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A Latin Role Model

Bogota moves beyond its bad-boy image

Colombia business: Luring attention and investors

Love and Cartagena

Colombia, Fondi alle Infrastrutture più Chance per le Imprese Italiane

On the trail of Colombia lost city

La OMT da un Sobresaliente Cum Laude a Colombia

La Gran Fiesta de Barranquilla

Colombie: Coup de Coeur Meconnu

The Secret Life of Juan Valdez

Higher, Deeper, Wetter

Above the Clouds in a Secret Colombia

Macondo o el vallenato más largo del mundo

Colombia´s Addictive Charm

Envidiando a Colombia

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| REVIEW & OUTLOOK |

A Latin Role Model

Colombia’s political class follows the rule of law.

Latin American history is littered with elected leaders who later turned into despots—see Chávez, Hugo. So when a Latin nation’s political class obeys its constitution and denies a third term even to an enlightened and popular leader, it deserves applause.

Hats off, therefore, to Colombia, whose constitutional court voted 7-2 recently to strike down a law that would have allowed President Álvaro Uribe to run for a third term. Mr. Uribe responded like a democratic statesman, saying in a speech to the nation that “I heed and respect the decision of the honorable constitutional court.”

Mr. Uribe will now leave office in August after eight years that mark him as one of Colombia’s, and the world’s, most consequential modern leaders. Inheriting a ruthless insurgency, he emphasized military strength and professionalism that has restored order and security to most of the country. Kidnapping and murders rates have dropped sharply, and it is now safe to travel on most highways. By improving the investment climate, he has helped modernize an economy that was backward for too long.

12.03.2010

But the manner of his departure shows that his most important achievement may have been to boost Colombian confidence in its democratic institutions. With Mr. Uribe’s approval above 65%, the legislature passed a law that would have let him run for a third term he undoubtedly would have won. But the court ruled against the law on procedural grounds regarding the collection of petition signatures needed to introduce the law and the way the bill moved through Congress. It also said that the law violated the constitution.

Mr. Uribe has also invested heavily in close relations with the U.S., and on that score Americans have let Colombians down. One of the frequent arguments that Democrats offer for refusing to allow a vote on the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement is that Colombia hasn’t done enough to enforce the rule of law. The facts on the ground say otherwise. But we now have definitive proof that on the most important legal issue—the peaceful transfer of power—Colombia is a model democracy.

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| TRAVEL » DESTINATIONS |

Bogota moves beyond its bad-boy imageBy JAYNE CLARK / Photo JAYNE CLARK

BOGOTA, Colombia — Strange and wonderful doings are afoot in this city that not so long ago was a touristic no-man’s land.

In March in the otherwise staid Plaza Bolivar, hundreds of 3-foot-long ants appear to skitter up the imposing Colombian Congress building.

On a recent Saturday, feathered warriors, stilt walkers and dancers strut and gyrate and flash their way down one of the city’s main avenues in a display of bawdy jubilance that rivals the most extravagant Mardi Gras parade.

And on Sundays, traffic on 75 miles of normally jammed thoroughfares miraculously vanishes, making way for thousands of free-wheeling cyclists.

The days when Colombia’s bad-boy image as a land of narco-terrorist turmoil are waning. Officials are actively courting tourists with the slogan “The Only Risk Is Wanting to Stay.” And nowhere is the transformation more apparent than in its capital city. An increase in flight arrivals from the USA makes getting here relatively inexpensive. A boom in international hotel chains (as well as budget lodgings) is beefing up a once-anemic tourism infrastructure. And an exuberant cultural, nightlife and dining scene is luring foreign visitors who previously considered a trip here as tantamount to scheduling their own kidnapping.

What a difference a decade makes.

Nationally, Colombia is touting eco-adventures, such as birding and whale-watching, and forays into its coffee-growing regions, along with beach and cultural tourism. (Cartagena, the Caribbean jet-set paradise of the ‘50s and ‘60s, has undergone a renaissance after years of neglect.)

15.04.2010

Bogotá, set at an elevation of 8,600 feet, nudges up against the lush Cerros Orientales mountains. The sprawling city is home to 8.5 million residents, but most visitors stick to the colonial downtown area, La Candelaria, and a collection of affluent northern neighborhoods. Photo/Proexport Colombia

La Candelaria, the area at Bogotá’s colonial heart, is home to artists and a growing number of boutique hotels and budget hostels.

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But thanks to Bogotá’s emerging status as a Latin American gateway, most visits begin in the sprawling city whose eastern edges scale the lush wall of the Cerros Orientales. The city is home to 8.5 million residents, but most visitors stick to the colonial downtown area, La Candelaria, and affluent northern neighborhoods with high-end shopping, dining and nightlife. In between is the International Center, with its high-rises and bullring, a remarkable 1931 brick structure that accommodates 25,000 spectators.

“Little by little, Bogotá is becoming an important Latin American city — not only because it’s a business hub, but because of cultural activities and restaurants,” says Jaime Echavarria, the U.S. director of Proexport Colombia, which oversees tourism promotion.

Locals are upbeat about these developments and seem particularly welcoming to the growing number of foreign visitors and residents.

“This city has so much to offer,” says Michelle Yopp, an English teacher who moved here from Tampa in August. “I’ve never felt uncomfortable here.”

Still, the U.S. State Department warning against travel to the country persists, despite somewhat softened verbiage. It’s “something we have to live with for the time being,” Echavarria concedes.

Tourism rebounds, residents return Nevertheless, in 2008-’09, foreign-tourist arrivals were up almost 11% (at a time when tourism dropped 4% worldwide). And almost a quarter of those visitors were from the USA. Many credit Colombia’s turnaround to tough security measures taken during Álvaro Uribe’s eight-year presidency. In Bogotá, a series of reform-minded mayors have injected new vitality and order.

“There’s a tourism boom going on. New restaurants. New hotels. It’s not Denmark or Sweden, but it’s coming,” says developer Abdon Espinosa, walking along a northern street lined with Dolce & Gabbana, Bulgari and other international luxury brands.

In the past five years, 25 shopping malls have gone up, he says. Sidewalk tables fill a pedestrian-only area called the Zona T that by night is jammed with youthful throngs strutting to pulsing club music. In its colonial center, artists and others are moving into once-derelict buildings.

As in other big cities, there’s homelessness and street crime. And security appears to be a thriving industry — it’s not unusual to see armed military personnel on the streets, and private guards conduct cursory bag checks on customers entering some

A chapel in the Salt Cathedral, about an hour outside Bogotá. The Catholic church built 650 feet below the Earth’s surface in a salt mine is one of Colombia’s most popular tourist sites. Services also are held here.

Alvaro Yermain Baron, a curator at the International Emerald Museum, shows off the raw gem in a recreated mine in the museum.

Fernando Botero’s rendition of the Mona Lisa. The works of Colombia’s premier artist are displayed in a namesake museum, along with paintings by Picasso, Miró, Degas and others.

Sculptures by Fernando Botero in Bogotá’s Botero Museum.

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In downtown Bogotá, a young boy strikes a pose on a llama.

A wagon carries beauty contestants at a fair in a town outside Bogotá. Police gather in downtown Bogotá’s Plaza Bolivar before a parade kicking off the Ibero-American Theater Festival in March. Behind them, the Colombian Congress building is crawling with hundreds of giant fiberglass ants, an art installation by local artist Rafael Gomezbarros.

