to the Maloka. It is hot and I am soaking wet with sweat as I make my way up one of many paths that passes through the chagras. It is the first time I am alone in the selva and it feels good. I see a small troupe of dark coloured monkeys about 50 meters away. I see many butterflies, many with fluorescent yellows and blues, including quite a few heliconiids and more kinds of skippers than I have ever seen. I get there and am alone except for the group of chickens and chicks, two guacamayas and a small white puppy which all obviously live here. I take a long drink from my water bottle and lie down for a nap on the boards in the shade of the Maloka. Maybe an hour later I hear someone has arrived. It is Leonardo, Alba’s husband: a small, dark-skinned, wiry man of about 60 with an easy smile. We talk a bit. He has brought some things up here and is heading back; he tells me that Alba is not coming. I offer to help him carry some things back to town to which he agrees although he does not really need the help. On the way, he points out a number of plants and describes their uses to me. When we get back I see Alba. She apologizes and says to meet her at her house at 8 AM the next day. I am invited to stay for supper with the four remaining group members who are still there. We chat, or mostly they chat and I listen, as my Spanish is still not up to joining in the conversation. When I head home it is 8 PM and it has been dark for well over an hour. Fortunately, I have brought a head lamp to negotiate the 2-3 km home, much of it with no lighting and surrounded by trees making it extremely dark. At one point, I see a large toad ahead of me but it does not budge until I nudge it gently with my foot. The sounds I hear are very loud. While in the day, the sounds of cicadas in the selva are almost deafening, added to by several frog species and many loud bird calls, in the night the calls of frogs predominate. There is one that makes a hooting noise almost like an owl, another that makes a loud rattling noise and there are several others. I have to travel across the grounds of a residential school and then through a field. At the entrance gate to the school is a sign saying that fierce dogs are at large from 9 PM to 4 AM. However, on arrival at 8:15, they are already on the loose. They are small enough and only two but I am not anxious to fight them, and have to repeatedly turn to face them, their eyes glowing in the light of my headlamp. Eventually someone there calls them back and I am left to finish my walk in peace.
The next day I head back for 8 AM and stop in the small open air market to buy a bit of fruit. While there, rain, which had been threatening, comes down full bore, with waves washing down the nearby sidewalk. I stay in the market taking refuge there as do many others until it slows down. When I get there it is around 9 but Alba has a meeting and says to meet at 1 then changes it to 2 PM. I go home as I have picked up a flu bug from one of the others with all of the sharing of food and drink. I need to lie down. I come back arriving at 2:20 PM, and Alba and Leonardo are waiting for me. I apologize for my lateness and we make the half hour journey to the Maloka. Alba describes many plant uses on the way. There is the Ohe, a tree whose fruit is eaten by fish in the rainy season. Then I see the palma de asi, whose large plates of bark near the top of the trunk are used as containers. The berries of the Ara produce a bright blue dye. The bark of the Ahida dentais used for brushing teeth. Leaves of the Bure produces another blue dye. The oitiyo plant has red berries; while still green and mashed, these produce a black dye. She shows me a plant used to heal problems with theprostate and another, the Sachaho, which is used for flus and headaches. The Capiruniyu is used in treating some kinds of cancer. The Chocanari tree leaves are used as a purple dye.
The junchama tree has inner bark which is used as a material for bags and clothing. Before we leave, Leonardo demonstrates this, peeling off a piece of bark, exactly the same way I have done it many times to take bark for baskets in Canada. However he peels the inner from the outer bark and then spends ten minutes pounding the bark with a club over a log, and then washes it. After drying it will be ready to use. ´Leonardo gives me the piece. We also take a piece of Junchama (Noe in Ticuna) bark and make a painting together, using several of the plants we have collected for their dyes, and leaf stems pounded at the end as brushes. Before me leave, Alba paints my face with orange dye, puts a headdress on my head and does a dance with me in the Maloka. She and I negotiate what I should pay her (she asks, I suggest, she suggests more, I agree), I pay her and she says that she will get change for me in town.
