Six Weeks of Colombian Magical Realism
One of the hardest parts of traveling is when you walk away from a country knowing less about it than when you showed up. After spending six weeks in Colombia and approaching my final day, I realize how little I know about this place.
Colombia is the talk of the town these days on travel blogs and among millennial jet-setters, with tourism up 25% alone in 2017. Digital nomads all over the globe have identified cities like Medellin and Bogota as attractive and affordable destinations to spend time. This new well-deserved reputation could not be more different than Colombia’s past perception, haunted by the stink of political violence and narco traffickers. With a recent reduction in domestic unrest and a 2016 peace treaty between the Colombian government and FARC, the left-wing jungle terrorist group, it seems that Colombia has turned a new leaf.
I arrived to this country well aware of the recent positive changes, and right off the bat I was impressed by what I saw. Let’s put it this way — Medellin makes a good first impression. In my first hour in Colombia, my Uber (illegal but tolerated in Colombia) drove along well-paved roads through the florid countryside, along sparkling mountain towns and past droves of professional-looking mountain bikers. As I quickly learned, the country has a biking obsession and I constantly felt like I was a spectator towards a South American Tour de France. And maybe it’s just me, but that type of normalcy felt especially calming in this previously volatile country.
Passing over a mountaintop, suddenly the whole city of Medellin was visible in the valley below, a metropolis covered with fog, sunlight cutting through the mist to reveal skyscrapers and tree-lined neighborhoods below. There are few cities than can produce panoramic views so stunning and inspiring as Medellin. We drove down the mountain into the upscale neighborhood of Poblado; the city felt developed, progressive (with a brand new metro system), safe, and yet appropriately exotic, with lush vegetation and filled with vendors selling tropical fruits and local delicacies. After arriving, I went straight to a coffee shop and had an top-notch pourover made with Colombian beans. Like I said, Medellin makes a good first impression.
And as I soon learned, Colombia as a whole has a tendency to dazzle, whether from its spectacularly diverse landscape, flora, and fauna, by its friendly and extroverted people, or through its rich and enchanting salsa culture. This is a country that grabs your attention and holds it; Colombia has enough adventures to keep you going for a while. During my trip, I had the chance to hike through the verdant Andes mountains under the tallest palm trees in the world, dive into natural freshwater springs and soak in mineral baths, canoe down rivers on the extremely remote Pacific coast, take a metro-cable through the massive Chicamocha desert canyon, attend an international electronic music festival in Medellin, visit stunning Catholic pilgrimage sites, consistently drink the best coffee of my life, dramatically improve my Spanish, meet an endless number of Colombians and travelers, and so much more.
Undoubtedly, the country is an awe-inspiring place. But for all of this country’s bold charisma, underneath lies a gritty reality that complicates the experience. For starters, Colombia is not completely divorced from its past. The narco-trafficking hasn’t stopped. The left wing terrorists have formed a peace treaty with the government, but there is a massive amount of uncertainty as to where that will end up, and the jungles of remote areas are still filled with independent militias with varying loyalties. Corruption is still rampant. While the violence is down dramatically from where it was in the 90’s (especially in Medellin), Colombia still has three of the most violent cities in the world. I visited one of those cities — Cali, number twenty eight — and didn’t know about its violent reputation until I was already en route.
I was in Cali, officially Santiago de Cali, for only three days and had no bad experiences, and yet, I think my visit to this city served as an awakening into the dark side of Colombia. Cali is located in southwestern Colombia, and is widely considered to be the salsa capital of the world. The locals — known as Caleños — are true masters of salsa. To walk into a Cali club is to step into a room where everyone there has been practicing salsa since they were in diapers.
Cali is an intriguing city simply because it doesn’t necessarily feel like a violent place at first glance. In contrast to a place like Tijuana, Mexico (fifth most dangerous city) which feels like a war-zone, Cali is a sunny metropolis built into a mountain, filled with boulevards lined with palm trees, populated by relaxed and happy locals, and weirdly reminiscent of Miami. Though this city was featured on Season 3 of Narcos and is statistically very violent — 1,288 murders in a city of 2.3 mil in 2016 — it definitely didn’t feel that way, at first.
And yet as I spent just a little more time in this authentic-feeling Colombian city where people dance in the streets on Sunday afternoons, I started to notice more. Multiple people at my hostel mentioned that they had been robbed or pick-pocketed in the street, and at one point I ventured into an open market where the neighborhood changed like *that*. You could tell by the fact that everyone on the street was staring at me — and in that moment, those stares told me everything I needed to know about that place. Very quickly, I started to see the complexity of this city, understanding how in Cali, for all of its extroversion, for all of the chill vibes that it offered, crime and violence weren’t a legacy of the past. They are still very much here, and this was not a city to venture too far off the beaten path, or even walk around at night.
During my six weeks in Colombia, I have not felt at risk at any point. I can say that having directly experienced violence in Latin America — I was mugged and knocked out unconscious in the streets of Buenos Aires in 2015. Colombia, from my perspective and from the vast majority of tourists who visit here, is a safe country to visit, as long as you maintain your common sense and stay away from dangerous neighborhoods where you are most at risk. Colombia is a land of untapped potential, and fear should not keep you away.
