the amazon! - manaus

everything is bigger in the amazon. the scale of the river is unbelievable - it is up to 50 km wide, has water level variations of 60 feet based on the season, and discharges more water volume than the next 7 largest rivers in the world combined. manaus is the largest city in the amazon basin, with about 2 million people. it feels like an outpost fighting back the rainforest. huge plants break through the asphalt. i got the feeling that the fauna would take over in days if the people gave up and let it.

manaus is a working class, spread out city of concrete, famous for its rubber. the rubber wealth allowed the construction of its iconic opera house, ornately constructed with materials from all over the amazon. sadly, tours were shut down for a private event when i went to visit. i decided to take a public ferry across the amazon river, which crossed the "meeting of the waters" - after the black, more acidic rio negro and muddy, more basic amazon rivers meet, their respective waters continue to flow side by side for some kilometers before beginning to mix. the ferry passes over this meeting of the waters and it was definitely worth the 3 hour excursion! manaus also has the largest urban park in the world, measuring over 100 square kilometers. i went for a hike through the rainforest there, and climbed a wobbly viewtower which afforded spectacular views over the forest. even from the city, the amazon is awe-inspiring!

the amazon! - adventures in tres fronteras

my foray into the amazon took me to two fascinating locales: the tres fronteras region of colombia, peru and brazil, and then to manaus, brazil, the largest city in the amazon. i flew from bogota to leticia, colombia, in the far southeastern corner of the country. it is amazing how large colombia is; leticia is almost 2000 km from the caribbean coast, and deep in the rainforest - 700 km from the nearest colombian road. at the airport they seemed to have instituted a new $10 "tourist tax" - not much choice on that one. i walked the sweaty 1 km or so into town, to the anaconda hotel. the town is famous for its central square, where thousands of chirping birds congregate nightly at sunset. i was able to climb the steeple of the town church to watch this, which was amazing, then eat an amazonian fish for dinner! leticia is an impressively bustling town for being so geographically isolated; half of the town lives on homes on stilts over the amazonian marsh.

the tres fronteras region is composed of the towns of leticia, tabatinga, brazil, and the island town of santa rosa, peru. one can travel freely between the towns, but must clear immigration before moving further into any of these countries. i arrived on a friday night, and when i told the staff at the anaconda hotel that i planned to fly out of the tabatinga airport the next afternoon, they had some stressful and unexpected news - apparently the immigration offices were all closed for the weekend. if i couldn't stamp into brazil then i couldn't catch my flight to manaus, and i couldn't get back to work on time, and it was going to cost a ton to backtrack. i didn't get much sleep, and before even eating breakfast in the morning i jumped on a motorcycle taxi across the border into brazil to try to figure it out for myself. sure enough, the brazilian immigration office was closed, with a sign in portuguese telling me to come back at 9am monday morning. i asked around and tried to google solutions to no avail, and was feeling quite despondent. then somehow, by the grace of God, i chanced upon a nearby police station, and amazingly, one of the officers was able to stamp me into brazil! next time, don't try to do this on a weekend, he told me.

after that scare, i had a few hours to breathe, so i went back to leticia and took a boat taxi across the amazon river to peru! the private motorized wood longboat ride cost $1, and took about 20 minutes. crossing the amazon was surreal; the widest, muddiest river imaginable. i walked around the sleepy one-road town of santa rosa, peru, before heading back on another ferry. from santa rosa, one could also take a ferry in the other direction to iquitos, which takes about a day. i was a bit confused as to whether tabatinga was in the brazilian or colombian timezone, so playing it safe ended up arriving at the sleepy tabatinga airport way early. at least i had my stamp!

on illegal ubers in bogota

after medellin, i had a layover in bogota for about 24 hours on my way to the amazon, and i'd like to think i made the most of it! bogota is a sprawling city of 10 million people pretty high up in the andean foothills. when i was there it was overcast and chilly, which was rather refreshing. i learned as i went that uber is available in bogota, but illegal. so the meetups have to happen under the radar. my drivers kept calling me and trying to explain things in espanol, and then cancelling when they found out i couldn't communicate. finally found out they were calling to a arrange a clandestine meetup point in a parking lot or somewhere else than the curbside. when a nice driver who spoke english finally explained this to me, things got a lot easier, lol. she said the police impound the car on the spot if they find out someone is ubering. if we were to be pulled over, i am a friend, not a customer. for this reason they insist you sit in the front seat too. i'm cool with being a friend!

