This is a good place to both
experience fantasy, and reality.
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Beer, explosives and food?
Can't beat that!
♪
Muy gracias.
So you just stand here in the
street, and random strangers
bring you delicious foods.
This is a great country.
♪ I took a walk through this beautiful world ♪
♪ felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪
♪ found something good in this beautiful world ♪
♪ I felt the rain getting colder ♪
♪ sha la, la la la
♪ sha la, la la la la
♪ sha la, la la la
♪ sha la, la la la la
♪ laaaa
Colombia... ordinarily and for all too many years,
when this country makes
the news or appears in a film or a television drama,
it's not for its looks, which
are, I should say right up front, spectacular.
It's not for its people,
who are... everyone I've ever
met anyway... warm, proud, generous, and fun.
Or for its food, which is truly great.
I don't know what this is, but it's good.
Fruit in this country excellent.
♪
I'm no stranger to this place.
Generally speaking, it's a particularly vibrant
mix of Spanish, European, Afro-Caribbean,
and indigenous people.
These are deep waters my friends
no news story or episode of
Miami vice has ever come close to navigating.
It is and always has been a
fiercely, fiercely proud country
and its people yearn to see
international coverage of
something other than cocaine and violence.
But that isn't a legacy that is easy to ignore.
Its decades of civil unrest have
left vast swaths of Colombia
relatively unknown even to its own citizens.
To reach a place previously
considered a no go area, I'll
fly out of an airport in
Villavicencio 45 miles southeast
of the capital city of Bogota.
On first inspection, this is an
airplane bone yard where
unwanted props from romancing
the stone corrode artfully.
But in reality, this sleepy
hangar is an important gateway
to the more impenetrable parts of the country.
The remote settlements in the
Amazon basin are cut off from
the country with neither rail
nor roads connecting them.
There are only two ways in,
either boat for several days
down river or aboard a jungle
bus which is what locals call
the world war ii era D.C. 3.
I've been brought here by
Pablo Mora a teacher at the
university and a particular
enthusiast for this classic of golden age aviation.
You've taken this flight before?
Yes.
Every time I have a chance I come here and fly one.
It is a romantic thing.
He sees the work these hulking great air ships and
their pilots do as daredevil
humanitarian missions for the
more remote Colombians.
An in flight movie?
No.
Nor first class either.
What?
No, no.
The planes travel with their
own mechanic to cobble together
anything that might go wrong and stuff can go wrong.
The risk is that we'll be able
to land but not take off again.
So this guy is our return ticket out of the jungle.
Our captain is something of a
legend in these parts and his copilot copilot.
It's mystical.
They develop this sensibility with the plane.
There is no Intel, no software.
They have GPS but that's about it.
It's beautiful.
They have to sense everything.
They know when the sound of the plane is not right.
It's just man and machine.
The weather is the big unknown and it is changeable
enough to ground planes in
remote places if they hang around for too long.
We have to make one stop on the
way to pick up more cargo.
Vital cargo, by the way.
While we're passing over this
beautiful and lush area the life
of those below has been anything but.
Colombia seems to be trapped in a vicious circle.
The territory is used as a haven for kidnappers.
Until recently most of the news out of this part of
Colombia was not good.
It was a front line in the war
on drugs, for lack after better
term and Colombia's long
struggle with the Marxist drug
cartel with kidnapping and
assistance from Venezuela.
50 years of very dirty war.
The stakes not about drugs per
Se but about the ability of
ordinary Colombians to live without fear.
We land in the Jung the out post
of Mirraflores in the amazonian forest preserve.
The heavy presence of army and
special police is a result of
the strategic location and
recent history as a one-time
center of Coca production.
Farmers would grow the stuff and
make the leaves into paste.
Traffickers would come and buy it.
The FARC had this area under its
sphere of influence for years.
Nine years ago the government
moved to expel the FARC, traffickers, and any
paramilitaries with apparently much success.
Overnight, however, its population shrank by 85% and
what remains struggles to survive.
You're telling me the people were born here?
Most of the people came from elsewhere.
In the beginning in the 1950s
and '6 Os they were escaping
from the violence, from the
political violence between the
two parties in Colombia.
So if you were having problems in the city or in
wherever you were from you came out here.
Yeah, yeah.
So what did you do for a living out here?
Cattle and some agriculture
and after that the drug trade
began and everything with the Coca plantation.
This climate is good for it?
Very good.
