Travel in Ever-Widening Circles; a Journalistic Journey

By Deborah Marvin McDonough

Fighting boredom and depression with a craving to head South from her New England home, she leaves her grown children and sets upon a back-packing journey, hitch-hiking sailboats from the Carribean to South America. In Cartagena she meets a street urchin and takes him with her through South America, Africa and India. Returning after two years to Colombia, she sells her house in NE and buys 77 acres of wild, forested land to start a farm outside Cartagena. She struggles through the assasination of her Colombian husband, living with the campesinos and surviving alone after his death. This is her story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728334646

Deborah Marvin McDonough

Deborah McDonough grew up in Portsmouth, NH graduating from UNH majoring in Arts and Horticulture. After living 24 years in Colombia, SA she now resides in Washington state as an artist, living near her family.

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© 2019 Deborah Marvin McDonough. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  11/06/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3465-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3464-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Front Cover: Greater Yellow Legs Sandpiper painted by Deborah

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One   To The Source Of The Flow

Chapter Two

Chapter Three   The Islands

Chapter Four   Travel

Chapter Five   Africa 11/91

Chapter Six   India

Chapter Seven   Colombia 1993-2017

Chapter Eight   New Year’s Eve 1994

Chapter Nine   The Adventure, March 1995

Chapter Ten   Colombia, October 1995

Chapter Eleven   Living On The Land

Chapter Twelve   Bogota Visa, October 1996

Chapter Thirteen   Cows, October 1997

Chapter Fourteen   January, 2003

Chapter Fifteen   June, 2003

Chapter Sixteen   Valle Sylvestre, August

These were the days before everyone had cell phones. There were no internet cafes. Copious letters that I wrote home were saved by my family and from these I was able to remember dates and events. The many journals I kept in Colombia have also enriched memories of these times. To guide me, I travelled with Lonely Planet books and Michelin maps and a lot of luck.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to Nancy Edwards who typed this manuscript from my hand-written pages. Also, to my daughter, Amanda, who patiently sat at the computer helping to edit and prepare this book for publishing.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the memory of Geovannis Enrique Salgado and his family. Also to the people of Villanueva, Bolivar and campesinos with whom I have lived, loved, laughed and cried.

PROLOGUE

My mother always boasted that our forefathers came over on the Mayflower. Legend also has it that sometime in obscurity our ancestors ship-wrecked off the Guernsey Islands of England and settled there. Legends aside, wanderlust is in me and this is what this book is about.

In 1951, my father, as an officer in the U.S. Navy, was commissioned to serve two years in occupied Japan. My mother, sister, brother and I left our home in New Castle, N.H. to join him a year later. I was 10 years old. We travelled from Boston to San Francisco by train, from there by military ships carrying occupying troops. My most vivid memory of that two week ocean voyage across the Pacific, on the U.S.S. Breckinridge, was of a typhoon that roared up on Easter Sunday. The wind screamed in the rigging. It sent our ship plunging up and down. Huge waves crashed over the bow soaking the crowded troops on deck. It did not help that a ventilator over my bunk blew the smells of cooking food from the galley into our room.

We met our father in Tokyo Bay and went to live in Kamakura for six months and later at a naval base in Yokohama. Our Japanese maid taught me some folklore songs which I have never forgotten. Years later, travelling down the Congo by river boat, I sang these songs to a fellow Japanese passenger, Mazda, from Kawasaki. Exploring Africa on his Yamaha motorbike. He said I sang these songs perfectly.

Our year in Japan gave me an awareness, filled me with curiosity about what is out there, outside of my own little sphere in the center of the circle.

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CHAPTER ONE

To The Source Of The Flow

- From the Book of Counted Sorrows

On the road that I have taken, one day, walking, I awaken.

Amazed to see where I have come, where I’m going, where I’m from.

This is not the path I thought. This is not the place I sought.

This is not the dream I bought, just a fever of fate I’ve caught.

I’ll change highways in a while, at the crossroads, one more mile.

My path is lit by my own fire, I’m going only where I desire.

On the road that I have taken, one day walking I awaken.

One day walking I awaken, on the road that I have taken.

I was 48 years old and on a roll after backpacking twice across Africa, once with a friend and then alone. For me, travel was an addiction. It still is. You never know what is coming around the corner. Returning home from each trip I barely unpacked because I knew I would be leaving soon again. Little did I know that the last journey would end up with me living in Colombia, South America for 24 years, full of incredible experiences and a tragic death.