A man walks past a wall in downtown Bogotá advertising various theater and arts events. The city boasts a thriving arts scene.

establishments, for instance.“Bogotá has problems, like any other city. But a decade ago there was a feeling of being under siege and that’s gone,” says Mike Ceasar, an American journalist who last year opened Bogotá Bike Tours. “The war (against narco-terrorists) hasn’t directly impacted tourists for years, and I’ve met lots of students who’ve come down here for holidays, senior citizens, theater groups and honeymooners.”

Many affluent residents who, weary of kidnappers and drug lords, fled the country in the late ‘90s, are returning. And a creative culinary scene has emerged, led by talented chefs such as Leonor Espinosa, owner of Leo Cocina y Cava, where native ingredients fuse Spanish, Indian and African influences. The inventive chef pairs lobster tail with sweet red pepper sauce; whitefish ceviche with coconut milk vinaigrette and mango puree; and blends corozo, a tropical palm fruit, into her signature martinis.

Pride blossoms along with the arts The city also boasts a vibrant performing-arts scene. This year’s just-ended Ibero-American Theater Festival (held every two years and catalyst for the grand parade) attracted about 80 theater companies from 40 countries, the largest contingent in its history.

La Candelaria, which, despite its status as Bogotá’s colonial heart, had become a seedy backwater, is re-emerging with new boutique hotels and budget hostels in rehabbed historic buildings along its warren of cobbled streets. (Though locals still warn you to watch your belongings by day and take cabs by night.) It’s a youthful district populated by several universities. It’s also home to a fine collection of 12 museums, including the stellar Botero Museum, featuring Colombia’s premier artist, Fernando Botero, along with works by Picasso, Miró, Degas and others.

Also here are Bogotá’s 19th-century cathedral and important government buildings, including the Colombian Congress, where earlier this year, local artist Rafael Gomezbarros affixed hundreds of giant fiberglass ants to its monumental façade. It’s a curious sight. But for many, no more unexpected than the metamorphosis of the city itself.

“Fifteen years ago, people didn’t like Bogotá— not even the people who live here,” says Espinosa, the developer. “But something curious happened. And now, everybody is proud of this city.”

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Getting there: A growing number of airlines flying to Bogota (including new service from JetBlue and expanded flights on Spirit Airlines ) has brought more competitive fares. U.S. cities with direct flights include Atlanta, Washington, Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles.

Getting around: Metered taxis are relatively inexpensive - the fare from the airport to northern neighborhoods, for instance, is about $10. To beat the traffic, try the TransMilenio buses, Bogota’s version of a subway, with bus-only lanes.

Where to stay: Stick to one of two key areas: La Candelaria, the historic heart of downtown, is where most of the museums and preserved colonial architecture lie. But nightlife, restaurants and shopping are clustered in the north in areas such as the Zona Rosa, Zona T, Zona G and Parque de la 93. In the heart of the entertainment and shopping area is the Morrison Hotel (011-57-1-622-3111; morrisonhotel.com) a well-run boutique lodging fronted by a small park. Rates with breakfast start at about $200, double. In La Candelaria, Hotel de la Opera (011-571-336-2066; hotelopera.com.co) occupies two beautifully restored colonial-era buildings. Rates start at $154, double, including breakfast and spa access.

Nearby at the Abadia Colonial (011-571-341-1884; abadiacolonial.com), whose 12 rooms are arranged around patios, rates start at $114, double, with breakfast. The newly opened Hotel Casa Deco (011-571-282-8640; hotelcasadeco.com), also in the old city, has grand mountain views from its balconies and individually decorated rooms starting at $110, double, with breakfast.

Where to eat: Leo Cocina y Cava’s innovative menu fuses Spanish, Indian and African influences (lamb sealed with squash seeds; green plantains with coconut). Entrees: from about $25. Club Colombia serves traditional fare, such as empanadas and ajiaco Bogotano, a rich, potato and meat stew, in a beautiful former private home nearthe Zona Rosa. Lunch entrees: $10-$20. Andres Carne de Res in the town of Chia, about 45 minutes from downtown, is legendary among locals. With seating for about 3,000 and a staff of 700, it’s as much about spectacle (with impromptu parades and multiple dance floors) as it is about dining. The huge menu has delicious small-plate appetizers (about $3-$8), and specializes in grilled meats. (Andres DC, a smaller outlet with seating for 700, is in the Centro Andino shopping mall in the Zona Rosa.

Don’t miss: The collection of art museums (including the Botero Museum) housed in colonial buildings in the historic downtown. The Gold Museum harbors a mind-boggling assortment (said to be the world’s largest) of pre-Columbian gold objects. Nearby, the new International Emerald Museum let’s visitors tour a reconstructed emerald mine and displays priceless gemstones. For spectacular views of the city, ride the aerial tram up Monserrate, a 10,000-foot peak that dominates Bogota. On top are a 17th-century shrine and a popular restaurant. The Salt Cathedral, about an hour outside the city, takes a half a day to visit. It’s a Catholic church built 650 feet below the Earth’s surface in a salt mine.

Tours: Excursions can be arranged through most hotels. Hiring a guide is less hassle than renting a car for trips outside the city. Fabio Quiroz of Guias Tours (guias-tours.qapacity.com) charges about $35 per person (with a minimum of three people) for a city tour of four to five hours; an excursion to the Salt Cathedral is about $40 per person.

Bogota Bike Tours operated by an American expat, offers biking and walking tours. (011-57-312-502-0554; bogotabiketours.com).

Information: colombia.travel

IF YOU GO

Thousands converge on downtown Bogotá for a parade kicking off the Ibero-American Theater Festival in March

Dancers bare it all -- or most of it -- in one of the parade’s more unusual entries.

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| VIEWSWIRE |

Colombia business: Luring attention and investorsFrom THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

Presidents of four Latin American countries and 550 world leaders—90% of them C-level executives—convened in Cartagena, Colombia on April 5th for the Latin American version of the World Economic Forum. The Forum’s participants represented 42 countries ranging from near-by to far-flung Cambodia. Colombia took advantage of this international business event to showcase its newfound confidence in its security, its capacity and its people.

The Colombian government pulled out all the stops in promoting itself as an ideal destination for investment and proved itself to be an exemplary host. A government-sponsored dinner included an ultra-high-tech 3D video touting Colombia’s culture, geography and industry projected against a building in the old town square (designed and developed by Colombians) and a live concert by Latin pop star Marc Anthony. However, the noted absence of key regional presidents (there were none from the big economies Mexico, Brazil, Chile or Argentina) and the somewhat limited regional perspective in panel discussions highlighted regional discord and stalled integration efforts.

15.04.2010

Overcoming crisis

Nonetheless, Colombia and Latin America as a whole were praised at the event for having weathered the global meltdown of 2009 relatively well. But another major theme was the need to avoid complacency and to make necessary investments in infrastructure and education in order to create sustainable growth. Discussions also revolved around the Latin American countries’ need to define themselves as a region and to strategically evaluate their economic inter-dependence vis-à-vis the US and, increasingly, Asia.

Colombia had much in its economic performance to showcase at the event. After an average growth rate of 2.9% during 1990-99, its economic growth rate jumped to 7.5% in 2007 and would have likely stayed on a similar course had it not been derailed by the global economic crisis and a souring of relations with Venezuela, one of its key trading partners. A large part of Colombia’s economic successes over the past decade have been the result of a safer business environment thanks to government’s crackdown on the drug traffickers and on the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the violent guerrilla group with an affinity for kidnapping.