Since 1999 there was no police
or army force here so it was
just occupied by the FARC.
And then by the paramilitary.
Yeah.
So that is when the real violence began.
So the problem preexisted the drug trade.
The drug trade just made everything more.
There is no judge here, few institutions.
Basically you know the state is
here just because the army is here.
So I think when I met the major...
Anthony, this is the major.
Julio Cesar Gonzalez is the
current mayor of Miraflores
which has seen much better and much worse days.
How many people live in this town?
Around 1500, 2,000 in the community.
The FARC were here for 20 years
and they were the central authority here.
Not doing particularly well,
not particularly happy with the government.
Somebody comes along and offers
you a nice machine gun and a cool scarf.
Yeah.
Especially if you're 15, 16 years old.
That's a pretty attractive offer.
Of course it is.
Even if they say you'll probably be dead by the time
you're 25.
It is.
And they offer you a salary.
So what is the future of this town?
They're providing free
education but there is a little
potential of diversity and Eco tourism as well.
Without the customer, there
is no cocaine trade and no violence.
Right?
So is the United States and
Europe still buying cocaine?
I can't think about the
situation where the demand is not going to be there.
But the demand in the states is down 40%.
As long as there is a market
there will be people ready to do it.
The United States puts how many
billions of dollars a year
paying for guns and uniforms and training, etcetera.
Where should they be spending it?
I would say health is very
important but more important is
to end the war on drugs.
It's just, it doesn't work.
Here is my problem.
If crack didn't exist I would
have no... I have absolutely agree with you.
But as a former coke addict and
crack head, that is a problem.
Yeah.
The thing is that people think
that if you think that drugs
should be legalized you're saying they're good.
No.
We're not saying that.
But just we're just getting rid of one problem.
The problem the major has here.
A lot of money you could divert.
We have two problems.
I agree.
One is drug addiction and the
other is drug trafficking.
We'll get rid of one.
We won't get rid of the other.
We have to deal with it forever.
It is a beautiful country.
The people here are, from I've seen are really nice.
Even the bad guys are charming.
Yeah.
That is true.
The food is delicious.
The problem is the United States will never leave.
Complicated issues.
Yeah.
So the good people of this
town can thank us for bringing
in their fresh supply of... yeah.
Coca.
Nothing of it, gentlemen.
It was really our pleasure.
> Bogota the country's capital
and a city with new lofty food ambitions.
Where previously a restaurant
scene didn't really exist.
Now young restaurant owners such
as this musician turned chef are
beginning to make a name for themselves in Colombia.
One of the biggest markets in Bogota.
I love this place.
It is very beautiful.
The colors.
My mom comes here to buy flowers.
My grandma also.
Did I mention this city is over 8,000 feet up?
Hence the altitude sickness I'm feeling.
Not good.
Tomas comes here a few times a
week for an early breakfast
which I'm hoping will make me feel better.
This market has been running in
one form or another since the 1940s.
This place is huge.
Want some juice?
Yeah.
What do you have?
I love it.
Orange juice with carrots.
Probably the healthiest thing I've had in a while.
Good for the high altitude.
Yeah.
This is better.
I'm feeling better every hour.
Yeah.
The first hour is killing me.
But you have a better face.
I didn't think I was going to
make it out of the airport.
Most of the mornings, early
in the morning 5:00 to 6:00 in
the morning I climb the mountain.
Why?
Fresh air.
Okay.
You have to come with me.
Hell no.
Ain't happening.
You want to taste this?
This is made with corn.
It is fantastic.
I love it.
Tucked in the back corner of the
fish market is a place that
serves breakfast to the market's
workers and shoppers.
We're talking beef short ribs
simmered in an oily broth with
potatoes, salt, and scallions.
Tomas swears by this stuff, the
traditional breakfast soup from the region.
There we go.
Okay.
Gracias.
Would you like chili?
I do.
Gracias.
Yeah.
Now we're talking.
This is perfect when you have
a good party last night.
I was just going to say, this is hangover food.
I know hangover food well and this is good.
Perfect.
Some meat in there.
Yeah.
Good broth.
Yes.
Good.
So what is this dish called?
Beef stock... broth over rib.
Yes.
With potatoes of course.
Even with potato.
Very good Spanish.
I don't speak Spanish.
I speak a little Mexican.
Bogota, back in the '90s a very
dangerous and violent place to be.
Today, not so much.
Today in my repeated experiences
here kind of awesome.
