Columbia- Workers of the World Unite!

As I mentioned earlier, I arrived in Bogotá during a national holiday weekend.  It was May Day-the international day to celebrate workers. It is similar to our Labor Day with more of a socialist and communist twist.  The owner of the hostel complained that the city would be shut down because of the demonstrations.  I decided that I needed to see what the fuss was about so I went down to the main square.

The event was part parade, part rally and part trouble waiting to happen. There were hundreds of groups that were marching in the parade that ended in the main square.   People lined the streets watching and cheering.  The groups represented unions, social activists, college students and other community groups.  At first, I thought the hostel owner’s description of the event as a demonstration was off base.  There were bands, performers and kids and it looked like any parade that I participated in as Mayor of East Lansing.  It was a parade.

As the parade went on, the owner’s description slowly began to make sense.  This was no MSU Homecoming Parade.  The groups began to become more lively and the signs more political.  There were some that were protesting President Uribe.  There were others that were protesting American greed.  The groups were chanting their slogans and promoting their political views.   It was a demonstration.

Then came the anarchists.  Anarchists really know how to take the fun out of party.  They didn’t make a float or bring political banners.  When your worldview is chaos, it is probably hard to make up a good catchy slogan.  It is hard for anarchists to participate in a parade because it is so linear and I am sure the parade organizers don’t give you the best slots. They emerged in front of a University student group and brought the parade to a halt.  Eventually, they had a count down and started running down the parade route.

They stopped in front of the McDonalds and started to throw rocks at it.  The corporate giant was ready and brought down metal gates safeguarding its employees and customers in the store.  McDonalds 1- Anarchists 0.  I am not supportive of anarchists in general but I will admit I understood their anger.  Who hasn’t wanted to throw rocks at a McDonalds before?  The riot police rattled their shields and the anarchists settled down and went into the square.  It was trouble waiting to happen.

I spent another hour at the parade and nothing happened of note so I called it a day.  I guess I should have stayed longer.  I heard the next day that things got heated up later in the day.  The police had to disperse a number of groups of people with tear gas when things got out of control.  In the end, May Day was part parade, part demonstration and part trouble.

Columbia- A Time to Rest

Columbia can be summarized for me as a number of missed opportunities. We were initially planning to head to Venezuela but because of people we had met along the way, we were convinced that Columbia should be our last stop in South America. We didn’t do our research well before we booked our flights to Bogotá. We arrived the day before a four-day national holiday. As we wrote our friends and friends of friends about our arrival to Columbia, they each responded that they would be away from Bogotá because of the holidays. The day before I left, my friend Jodi facebooked me about a friend of hers in Bogota but it too late for us to connect. I found out two days before I left that a friend I met in Berlin in 2006 was on the coast of Columbia. Had we known earlier, we could have arranged to meet up. One missed opportunity after another.

The travel gods must have known that I needed a break and they conspired to make sure I had one. Patrick was only there for a day because he had planned on heading to Michigan to see his fiancé before heading to Europe. I had five days before I was flying from Bogotá to Los Angles on my way to Romania. So what was I going to do? My contacts in Bogotá were gone for the weekend. There are a number of great places to visit in Columbia but because of the holiday weekend most of the flights were booked and I didn’t feel like spending 12-13 hours on a bus to go somewhere just to turn around in a day to come back to catch my flight. I didn’t know it but my decision was made for me before I even got there. I was going to have five days of rest and relaxation in Bogotá.

We went to the National Police Museum, not because of our strong desire to learn more about the Columbian police force but because it had an exhibit on Pablo Escobar. Overall, the museum was not very intriguing and the displays on Pablo Escobar were put in there just to draw people. Pablo Escobar is a fascinating personality and there could have been a number of ways to show his inhumanity or extreme wealth. In the end, they took a few things from his homes, took the surveillance equipment the police used and combined that with a few photos and called that an exhibit.  This is the quality that I am talking about!

The following day Patrick left for the States and I stayed on in the hostel in Bogotá. I interacted with people at the hostel and went out with them a few times but most of the time I was by myself. I didn’t realize that I needed the break from people. After hosting my friends for three weeks in Peru and Ecuador, I needed alone time. Time to be with my thoughts, time to read and time to write. Each morning I would run and I found an area that the city blocked off during festivals and weekends for bikers and runners. Because it was a holiday weekend, I was able to explore the route everyday that I was there. In the end, it was exactly what I needed. I was reenergized and once I got to Europe we were going to be traveling on full speed. Bring it on.