Sunday 28 June 2009

Missing the point

(Tuesday, 23 June 2009)

I saw most of the tourists in my hostel in Bogotá come and go in just a few days. When not playing poker between them, they were watching western channels on TV or just sleeping in a couch, recovering from the party the night before, organised in the hostel by foreigners, for foreigners. Plenty of drugs around, on what is known amongst Colombians as “narcotourism”.

I had seen this before in other popular spots of the gringo-trail – the very well defined (and so limited!) path followed by most foreign tourists, in search of only one of the so many things Colombia has to offer – illicit substances. I saw it in Cartagena, I saw it Taganga… No effort to get to know much of the city that surrounds them. No effort to speak the language. No effort to get to know how Colombians are like, what they write, read or watch. No effort to get to know Colombia, really.

What on earth are you taking home with you?! Did you really come to Colombia?


We are all free to travel the way we like, but, quite bluntly, I think you’re missing the point here…

With the exception of the casual encounters in the hostel in Bogotá, when I went for a shower or must-needed sleep, I don’t think I have seen a foreign tourist for at least 3 weeks. That tells me I’m doing something right here…

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