¿Dondé Ésta La Carne?

After roaming around Mexico for a few months, spread over two trips, we decided to give South America a try.   It was early 1976 and once again, ignorance rode shotgun.

Gary, Pat and I thought we were going to a larger Mexico and packed our pup tents, sleeping bags, and foam pads, expecting to camp on the beaches as we had often done in Mexico.  We had no conception of the enormous size of the continent or its amazing diversity.

We made our way to Miami, and caught a flight to Barranquilla, Colombia. We found our first stop to be a noisy, dirty place.  Every night the sewers would back up, wetting the streets and causing the area around our hotel to smell like raw sewage.  There was a nicer section of town, but that was were the narco traffickers lived and we didn’t want to hang with those guys.

After a couple days we figured out our next destination and headed to Cartagena on the northern coast of Colombia.  Cartagena was founded in 1533 and its wealth made it a favorite site for pirates and privateers looking to sack and loot.  In the 17^th century, the city began 204 years of construction of walls and fortifications resulting in 6.8 miles of walls enclosing the city.   By the time we got there the city had grown outside the walls but the walls were still there enclosing the old section of the colonial city.

One day when were walking around the old part of the city, Pat was approached by a young man who suggested she carry her purse in a certain way if she wanted to avoid having it stolen.  As we talked with him we found out he was from El Salvador and was living illegally in Colombia.  He was the first of scores of people in Colombia who warned us to be vigilant if we were to avoid having everything we were carrying stolen.  He asked where we were staying and he suggested we move to a hotel he would show us later that evening.  Thankfully, he was an honest petty thief and he provided us with valuable information during our stay in Cartagena. 

Old Cartagena

That evening he took us to a nice, inexpensive hotel.  When we checked in we were given an itemized bill that included a sum for DAS.  When I inquired about that particular line item we were told that DAS was the federal secret police and by paying them up front we would be protected from their machinations. In effect, the hotel was a free zone where the clientele had a green light to ingest any thing they wanted without worrying the police would take notice. We would have a much closer encounter with DAS about a month later but that is a story for another post.

The next day, our new friend took us to a black market currency exchange.  Before we left he showed us a few tricks that were used by the moneychangers to cheat the rubes.  The black market was in an open field with individuals posted around it exchanging currencies from around the world.  The rate for dollars was a little better than the banks were offering.  We changed a small amount to be polite and not seem ungrateful to our new friend.

During our stay in Cartagena our “guardian angel” helped us out several times.  He proposed we join him in a couple of smuggling schemes but never seemed to mind when we declined.  He turned out to be the perfect tour guide for a lawless country where a lack of vigilance could have serious consequences.

While we were in Cartagena, the Palace of the Inquisition, which had been closed for a couple hundred years, was opened to the public.  We decided to go and as we got near the Palace, a small balding middle-aged man who wanted to be our guide approached us.  His English was sketchy, at best, and we weren’t inclined to hire him.  But he was a persistent bugger and his asking price was modest so we agreed to allow him to guide us through the museum.

The first room we entered was a display of native artifacts that had been used in religious ceremonies that included the use of cocoa (the base plant used in the production of cocaine).  There were little gold bowls and spoons and other paraphernalia and at each stop he felt it was necessary to explain that the utensils had been used to ingest cocaine, which he pronounced coca ca caine.  His eyes would get round and he would tell us for the tenth time that these things were used with the coca ca caine.  He then went on to explain why the church needed to kill a whole bunch of these folks to stop their religious ceremonies that included, of course, the use of coca ca caine.

After we looked at the coca ca caine exhibit we went into a room where the priests had determined who was a witch and who was a heretic.  The priests sat at an elevated bench, not unlike what you might find in a modern courtroom, where they had an excellent view of the festivities.  The could clearly see the vessel that suspected witches were thrown into to see if they floated or sank – floating was a bad sign.  There were also scales that were used to determine if a person’s weight was consistent with being a witch.  By an unfortunate coincidence, the witch weight was very much in the same weight range as the average Indian of those times.  There was also a large log that could be raised and then dropped on the heads of suspected witches to help them see the light.

There were your run of the mill thumbscrews and finger smashers, but the thing that really drew your eye was the rack.  The rack was a device that could be used to elicit testimony by tying the defendant’s four limbs to ropes that could then be tightened to give the person a few extra inches of height.  I don’t know if they ever stretched anyone beyond the acceptable size of a witch but knowing these fun lovers, I doubt anyone ever used this defense successfully.