But first some of me. I grew up on a small island off the coast of Portsmouth, N.H., connected to the mainland by two bridges. My father, a naval officer and one of seven children, was from a prominent Portsmouth family. My mother, an only child, grew up travelling around the world as her father was also an officer in the U.S. Navy. I have a sister living in California. My brother died young of cancer.

As a young child I was and still am fascinated by nature. I gathered frog eggs and watched them change from tadpole to adult. My bedroom had a collection of tin cans full of minnows caught from the salt marsh. Much to my mother’s horror a praying mantis egg case hatched in my bureau where there was also a dried rhinoceros beetle from Japan in a box. I spent hours drawing and painting horses. To me they are the most graceful creatures on earth. I begged for a horse but all I got was a bicycle.

I graduated from high school and then on to the University of New Hampshire, majoring in horticulture and the arts. I have been married and divorced twice, two daughters and a son from the first marriage and another daughter from the second. With my second husband we bought a big old house in Portsmouth and lived there after the divorce with my children for 22 years.

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In the summers I worked landscaping, growing perennials, designing and maintaining flower gardens for historical houses and private clientele around the seacoast area. In winter, I drove a school bus and waited tables at local restaurants. Wanderlust never left me in spite of being sedentary for some years. In 1976 I took my youngest daughter on a short trip in the old VW bus to visit my Aunt Izzie in Norfolk, Virginia and to the Ocracoke islands in North Carolina, the farthest south I had ever been in the U.S. A nice adventure but I longed to see the South of the world. I wanted to savor the tropics and those wild jungles.

By 1986, my children by my first husband were married or in college, leaving me with my youngest (17 year old) daughter, Amanda. I was tired of living in that old, cold house full of memories, bored with life and the same places I’d lived for all my life. Maybe it’s my Viking heritage from those seamen who shipwrecked on those Guernsey isles long ago. I would walk the beaches of the cold Atlantic and watch the sandpipers, filling up for their long journey south and I coveted them. I yearned to go with them.

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CHAPTER TWO

A solution arrived to my restlessness, a way to go south and as far as the Caribbean if possible. I had found a woman who needed her car delivered to Fort Lauderdale, FL. Possibly a sailboat ride to the Caribbean could be found from there. As the monetary situation was minimal, it was necessary to look for alternative ways to cut expenses. I could feel a growing excitement that I had not felt in years.

Amanda was to be a senior in high school that fall. When I approached her principal to tell him I was taking her out of school for that year, he indignantly told me this was highly irregular. My rationale was that a winter in the Caribbean islands would be more of an educational experience than a year of high school in the frozen north. She ended up getting expelled for lack of attendance anyway so we just decided to leave town as the best remedy to that. When summer work was finished, off we went all the way to Florida at no cost. After delivering the car we got a dingy hotel room in Fort Lauderdale, went to the marina looking for boats headed to the islands. After a week with no luck and not wanting to waste time, we flew to St. Thomas V.I. Amanda was 17, I was 45 years old. What a wonderful, delicious, delirious time we had. Finally flown south like the sandpipers (that first night in St. Thomas in the hotel room, the insects, the smells and the heat and humidity, it was so new, all-encompassing and so alive. We laughed at how loud the frogs were, you could barely talk over them).

We went down to the marinas in Charlotte Amalie and after making friends and connections found free lodging on a trimaran named Red Ink, permanently moored in the harbor of Red Hook, St. Thomas for a while. We hiked all over St. Johns Virgin Island State Park marveling at the tropical growth, the birds, butterflies and flowers. Best of all the beaches and huge iguanas. The warmth and the blue green color of the Caribbean Sea were so different from the cold, grey green Atlantic.

Boating people were friendly and eager to help us. Here we were, my daughter and I, open to adventure, willing and able to go wherever the wind blew us. I got a job cleaning sailboats off charter so we could eat. We were often invited for day sails out to neighboring islands. Eventually we were invited to sail down island to St. Maarten. The boat was a beautiful 50’ Swan named Scopbank of Finland. She had actually come in 12th on the 1981-82 Whitbread Round the World Race in her day but was now just being used as a charter. The captain, Jay and his wife sailed her up and down islands with a bit of a motley crew. Eagerly we accepted and sailed down in a roaring storm, it was exhilarating. I remember telling Jay that I did not want to return to home as a final regression. He said, don’t think of it like that, and think of it as going out in ever widening circles. This is exactly what happened.