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Besides ideological differences, it was the campaign against the FARC that triggered conflict between Colombia and Venezuela when in March 2008 Colombia found proof of Venezuelan aid to the FARC, leading it to denounce its neighbour before the UN. Tensions with Venezuela reached new heights in 2009 when Venezuela President Hugo Chávez placed a ban on Colombian imports to protest Colombia’s decision to allow US troops wider access to its military bases for anti-narcotics operations.

This has been a big blow to Colombia’s economy: its exports to Venezuela dropped by 76.6% in 2009. Despite this, and the recession in the US, Colombia’s top trading partner, Colombia’s economy grew at 2.5% in 2008 and skirted contraction by growing a modest 0.4% in 2009. It is forecast to grow between 2% and 4% in 2010, according to the government. Moreover, annual inflation dropped the first week of April 2010 to 1.83%, the lowest in two decades.

The economy’s resilience can be attributed to export diversification, free-trade agreements and conservative fiscal policies. Overall economic policy should be consistent in the years ahead, suggesting that progress will continue. However, regarding trade with Venezuela, events in early 2010 don’t provide much hope for positive change. As Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe was wooing international investors at the forum, Venezuela’s Mr Chávez was announcing a new trade and investment agreements, including possible arms purchases worth up to US$5bn, with Russia.

Need more linkages with Asia

Colombia’s finance minister, Oscar Zuluaga, explained that Colombia’s Achilles’ heel during the recent economic crisis was its lack of trade with Asia. Other countries in the region like Peru, Chile and Brazil weathered the storm much better thanks to trade with Asia, and particularly China. As a result, Colombia is now looking to sign a free-trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea. Trade with Asia will now deemed especially important as officials are growing increasingly sceptical about the prospects for a long-stalled FTA with the US.

Luis Carlos Villegas, president of Andi, the Colombian business association, claims that objections in the US to an FTA with Colombia are being used by the US government as an excuse for protectionism. This was not the only shot taken at the US during the four-day event. During a televised discussion featuring, among others, the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, and the sub-secretary for western hemisphere affairs at the US State Department Arturo Valenzuela, Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann blamed the OAS and the US for failing to defend democracy in the region.

He also claimed that the region was currently experiencing a cold war, pitting pro-market democratic governments against totalitarian regimes. Whether one believes that such cold war rhetoric is warranted, recognising that some divisions exist, and need to be healed, is a prerequisite for any meaningful progress on regional integration.

Can’t afford complacency

Latin American business leaders concluded at the closing plenary session of the forum that Latin America is recovering from the global economic crisis and has made progress in addressing major social challenges and promoting democracy over the past decade, but that the region could not afford to be complacent.

Since 2002, when Mr Uribe first assumed the presidency and began an all-out assault on the FARC, the drugs trade and ordinary crime, Colombia has proven to be anything but complacent. Now, with presidential elections set for May 30th and Mr Uribe unable to stand for another term, Colombians are looking for new leadership that will maintain the seriousness and conviction that has defined the Uribe administration. They are also hoping that by highlighting the country’s accomplishments at events such as the one in Cartagena, they will attract ever-greater amounts of foreign interest and investment.

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02.05.2010

| CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA > COLOMBIA > CARTAGENA |

Love and Cartagena By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS / Photo ROBERT CAPLIN

In the deep recesses of the Basurto market, a man is shaving the face of a pig. A razor in his hand, he glides across its face to remove the fuzz. The pig will soon be dinner. Not far away, cow hearts are on sale, and beside them cow eyes, staring out ominously, bound for a hearty potage. A shopping cart full of limes whizzes past. Alcatraz birds loom on the corrugated-tin roofs. “My Sweet Lord” is playing in one corner; in another, Caribbean songs pour from a bar lined with drinkers. It is not yet noon.

Truth can be stranger than fiction in Cartagena, the Colombian city whose real-life blend of seediness and charm has been an important inspiration for one of the most imaginative writers of the modern era, Gabriel García Márquez. It is a city so pregnant with the near magical that, when Mr. García Márquez took a visiting Spaniard on a tour one day that included a Creole lunch and a stroll through the old city, it lowered his opinion of Mr. García Márquez’s talents. The Spaniard told Mr. García Márquez, as he would later record in an essay, “You’re just a notary without imagination.”

Imagine a city that could make Mr. García Márquez, the Nobel Prize-winning giant of magical realism, seem like a notary.

The world speaks of Dickens’s London, Balzac’s Paris and Rushdie’s Bombay, but the association between Mr. García Márquez and Cartagena is less well known. And yet Cartagena has been an important if brief chapter in Mr. García Márquez’s own story. It is the city — throbbing with the varied cultures whose mixing he chronicled — that propelled his writing career; the city of the surreal, where toucans land on a table at its finest hotel; the city where Mr. García Márquez arrived with nothing and learned to spin local tales into literature; the city awash in myths; the city that, in furnishing the reality for his magic, made him a writer.

“I would say that I completed my education as a writer in Cartagena,” he once told an interviewer for a local documentary about Cartagena by the actor and filmmaker Salvatore Basile.

But for all of Mr. García Márquez’s popularity, Cartagena has drawn few García Márquez-seeking pilgrims, because it has never assertively claimed the writer who cut his teeth here but who has since been only a fleeting presence. Mr. García Márquez arrived in Cartagena in 1948 as a penniless student from Bogotá and left the next year, never to live in the city full time again. But his parents and siblings moved to Cartagena two years after he left, so he continued to visit after settling down in Mexico City.

Now 83, he still maintains a house in Cartagena, where he often stays for a time in winter. But despite that connection and despite his fame, there is no García Márquez museum in the city and no straightforward way to retrace the path of his youth.

In the last several years, a group of historians and scholars has sought to change that, laboring to document the city’s García Márquez connection. Seeking to identify

the places and people behind his works, they have interviewed the author’s friends and relatives, examined his public statements over the years and cross-referenced passages in his books with real estate records and other documents. They are working the findings into a García Márquez-themed audio tour, to be released later this year. Meanwhile, one of the scholars, Iliana Restrepo Hernández, of the local Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, generously shared some of their research with me.

These findings come at a moment when Cartagena is waking from a long slumber, recovering some of the vitality that Mr. García Márquez’s novels richly depict.

Situated on the Caribbean, on Colombia’s northern coast, once among the most important trading ports in the colonized Americas, the walled old city of Cartagena fell into shambles in more recent decades.

The wealthy old families that Mr. García Márquez wrote about began to move out to the Miami-like suburb of Bocagrande, while the poor moved in. A result was that many of the centuries-old colonial houses that define the old city were reduced to empty shells, with proud doors and high, pastel-hued walls masking the ruins and

Dancing feet in Plaza Bolívar, which is situated within the old city of Cartagena.

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tall grass within. It would have been a dispiriting time to arrive with Mr. García Márquez’s books, only to discover a city with few traces of its former grandeur — though with less of the drug-tinged violence that prevailed in other parts of the country.

But in the last many years, as part of a broader Colombian reawakening, the city is resurfacing with boutique hotels, fusion-seeking restaurants and new fashion labels that turn sleepy towns into global destinations. Tourists are descending on its galleries, strolling idly down its byways, reveling with locals at New Year’s Eve parties in public plazas. Travelers now call it Latin America’s hippest secret.

It is a renaissance of which Mr. García Márquez might be skeptical, having shown some hostility to the city’s modernization campaigns, like the time when the sprawling downtown market was removed from the walled city and planted a short drive away. Yet it is a renaissance that, combined with the recent scholarly work, makes a García Márquez pilgrimage accessible for the first time.