But saying that Colombia is safe is not the same as saying that the country is simple, because it is anything but that. Outside of the travel adventures, which I must reiterate are spectacular and of which I barely scratched the surface, Colombia can be a very difficult place to live. As I heard from locals again and again, the wages of Colombia are low for the vast majority of people, and economic inequality is off the charts. Many people I spoke with expressed the dreams of moving to the States, Europe, or Australia to work. This seemed unfathomable to me — why would these people ever want to leave their paradise-like home country and their families for an uncertain future and perhaps hard labor in a foreign country? The answer, of course, is money. Even educated professionals struggle to make a good living in this country. Earning dollars is like earning gold in Colombia, so Colombians hope to build a brighter future with a few years working overseas.
Making this situation even more complicated is the emerging Venezuela crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming over the eastern border. Last week, while I stayed in the beautiful eastern Colombian city of Bucaramanga, I saw Venezuelans holding signs and begging for money in the streets. This situation is not going away and is painfully sad — furthermore, Colombia seems wildly unprepared to deal with this situation. No refugee camps have been prepared, and the police are ineffectively attempting to deport Venezuelan refugees, who simply re-cross the porous border. As many as 600,000 Venezuelans have already entered Colombia and the flow continues. Though large-scale immigration can sometimes serve as an economic boon, refugee crises are more likely to create a strain on neighboring countries. Colombia will likely face greater economic instability in its eastern regions in the coming years.
And none of this is to speak of the parts of Colombia that are perhaps entirely left behind. I visited the Pacific Coast — the Chocó region- which is reputed as one of the most remote places of Colombia. Chocó is a massive swath of undeveloped territory filled with some of the most biodiverse jungles on earth, perhaps second only to the Amazon. Though only an hour flight from Medellin, visiting the Pacific Coast might as well be visiting a different country. The sparsely populated region is almost entirely Afro-Colombian, descendants of the slave trade from centuries ago. Their Spanish is dialectical and difficult to understand; I gave up speaking Spanish for the few days while I was out there.
Chocó is a paradoxical place. The town that I was staying near, Bahia Solano, had hardly any paved roads, no ATMs, and was surrounded by pristine jungles, beaches filled with crabs, and a serene tropical ambience. And yet, because this town literally lacks a waste management system, the locals burn their trash or throw it into the ocean. It is a true absurdity — visiting beaches that are completely remote and, based on the visible wildlife, in much better environmental shape than beaches closer to developed society, and yet often filled with trash. Basic infrastructure and awareness would solve this problem, and yet the Colombian government is nowhere to be seen. Unsurprisingly, poverty is a general problem in Chocó with 65.9% of the population under the poverty line.
And yet, Choco was incredible and it was deeply satisfying to experience a place so wildly off-the-grid. It wasn’t easy to get out there, but it was worth the trip.
There were certain points in Colombia where I felt like I was joyriding in a country that still hasn’t figured many basic problems and faces a huge amount of uncertainty in the future. After all, Colombia is so easy for Americans to visit; flights are cheap and our exchange rate makes the entire country essentially 50% off prices back home. If you’re willing to spend a little money, you can eat in the top restaurants in the country and stay in high-end hotels. Furthermore, Colombians truly go out of their way to help travelers feel welcome.
And to be clear, there are many foreigners who are taking advantage of Colombia in cynical ways. Many people come down here for cheap drugs and sex tourism, ignoring the stain that this leaves on society. In my mind, the epitome of unconsciousness is the the tourist who comes to Colombia and does cocaine the whole time, completely ignoring the loss of human lives and the trail of blood that this drug has left and continues to leave on this country.
But after my personal reflections, I feel only pride and fulfillment concerning my six weeks of adventures in Colombia. On a very personal level, this was the longest solo trip I’ve ever done, and the amount of confidence I’ve developed in terms of getting around this country and speaking Spanish feels great. Furthermore, the very fact that I and so many other people are visiting this country is a sign of progress for the country, and I think Colombians are thrilled to see us traveling through their land; for all of the problems and complexity that Colombia deals with, the country has gained a significant amount of stability, and the presence of tourists is a very meaningful trophy in that fight.
And at the end of the day, Colombia is the land of magical realism and meant to be enjoyed by everyone. It is a country filled with the extraordinary, from jagged mountain peaks to ancient ruins, from vast deserts to jungle waterfalls. Logically, I know this place is on earth. But Colombia feels like it is on a different planet, where the land is more vivid, where colors are brighter, where the only thing to expect is the unexpected.
And for that reason, I could not recommend this country enough, and it’s time for you, yes you, to plan your visit. Flights to Colombia from the US and Europe are dirt cheap. Remember to brush up on your Spanish (necessary in many places) and go in with an open mind. Get ready for the adventure of your life.
I can’t say I truly understand this place, and I’m guessing it would take me a decade living in Colombia before I really knew anything about the unconscious depths of the culture here. But this was a really, really powerful trip, and I won’t ever forget my time here.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the famous Colombian author, said that ‘What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.’ When I remember Colombia, I will remember the good of this country. And when I am reminded of the bad, I will remain optimistic that a brighter future awaits for this South American nation.