In St. Maarten, we were invited to stay on another sailboat named Melanie. The owner was an Englishman, skinny, alcoholic but kindly. He loved any excuse to sail. I had heard of Dominica, a windward island in the south Caribbean. It was known as the nature island of the Caribbean for its lush flora and fauna and volcanic mountains. I expressed a desire to see them someday and the next thing I knew we were sailing for Dominica. As his only crew, Amanda and I had to learn fast how to tie bowlines and winch the sails. It was a beautiful sail down island (after stopping in Nevis to soak in sulphur springs) we arrived at the northern tip of Dominica two days later. The island was mountainous and green. The off shore breeze smelled of tropics and flowers. People would paddle out to sell coconuts, grapefruit and banana from their boats. One afternoon Amanda and I were invited to go to shore to drink rum but we didn’t get a chance to explore inland on this trip. After three days we pulled anchor and went back to St. Maarten.

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The 1954 Cheverolet used to buy and sell produce.

Once back, Tim left for Belize for two weeks leaving us in charge of Melanie. During this interval we hiked around exploring the island and meeting new friends. One evening I left Amanda onboard typing a letter and set off for a local bar to have a beer. It was Friday the 13th and a full moon. I am not superstitious nor do I believe in precognition but this evening turned out to be very lucky and strange. At the bar while waiting in line to buy a beer I got into a conversation with a gentleman. He talked with a slight accent and eerily seemed to know all about me. That I was born in Boston, was travelling with my daughter and that I was short of money. When I asked him about himself, he would only say that he was staying in seclusion there in St. Maarten. He invited me to a casino where he played Black Jack, winning piles of chips. Taking them to the cashier, he was handed a wad of money. Which he handed to me. I never knew his name or where he was from, only that this chance encounter was very mysterious. All he asked in return was a kiss on the cheek. I returned to Melanie and Amanda. She was still typing and as I came down the stairs from the deck, I dug out all that money and threw it into the air. It was five hundred dollars.

While Tim was in Belize, among our new friends at Bobby’s Marina was a boy from Dominica, Anthony, who invited us to come to Dominica to visit his village and meet his family. When Tim returned we said our farewells. I did not know then that I would be returning four years later to stay with him and Melanie briefly on another long journey south. Now that the monetary situation had improved, I was delighted to be able to return to Dominica. It was exciting to think of being on it and into it.

The three of us left St. Maarten on a cargo boat and two days later arrived in Roseau, Dominica. From there a minivan took us to Anthony’s village, Anse-de-Mai, on a bay near Portsmouth. His grandparents lived there and had raised him along with his two younger sisters. They were very gracious and accommodating. I felt very comfortable there. Their house was made of wood clapboard and tin roofing, the kitchen a separate building with a swept dirt floor where Grandma cooked with gas but mostly with carbon made from coco shell. The village was surrounded by coconut trees and banana plants, the ocean brought fishes in small boats sold on the beach by the fishermen. The beaches were black sand sprinkled with pink seashells, very hot to walk on.

Locally, we hiked all around, up and down, along the many beaches and into rain forests lush and tropical, dripping with orchids with primitive spiny tree ferns everywhere. At times I would think I was still in the forest because it was so thick but then realize I was in someone’s garden. Plots of banana, guava, orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, coconuts and more hidden in the vines. The Commonwealth of Dominica has 365 rivers that run to the sea, cold and fresh. In them, people wash their clothing and bodies and downstream, giant white land crabs prowl around at night returning to their holes in the morning. We ate fried fish, salted fish, grilled fish, and fish soup with green banana, dasheen and sweet potato. We gorged on guavas, grapefruit, coco and the banana, Dominica’s major export. We picked cocoa pods, roasted the beans, pounded into paste, rolled into balls it hardens which you then grate into sweet hot milk to make cocoa tea. This tea among others, various bush teas with sugar was breakfast and washed down the odd bread sold by truck by the bay every other day or so. The most popular called Zachary bread, a square flat loaf that broke up into smaller squares and was very dry but delicious with tea.

