Medellin: Amy's Heart Turns Green--Part 2

Three mountain ridges run through center of Colombia. Like three keys to your destiny, they determine everything: the weather, the food supply, your access to government services, and the power of the guerillas. Bogotá sits in the western most mountain range, which runs from south to north and separates the plains and the Amazon from the valley of the river Magdellena. Today, I travel eight hours across the country to Bahia Solana. After a one hour flight, my first stop is Medellin, the thriving city of the eastern most range. Medellin entered most Norteamicanos’ consciousness when the drug cartels took it over in the 80s.

The night before I left Bogota, I had sushi with a Medellina. She spoke of its changing drug culture, ”Medellinenos are “Rubia/os, fair skinned and blue eyed.” she explains. “When Pablo Escobar came to set up his cartel in the 80s, he brought with him darker skinned Colombians. In the 80s, we knew who was part of the mafia and who wasn’t. Today, it’s not so obvious. Dark- skinned men wearing gold no longer equals drug money.”

“When I was 11,” she continues. “My uncle took me to a birthday party at a Narco Traffickers house. Have you been to a birthday party yet,” She asks.

I shake my head no.

“In Colombia, every birthday party has door prizes and a raffle. At this party the door prizes were color televisions and the raffle was for a Mercedes. Back then, they proudly flaunted their wealth, and we all knew where it came from.”

We stop in Medellin for a few hours and I think about what she’d said. I can see from the air that the wealthy part of town is in the north, near the airport, and that the Southern part of town suffers. But this was not my end destination today. I was on a trip to monitor our Environmental Conservation Project with our Biodiversity Advisor and the Colombian National Parks staff, and hopefully to see whales swimming through the warm Pacific on way to give birth near El Parque Utria.

When we get in the tiny plane, the hostess hands me earplugs. I put my I pod on instead and listen to Tara Brach as we fly over the jungle. The narrow strip of land between the Medellin mountain range and the pacific coast gets 7000 millimeters of rain a year. It is one of the most humid places on earth. We fly over a gold mine, tearing up the wild otherwise untouched forest, and my guide explains the politics of exploitative mining in Colombia.

At some point, I notice the pilot’s fingernails are painted bright red. I can’t see her face, only her fingernails. I wonder if she knows her Enneagram type as well. This plane is so small we are practically sitting in the cockpit. She buzzes the inlet where the whales give birth, hoping to give us our first glimpse. We see none. Little do I know that there are other animals that consider Bahia Salono their preferred birthing ground.

The temperature when we land reminds me of Thailand-- Koh Samui--to be exact. But this is a poor, Afro-Colombian part of the country and it feels more like Guyana or parts of Jamaica. The project manager, a Colombian woman, offers me a beer. And we wait. The truck that will take us off roading to our village has yet to arrive. The pueblo is an hour away down a mud road, and it’s raining.

Vegetarianism? Unlikely. This is going to be 5 days of fried fish, plantains and maybe a tomato if I am lucky. I plan to drink fresh juice, not coffee here, and get used to the wildlife. We are in their territory now.