Scroll down for some scary story scenes! They'll give you a peek at a few places in Colombia my travel pal Buddy and I somehow survived during our South American odyssey. Starting at the Caribbean shore, we novice travelers journeyed by bus along the deadly Pan American Highway all the way to Lima, Peru. With surfboards. Bewildered mountain folks who'd never heard of surfing liked to explain: "Not smart." They were right. Traveling by bus on the Highway was moronic. "Not what we meant." Colombia was packed with scenery for the nature lover, but for surfers, flying directly to Peru was the ticket. The waves along the Caribbean were flat and invaded by jellyfish and stingrays. The west coast had waves, but it also had Buenaventura, home of the evocatively named "chop-chop houses." Which means just what it sounds like. A deadly encounter (fortunately not for us) with surfer-hating muggers sent us back to the safety of the Highway and it's playful landslides and fiendish bus drivers. There was also the Amazon, where nature itself threatens the adventure traveler. Let's just say, a trip to Colombia is fraught with excitement!
Enjoy the startling view from our penthouse suite at La Vista de las Sopadoras (Vulture View Hotel) in Barranquilla, Colombia! (AKA: The Armpit of the Caribbean.) In the early seventies, on a budget and against the advice of our travel agent, Buddy and I took the cheapest possible flight to South America: Miami to Barranquilla. And man, did we regret it. Same with our bug-infested room. Not pictured, the vultures. Or Verman, the stinky low-end hippie on our flight who led us there with promises of a doorman who sold gold-colored pot. Verman lied; there was no doorman with pot. Not even a door. As the friendly check-in clerk exclaimed, "For three bucks a night, you creeps don't deserve security. Or a decent view." The next morning, when Verman headed to the burning dump out front to catch a buzz on toxic fumes, we ditched him and made our way to Santa Marta, home of famed Santa Marta Gold.
Santa Marta's beachfront, on the coast of the Caribbean. Santa Marta claims to be the oldest city in the New World. Judging from the plumbing in El Hotel Sin Agua Caliente, I believed it. While there, we were chased by hungry urchins armed with utensils, made squeamish by inedible veggie plates, and unable to swim due to a massive sting ray invasion. Plus, our ground floor hotel room was robbed by mutant street people. We did manage to score some gold pot, but we got arrested twice in three days! Not to brag, but that was probably some kind of record. Like adventure-traveling VIPs, we were invited by armed guides for an invasive cavity search during our tour of the New World's oldest prison! The famous Papillon escaped from the horrid place so he could inspire Steve McQueen to make a movie. . .but most prisoners just died. We felt special knowing that straight tourists never got the chance to get an insider tour. As an expensive bonus, I learned the art of bribing police.
Deciding to split before we set a new record, we escaped Santa Marta's dubious charms for gorgeous Parque Tayrona, just a short bus ride up the coast, where police, starving urchins, and mutant street people left us alone, but jillions of falling coconuts threatened our lives! We would've sought shelter in the nearby jungle, but that's where poisonous insects, snakes, and plants waited with malice. Speaking of malice, the amoeba-laden veggie plates I'd forced down in Santa Marta were reborn in a violent fit of dysentery! Disgusting for a nature lover, I polluted the pristine shore, the nearby jungle, and likely ringed the entire Caribbean with a stain. So far, in less than a week, I'd been chased by cannibals (twice), arrested (twice), and poisoned (God only knows how many times). Except for, well, everything, my trip was off to a good start!
Colombian buses were colorful! Unlike this one, they were always overcrowded, often with passengers on the roof. . .in emergencies, even on the floor. Same with the chickens and goats the locals found essential travel companions. I learned the hard way, the floor was not a good option. What with the greasy food wrappers, dirty diapers, and feisty roosters coming our way, we should've just taken the next bus. But then, our gear, lashed like a bondage freak to the roof, would have split without us. To be fair to my tormentors, with my dysentery, I wasn't a lot of fun to be around either. Except when I jumped off the bus and exploded from every orifice. In full view of my delighted audience. (Don't judge me until you've had dysentery.) Going by the insane laughter and round of applause, I'd made a lot of new friends. Until I tried to re-board the bus.
The Spanish built this huge fort in Cartegena to protect the Inca gold they'd stolen from other rotten scoundrels. Also, so the climactic scene from Jewel of the Nile could be filmed there. I spent a week in Cartagena recuperating from the amoebas and fierce jungle rash I'd contracted after mistaking some kind of mutant poison ivy as toilet paper. Clever as a pervert, I bought a soft glove and a gallon of Calamine Lotion to treat myself. . .gently. Fun fact: While there, my obsessive crotch-scratching was mistaken as a cool new dance move by an impressionable young Michael Jackson. I allowed him to copy it on one condition: "Never tell anyone where you learned that." Cartagena, though a huge city, was a huge upgrade from Barranquilla, and as a bonus, no one threatened our lives or tried to eat us!
Medellin, another major city along the route, was almost a mile up in the Andes. After the bus ride from Cartagena, a nightmarish twelve hours spent on the edge of a cliff, we hooked up with new friend Pablo (evidently a rising star in the cocaine field) at his strip club Putas Sin Ropa. Later, we rode around in an armored limo with a team of Medellin's classiest escorts! We hit some night clubs, checked out safe houses, watched him shoot up a rival gang's headquarters. A night out with Pablo promised excitement! Sure, he was insanely violent and got a lot of bad press, but when not killing someone, the man was a charming host. Generous, too. . .even offered us a planeload of coke! Not for free, but it's the thought. Sadly, our team of Medellin's classiest hookers dumped us when they saw we stayed near the bus station at the appalling Scuzzy Arms.