April came around and it was time to leave this beautiful island. Time to make our way home to work and responsibilities, time to fly north with the sandpipers. We said our goodbyes to Dominica and found a cargo boat back to St. Maarten and in Phillipsburg we met Murray from Australia, captain of a charter boat who needed crew to sail to Antigua. His boat was between charters and had hosted the likes of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Murray found us passage on a mail boat to St. Thomas, appropriately named Karma. He took us out to meet the mail boat that evening in his inflatable, all day it had been blowing and the swell was 4 to 6 feet. We had to jump onto the boat and wait for the next to throw our bags up and then off we went to St. Thomas to fly home to N.H.

It had been a wonderful adventurous trip for both of us. I did not know then that four years later I would return to these beautiful islands to see these people again. I would be on another longer journey south, in ever widening circles that would change my life.

1990-1991

Amanda went on to receive her GED from high school. She later graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington State, majoring in the arts. Anthony sailed as crew to the U.S. to be with her, as they were married in the islands. I helped him with immigration so he could stay and work. They lived near me in Portsmouth, N.H. For the next two years, after finishing summer landscaping, I put on my backpack and left for Africa. The first time with a friend. The second time alone.

Gazing out at that cold, grey Atlantic, remembering the warm blue-green Caribbean, I was determined to head south with the sandpipers. I longed to see wild colorful parrots, to be again in the rainforests with their mysterious flowers, to go to the warm oceans where terns, egrets and frigate birds live.

My children were married or off on their own. I became severely depressed, crying a lot. A broken relationship, my brother’s death. I went to a counselor but she could not help. It was up to me. I needed to get outside of myself. I had a vague plan to go to South America, back to Africa, then boat hop through Indonesia to Australia. With this idea and the possibility of travelling again, far away to new places, I became so excited I forgot to be depressed. I rented out that big cold empty house full of memories. I bought a new backpack, stuffed it with a sleeping bag, a tiny tent, a change of clothing, a camping stove and a Master visa card. I said goodbye to family and fled to save my life. Little did I know I would be gone nearly two years. I travelled by bus to Florida, a three day ride and stayed with a childhood friend for a few days. She kidded me about my passion for travel. Her husband called me Tinkerbell. She thought I had gone right around the bend. I knew what I was doing but not exactly where I was going. I would let fate guide me.

I bid my farewells and flew down to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.

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CHAPTER THREE

The Islands

Amanda would be in Dominica in December. I had two months to wait up island. Taking the ferry to Cruz Bay, St. Johns, I found a tourist camp consisting of huts connected by boardwalks, all built into the forest. Thanks to my landscaping skills, I was hired to clear the walkways of vines and sweep them free of debris. I was not paid. In exchange I had my own free hut to sleep in. Leisure time was spent hiking around the island, snorkeling and partying with my fellow workers. Was I ever depressed?

In November I hitched a sail from St. Thomas to St. Maartin. There, at Turtle Bay in Philipsburg, I found Tim on Melanie. He was still there after four years and very surprised to see me, as I could not let him know I was coming. He had a lady friend onboard, Rosie from Haiti, who for a living sewed false braids and long hair on the short hair of lady clientele.

Turtle pier, where Tim was docked, was a bar also, which accommodated not only diners and drinkers but, as well, parrots, monkeys, iguanas, turtles, geese and dogs. I was back in the islands!

It was strange to be here in St. Maartin again without my daughter. Some things were the same, others different. In Philipsburg, some cafes were gone, new ones arrived. Whole places gone and rebuilt into different things.

As wise Jay from Scopbank once told me, never return to the same place and expect it to be the same.

Time was passing. I wanted to be in Dominica for Christmas. Tim told me that in the first week of December, there was a boat show in Antigua. After the show many people sail down island. It should be no problem getting to Dominica. I hung out at the marinas, finally finding a ride as crew on a sailboat going to Antigua. My job was to help another girl cook and clean the galley. In two days we reached Antigua. I found a small sailboat to sleep on while there, in exchange for polishing brass.

The boat show was accompanied by many wild parties and propositions. By chance, I ran into Murray, the Australian who had helped Amanda and me catch the mail boat, Karma, and home. He said that after the boat show he was leaving to pick up a charter down island and would be passing Dominica. He offered me a ride there. I had to wait a week but had fun exploring and partying.

Murray’s boat was beautiful. I slept in a state room with a huge bed and private bath. The cooks on board specialized in gourmet cooking. I almost hated to leave. I will never forget his generosity.