A hypothetical tour for such a pilgrimage might begin at Plaza Fernández de Madrid. Cartagena, dangling into the Caribbean, its lanes lined with flower-filled balconies, is a city for lovers; and it was the setting for Mr. García Márquez’s novel “Love in the Time of Cholera,” regarded by critics as one of the 20th century’s great love stories in literature.

It is the story of a young man of humble means, Florentino Ariza, who falls instantly in love with a girl named Fermina Daza, the daughter of a merchant. He courts her by letter, only to be rejected. Aspiring to move up in society, she marries and enters the elite Cartagena of her husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino. For 50 years, Florentino pines for her, consoling himself with meaningless, frantic copulation — until, upon Dr. Urbino’s death, he gets a chance to assert his undying love once again.

What may come as a surprise even to the novel’s most ardent fans is that Mr. García Márquez, famous for his wild imagination, drew heavily on the reality of Cartagena for “Cholera” and other works.

In the Plaza Fernández de Madrid, which Mr. García Márquez recast in his love story as the Park of the Evangels, a traveler can sit precisely where the hopeless young man would have sat, “on the most hidden bench in the little park, pretending to read a book of verse in the shade of the almond trees.” A horse-drawn carriage today may clip-clop past, in which case you can imagine Fermina passing by.

And even the house where Fermina grew up was not wholly fictional. According to scholars, you can see it on the plaza today — the white house with a second-floor balcony on the eastern side of the square, covered with vines, garnished by a parrot-shaped door knocker.

Another spot where Mr. García Márquez found inspiration was the Plaza Bolívar, which is situated within the old city. On one side of the square is a colonnaded

arcade, known in “Cholera” as the Arcade of Scribes: “an arcaded gallery across from a little plaza where carriages and freight carts drawn by donkeys were for hire, where popular commerce became noisier and more dense.”

Under the arcade, Florentino, rejected by Fermina and tormented within, found a way to redeploy the surplus

love that he could not use: “he offered it to unlettered lovers free of charge, writing their love missives for them in the Arcade of Scribes.” On one occasion, he realized that he was writing letters for both parties in a budding courtship, his words slowly coaxing them together.

The passage of time cannot change fiction, but it can play fast and loose with reality. Today the arcade has been turned over to a new obsession: the Colombian devotion to beauty pageants. The national beauty pageant organization has its headquarters there, and the ground on which Florentino would have written his letters is now embossed, Hollywood style, with images of recent beauty queens.

The author was inspired by the city’s real-life blend of seediness and charm. The city’s midnight ambiance.

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According to the scholars, Mr. García Márquez feels an especially strong connection to the square because Simón Bolívar, the Latin American revolutionary, is one of his heroes. The writer is said to have come to Plaza Bolívar from time to time simply to sit and think.

One afternoon last January, the plaza’s benches were full of people: chatting with friends, taking breaks from work, sneaking in romance, writing letters over the free Wi-Fi. A small contingent of soldiers, mission unknown, stood to one side, guarding something or someone. Sellers of food and trinkets mingled with potential patrons.

A García Márquez tour must go beyond his writings to seek hints of the real-life García Márquez. For that, one might start with the author’s home in the city.

It stands on the edge of the old city, in the San Diego quarter, facing the sea; with its outward gaze and high walls, it has an aloofness suggestive of Mr. García Márquez’s relationship to the city. It is a rare act of architectural subversion in a city of architectural conformity: not a colonial house in the Spanish style, but a modernist dwelling that Mr. García Márquez ordered built. It looks like a straight-edged castle, with orange-red walls, a ring of holes running around the property, a swimming pool and a sprawling lawn. Mr. García Márquez is said to live in the house for only several weeks each year, although he has spent a much longer time there this year, said Ms. Restrepo, the scholar.

Opposite the García Márquez house is the venerable Sofitel Santa Clara hotel, where the writer is said to stop sometimes for a drink. The hotel was a hospital before it was a hotel, and a convent before it was a hospital, and it shares the city’s mildly haunted air.

Working as a reporter in the late 1940s, before he owned a home nearby, Mr. García Márquez was reputedly sent to the hospital to investigate a tip that a skeleton had been found, belonging to a girl with 22 meters, or 72 feet, of hair. That real life episode induced the García Márquez novel “Of Love and Other Demons,” and became yet another illustration of the strange dance of myth and reality, fiction and truth, in Cartagena.

Today, what remains of that era is a small crypt below El Coro, the hotel bar, that any guest can enter by descending a few stairs. But the atmosphere is incongruous: on many nights, a live Afro-Cuban band is playing, with Colombian couples shuffling gracefully on the dance floor, the men in untucked short-sleeved shirts and white shoes, the women in elegant dresses.

The Cuban connection offers yet another way into Mr. García Márquez’s life. The writer has long raised eyebrows for his friendship with Fidel Castro, and is even said to maintain a home in Havana not far from Mr. Castro’s. Whenever he is in Cartagena, Mr. García Márquez has been known to dine at La Vitrola, among the finest restaurants in town, which evokes Old World Havana with its gently swirling ceiling fans, dishes like spiced shredded beef over fried plantains and live Cuban son music, with its guitar-and-percussion-driven songs. And while Colombia has lately turned rightward in its politics, Cuba is in many ways a patron saint of Cartagena’s after-dark culture. Among the city’s most authentic and coolest nightspots is Café Havana in the Getsemaní district, where photos of legendary Cuban singers line the walls and the raw rhythms fill the room and spill out the open grated windows into the dim streets.

Indeed, it is in Getsemaní, a vaguely seedy, working-class neighborhood just beyond the walls of the walled city, where the gritty, rum-soaked Cartagena that Mr. García Márquez first fell in love with can most easily be seen. It has resisted thus far the gentrification that has come to the walled city. And in these parts it is not hard to imagine the roadside restaurants and bars where the young Mr. García Márquez made friends, chased rumors and began to find his voice.

He arrived in the city in 1948 from Bogotá, after political riots started a fire that burned down his hostel. It took with it all of his possessions, including his typewriter. He went to Cartagena and began again, finding work within days at El Universal, a newspaper that became a kind of journalism school for him. He has written of having submitted articles and then watching as the editor crossed out virtually every word, writing a new article between the lines of the old. It was the journalism of an earlier age, when writers and editors sat along the pier relishing steak with onion rings and green banana at dives, mingling with poets and prostitutes, telling tales and, in turn, converting anecdotes heard into articles for the next day’s paper.

“All of my books have loose threads of Cartagena in them,” Mr. García Márquez said in the documentary. “And, with time, when I have to call up memories, I always bring back an incident from Cartagena, a place in Cartagena, a character in Cartagena.”

A boy feeds pigeons in the Plaza de San Pedro.

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com.co), just beyond the old city walls at the edge of Getsemaní, has well-appointed rooms starting at 247,390 pesos. It is not far from where the old market stood and where Mr. García Márquez, as a young man, made his start as a journalist. Ask for a room in the back, away from the loud salsa club next door.

MÁRQUEZ SPOTS The Basurto market is a short taxi

ride from the walled city. It has a reputation for housing thieves and pickpockets, as such markets invariably do, but cautious and prudent travelers should have no troubles.

In the Plaza Fernández de Madrid, Florentino Ariza longed for Fermina Daza while sitting on a park bench under almond trees. The white house with the large overhanging balcony, near the corner where Calle de la Tablada meets the eastern

side of the plaza, is the one on which Fermina’s house is said to be modeled.

