Drifting down the road: Colombia

Being argentinians, there is no way that we can isolate from the problems in Colombia.

Our countries have so many things in common that, for practical purposes, we could easily be a single nation.

Both countries suffer the advance of extractivism, including projects such as mining, fracking, single crop farming, plus the intentional destruction of nature with chemicals. And that is not all because we also share the same pressure from international corporations to take more and more from our lands, all helped by the same corrupt political apparatus. On top of all that, the depletion of fossil fuels and climate change adds drama to our economical difficulties.

The same as in Argentina, in Colombia the government presents fracking for oil as the magic bullet, which would bring riches aplenty, jobs for all, and solve all our problems.

With that in mind we started doing some presentations explaining the reality behind the fracking bubble. This took us to cities such as Popayan, Palmira, Cali, Armenia y Medellín. We had several public speeches, just in time before the general elections, but with slim chances to have any serious impact.

There is much to do in Colombia. Hopefully, the Colombian people will be wise enough to choose the proper candidate to revert the madness.

On April 29 we drove from Ibarra, Ecuador, into Ipiales, Colombia. We thought that it would be just another border crossing but in fact it was the most difficult of all. The border was crowded with people from Venezuela trying to go to Perú. The economic situation is desperate in Venezuela and young people try their luck in any country willing to take them.

Perú show us an example of solidarity by issuing work permits to people displaced in Venezuela. How I wish our government in Argentina to forget its stinginess and racism and show some solidarity with the venezuelan people!

We arrived at the Tulcan/Ipiales crossing at 6:00am and we finally were able to cross at 1:00pm, a total of seven hours waiting in different lines along with more than 500 people.

The mountain road northward from Ipiales is absolutely fantastic. Green tall mountains, wild canyons, springs and rivers, and a miriad of little towns bordering the roads. However, in spite of all its beauty, we were already tired of driving the mountain roads. We arrived to Popayan late at night and, luckily, our friends were still waiting for us.

We spent several days in the Cauca region, including Popayan, Cali and Palmira.

Then we drove North to Armenia, in the midst of the coffee region, and then to Medellin. We left a good group of friends in all these places – Luz, Harold, Cristina, John, Dinora, Bernardo, Ana, Edwin, Alvaro - and we promised to return and visit once we reach our destination in the USA.

The last leg of our Southamerican trip took us from Medellin to Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast. Our intention is to board our car in a container and ship it to Colón, Panamá, where we will pick it up and continue northward. We already drove some 8000 miles and the car is running fine.