I was back in Dominica for the third time, on nature’s paradise island with its volcanoes and tropical forests. Amanda and Anthony found me in Roseau. We returned to Anse-de-Mai, where I had Christmas with Anthony’s family, Mumma, Papa Charles, his sisters and, best of all, with Amanda. We had fish for Christmas dinner. Again, we walked the hot black sand beaches and hiked up into the rain forests, with their spiny tree ferns, forest trees dripping with vines and orchids. I wanted to bottle the smell of those forests and save it for perfume.

Down Island

After New Year, I left again by cargo boat on my long journey south. The jaunt down island to Trinidad and Tobago was truly amazing. Years later I found letters I wrote to my daughter covering most of that time.

January 1991

"Here I am in Grenada! It seems like years ago that I was with you and Anthony in Dominica. A lot has happened since then. God knows when I will see you again. Write to me via Caracas and send an address so I can keep in touch with you.

St. Lucia was a blast. I stayed at the Blue Lagoon hotel, a sort of youth hostel with communal kitchen, T.V., and neat people to hang out with. A village called Gros Islet was just up the road. Every Friday night a street dance was held. All the residents of the village barbequed chicken and had bars set up on their front porches. One old mumma sold Heiniken from a cooler with a big box of condoms.

An array of amplifiers was set up in the center of town from which blasted music at ear splitting volume. The dancing was wild, what is referred to as dirty dancing. I was caught a few times in the St. Lucian sandwich, one in front, and one in back. A truly erotic experience.

There was also the bar situated in a big thatched roofed area, where wild and handsome rastas convened daily, sitting around a big table. I was invited to sit with them and talk. They smoked the biggest joints I have ever seen. I met one rasta, Claw, who had his brother’s motorcycle. He showed me around all the beautiful beaches. We hung out together until his girlfriend from Switzerland arrived.

It was time to leave. I went by cargo boat to St. Vincent. There I climbed a volcano called La Sofia. It was a cloudy day, with wind and rain at the top. All that effort for a view was in vain. I met a friendly rasta local, Zion, who took me on a tour of his village and a beautiful botanical garden.

I then hopped another cargo boat to Bequia, where I had my own house overlooking the sea. It was in lower bay, where the beaches were lovely, where I met the friendly locals, mostly rastas. I spent one whole day totally stoned with them under a shady tree on the beach. They cooked up soup over firewood in a big pot, called ital, Ital in the pot, consisting of all sorts of vegetable boiled in coconut milk.

The full moon drives everyone here crazy, so offers to sit at the beach at night, smoke a little and talk were numerous.

However, again, I took yet another cargo boat, heading ever south to the Grenadines and Union Island. These cargo boats ply island to island. The fare is very cheap.

On this boat I met a Canadian guy who was going to be living on Union for a few months, working on a fisheries program. He had a house and offered me a free place for three days.

Union Island was dry, mostly savanna, pastures brown and very hot. I had fun with my Canadian friend and a lot of laughs. The first day there we were met by a local who shouted, Love and respect! hugging us. Another, referring to the full moon said, Welcome to the seductive pastures in the valley. I guess everyone here heads for the hills to make love in the full moon. We joked about love and respect in the seductive pastures in the valley on Union Island."

Anyway, this morning I caught a little fishing boat with sail and chugged over to Curacao. Changed boats to a larger cargo boat and arrived here in Grenada this afternoon.

In Curacao, just as we were leaving, on came a man handcuffed with attendants. They sat him down next to me on the hot deck and left. This one was totally crazed, showing me tiny pieces of paper he had in a matchbox, sang reggae songs, yelled, muttered and finally fell asleep on the deck. Just as we entered the harbor at St. George, Grenada, he got up, ran to the side of the boat and jumped off, handcuffs and all. I thought he would drown but I saw he was swimming to shore. The boat slowed down, everyone was yelling. A speed boat came from shore to pursue him, but too late. I saw him climb out of the water, disappearing into the forest. I hope he was able to get those handcuffs off.

The Grenadines are beautiful. Grenada is wild, lovely and tropical and also volcanic like Dominica. I did not realize there were so many islands down here, each its own little country and completely different from each other.

I want to get to Trinidad soon because it is Carnival time on February 10 through the 12th. I need to find a way to get there, either by cargo or sail. I cannot possibly tell you all I have been through since Dominica but this letter will give you an idea.

I was getting closer to South America. I had been travelling in the islands now for four months. Trinidad and Tobago would be the last to visit. I was looking forward to Carnival. I had no idea what it was all about. I was soon to find out.

