Layers of Colombia

(Monday, 22 June 2009)

I really like the marketing of the most recent campaign by the Colombian tourism office. Its signature is something like: “Forget the country you have in your mind, and discover a new one in your heart. Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay”.

Why do I like it so much? Well, what did I know about Colombia before I came here? Ok, before I talked with a few Colombian friends and people who had travelled here for long, better said, I knew Faustino Asprilla, the lethal striker who used to play for Parma, in Italy. I knew Shakira. And probably the first words that would come to my mind would be cocaine production and trafficking, FARC and kidnappings. Oh! How did the palms of my hands sweat as my flight from Panama City was landing in Medellín: "what terrible dangers are waiting me?", was I thinking.

But, instead, what I’ve been discovering is a big and richly diverse country, full of natural beauty and tasty food, an incredibly strong and fascinating culture, and the friendliest and most welcoming people on earth (not exaggerating here – I wrote about it before…).

It’s very easy to fall in love with Colombia. I have.

However, it’s also easy to fall in love without noticing its dark spots. It’s like the picture of Colombia in your head can rotate 180 degrees – from a deeply negative image shaped by ignorance, to an idyllic representation, romanticised by naïve enchantment.

But, as we say in Portugal, “not everything is like a sea of roses” (I love these forced translations!). It’s easy for you to just read your guide book, talk to a few poorly informed tourists and be amazed at how much the security situation has improved in the country in the last 6 years or so. “Long live the government, whatever it’s doing!”. After all, places like El Cocuy (again, I wrote about it before...), which now start to fill the heart of travellers like myself, were prohibited areas of armed conflict and/or drug trafficking just a few years ago…

But then you have a second look at the chronics in the columns of the more liberal newspapers. You ask a few questions to better informed and well thought-through people (not anyone mentioned or shown in this blog, by the way!). And you start hearing how the paramilitary problem might have been “solved” by just absorbing those elements into the armed forces. You start hearing how there might be unbalanced measures against the guerrillas and the paramilitary. You start hearing about “falsos positivos”, the cases when (supposedly) government-backed illegal armed forces exterminate suspects of rebel activity who are later on proved innocent. You start hearing of anti-constitutional secret investigations on individuals and suppression of freedom. You start hearing international NGOs using the news coming from Iran to bring their case about Colombia to light (quite farfetched comparison, if you ask me!).

But hey, you don’t love someone just for her/his qualities, but also for her/his imperfections. That's the way I feel about Colombia.,.

Having said that, and knowing both sides of the coin, I can’t stop but having a sweet-and-sour taste from my visits to places like El Cocuy…