This is the recently renovated
old city where I meet up with
Hector, distinguished author and
one of the most important and
supremely talented writers in Latin America.
Hector's recent work, a memoir
called "oblivion" is about his
father who was killed for his
outspoken attempts to change things for the better.
First of all, where are we?
This is a place where many
Bogotans come to eat something
in the middle of the morning or
the middle of the afternoon.
The tomales here are made
with chicken and pork belly
combined with vegetables, rice,
and massa wrapped in a banana
leaf and slow cooked for hours.
This place has been serving
chocolate to the politicians of
nearby Plaza for a couple hundred years.
Here are the tomales.
Beautiful.
It is a thing of beauty isn't it?
Let's see if it is like my mother's.
Oh, that's a high standard.
I suppose it is not.
I was just to the market yesterday.
What economy there was at
Miraflores was a drug economy.
Now the drugs are gone and there is no economy.
It is a ghost town with the
military and people sitting
there staring at space waiting
for beer to arrive best I can understand.
Tell me something hopeful.
I think we are becoming more
and more conscious that this
past decades of violence have
been absolutely useless.
And that we have to change many, many, many things.
So I think it is not as good as my mother's.
I'm sorry.
Well, it never is.
If you remove cocaine from
the equation, remove the drug
trade as a financial engine, you
would still have serious
divisions over ideology here.
Is that improving?
Things are changing in a good
direction, but very slowly.
I think.
You know, ten years ago they
killed 7,500 people every year.
And three years ago this number
came to 700 people killed.
So the situation changed.
Right.
I have only questions.
I have no answers.
I'm so sorry.
If I were the president, I really... I don't know.
You wouldn't know what to do.
No.
I wouldn't.
To suggest that a nation should expand its social
services, do its best to lift
people out of poverty, to provide medical care for
everyone, as you well know, that
may be in the minds of many.
Are those as dangerous and
potentially ideas as they used to be?
Well, 25 years ago my father
was killed just because he was
asking for these basic things
like clean water, a glass of
milk, and a bath for every child.
That was... we still don't have
that and we need that.
Now we in Colombia, maybe we are trying.
I think there are some people
here even in the government who
are working for that.
> Bogota is the largest city
in Colombia and the economic heart of the country.
About a fifth of the population lives here
many of them very well.
But some not so well.
It's a city with a marked north/south divide.
Chef Tomas and his restaurant
sit side by side in the macarena
neighborhood where the city center meets the north.
The lunch Tomas is serving us
here is defined more by high
quality fundamentals than by high concept theories.
If there is a theme here, it's
that ingredients this good,
meticulously prepared, are the
essence of great eating.
It's a beautiful space.
So how is the restaurant business in Bogota?
It's a big business.
A lot of people don't know how to cook.
Nobody cooks at home.
Maybe their cook does.
They eat out a lot?
Yeah.
It's a new culture.
Everybody wants to go to the restaurant.
Ten, 15 years ago what, traditional, casual food?
Yeah.
A few fine dining, white
table cloths, continental or
Italian, but this is new?
This is a new business.
A new world.
It is the mixture of the cultures.
It's beautiful.
The other thing is all of the
region with the rivers and the
sea we are like a big farm, a
beautiful farm to send all this
produce to the world.
I believe more in a beautiful
carrot than a great recipe.
Yeah.
Right.
This is pasta.
Thin sheets of hand made
pasta are filled with cheese and
finished with a cherizo sauce.
Yum.
So you used to be a musician.
Yeah.
I am still.
Still.
So what happened, man?
How did you go from music to restaurants?
Money.
Good.
Good, yeah.
Really good.
It's great business is good
because generally speaking the
only worse idea I think I'll try
to make a living making music is
I think I'll make a living opening a restaurant.
I see why that's so popular.
Good stuff.
Thank you, Tony.
Tomas's take uses beef shank
instead of veal which is braised
overnight with wine and broth in a wood fired oven.
Oh, wow.
It's huge.
Yes.
You don't need the knife.
Only the spoon.
Right.
Hum.
Do you cure this first in salt?
No.
Dry it, salt it?
No.
Just fresh?
Yes.
Delicious.
You'll have to keep this on your
menu forever, right?
Forever.
Yeah.
The best part.
Mama didn't raise no fool.
Santiago Decali is a city of
southwest Colombia known for its
proximity to the pacific coast and its semitropical
temperatures.
But I'm not really here for the climate.
I'm here for taiho.
It involves alcohol and explosives.