On the overnight cargo boat trip from Grenada to Port of Spain, Trinidad, I met a woman who lived there. She invited me to stay at her family house in town, which I gladly accepted. Because of Carnival, all hotels were full. I arrived two days before the event and visited the camps where floats were being put together. From quiet, lovely Grenada, Port of Spain was a vast contrast. Carnival day arrived. It was incredible, a fantasy of color and music, from the beautiful costumed women on the floats to streets full of dancing people, to the music of steel drums. For three days I stood up and waved, following mud splattered people in the streets, at night dancing with hundreds of people in huge plazas. The steel drums never stopped. I was mesmerized, captivated, amazed, euphoric, drunk with it all, exhausted and my feet hurt. I had never had so much fun in my life. Unfortunately, the family I stayed with were thieves. To pay for my staying there, I bought them a cylinder of gas for cooking. In return, from my backpack they stole my camera and a Free Mandela tee shirt I got in Cape Town, South Africa the year before, when Mandela was freed from prison.

I had to go to Tobago and chill out. Here, the Rastafarians were craftsmen selling their hand crafted carved coconut shells. I met Anika, a German girl and traveler like myself. She was on her way to Brazil. I had decided to investigate Colombia. A week later we found passage on a sailboat to Isla Margarita. Then a ferry to Puerta La Cruz, Venezuela. I was finally in South America.

South America

People would ask, how can you just get up and leave? Alone. Were you not afraid? What did you eat? Easy. When the pressure builds up, just go. Maybe I am crazy, a loner in my directions. The Nordic blood. I get bored, need adventure, to experience new cultures, to see and believe, wear my heart on my sleeve, be one with my fellow earthlings, not put myself above or below, just be one of them. Treat the world with respect. This, I think, is why I travelled so well in Africa by myself. I was taken home, fed and cared for because I wanted to experience being with them as an equal and not as a foreigner. How did I get like this?

My upbringing. My mother did not want me to associate with childhood friends who she considered to be below my social status. I deliberately made friends whom she thought were beneath me. I liked my friends for who they were and no more.

Puerta La Cruz

I spoke no Spanish. Anika very little. We got a room for the night then went exploring. I bought mangos, stuffing them into my pant pockets. Returning that evening, as we entered an alleyway to the hostel, we were attacked. Two or three of them jumped Anika, throwing her to the ground. One was trying to cut off her money belt. I leapt on him, throwing him off her. Looking for money, they ripped the pockets off my pants. Mangos spilled out, rolling around. Anika got to her feet and we ran for the hostel. The would-be robbers ran away, stumbling over my mangos. Welcome to South America!

The next morning we left by bus for Caracas and stayed in a cheap hotel. Families were living in this hotel, four or five to a room. The communal bathrooms were filthy. One night a full band played on an adjoining roof top, keeping us awake through the night.

The plazas of Caracas are very large, full of food stalls, vendors, jugglers, clown acts, musicians. Anything to earn money. Anika earned hers by filling her mouth with gas. Blowing it out, she lit it with a match. She blew flames! People loved it but she suffered gas burns on her mouth. We stayed in Caracas a week. Then it was time to leave.

I was on my way to Cartagena, Colombia. Anika was headed for Manaus, Brazil. I gave her my favorite green tee shirt, she gave me a wooden flute. I never saw her again but I still have that flute.

Colombia 1991

From Caracas I travelled by bus to Maicao, a border town between Colombia and Venezuela. The bus driver directed me to immigration where I was to be stamped into Colombia. Returning to the bus, the driver checked my passport and discovered I had been stamped departure, returning I was stamped entry. I was in Colombia. I did not know then that I would live in this country for nearly twenty four years.

Again, I was a stranger in a strange land. This was not the first time. Had I not backpacked across Africa alone just the year before? You do not know the language nor the money or culture or what kind of food they eat. I was eager to learn.

Looking from the bus windows, I saw a panorama of strange tropical trees, the ever present coconut palms, tall grasses and small villages passing in a dripping hot green blur. Arriving in Barranguilla, oh so tired. I conveyed through pantomime that I needed a room for the night. A kindly man helped me find one. I had no Spanish dictionary but somehow found breakfast and a bus to Cartagena.

Cartagena

A tourist’s delight, Cartagena is an old historical port city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Founded in the 16th century, it has a history of African slavery and Spanish conquistadors. Its cobblestone plazas are lined with colorful colonial buildings whose