The Only Danger is in Wanting to Stay (Colombia)

Feeling Happy in Colombia!!!

If I had to list a favorite country I have ever been too, at the moment, I believe I would say Colombia. It’s true love. I have never felt this way.

Colombia has everything. It has spectacular beaches, unexplored jungle, stunning mountains, huge waterfalls, great canyons and everything in between. It has some of the friendliest people I have ever met. It has great dancing, music and passion. It has adventure. It is just off the main tourist track so I feel sort of like I have the country to myself sometimes. The people here are always eager to help me so it makes getting around easy. And it makes making new friends a piece of cake.

The new slogan for tourists in Colombia is, “The Only Danger is in Wanting to Stay.” As I search for a job and look at getting a working visa, I have to agree. I find myself trying to rationalize putting off the LSATs or maybe just staying another year or so. I do need to work on my Spanish. . .

And right now I am doing just what I want to do. I have some great interviews and am writing about my passions; human rights and politics. I just conducted my first interview all in Spanish, which I have to admit is not as great as my interviews in English or with translators, but this is just what I want to do- be speaking in a foreign tongue, writing about things that are important instead of my weekly travel advice columns, and hopefully in some small way being able to help people through my writing or at least help people understand the situation in Colombia better. I couldn’t be happier.

I get to practice my Spanish since there is hardly any English around and drink fruit smoothies that are absolutely life changing.

The ride from the Ecuador border was amazing, full of mountains and canyons and waterfalls, views that I would have walked for days to see. Popayan, was the first city in South America, that I arrived at the bus station at 11pm and night and felt safe just walking around the city looking for a place to stay by myself and not taking a taxi or anything.

Every bus I got on, people were curious about me and wanted to chat. They always wanted to buy me meals and once the bus conductor even surprised me by handing me an empanada that he bought for me while we stopped. When I walked through the bus station, security guards and just people standing around would always ask me what I was looking for.

The streets are alive and thriving, and the street food is always sizzling in true South American style. But Colombia is one of the more developed countries in South America. It is definitely more expensive but you can find anything that you need and things actually always seem to work here.

I spent a week in Parque Tayrona, which must be one of the most beautiful places in the world. I hitched to the park gates and then there is no road so everyone has to hike or ride a horse to get to the beach. I was hiking through this jungle alone, realizing how fortunate I am to have spent so much time in South American jungles lately and couldn’t believe this was my life. Then the dense jungle broke through to this endless white-sand beach.

I got to meet up with a great old friend I met in Thailand, we seem to meet on some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Days were spent deciding which stunning unspoiled beach I wanted to hang out on, and I almost always had the beach to myself. Because it is a national park there is no development so it is only jungle, rocks and that Caribbean sea with its spectacular colors that show depth by colors and fish swimming below and can only be described as Caribbean blue. We would crack open coconuts and suck the juice out of mangos all along the beach before swimming in the postcard perfect waters. Nights were spent in a simple campground without electricity, sleeping in a hammock that overlooked the ocean. I don’t know if life can get much better than that.

Now I am in Santa Marta and it is your typical dirty city, but for some reason I love it. I love it because coming back from Venezuela, it felt like home. I love it because the people are so friendly that I feel like I am speaking almost only in Spanish. And I suppose I just love it simply for the fact that it is Colombia. And I am contemplating staying, because I cannot imagine ever leaving this place. And I feel like I have far more people to interview.

Colombia does have this reputation for danger, but seeing the change in the last few years in incredible. It is truly inspiring. And it is humbling to speak to people about their experiences with La Violencia. It blows my mind to meet people my age that while I was taking horseback riding lessons and going to ballet class, they weren’t able to leave their homes because there was a warning about a car bomb. They have told me that I would probably be unable to meet anyone in Colombia that had not had someone that was killed or kidnapped by FARC or Paramilitaries. But instead of hardening people, it has made them strive all the more for change. They have accomplished things in 4 years that I don’t think we could do in 10 in the US, but it is because they had to. They were sick of the violence and sick of the way things were. Uribe, the president really did make some amazing changes.

And the best part for me as a journalist, is that the people here want to talk about things. They want people to realize that the FARC are not the freedom fighters that so many foreigners believe them to be. They are not this group that was fighting for a revolution and really, nobody liked them, even in the beginning. They are a terrorist group and most of all, a drug cartel. It is all about the drugs. The people here are fed up with violence and want to correct the image that Colombia isn’t safe. Times have changed.

It also is interesting to realize how much of Colombia’s problems are directly related to the US consumption of drugs, particularly cocaine. We play a role in this too and it makes me think about the interconnectedness in the world and the things that we don’t often think about, the repercussions of actions in our lives. So what is the answer? Legalization or decriminalization? More aid money to Colombia? Who knows, but it definitely makes me think about the depths of actions.

I am truly captivated by Colombia, the exoticness mixed with the livability. And adventure and feeling like I am in some place really special. It has that sort of undiscovered feeling, but that won’t last for long. I keep searching the world for a place that I would want to live for a while, looking for that paradise. And while Colombia is by no means paradise, it just might be home for me.