In the Plaza Bolívar, Portal de los Escribanos (Arcade of Scribes) is where real and fictional characters once wrote letters for the unlettered and where Florentino found a use for his irrepressible love. Today, the street vending that Mr. García Márquez described persists, but Galéria Cano, a stylish boutique on the square, has mined Colombian culture to offer a selection of artifacts of interest to travelers (Plaza Bolivar No. 33-20; 57-5-664-7078; galeriacano.com.co). The plaza is also a good place to start a tour of the city by horse carriage.

Mr. García Márquez’s home stands at the corner of Calle Zerrezuela and Calle del Curato in the San Diego district, overlooking the sea. The Santa Clara hotel is across the street.

La Vitrola (Calle de Baloco No. 2-01; 57-5-660-0711) serves Cuban-inspired fare, washed down with Cuban music and dancing between the tables. The seafood is fresh, the meats are tender, and everything comes with plantains. Dinner is about 190,300 pesos for two, with wine.

Café Havana (at the corner of Calle Media Luna and Calle del Guerrero, in Getsemaní; 57-310-610-2324; cafehavanacartagena.com) is a direct flight to another world. Beyond the walled city, far from the fancy new restaurants, the bar throbs with drinkers, dancers and singers-along. The Cuban mojito (12,000 pesos) is excellent.

Anand Giridharadas writes the column “Currents,” on ideas, for The International Herald Tribune and nytimes.com.

HOW TO GET THERE Several airlines fly to Cartegena

from New York, usually with at least one stop. A recent Web search found a Copa Airlines flight from Kennedy Airport, with a layover in Panama City, from about $500 round trip, for travel in May. For additional flights,

see nytimes.com/travel/cartagena.

WHERE TO STAY The Sofitel Santa Clara (Calle Del

Torno No. 39-29; 57-5-664-6070; hotelsantaclara.com) feels like the offspring of a luxurious hotel and a haunted house. The bar, El Coro, has Cuban music on many nights. Mr. García Márquez lives across the street and has been known to sip a drink at El Coro. A recent search found rooms starting at about 475,751 pesos, or $250 at 1,900 pesos to the dollar.

For a less rarefied experience, the Hotel Monterrey (Carrera 8B, No. 25-103; 57-5-664-8560; hotelmonterrey.

IF YOU GO

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: May 16, 2010

The cover article on May 2 about Cartagena, Colombia, referred incorrectly to the writer Gabriel García Márquez, whose fiction has been inspired by the city. As is customary in Latin America and in Spain, where a person carries both the paternal surname and maternal maiden name, the writer is Mr. García Márquez, not Mr. Márquez.

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Colombia, fondi alle infrastrutturePiù chance per le imprese italianeMARCO CAPARRELLI Bogotà riduce l’imposta sul reddito e stanzia 38 miliardi di dollari di investimenti per moltiplicare la presenza di parchi industriali in zone franche. L’incoming di capitali stranieri è in forte aumento

Con la riduzione dell’imposta sul reddito dal 33 al 15%, prevista dalla legge 1004 del 2007, la Colombia prevede di triplicare, nei prossimi anni, la presenza di parchi industriali in zone franche, che attualmente superano la decina e ospitano 340 imprese straniere. Ciò vuol dire che crescono in Colombia le opportunità per le aziende italiane che negli ultimi dieci anni hanno già visto triplicare il valore degli investimenti fino ad una quota, registrata nel 2007, di 156 milioni di dollari. Già nel primo trimestre 2007, è aumentato del 100% l’incoming di capitali stranieri nel paese grazie ad una strategia governativa che riserva alle imprese straniere pari trattamento e diritti rispetto a quelle locali, a eccezione di settori strategici, come i servizi pubblici, le assicurazioni, le telecomunicazioni e quello minerario.

«La legge - spiega Luciano Paganelli, presidente della Camera di Commercio italiana per la Colombia - offre un vantaggio indubbio per le imprese italiane interessate ad approcciare il mercato colombiano perché consente di sottoscrivere i cosiddetti Contratti di stabilità giuridica, che garantiscono agli investitori l’immutabilità delle condizioni contrattualibper un periodo di vent’anni, anche nel caso in cui emergano complicazioni per la realizzazione dell’investimento». La presenza di aziende italiane nel mercato colombiano, pur non essendo ancora particolarmente significativa, sta registrando un visibile incremento: sono circa una ventina le grandi imprese che hanno aperto una filiale nel paese, mentre sono numerose quelle colombiane che hanno assunto la rappresentanza di marchi italiani in diversi settori, dall’arredamento, all’alimentare, passando per le apparecchiature elettroniche e i sistemi di sicurezza. Maè il settore delle infrastrutture colombiano che, secondo uno studio dell’Organizzazione mondiale del commercio, presenta il maggiore potenziale attrattivo per gli investimenti esteri. Considerato, infatti, il deficit infrastrutturale di cui il Paese soffre e la necessità di un adeguamento dei servizi,

20.01.2009

soprattutto al fine di garantire una più eficiente movimentazione delle merci sul territorio, il governo ha stanziato, nel Piano nazionale di sviluppo in corso, circa 38 miliardi di dollari per la costruzione di infrastrutture, di cui 20 miliardi finanziati con risorse pubbliche.

Sono in fase di assegnazione, e in molti casi sono stati già attivati, importanti appalti per la costruzione o l’ammodernamento del sistema stradale e ferroviario, del sistema fognario e di acquedotti, nonché per la realizzazione di impianti alberghieri, soprattutto in considerazione dell’incremento dei

flussi turistici in entrata, pari a circa un milione di unità, nel periodo 2002-2007. Anche il Foro de Liderazgo para la Integración de Sudamerica, tenutosi lo scorso dicembre in Colombia, ha considerato lo sviluppo infrastruttural settore prioritario in grado di incrementare la competitività dell’area.

Nell’ambito dell’iniziativa sono stati presentati venticinque progetti che, nei prossimi anni, verranno realizzati sul territorio latino americano, nove dei quali nella sola Colombia, finanziati con fondi previsti nel Piano di sviluppo nazionale. Tra i progetti pianificati nel settore delle infrastrutture stradali, i più importanti, anche in considerazione della loro dotazione finanziaria, sono l’Autopista Ruta do Sol e la Via de las Americas, le quali collegheranno rispettivamente Bogotà con il Porto di Santa Marta, e il confine colombiano-venezuelano con Panama. Il primo progetto, del valore di circa 3,5 miliardi di dollari, prevede l’ammodernamento e la costruzione di nuovi segmenti stradali; il secondo, invece, con uno stanziamento di 6,5 miliardi di dollari, mira a rilanciare il flusso commerciale e turistico tra le zone interne del paese e quelle della costa atlantica.

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On the trail of Colombia’s lost cityBy FLORA BAGENAL Colombia has its own secret version of Machu Picchu. And it takes a hardcore three-day jungle trek to get there

Less than an hour into our Colombian jungle trek , I have a panicked thought that I might be suffering a mini heart attack. The path is almost vertical, the sun is impossibly hot and my heart is pounding so hard and fast, I can hear it in my ears. I develop an irrational, raging hatred of my friends, who are several turns in the path in front of me and seem to be skipping ahead like mountain goats. I couldn’t care less for the acres of wild forest panning out as far as the eye can see — all I can think about are the endless warnings I ignored before I got here.

One travel blogger described it as “52km of pure sweaty hell”. Another said: “Our advice is to hike elsewhere if you are worried about fitness or personal safety.”