The rack had a fifth rope that could be attached to the most sensitive part of the male body.  Gary kept asking our guide what the fifth rope was for.  Our poor guide tried all kinds of pantomimes, and broken English explanations but Gary kept faking incomprehension.  As our guide struggled to explain this most embarrassing rope, Gary ended the show by indicating he finally understood.  We demonstrated the appropriate horror, but I tucked away an idea for a late night TV ad for a male enhancement product.

The last stop on this grisly tour was the room that contained the ovens in which the poor souls who fell into the clutches of the priests were burned.  Something like 700 unfortunates met their fates in those ovens.  It was a sobering conclusion to our visit.  Why do the wonders of religion always require leaps of faith but the atrocities are all too real?

After about a week to ten days in Cartagena, we decided to head to Maracaibo in northwestern Venezuela.  We were going to Maracaibo at the invitation of a Venezuelan economics professor, I met in Madison when he was doing postgraduate work at the University.  We asked around about routes and were told we could take a bus to the border town of Maicao, cross there and then take another bus to Maracaibo.

Let me just take a minute here to tell you a little something about Maicao.  By the 1970’s, Maicao had become a commercial hub due to oil and drug smuggling.  In the late 70’s, Middle Eastern and Arab immigrants settled in the area.  In 2000, the FBI estimated that 70% of the commerce was controlled by Hezbollah.  In the 80’s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), a guerilla army that has waged armed conflict against the Columbian government for decades moved into the area and Maicao became a center for extortion, kidnapping and assassination.  In the 90’s, the good people of Maicao burned down the local equivalent of the IRS office in town and the government has had real struggles with collecting taxes there.  Currently the town is a center of black market weapons and money laundering.  At the time, we bought our bus ticket to Maicao, we were told local indigenous mafia gangs sometimes sprayed tourist’s cars with sub machine gun fire and then pulled out the bodies and drove away with the cars and their contents.  So, no problem, let’s go to Maicao.

A couple of hours into the trip the army stopped the bus, came aboard and did a cursory check of everyone’s belongings.  They ordered all the men off the bus and lined us up facing the bus with our hands over our heads.  A soldier began to frisk us.  When he got to me, I began to yell “naranja, naranja” because I had an orange in my jacket pocket.  I didn’t want the soldier to mistake the orange for a pineapple and order someone to start shooting.  There is something unnerving about being lined up in front of heavily armed young men that looked like they shaved once a month with a spoon. The soldier pulled the orange out of my pocket and handed it back to me.  Once everyone had been frisked, we were allowed back on the bus. 

Apparently, we had left the part of Colombia that was controlled by government forces and they were stopping vehicles to make sure no one was bringing any weapons to the FARC.  It struck me that they did not search the women.  There was one other American woman on the bus and after we were on the road again she came back and asked if she could sit with us.  She was visibly upset and told us that the man sitting next to her had pulled out a big revolver and placed it under her seat when the Army flagged down the bus.

About 7 hours later we pulled into Maicao.  As Gary was getting off the bus one of our fellow passengers shoved his hand deep into Gary’s pocket exploring for whatever he might find there.  Gary grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand out of his pocket.  Welcome to Maicao.  Once we were off the bus, we were surrounded by a small mob shouting names of hotels and offering to carry luggage.  While this was going on, others were eyeing our backpacks and making attempts to open zippered flaps and pockets.  The three of us turned our backs to each other in a protective triangle and moved over to an area where we could sit down and wait for our bus out of there.  From our perch we could see a main drag that had an open sewer running down the middle of the street.  People came out and dumped garbage directly into the sewer.  I have to admit that as a tourist destination, Maicao left something to be desired.  After we waited for a couple of hours, we were able to board the bus that would take us across the boarder and on to Maracaibo.

The first Europeans to arrive at the sight that would become Maracaibo were, of all people, Germans in 1499.  A series of bloody battles were fought which lead to the founding of the city in 1529.  The city had the honor of being sacked and looted in the 17^th century by Henry Morgan, the famous British admiral, privateer and pirate.  Coincidentally, Morgan also sacked Cartagena prior to reaching Maracaibo.

When we arrived in the mid seventies, Maracaibo was the second largest city in Venezuela and was known as the oil capital of South America.  The city sits on the north west coast of Lake Maracaibo and its climate is that of a dry tropical forest.

Maracaibo

When we arrived we checked into a hotel and then went to look for my professor friend at his university.  He was surprised to see us because, he told me, so many people from the U.S. said they would visit but almost no one ever actually made the trip.  He worked us into his busy schedule and spent time showing us around.  He arranged for us to have the use of the faculty “beach house” for a few days on Lake Maracaibo and introduced us to some students at the university.