Colombian will and their
bandmates are to be my guide to
this ancient and traditional Colombian sport.
Ah!
Thank you.
How do you play this game?
I guess that's how it's done.
What do you call this object?
Taiho.
Hence the name... taiho.
I should be good at this.
I've been throwing pots into the
dish sink from across the room for years.
You win more points if you
get it in the middle without hitting it.
Oh.
That doesn't sound like any fun.
Everyone has a different style it seems.
You've got to do like one step
and then another and swing.
I don't believe that style is going to work for me.
After early success it turns out
we all pretty much suck at this.
Time to bring in some outside muscle.
These guys.
Holy crap.
Two in a row?
This is dismaying.
One of those guys had to be on my team, right?
The guy in the white.
His name is "the old chicken."
He's calling himself the old chicken.
I should be the enormous one.
He's killing it.
Every time.
♪
Must beat the chicken.
Wanted something to blow up.
Hungry work but the kitchen
is up to the challenge making the Colombian food.
This is a huge selection of
fried pork, pork rib, steak,
potatoes, and deep fried plantain.
I smell food.
Oh, ho.
Thank you.
A beer, explosives, and food?
Can't beat that.
> If Bogota is Colombia's
financial heart then Cali is its shaking hips.
People here like their music.
♪
My buddies Mario and will are
the founders of a collective and
their idea was to reinterpret
the tropical music heritage of Colombia.
What often sounds like salsa in
style is actually coomya.
♪
If there is one type of music
that can be classified as
distinctly Colombian, this is it.
♪
It draws other music of the African, indigenous, and
European mix that makes up the
country so will and Mario
created something a long way
from the pop music that's a staple here.
They brought together musicians
who had been famous on the scene
in the 1950s and 1960s and
matched them up with younger counterparts.
As if the impressive amount of
fried meat we ate wasn't enough,
we go for dinner at one of the
band's favorite spots.
The recording we made which
we did for three weeks was a big
sort of ensemble and there were
musicians from, I think the
youngest was 25 maybe and the oldest 82.
Old school and new school mixed.
Yes.
So we can meet not only doing
music but also exchanging lots
of information about how music
was made, how music was recorded.
Right.
What was the spirit of the music.
That's the idea is to get back to the roots.
First up the Cali version of
cooked shrimp slathered in mayonnaise, ketchup, and
Worcester sauce.
A '70s shrimp cocktail, essentially.
Leave it to the mangroves of the
pacific coast, a stable used in
everything from tomal eces to stews.
Rice, not a clam.
Ah.
Like a rock mollusk pretty much.
Hum.
It's delicious.
Wow.
So this is from the pacific.
This is red snapper.
Steamed shrimp.
Oh, very cool.
And some nice green tomatoes.
You always find it everywhere.
With all of this food you have
to accompany it with this.
I'm learning that.
It is the best way to handle this.
From cane sugar like home made.
So I'm just going to take mine.
So what are your favorite places in Colombia?
Colombia is like five countries in one.
When you come to Colombia you
definitely have to go to some
pacific experience either in
Cali or go straight to the coast
to have a Caribbean experience.
You definitely have to have a
mountain experience like Bogota.
Right.
Another would be like go to the Amazon.
Go to the jungle.
So I'm planning a vacation.
Yeah.
Should I come to Colombia?
Should I come to Cali?
Most definitely, man.
You will find great music, great
party, great food, beautiful
views, beautiful nature around.
Yeah, yeah.
Look.
The country is beautiful.
We know this.
But most Americans are afraid to come.
Is Colombia any more dangerous
for a tourist than Rio or Puerto Rico or...
South central?
My impression is no.
When you go to Rio you don't wear a big watch.
You don't wear an expensive suit.
You don't behave like an idiot
and life is going to be good.
Like maybe I've been lucky
but I've never been mugged or robbed.
Most people tell you we had an amazing time.
We heard great music.
We met beautiful girls or guys.
We drank some great drinks and
we just hung out and we went to
the beach and we, it was great,
and we want to come back.
You know?
I mean, there's a lot of heart here.
People feel very, very deeply.
Yeah.
About things.
It is the most welcoming country
in Latin America that I've been.
Salud, salud!
> I leave the sub tropics for
more extreme climes a city
northeast of Cali on Colombia's Caribbean sea.
This is the most northern part
of south America and borders Venezuela in the east.
It is home to the seminomadic people of Colombia.