They went on: “Drug lords, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, police and the army are all suspected of wrongdoing here.” Even my mum waded in when she heard that I’d booked my flights, with a clipping from a newspaper telling the story of a British man kidnapped on the same trek six years ago. On it, she had scribbled: “Promise me you’re not going here.” So what exactly were we thinking?

The plan to go to Colombia came from a dinner-party conversation with two friends. A couple we know were travelling in South America, and said they’d be on the Colombian coast for new year. On a cold, grey London evening, the thought of blue skies, beaches and backpacking couldn’t have seemed more appealing.

28.03.2010 The idea to attempt the trek came later, when we started to do some research. We found out about a “lost city” you could hike to that had only been revealed to the outside world by gold-diggers in the 1970s. The site is in the north of the country, hidden 18,000ft above the Caribbean coast, deep in the jungle-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park.

It has been guarded for centuries by the descendants of an ancient South American civilisation, who still live there today and are said to hold the secret to its sacred past.

The ruins of Ciudad Perdida (literally, “lost city”) date from AD600 and are seen as Colombia’s version of Machu Picchu, but without the train-travelling day-trippers — because it’s a six-day round hike to get there.

Visions of The Goonies and the Indiana Jones films flashed before us as we discussed furiously on email whether to include it on our itinerary or not. On the one hand, a proper adventure seemed far superior to a bog-standard beach holiday, but if it were as unpleasant as the blogs made it sound, we’d be kicking ourselves for wasting six days of our three-week holiday. In the end, we decided that, as long as we weren’t at risk of kidnap — we established that this was unlikely, as the area was guarded by the Colombian army — then steep inclines and searing heat were not enough to merit our chickening out. It was going to hurt, but the chance to get a whiff of something off the beaten track was more important.

Setting off on that first day, while still shaking off the dregs of a New Year’s Eve hangover, I had to do a lot of soul-searching to remind myself why I was there. At the top of the first hill, however, the guides told us that we’d completed the worst bit. To my surprise, they turned out to be telling the truth.

The hike is divided into five-hour sections, one a day, and punctuated with basic but well set-up outposts, where we washed in waterfalls, ate food cooked over the fire by our guides and slept in hammocks. The tour company we went with, Turcol, has been operating in the area longer than anyone else, and provided six extremely fit young guides for 30 people. Our group was a mix of Colombians and Europeans, including a chipper pair of Geordies taking a break from working for the British Council in Colombia.

The path to the lost city follows the contours of a mountain and switches between vast open plains overlooking treetops and splashing through streams under a canopy of cartoon-like creepers and vines. At steep points, the guides stationed themselves along the way to offer encouragement, but mostly they left us to set our own pace, which meant that we often found ourselves wandering in the undergrowth alone. It was at one such point that the girls and I almost walked into a fat, sun-drowsy, but nonetheless deadly coral snake dangling in our path. Its venom, our guide explained later, can kill a man in eight hours, which is why the local tribesmen wear government-issued rubber wellies. Secretly, we congratulated ourselves on coming across a real jungle killer.

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Travel details A 12-day tailor-made holiday

including the six-day trek to Ciudad Perdida and visits to Bogota, Villa de Leyva, Cartagena, the Rosario Islands and the Tayrona National Park, starts at £2,255pp, B&B, including flights from London to Bogota, domestic flights and all excursions, with Journey Latin America (020 8747 8315, journeylatinamerica.co.uk).

Globe at One (020 7272 3443, globeatone.co.uk) also offers a trip including the “lost city” trek, as does Turcol, a local operator (buritaca2000.com).

Is it safe? The Foreign Office currently advises

against “all but essential travel” to some parts of Colombia — one of which is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park (for full advice, visit tinyurl.com/yjj6tc2). The lost city itself, however, has recently been taken off the list of places under review, and travel companies are able to organise tours to the region.

“Travellers to this area must be made aware of the latest travel advice given by the Foreign Office for the region of Santa Marta,” says Journey Latin America, which can arrange treks to the lost city (see travel details). “It is essential that travellers check with their travel-insurance company that they have adequate cover.” This advice is backed up by the Association of British Insurers (020 7600 3333, www.abi.org.uk).

On the third day, we reached the river, which we had to cross eight times in the space of two hours to reach the foot of the 2,000 stone steps to the sacred city. It was, at most, waist-deep, but in the rainy season (May to October) it swells to chin height and has to be crossed with the help of ropes and karabiners.

Finally, there’s a 50-minute clamber up steep, mossy steps to reach the treasured summit. Having seen a faded picture, I had a vague idea of what Ciudad Perdida would look like, but no photo can do justice to the jaw-dropping 360-degree view that hits you as you step on to its terraces. We arrived at just after 1pm, when the sun was high in the sky and the heat was visible in mirage-like waves hanging in the stillness above the treetops.

That night, we slept in a hut on stilts in the lost city. It’s the only structure currently allowed on the site, but the guides told us there is a dispute between the government and the locals over how much more can be developed. Helicopters for the soldiers already land among the ruins, and if, as archeologists believe, there are sites deeper in the jungle yet to be uncovered, traffic is expected to increase.

On the two-day journey back to our start point, we met more locals, who came to sell us beer and hand-woven bags. Tourists are still a novel concept to these families. I was particularly struck by a tiny pregnant girl, who turned out to be 15, and had a one-year-old strapped to her back.

Back in civilisation, bad blogs and heart palpitations long forgotten, we toasted our wise choice of destination with an unhealthy amount of rum and a ham-footed attempt at salsa. Our brush with death may have been limited to a lazy snake, but Indiana Jones would have been proud.

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La OMT da un “sobresaliente cum laude” a ColombiaAutor DPA

La Organización Mundial del Turismo (OMT) presentó hoy a Colombia como un modelo a seguir en lo que a transformación y esfuerzo turístico se refiere, tras haber conseguidomejorar la seguridad y aunar ésta con una mejora de las infraestructuras y la promoción turística.

“Para que haya turismo es necesario que haya seguridad”, admitió el Ministro de Industria, Comercio y Turismo colombiano, Luis Guillermo Plata, durante la presentación en Madrid del informe “Colombia: De nuevo en el mapa del turismo mundial”. El documento ha sido elaborado por la OMT y se da a conocer coincidiendo con la inaguración en la capital española, mañana miércoles, de FITUR, la feria del turismo más importante del circuito internacional. “Si no hay seguridad, para qué vas a gastar en promoción”, dijo Plata. “Hubo un momento en el que a los propios colombianos nos daba miedo viajar por el país”. Pero la situación, según él y la OMT, ha cambiado con el combate a las guerrillas y el narcotráfico. Y el turismo, a su vez, influye de forma positiva en la erradicación de esas lacras. “El turismo nos ayuda a luchar en esa batalla, dando oportunidades, educación y trabajo”, afirmó el ministro.

“Colombia lo está sabiendo hacer extraordinariamente, muy bien”, manifestó Germán Porras, ex secretario de Estado de Turismo de España y autor del documento. Si hubiera que darle una nota al país latinoamericano, ésta “se quedaría muy cerca del sobresaliente cum laude”, aseguró. El informe de la OMT presenta a Colombia como “un país que ha logrado volver del borde del abismo” tras verse sometido a a una prueba de supervivencia “a manos de la acción combinada del narcotráfico, de la guerrilla y del terrorismo durante muchos años”. Así, y según dijo Porras, “ha sabido transformar la realidad” en materia tanto de infraestructuras como de seguridad. Y en comunicación, añadió, “también lo está haciendo muy bien”. “La OMT”, dijo el español, “quiere que sea un modelo para aplicar también a otros países que estén atravesando momentos difíciles”. El reto ahora es superar la “brecha entre la realidad y la percepción” que se tiene de la misma respecto al país latinoamericano. Y, según el experto español, la campaña de imagen turística “Colombia, el riesgo es que te quieras quedar”, está siendo muy importante para ello. Entre los instrumentos que se destacaron en la sede de la OMT, además del combate a la inseguridad, se encuentran los incentivos impositivos. Así, el país latinoamericano ofrece una exención del impuesto sobre la renta durante 30 años a los nuevos hoteles que se levanten en el país o a los que amplíen sus instalaciones, una medida con la que se pretende dotar de 14.000 nuevas habitaciones hotelerasa Colombia.