While we were there, I noticed that the Aguilas del Zulia, Maracaibo’s professional baseball team, were in town and I expressed an interest in going to a game.  My friend had a prior commitment so he sent his nephew to accompany us to the game. Venezuela is a hotbed of baseball and for many years major league players traveled to Venezuela during the off-season in the U.S. to play in what is called “the Winter League.” Venezuela has produced many major league players and many of them returned and played at home during the winter.  So the quality of the play promised to be high and I wanted to experience going to game there.

We arrived shortly before the game started at a fairly modern stadium that held around 25,000 fans.  There was a good crowd on hand and both teams were sprinkled with names I recognized.  It was a beautiful night and our young host liked his beer, so we commenced drinking cans of Polar, the local brew with a slightly higher alcohol content than beer from the U.S.

Estadio Luis Aparicio El Grande Home of the Aguilas

The game was a close, low scoring affair with the visiting team pulling out to a two to nothing lead.  Around the fifth inning Gary decided to go get a hotdog at a stand in the stadium concourse.  Forgoing some of the more exotic Venezuelan condiments, he asked for his dog with “salsa de tomate solamente” (ketchup only).  When he got back to our seats he unwrapped his hotdog and found that the vendor had given him exactly what he had asked for – a bun with ketchup on it, but no hotdog.  It was a classic lost in translation moment and when we stopped laughing, our host told us he would take us to a place we could get hotdogs after the game.

Around the seventh inning, my big tank was full as a result of us averaging nearly a beer an inning.   I made my way down from our seats and located the men’s room.  As I approached it, I noticed that there was no light and there was about an inch and a half of water (at least I think it was water) on the floor.  It was so dark, that I could see people moving around in there but barely.  Now, I have been in some pretty horrendous bathrooms during my travels, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, but I was having a real tough time entering this dark sewer of a facility.  On the other hand, my teeth were floating and I really, really had to go.  As I surveyed the scene, I made a desperate decision and walked up to the outside wall of the restroom and proceeded to pee on the wall.  Almost instantly, no fewer than four men joined me.  The guy next to me looked at me, smiled and said, “Good idea.”  I finished as fast as I could (although those of you with big tanks know, it’s never as fast as you’d like) and hurried back to my seat, a much-relieved man.

In the eighth inning the Aguilas finally scored to make it 2 to 1.  The crowd went wild.  Beer was thrown in the air, firecrackers set off in the stands, and crowd came alive.  Unfortunately, the Aguilas didn’t score again and the home team went down to defeat.

With the game over, our attention turned to hotdogs again.  The nephew drove us to a park that had a wagon, similar to the popcorn wagons you see at festivals and other public gatherings here in Minnesota, only this wagon was devoted to hotdogs.  As our host turned to look in the backseat he asked how many dogs did we want?  We thought, four of us, four hotdogs should do it.  Our host got out of the car, went up to the front of the wagon and ordered our dogs.  When the order was ready he returned to the wagon and brought back sixteen hotdogs – four each.  Another hotdog related breakdown in communication.  I haven’t given you many travel tips in this blog, but I suggest caution when ordering hotdogs in South America or better still avoid hotdogs altogether when you travel.

Feeling we needed to be polite we ate all four of our hotdogs.  Our host then asked if we would like to go to a club to cap off the evening.  We agreed and when we arrived we were seated at a table, drink orders were taken, and a huge platter of meatballs and other tapas like items were put in front of us.  To my horror, Gary and Pat dug right in and ate like they hadn’t just eaten four hotdogs.  All I can remember is getting back to our hotel around 2:30am and thinking, “I can’t believe they ate the whole thing.”

South America is an amazing place.  We spent four months wandering around and barely scratched the surface.  To give you some inkling of its size, Brazil alone is geographically larger than the continental United States.  We were surprised at the diversity of the people we encountered.  One doesn’t think of a large Chinese population living in Colombia, but there they were, having lived there for generations.  We ran into people from a myriad of cultures and races.  The physical beauty of the countries we visited was often breath taking.  Each country was an interesting mix of the modern and the ancient.  The politics were volatile.  The government of Ecuador passed from one military junta to another while we were there after a prolonged transit strike and a day spent bombarding the presidential palace.  The indigenous people ranged from the Otavalo Indians, who are master weavers, merchants, and world travelers, to people who lived in the remote regions of the Amazon River basin and the Andes and spoke no Spanish.  Each country had its own distinct culture and history.  What I am trying to get at is how little we know about our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.  I know many, many people who have traveled to Europe, the Middle East, or Asia, but can think of only two other people who have gone to South America.  I don’t know if the stars will ever align and I will return, but if it happens, I know it will be an interesting and enlightening trip.  I will avoid hotdogs.