They are a tough, autonomous
tribe who have never taken sides
with either the government or FARC or paramilitary.
As a result they remained
independent politically and live
pretty much by their own code.
I'm meeting Juan Pablo, a chef
from Bogota who comes to this
spot on a regular basis.
This is not another country.
This is Colombia but a very
different part of Colombia.
A very rugged terrain, desert.
There is not that much water.
So that is part of why the Spaniards weren't able to
colonize it.
You've been coming here for some time.
I became very interested in
the area because I like the
fresh fish, fresh lobster and
fresh shrimp and goat meat to take back to Bogota.
Is it good?
Very good.
Goats are important.
They're used for Bart aring and even doury payments.
Ranch owners come to sell,
saluter, cook goats in the mornings.
Today we're having frichi.
It is a traditional fish.
It consists of the heart, intestines of the goat.
They slaughter them back here
and this is where the women cook it.
This is tradition.
This is breakfast.
The frichi.
A little bit of everything in there.
Yes.
We have hearts.
We have a little bit of meat, of ribs.
Now it's interesting, because
this one is for breakfast, and
it's almost done where they are slaughtered.
They have to eat this fresh.
Fresh, this is delicious.
If not fresh, this would not be so good.
No.
This is where I say something
that takes us seamlessly from a
discussion about fresh meat to
me hauling my aging carcass on
to an ATV, sugar bear style.
♪
Tribal members of the Wayuu have
dual citizenship and can cross
the border into Venezuela to
live or trade there whenever they need to.
Luckily for us, it means that
cheap gas is easy to come by in these parts.
There are no stations as such.
You just keep an eye out for the can.
Most of this gasoline is from Venezuela.
It's extremely cheap.
It's like 50 cents a gallon.
The government subsidizes a lot of it.
They're able to buy Venezuelan
gasoline and sell legally
Venezuelan gasoline in Colombia.
Having taken on as much gas
as can be mouth-siphoned into
one sitting, we're off again.
Let me set the scene.
It's hot out here, desert hot.
We plan to ride three hours
along the coast to our lunch
spot, and I ate salty goat
innards for breakfast, and I
refuse to wear a helmet or sunblock.
We avoid wild donkeys and goats,
and get lost more than a few times.
So a little heatstroke leads to
a lot of horsing around.
We decide to open these puppies up.
> A momentary concussion is seldom a good thing.
Waking up in Colombia on a beach almost always is.
♪
Having abandoned the epic ride,
we're back where we started in
the Guijira at the blue sea restaurant.
How come you're all clean?
I changed.
You brought a change of clothes?
Yes.
I'm hurting now.
I'm feeling every minute, every
hour, every month and year of my age.
So you're ready?
Yes.
I trust it will make me feel all better.
Much better.
It's a good end to a fun day.
You can't ask for better scenery.
It's beautiful here.
A beer.
I need the anesthetic qualities of the local fire
water.
That's probably a really good idea.
That's going to be a good start for tonight.
A good start.
I'm done.
Oh, man.
That dog has the right idea.
See, I'd be very happy if that was me right now.
Just like laying down in the
sand with my chin out like that.
Man, it's so beautiful here.
Who comes here?
Basically tourists from
Colombia and backpackers that
are making their way up to the north.
Right.
We saw one tourist all day,
and it's nice, really it's completely off the grid.
This used to be a fisherman village.
There are definitely worse
places to eat seafood than
beachside in a fishing village,
and the strength of this area
lies in the variety of fish available.
Basically it's like a fish
chowder, made with shrimp, clams.
Right.
A small kind of clam, a lobster, fish.
Yeah.
And conch.
I need a bath.
Very clear sky for the Caribbean.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
Always accompanied by lemon
and coconut rice and plantain
and some hot sauce in there.
♪
Some good food, a few shots, the sounds of waves in the
background, and a nice sunset.
These are things in my experience that will set most
things right.
Thank you to Guajira.
And Colombia.
Salud.
Cheers.
♪
We had good fun.
Cheers.
Snoes
I always find Colombia encouraging.
They face problems more extreme
and seemingly more intractable
than many of us can imagine, and
yet every time I come here it gets better.
Don't get me wrong.
Problems, serious problems,
remain, which is particularly
heartbreaking in a country so
beautiful, so generous, so
proud, so eager to love and be loved back.
I come back to my own country
from Colombia, and I think if
they can fix that, if they can
make things better, then surely
there's nothing we can't do.
For now, however, I'll settle for fixing my headache.
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