The last several days have been wonderful, exploring national parks and picturesque colonial towns that were founded in the early 1500s. It really has been sublime, with the bonus of hot, tropical weather and powerful sun to get our tans in order.
Every once in awhile we get a reminder of the immense pain and fear that was all too common in Colombia in the not too distant past. The horrific violence triangle composed of the nacro-trafficers, the military and the paramilitary groups meant that no one was safe. These reminders come in the form of comments from people we meet and talk to, usually an allusion to safety. Despite those little tells, tourism has been going gang busters in the country - The number of foreign visitors to Colombia has increased from 600,000 in 2000 to nearly 1.5 million in 2010, with an average annual growth of 10.6%, nearly four times the world average and one of the highest rates in the region.
It is admittedly a little hard to be in Colombia and not have your mind return to drugs and the drug war, since that is the primary entry of the country into US media, with an arrest/seizure or a bombing that makes it way into the mainstream american news. Obviously, we have found that perceived reality to be far from the actual experience here on the ground (thankfully), but it still sits in my mind.
For example, on our second night in Colombia, we sat up in this big park in Cali, overlooking the skyline and the colonial neighborhood of Santo Antonio. There were hundreds and hundreds of people enjoying the pleasant climate, much street food on offer and latas (cans) of beers flowing. It was everything you want as both a resident and traveler, communal space being put to great and happy use. We loved it. But, I had a few thoughts on the few cars in the park and how this is also a perfect target for terrorism and violence. Thought of the Tom Clancy book/movie 'Clear and Present Danger' about the drug war and how one scene had a US bomb dropped on a car to make it look like one of the ubiquitous car bombing attacks facing Colombia back in the 90's. Was that going to happen here? Of course not, but Cali was one of the epicenters of the drug cartels and that kind of attacks had happend here not too many years ago.
I am not going to delve into failed drug war here, that is a topic for a much larger post. But, I did want to share another little window we had into the other side of the drug war, from the narco's side. You see, we stayed a few nights ago at this lovely hostel in the picturesque town of Santa Marta, called Drop Bear. The hostel uses the house of a former nacro trafficker, and has been going for about a year, run by an Aussie.
The building is a fortress, with 20 foot walls enclosing the open back area, which has a pretty pimp pool. This enclave was designed to be self sufficient as necessary, for example it had 6000 gallons of water on its roof in cisterns. The family that built and owned the property made its money via the marijauna trade, not cocaine. Incidentally, we learned that the weed trade begat the coke trade, getting the supply routes established before the coke boom and true stupid money that came later.
The family sure lived well, there was the pool, advanced sattelite communications, a full bar, multiple kitchens and just a ton of square footage. At one time, there might have been 4 or 5 families living in the house, with no drug production taking place onsite. They kept their family and business distinctly separate.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the house are all the secret passages, rooms and safes, called caletas. The rooms are built into the floor plan and would have been set up like panic rooms, with the ability to live in them for weeks and months at a time. They were fortified and armed. Another escape plan had a reinforced tunnel going from the master bedroom down the block, where it exited into another house owned by the narco. Next to that passageway, there was a one of several hidden 'safes' where the narcos kept literally millions of dollars and weapons. The one in the master bedroom would have kept about $2,000,000 dollars (in 70's nominal dollars mind you). The narcos always kept their money is USD, it was a better storer of value and more transferable than Colombian pesos.
It was fascinating to get this insider view of the life of these narcos. While it was certainly cushy and extravagant, it is impossible to disaggregate the violence and risk that they lived with as well. Hundreds of people in the trafficking business had been killed within a mile or two of this house, sometimes dumped in mass graves on empty plots of land. There is a reason the security conners were so paramount for the original owners of the house. Supposedly, their next door neighbor was also a nacro boss and came to a very violent end in his house.
It is interesting to consider the relative merits of the lifestyle, being powerful and rich but also vulnerable and a target. I imagine that everyone would have different opinions about whether the tradeoffs make the benefits worthwhile, depending on your personal risk tolerance. It doesn't seem worth it to me, but I wasn't living in poverty in rural, violent colombia in the 60's and 70's with no real prospects for legitimate economic ascension.
Who knows really what they would do faced with similar constraints?
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