27.01.2009

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| TURISMO |

La Gran Fiesta de BarranquillaAutor DANIEL FLORES / Fotos DANIEL FLORES BARRANQUILLA.- En un hecho que podría marcar un antes y un después en la historia de las relaciones internacionales, los presidentes de Colombia, Venezuela y Estados Unidos -Alvaro Uribe, Hugo Chávez y Barack Obama- desfilaron juntos por las calles de esta ciudad del Caribe colombiano ante una multitud eufórica. A ellos se les sumaron, entre otras personalidades, nada menos que la ex candidata presidencial Ingrid Betancourt y varios líderes de las insurgentes Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).

No estuvieron solos. De cerca los siguieron el querido futbolista local Carlos e l Pibe Valderrama, Shakira, el Chapulín Colorado y Mr. T, inconfundible personaje de la serie de televisión Brigada A.

El encuentro fue posible, dobles y disfraces de por medio, gracias a una nueva edición del Carnaval de Barranquilla, declarado Obra Maestra del Patrimonio Oral e Intangible de la Humanidad por la Unesco en 2003, sencillamente la fiesta más importante de Colombia y uno de los carnavales más populares de América junto con los de Río de Janeiro y Nueva Orleáns. Cuatro días locos y cargados de desfiles, conciertos y bailes que cada año son en verdad la culminación de varias semanas de jolgorio, pero también de una decidida reivindicación de raíces y tradiciones. Porque si bien no faltan los mencionados disfraces de personajes actuales ni los camiones cubiertos de logos de auspiciantes y cargados con actores de telenovelas, lo que predomina son casi doscientas agrupaciones que interpretan meticulosamente ritmos, movimientos, coreografías y vestuarios de rasgos aborigen, africano y español.

Una vez más, el clima distó mucho, eso sí, del de un congreso de antropología. Lo que quedaba claro ya desde los vuelos que transportaban turistas de Bogotá a Barranquilla (hora y veinte de viaje). Como si el piloto fuera el mismo Rey Momo, una marca de whisky invitaba a los pasajeros a brindar mientras la tripulación les proponía una especie de concurso de chistes alcanzándole un micrófono a quien se animara (y se animaban muchos). Y al llegar a destino, junto a la cinta para retirar el equipaje, un grupo de promotoras daba la bienvenida con cerveza adecuadamente helada para los casi 40°C de temperatura ambiente.

08.03.2009

Suspendida casi cualquier otra actividad, los principales eventos transcurrieron entre el sábado 21 y el martes 24 de febrero por la vía 40, en esta ciudad de un millón y medio de habitantes, junto a la desembocadura caribeña del Magdalena, principal río del país y clave del desarrollo económico de Barranquilla durante el siglo XX.

Allí desfilaron, en un recorrido vallado de cuatro kilómetros, durante cuatro o cinco horas por jornada, desde carrozas superequipadas y movilizadas por importantes firmas hasta comparsas de los barrios más humildes, ambas rodeadas por participantes espontáneos con un espectro igual de amplio: de empresarios a chicos de la calle. Hasta el cierre, con el sepelio de Joselito o la muerte del Carnaval.

Para el turista que no reconoce a los famosos de la tele colombiana o que puede asistir a carnavales de otras latitudes, seguramente lo más interesante fue la Gran Parada de Tradición y Folclor, con una décima parte del público de la previa y más glamorosa Batalla de las Flores (700.000 personas, según datos oficiales), pero con diez veces más elementos autóctonos para apreciar. Algo difícil, es cierto, sin la ayuda de la folletería preparada para la ocasión por la Fundación Carnaval de Barranquilla, que apoya, incentiva y vigila desde hace 17 años el mayor orgullo de esta ciudad junto con su equipo de fútbol, el Junior (donde jugó alguna vez el Pibe Valderrama). Algo de información básica resulta imprescindible para identificar, al menos vagamente, garabatos, cumbias, congos, sones de negro y otras danzas de movimientos tan específicos como sus significados.

Otro de los momentos altos de estos días y para tener en cuenta para los afortunados que asistan a su versión 2010 fue la Noche de Tambó, baile gratuito y masivo en la plaza de la Paz, frente a la catedral de Barranquilla. Durante seis horas (todo un mensaje para los músicos que tocan a reglamento), la agrupación Tambó dio un seminario de auténtica cumbia, género que no tiene mucho que ver con otras músicas más australes del mismo nombre, y que se basa casi exclusivamente en toques de tambores con una austera línea melódica a cargo de gaitas, más parecidas a quenas que a bagpipes escocesas.

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José Llanos y Manuel Pertuz, diseñadores de todo un bestiario carnavalero. Consultar en la Secretaría de Cultura, Patrimonio y Turismo de la ciudad: www.culturapatrimonioyturismo.gov.co

QUÉ VER En términos turísticos, el centro

de Barranquilla es perfectamente evitable, aunque cuenta con el valioso edificio de la antigua aduana donde hoy funciona una biblioteca y un centro de documentación. El barrio El Prado, en cambio, es una curiosidad arquitectónica para conocer, diseñado en 1921 por los hermanos norteamericanos Karl y Robert Parrish, con mansiones y jardines. En el Barrio Alto, hay buenos hoteles, gastronomía y centros comerciales. Quien viaje a Barranquilla, sin embargo, debe saber que no encontrará el desarrollo de ciudades colombianas más grandes como Bogotá y Medellín. Cabe recordar también que Barranquilla está casi exactamente a mitad de camino entre dos esenciales destinos turísticos con playas e historia, Santa Marta y Cartagena, ambos a unos cien kilómetros de distancia.

Participaron casi 200 agrupaciones con un gran despliegue de trajes, coreografías y color.

Como cantante invitada, el conjunto recibió a la gran Totó La Momposina, una Cesária Evora colombiana, es decir el nombre local más reconocido en la escena de la World Music. Pero el espectáculo central lo dieron las 10.000 personas, incansables, bailando en una especie de procesión circular, una y otra vez alrededor del escenario. Pura diversión.

Esa noche hizo una de sus apariciones estelares Marianna Schlegel Donado, Reina del Carnaval 2009. Como en todo o en buena parte del Caribe, las reinas son muy importantes en Barranquilla. Schlegel Donado, rubia barranquillera de 23 años, estudió Arquitectura en España y viene de una familia de soberanas: su madre, una tía y una prima portaron antes la corona de esta fiesta. Por la calle 40 desfiló en un camión repleto de parientes y amigos rubios como ella, bastante diferentes de los otros miles de participantes de estas carnestolendas. El Carnaval será una fiesta popular, pero su reina surge siempre de los clubes sociales de la elite barranquillera y es coronada por decreto del alcalde.