Massive Bogota, seen here from atop Mount Montserrat, is a mega-city best enjoyed by the adventure traveler when not actually there. At almost 9,000 feet high, not my idea of the tropics. As a nature-lover, I couldn't wait to leave, get somewhere warm with lush foliage instead of concrete skyscrapers. But traveling to our eventual destination of Lima by bus on the murderous Pan American Highway, in addition to being utterly insane, required a rest stop in Bogota. After a fearsome ten hour ride from Medellin, we felt lucky to make it. What with landslides, demented bus drivers, trigger-happy bandits, and countless hairpin corners on cliffs, not everyone did. Like the two ancient crones on their way to heart specialists who'd given us their seats. . .though not voluntarily.
Dry season in los llanos, the vast plains in eastern Colombia, filled with cattle, termite mounds, and giant anteaters the locals dined on. Thanks to that madman Verman's moronic advice, we went there on an ill-advised search for great pot. Instead, we were invited by a failed rock star with a gun to a jillion-hectare cattle ranch. How could we refuse? There we were encouraged to partake in the semi-annual branding and castrating fiesta. Not excited by the prospect of cutting bull balls off, I found other diversions. A wade in the little river with playful caiman. That didn't turn out so well. Neither did a walk in the riverside garden. . .at least not after a diarrhea flashback and a malicious chili pepper conspired to sear my eyeballs and cauterize my ass. Helping the chili disable me were the swarm of flies attacking my face and the lack of toilet paper. l think you can guess the rest. Burning up sent me back to the river for another caiman encounter. Judgmental people might find my actions moronic, but I like to think it's more complicated than that. Like my attack of dysentery just outside a packed bus, my llanos experience was painful, humiliating, and wildly entertaining for onlookers. That was me, anything for my fans.
The view coming out of the high Andes into southern Colombia. Specifically, the beautiful Cauca Valley. We took another rest stop in Cali, allegedly home of Colombia's most beautiful women. With the seared retinas, they all looked blurry to me. Worse, they rejected the two hippies despite their free-spirited attitudes and alluring love beads. Seems the classy ladies of Cali were snobs. Or jealous of hair longer than theirs. On the bright side, we scored a kilo of killer Punta Roja, a tasty seedless pot grown in the nearby mountains. Now we were all set to try our luck smuggling it through Colombia's numerous checkpoints and two international borders. Novice smugglers, we hoped our lame plan of hiding it in our sleeping bags was more ingenious than it seemed.
Beautiful sunset near Popayan, our favorite city along the way. Still in the Cauca Valley, a verdant place with terrific weather, flowering trees, and ubiquitous cow pastures, the area reminded me of upcountry Maui. . .only in Spanish. Unlike Barranquilla, Popayan was clean and pleasant instead of scary and ugly. The people were the same way. We liked that so much we spent a couple weeks there. We'd go hiking, play music with new friends, soak in hot springs, and sample the area's magic mushrooms. Not to mention, working up our nerve for the dreaded next leg of the Pan American Highway. Not a trip to be taken lightly. Or, according to many, not at all. Our strategy: Avoid startling views by traveling at night. Also, fill up on sleeping pills washed down with liters of beer.
The infamous Pan American Highway, near the top of anyone's Worst Roads in the World list, featured thrilling sections like this. The Highway is a narrow-yet-brutal cliff-hanger of a road built by demented engineers with no regard for guardrails. . .or the lives of travelers. It was lined the whole way with hairpin curves, head-on collisions, and thousand foot drop-offs! Also, bandits. The smart way to go involved unconsciousness. The really smart way involved not using the bus. Especially the Flota De Sade, Pablo's new fleet. Absolutely tortuous. The bogus downers I bought in Popayan kept me up the whole way, but the bogus downers Buddy bought put him in a coma. Lucky guy. I was so jealous. At least until aggressive Pasto policemen, on board to rifle luggage while everyone got out for a rest stop, bludgeoned the uncooperative Buddy with wake-up billy clubs.
Lovely backwater scene near the village of Leticia, Colombia's port on the Amazon, home of anacondas, piranhas, and headhunters! Lots of other weird and deadly stuff, too, as I learned on the ill-fated Happy Jose's Disaster Tour. No killer Amazon Jungle Weed to be found, but on the bright side, I met General Pendejo and Trapper Mike, the region's two largest cocaine smugglers. On the dark side, I met insanely jealous reporter Gerardo Riviera, who with his spurious articles got my new friends and their plane full of coke busted.
View of craggy Andes mountain tops. . .just like the ones our ancient military cargo plane sputtered directly towards. When General Pendejo offered me the discounted military plane ticket (only $50) I couldn't pass up the deal. Later on, 20,000 feet up, after the rebels shelled us and the engine fell off, the bargain didn't seem so great. To better pass the time, I got ferociously airsick and nearly froze. Who knew flying over the Andes in an unpressurized plane was stupid? Then again, crash landing in Bogota was a thrill I might not have gotten to enjoy via a real airline.