D & V go to South America: Colombia - miscellaneous thoughts and a few pictures

One last post for Colombia --

There´s just a mishmash of stuff that I thought might be interesting. Starting with:

APPEARANCES
99% of all women in Colombia wear jeans, regardless of age or size. And if there is one visual image we will remember from the people of Colombia, it is the (apparent) widespread shortage of fabric available to make women´s jeans and the generosity with which they share cleavage. Yes, whether or not they should pour themselves into jeans 5 sizes too small or whether they have attractive cleavage....

Duane was going to get a picture... but he chickened out.

SAFETY
First, Colombia is a safe travel destination - something that many people might still question. I was shocked to be told in the first small town we went to that we could hike anywhere night or day and be safe. I was also in disbelief when we were told that we could leave our bikes unlocked outside a museum while we did a tour. While that took place in a small town, it is an example. We didn´t hear from other travelers of getting pick pocketed or of anything worse. That isn´t to say that nothing bad could happen. And, this isn´t to say that you don´t need to pay attention to where you go. But it´s is very clear where not to go. We had the practice of asking about any precautions we should take when we got to a new town. We were only cautioned in the large cities we visited. Big safety concerns these days are a concern of residents of Colombia, not of travelers. Colombia is definitely off the ¨dangerous to visit¨ list.

TOURISM
Tourism is not huge in Colombia. Not yet. Probably becuase a lot of people think it is still unsafe. For me, that is good. I do like meeting people from all over the world, but I don´t like feeling like a sheep. There is the down side that there is not a lot of information at tourist sites that is translated into English, but I can live with that.

In terms of how Colombians seemed to view us as tourists, I would say that for the most part, it felt like they were indifferent. Not unfriendly, but kind of neutral. Definitely not curious - with just a couple of exceptions. We definitely had to take the initiative to make conversations happen. It will be interesting to compare other countries...

The biggest down sides of Colombia are typical of other latin american countries, I think. It really sucks to see all the trash in such an otherwise beautiful country. And, they are way to sharing of their music - on buses, in town, sometimes at 7a.m....

HISTORY and POLITICS
Colombian history is rife with conflict between conservatives and liberals, which at least some blame for the uprising of the leftist FARC and other guerrilla groups. Add in the drug trafficking and paramilitary groups and things heat up to dizzying proportions. Especially now that there is spill over of cocaine exportation by the guerrilla groups and paramilitaries, not just the drug cartels. Colombia has truly suffered significant loss of life and quality of life up to as recently as 2000-2001. Things have improved dramatically since 2002, such that their safety and ability to travel around their own country has completely turned around. What is fascinating is that the things are so much better from the standpoint of day-to-day life, but the underlying issues are by no means resolved. It´s odd that this country has an ongoing armed conflict going on yet you would never know it from the places we visited. The Colombians we saw don´t seem to carry concern around with them. As interested as we were in learning about how politicians and citizens thought about the issues, it was clear that a lot of Colombians just don´t pay much attention to what is happening. Their quality of life has improved so dramatically since about 2002 that I have to wonder if it just isn´t easier to not listen to the news and hope for the best. If we had been way out in the campo, we might have seen differently. Peasants and their land are sometimes taken by guerrilla groups. All said, I was surprised that the general standard of living of Colombians was not lower. I guess I figured with all the fighting and bloodshed that it would show when it came to standard of living. This goes back to my theory that there has been widespread benefit to Colombians from all the money that the drug trade has produced.

TRANSPORTATION
Given that a lot of people had motorcycles or mopeds or bikes, it was very entertaining to see how dogs were transported. My favorite was seeing a large white lab being called to board a moped, where it sat between its owners legs on the footrest of a moped. This is a picture I took in the center of Bogota....

We have seen a lot of interesting vehicles - small, colorful, not always recognizable material...:

Then there is how humans transport themselves... and their children. Forget car seat laws. There are helmet laws someplaces, but from what we saw, less than 50% would fasten the strap on the helmet. We wanted to get a picture of what we often saw, which was mom, dad and two kids on a motorcycle. But the best we got was this. And it was the ONLY time we saw a kid with a helmet on.

COMMUNICATION
If you don´t have your own cell phone, there is always a vendor of ¨minutos¨ close by where you can pay to use a cell phone. If there is no answer, you don´t pay. It´s the new pay phone.

MONEY
The exchange rate was anywhere from 1750 to 1850 COP to $1. That made for getting used to 1000 to 50,000 bills.

Meals: 2500-10,000
Hostals: 18,000-55,000 (double)
Internet per hour: 1000-1600
Buses: somewhere around 50,000-70,000 for 8-14 hours.

AND EVEN MORE MISCELLANEOUS
I really liked this: