There is something about Colombia

There is something about just being in Colombia that makes you feel like you are doing something naughty, especially by being in the home towns of the notorious drug cartels. There isn't a museum to their crimes but I have been reading about their antics:


The Cartel's were formed in the early 70's by the Rodriguez brothers (Cali) who were considered the upper class of the drug traffickers of the time, hence the nickname "Cali's Gentlemen." Not exactly like the British upper class thief Raffles! The group originally assembled as a ring of kidnappers to fund their entry in to drug trafficking. A bit later dear old Pablo Escobar (Medellin) got stuck in too.

They started off with marijuana but it wasn't sufficiently profitable for the amount of infrastructure required and soon moved in to cocaine, setting up a distribution network in the USA. One reason they were so successful was that the US authorities didn't consider cocaine as a material problem compared to heroin. This left the door open to the them to amass incredible wealth. In order to launder the money they invested heavily into legitimate business ventures including Banks, one of which one of the brothers became Chairman - and we get angry with Bob Diamond at Barclays! They then went international with a bank in Panama where they had the nerve to admit laundering drug money but that is was all perfectly legal under Panamanian law. This is when the US got seriously bent out of shape!

The Medellin Cartel led by Pablo Escobar was independent of the Cali cartel but they did share some resources. During the height of its operations, the cartels brought in more than $60 million per day that's $22 billion a year - it accounted for 30% of the Colombian GDP and was more than their coffee exports!.


They also became pseudo "cleansers of society". They obviously didn't like the beggars and street children or poor farmers making the place look untidy so had them murdered and dumped in the river. So many dead that it bankrupted the local municipality from having to retrieve so many bodies and the postmortems that followed. Now wonder the river is such a mess.

The left wing paramilitary and FARC got stuck in during the 80's and 90's and it all got very nasty up until 95 when most of the drug bosses were arrested and sent to the USA for trial or assassinated Apparently the Cartel had an impressive counter intelligence network - so good that they tapped the US intelligence service! They even had 5000 taxi drivers on the payroll to tell them who was coming in  and out of the airports and where they were going!

But the best (or should I say most frightening) bit of information I have read is of a bank in St Petersburg (SPAG). This bank has been implicit in helping the drug barons and the Russian mafia. Who was one of the advisers to this bank, for about 20 years, until he became President...................................Vladimir Putin!


Heaven help us.


Anyway it is all lovely and peaceful now (?)

From Cali to Medellin took about eight hours, As it happened it was raining when I left Cali and rained for about three hours. 

They have some very nice petrol stations, they even give you a cup of coffee, the only shame is that they heap loads of sugar in to it. It is a thing they do in Colombia, do have the coffee but remember to order "sin sucre" unless you want to ruin your teeth and waistline.

 

Oh (seeing the back of the bike reminded me) one difference between Ecuador and Colombia - the first shop I asked for a Colombian flag for my bike & he had one! Little things please little minds etc....


The good news is that the rain was warm and it stopped about an hour from Medellin - so I had dried out by the time I got to the hotel. The Art Hotel (if ever you find yourself in town) is the place to stay. Very smart, great staff, next to small parks and lots of bars and restaurants. All that for the price of the Premier Inn at Skegness. (I have never actually been to Skegness so I don't even know if they have a Premier Inn).

This is the park/bar area next to the hotel. I told you there are pretty girls here - this is one of their traffic wardens! If we had traffic wardens like this in the UK we would all be parking on double yellow lines.

 Given the notoriety of these two towns I wasn't too sure what to expect, well Cali had some signs of wealth that belied the farming communities but the drive through Medellin had an altogether much wealthier feel. 

Though be fair it is an industrial town so I am sure a lot of money has been made through honest endeavour. It is not the cheapest city in South America.

I was looking at my maps and from here there may be a problem getting tyres in the towns I am proposing to visit (and I am sure to need another rear before I get to Rio). So I wandered around town to find one in the many bike shops here. No one had one but a guy phoned a wholesaler in Bogota and ordered one for me. It will take two days to get here but it is worth hanging around to wait for it. I may not get another chance later.



On my walk I also found a seamstress who will put on my latest badges (one of which has Boobies on it) and re-apply the Chile flag - the correct way up!



One last thing - I want to thank you all for taking the time and trouble to read this nonsense and share the experience. You have collectively visited the Blog over 20,000 times! The only reason I started it was because Rosie set it up for me. I am sure it will be fun to look back in years to come as the memory fades (from what wasn't a great memory at the best of times).