i stayed in a nice area called usaquen, which used to be its own town but has been swallowed up in the bogota sprawl. there were cobblestoned streets along which i got a nice dinner and walked around. in the morning i headed downtown, which took over an hour in the very slow-moving traffic. i went to the main central bolivar square, which is surrounded by government buildings, and is famous as the site of a siege of the colombian government by m-19 guerilla tanks in the 1980s. nearby is the most famous museum in colombia, the museo de oro, which is all about pre-colonial gold and metallurgy, a topic which inspired the mythical city of el dorado. the museum only cost $1 to visit and was actually very impressive - one could easily spend a few hours there. bogota is in a valley overlooked by a mountain viewpoint called monserrat which can be reached by a cable car which i tried to take up, but ran out of time.

the whole reason i was trying to stick with uber is that taxis in bogota sadly have a terrible reputation. in the past they have been some of the most dangerous taxis in the world, with famous "million dollar rides" around to atms at gunpoint, and druggings of passengers for amnesia. at minimum, one could expect to be ripped off. even today, the taxi fare is not metered, but the meter has a number which corresponds arbitrarily with the rate the driver wants to charge, which may or may not be on a laminated piece of paper in the back seat, which the driver may have just switched out for you when he saw you weren't a local. apparently the taxi cartels have lynched uber drivers to protect their turf, and of course they are the lobby behind uber being illegal. anyway, i got in a taxi out of necessity to make it to the airport on time, and it went all right. whew!

solid day in bogota!

city of eternal spring: medellin!

i got to go on a great little trip for one week to south america - first to medellin and bogota in colombia, and then into the amazon! of note, colombia was the 100th country i have visited!

i started with 2.5 days in medellin, which was very relaxing. this city in the andean foothills is called the city of eternal spring due to its constant spring-like perfect weather. it is also famous for being the home of the world's most famous drug boss pablo escobar and his medellin cartel, which controlled the streets of the city until the mid-90s, and gave it the highest murder rate in the world through the 1980s. pablo developed an estimated net worth of over 30 billion us dollars smuggling cocaine to america before he was gunned down and buried in medellin, and the sites of his demise and burial have now, perhaps questionably on an ethical basis, become tourist pilgrimage sites. i did start watching the tv series narcos on the plane ride down, which is a great show if you haven't seen it. the city, along with others in colombia, is also now home to many people displaced by the colombian civil war over the past half century, between the leftist revolutionary farc and eln and the government and other paramilitary groups. the war killed over 200,000 people and displaced over 5 million people. thankfully now a peace agreement has been agreed to by the involved parties, and members of the farc are being integrated back into society peacefully. obviously, the drug wars and the civil war were horrible for regular people in colombia, and they are trying to put this violent history behind them, and generally doing an amazing job of it. now, medellin is known as a city where expats love to live and start tech companies, as there are all the amenities one could want, it is safe, has perfect weather, and very friendly people.

i stayed where all the tourists stay, in an upscale neighborhood along a hillside called el poblado. really nice hotel for excellent value - about 25% of what one would pay for a similar room in the usa. there are multiple huge, very nice malls, which of course made me happy! the most glamorous is called el tesoro, and is perched on the side of the hill with amazing views over the city in the valley below. one very cool thing about medellin these days is that the city is doing tremendous work to provide top-notch transportation, libraries, and other services to the socioeconomically disadvantaged people who live in the hillside suburbs. in addition to its very impressive metro system (the only one in colombia and a great source of pride), the city has built cable cars to various suburbs to make commuting easier for the locals, which cost a very small amount to ride. i took 2 of them up the surrounding hillsides for excellent views. there is also a famous series of outdoor escalators which has been built in a once very rough neighborhood called communa 13. now the city has sanctioned a lot of colorful graffiti in the area, and built free escalators. definitely a cool place to check out.

downtown there is a nice museum called the museo de antioquia, which contains many sculptures by medellin's most famous artist botero. he had a unique style of sculpting globular, almost spherical people and animals. i also visited a museum devoted to the memory of those lost to the colombian civil war, which, while heartfelt in its intention, was a bit of a disappointment from the tourist/education perspective. i at ea ton of street food, most notably numerous empanadas and cups of freshly cut mango slices covered in lime juice and spicy salt. overall a really great time in medellin!