From my travel journal: Medellín, Antioquia:
My driver and I walk about the prison area, the air fresh from the recent rains, the sun out now, El Poblado like an erector set of pink rectangular skyscrapers set amidst dark green slopes below; we walk past the guard towers, once staffed by guards Escobar had hired, past abundant vines with light green leaves and silver-dollar-sized orange flowers, then approach a giant cement wall, part of the prison that Pablo built. On the lower wall is a giant billboard of sorts, with a photo reproduction of Pablo in prison wearing a Russian fur hat, behind the very bars he had paid for; above and behind the prison are thickly- forested hills, offering avenues of easy escape, which Escobar took advantage of the night that he fled the prison and went into hiding again.
From my travel journal: Medellín, Antioquia:
Pablo [Ochoa] and I arrive on the dirt road finally at the cluster of buildings that used to house Pablo Escobar, his brother and other Medellin Cartel associates. But the road to the buildings is blocked by an empty kiosk and a gate with a chain lock. No one is manning the kiosk. So we drive further up the hill to a cluster of new buildings, that lie above the prison. The buildings are part of a Benedictine Monastery that was built about five years ago and we part before a small, A-frame chapel built of wood. From inside comes music in form of Gregorian chants. Far below us, in glimpses through the clouds, rise the pink skyscrapers of El Poblado, a wealthy suburb of Medellin.
Inside, the chapel is empty, the music turns out to be a recording and there are wooden pew benches. On a wall is a statue of Christ, surrounded by pictures of the stations of the cross. A 40ish man approaches us. He’s a bit lean and gaunt and tells us he a priest. He offers to give us a tour but not before another cab arrives and a shirtless man gets out, covered in tattoos, makes his way inside, and kneels at a pew. He looks like a gangster and has traveled all of the way up the mountainside to pray. (more…)
Kon-Tiki Expedition Raft Trip Revived with Trip to Easter Island
Oct 29, 2015
El Comercio
(Translated by Kim MacQuarrie)
(Note: I met Thor Heyerdahl in 1988 up in Tucume, in northern Peru, as he was excavating among the Moche pyramids. I spent about three days helping him to clear the site and he was a very gracious host. One of the chapters in my forthcoming book, Life and Death in the Andes, addresses Heyerdahl’s voyages and theories and also chronicles my search for the reed boat builder who built Heyerdahl’s rafts for his Ra Expeditions. I found him still alive and well, 82-years-old, and living in a village alongside Lake Titicaca. I also investigate whether Heyerdahl’s migration theories were ever substantiated. Much has been learned since his 1947 raft trip from Peru to the Marquesas Islands).
Enthusiasm reigns among the members of the Kon Tiki II, an expedition consisting of two rafts bound for Easter Island from [the port of] Callao early next month. The crew of 14 hails from Peru, Norway, New Zealand, England, Russia, Chile and three other nations and emulates the modes of navigation used by the ancient Peruvians.
A team of Spanish explorers and scientists, using satellite imagery, discovered in mid-September a previously unknown Inca site some 150 miles north of Cusco. Using computer imaging software, the expedition reached a mountain top and discovered some 50 structures and an Incan cemetery complete with skeletal remains. In addition, near the summit, the team discovered structures that resemble those involved in human sacrifice, or capacocha, found elsewhere in the Andes. According to the team, it’s possible that the site was used by Incas after the initial conquest of the Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro, during the period of nearly forty years when a rump empire of Inca guerrillas existed in the Vilcabamba area. In 1572, the Spaniards invaded Vilcabamba, captured the final Inca emperor, and beheaded him in the main square in Cusco.
From my travel journal: Medellín, Antioquia
I met Pablo Ochoa—not the Colombian drug king, but the name of my cab driver—sitting in the fifth cab in a long line of cabs in Envigado, a suburb of Medellin where Pablo Escobar grew up. I wanted to visit La Catedral, the prison Escobar had first built and then had spent a year and a half in, located about an hour up a green mountainside. The first driver shook his head and said he needed a larger cab. The second shook his head and said it was too far and that the road was narrow and bad. The third and fourth drivers said the same. Pablo—59 years old with gray hair and intense, dark eyes—looked me over suspiciously and nodded.
Journal Entry: Medellín, Colombia:
Although this wasn’t my first trip to South America, the voyage down the Andes was going to be my longest and in many ways the most challenging as far as what kind of gear to take. I was traveling solo, yet needed to pack South America travel gear for camping and hiking in rural areas such as parts of the ancient Inca roads that still spread down South America’s spine.
The journey down the spine of the Andes, from Colombia to Tierra del Fuego, actually began several years before I left. The idea for such a voyage had been in the back of my mind for several decades, actually, but didn’t crystallize until I finally pitched the idea of a book to my editor at Simon and Schuster, Bob Bender, in 2009. If you really want to know how far back this idea extends, however, it’s best summarized in the first part of the preface of Life and Death in the Andes:
Entry from my travel journal:
Bogotá, Colombia