By the time we are done, the sun is setting and it almost dark by the time we are back at their house. I leave behind rubber boots that I had borrowed from Flores-Miro. Alba has disappeared but soon returns with my change half of which I give back to her, and I leave for home in the dark but this time with no headlamp. It is surreal walking in the dark with all these noises. I am enjoying it and am concerned about only two things: the dogs whom I am hoping are not yet outside, and the possibility of stepping on a poisonous snake. I have not yet seen any snakes but I do not really want to take chances so I shuffle my feet when I cannot see the ground. The dogs are still inside so this is not a problem but in entering the area of cabins I bang my head on some barbed wire. Arriving at the cabins, the priests notices the orange paint and makes fun of the local natives which raises my blood pressure. He also notices my bleeding cut and cleans it for me which I appreciate.
The next morning, after a poor sleep, I head to the ferry after stopping to say goodbye to Flores-Miro, Ismenia, Alba, Felipe and Simon, Ismenia’s daughter Astrid, and a few others. The boat ride is pretty uneventful until we arrive in Leticia. There the ferry is leaves us at different spot and it takes me a while to realize why. We left from a small channel on the townside of an island in the River. However, it was very low and there was barely room to travel. After another week, the river was even lower and boats could no longer go there. So we were left on the other side of the island and had a 1-km trek across sand and mud to get to town. Once at the little river branch, we had to cross it on the ricketiest foot bridge I have ever seen. Bamboo scaffolding covered by loose planks. At both ends, the scaffolding rose above the planks giving handholds. But in the middle, where the bridge was 20 feet or more above the river, there was nothing to hold onto. At the highest point there was a single plank, a foot-wide, which went down a couple inches at one end when I put my weight on it. Very scary although everyone was crossing it. Undoubtedly when the rainy season returns, this whole bridge will be washed away unless it is dismantled first. The rest of the trip back to Bogota was uneventful.
The next day I phone Urian, one of the musicians on the trip, who had invited me to join him at a Yage (pronounced yah-hay) ceremony presided over by a Taita, a shaman, that he respected a great deal. That evening I hop on a city bus and then an inter-city bus to La Calera, a small town in the mountains north of Bogota.
The yage (in the Quechua language called ayahuasca) ceremony had about 50 participants and included a lot of singing and music (the shaman and his son are musicians). The yage is a drink made from a hallucinogenic and purgative plant. You hallucinate and vomit, and it gave me diarrhea as well. Afterward there is a purifying smudge as well as a sweat lodge. Problem for me was that I had picked up a flu bug, had not had a good sleep in a couple of nights, and then this was outside at altitude and was quite cold and I did not have enough warm clothes. I coughed all night (as well as hallucinating and vomiting). I had some very useful visions but my flu was worse by morning. It takes three additional days and some strong medicine for the flu to subside. I meet up with Felipe Wed Aug 22 in the morning, get my shoes back, and we discuss a possible Canada-Colombia project. We will meet again with some others to discuss this further before I leave town. Without going into details, this is the result of a vision that I had during the Yage ceremony. We will see by next spring whether this comes to anything.
I also said goodbye last night to Daniel, a lawyer from Caracas, who was here with a few other Venezuelans for a 50-km race through the mountains. I had seen the runners, too, on our way back from La Calera, many of them walking as the course was incredibly hard: all ups and downs. The winning time was 4:18 or so which seems pretty amazing.
Two last reflections. First, Colombians seem pretty unaware of food hygiene. At the place I am staying I saw lack of hygiene in dealing with chicken that I found incredible. The grandmother of the hostel where I am staying was helping me make a chicken soup. She wanted to break up the chicken bones I think. To keep the chicken off the floor, she grabbed a plastic bag of plastic cutlery from a drawer and laid the chicken on it. After using it and exposing some of the cutlery to the chicken, she just fired the bag back into the drawer. I have seen quite a few other examples. While I think we Canadians are a little obsessed with cleanliness here is the other extreme.
Second, the inequality of Colombian society makes me long for home. I have walked by two university campuses. In both cases, the buildings and contained courtyards are barred and have guards at the entrance. This does not exist in Canada and for this I am very thankful. Could be the way we are going though if the Harperites continue to hold sway.
Now for some sightseeing of Bogota and visiting with new friends and trying out some of the food and nightlife. One of the members of the team, Gabriel, talks about Colombian food like the French talk about their cuisine, so I am interested in going out for a meal with him. Of course, he drank Coke with a delicious live beetle larva, so I will have to take his advice with a grain of salt.