En todo caso se puede considerar al Carnaval como un reflejo de la sociedad local: reúne tanto a negros que recuerdan a sus antepasados esclavos como a familias que exhiben generaciones de exclusiva prosperidad; chicos que van a estudiar a Estados Unidos y otros que piden plata en las esquinas; hay una comparsa de guerrilleros desmovilizados y otra de policías que reclaman por la liberación de compañeros secuestrados por la guerrilla; todos en el mismo lugar e igual de alegres. Sus defensores argumentarán que el Carnaval no hace diferencias sociales. Los detractores, que las exhibe y les pone música. Para decidir quién tienen razón, no queda otra que colarse un rato en esta increíble fiesta de una ciudad entera.

PALCOS Los desfiles de la 40 se pueden

ver gratis detrás de las vallas, pero lo ideal, para resguardarse del sol, sentarse y contar con baños químicos, es acceder a un palco que puede costar entre 50 y 400 dólares (los VIP) para los cuatro días.

SEGURIDAD El eslogan de la autoridad turística

colombiana dice “Colombia: el riesgo es que te quieras quedar”. Efectivamente, con algunos recaudos básicos, ese es el único peligro en los custodiados eventos oficiales del Carnaval. El baile, por supuesto, continúa siempre en bares, restaurantes, clubes y discos. En tal caso, los extranjeros harán bien en chequear antes a qué barrio se dirigen. El Alto y El Prado son los más amigables con los turistas.

TOUR A LAS RAÍCES Los interesados en el aspecto

cultural de esta fiesta no deberían perderse La Ruta del Carnaval, que se ofrece por talleres de artesanos de máscaras y disfraces, y centros de operaciones de comparsas. Es la forma más sencilla de acercarse, por ejemplo, al municipio suburbano de Galapa, hogar de artistas como

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Cómo llegar Por Avianca, con escala en Bogotá, el pasaje Buenos Aires-Barranquilla cuesta 1250 dólares con tasas e impuestos.

Dónde dormir Aunque las tarifas varían en los días de Carnaval, el Barranquilla Plaza, de cuatro estrellas, ofrece habitaciones dobles y cena para dos en su espectacular piso 26 por unos 100 dólares. www.hbp.com.co

El de mejor reputación es el hotel El Prado, inaugurado en 1930, un icono del barrio más lindo de la ciudad. Desde 145 dólares la habitación doble.

www.hotelelprado.com.co

Dónde comer En un buen restaurante y con bebidas alcohólicas, comer afuera cuesta unos 25 dólares por persona. La Cueva: célebre bar-restaurante-centro cultural, heredero del reducto donde Gabriel García Márquez y otros intelectuales del Grupo de Barranquilla solían reunirse. Vale la pena conocerlo aunque el lugar vive tanto de la historia sin que la atención esté siempre a su altura.

Cra. 43 N° 59-03. Narcobollo: otra historia curiosa. La de Barranquilla es en realidad una sucursal del local original, que se hizo famoso cuando la policía lo allanó luego de sospechar de la legalidad de sus operaciones por algunos de sus clientes. Pero el sitio simplemente preparaba los mejores bollos de la región.

Cr 43 84-188. Naia: cocina fusión y diseño moderno. Cra. 53 N° 79-127

Souvenir La mayoría de los hombres se lleva de Barranquilla (y del resto del país) un recuerdo que, de paso, le resulta muy útil para protegerse del duro sol barranquillero: el tradicionalísimo sombrero vueltiao, fabricado en realidad en la región de Córdoba. De ala ancha y con vivos en negro (de secretos significados), su valor puede ir de 10 a 60 dólares, dependiendo de la cantidad de vueltas de palma con que esté confeccionado. Lo ideal es comprarlo en el buen Mercado de las Artesanías, a las puertas del viejo estadio del Junior, donde también hay toritos de Carnaval, instrumentos musicales y más.

Cambio El cambio habitual es de 2100 o 2200 pesos colombianos por dólar. En los eventos de Carnaval, una cerveza Aguila o Club Colombia cuesta 2000 pesos; agua o gaseosa, entre 1200 y 500; un paquete de diez cigarrillos, 1470.

Participaron casi 200 agrupaciones

con un gran despliegue de

trajes, coreografías y color.

Entre las comparsas y los bailes no faltaron dobles

de personalidades como Chávez,Uribe y Obama

DATOS ÚTILES

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Colombie:Coup de Coeur MeconnuTexte ANDREANNE KOHLER / Photo DR

Si la Colombie voit son nom régulièrement étalé dans la presse, rares sont lesarticles évoquant sa beauté. Dommage, ce pays possède des trésorsinsoupçonnés.

Petite appréhension en débarquant à l’aéroport de Bogotá. Une crainte somme toutejustifiée, à force de nouvelles sombres diffusées dans les médias. Mais à peine dans letaxi qui me conduit vers le centre-ville, j’oublie tout. Mon chauffeur, Carlos, me souhaitela bienvenue dans son pays maravilloso, puis augmente le volume de la radio. Unerumba m’entraîne au coeur de la culture musicale colombienne, une musiqueomniprésente qui ponctuera tout mon voyage. Il faut absolument sortir un samedi soirdans un bar branché pour admirer les superbes Colombiennes onduler leurs hanches surles rythmes latins – n’oubliez pas que c’est d’ici que viennent la belle chanteuse Shakiraet le ténébreux Juanes.

Après avoir suivi les conseils des locaux et fait des photocopies de mon passeport pour enfermer l’original, avec tous les autres objets de valeur, dans le coffre-fort de l’hôtel, je pars pleine d’entrain découvrir la ville. Au début un peu sur mes gardes puis, avec le temps, de plus en plus détendue.

Bogotá, située sur le haut plateau fertile des Andes à 2640 mètres, compte près de sept millions d’habitants. Son climat printanier tout au long de l’année permet de visiter à pied le quartier historique de la Candelaria, les majestueux bâtiments coloniaux – la plupart réunis autour de la Plaza Bolívar – et d’admirer la ville du haut du Monserrate. Une «colline», comme on l’appelle ici, dont le sommet atteignable en téléphérique ou funiculaire s’élève tout de même à 3200 mètres! Les Colombiens y viennent par milliers pour vénérer l’image du Cristo Caido y Azotado.

27.10.2008 L’écotourisme en plein essor

A environ 150 kilomètres de Bogotá se trouve la petite ville coloniale de Villa de Leyva. Je m’y rends en bus local; une véritable aventure débute, assise aux côtés d’autochtones chargés de leurs achats effectués en ville. De nombreux contrôles rappellent la proximité de la capitale, mais tous se déroulent calmement et rapidement. Si les premiers impressionnent, on prend ensuite plaisir à échanger quelques mots aimables avec les militaires, curieux de rencontrer une touriste. J’apprécie Villa de Leyva, trésor à l’architecture coloniale, centre touristique connu pour son immense place centrale à gros pavés et les bâtiments qui l’entourent, inscrit au Patrimoine colombien. Cette visite culturelle me plonge dans l’histoire du pays, imprégnée par la venue des colonisateurs espagnols dans les années 1500. Pleine de charme et d’entrain, Ana, ma guide, me dévoile tous les secrets.

Si la Colombie est célèbre pour ses villes coloniales, elle l’est également pour savégétation dense et luxuriante, qui permet à un écotourisme actif de se développer,proposant ainsi des hébergements en harmonie avec la nature. Et, bien entendu, lagrande fierté du pays réside dans son café à l’arôme intense. En effet, qui d’entre nous n’a jamais goûté un pur arabica de Colombie?

Depuis un siècle, la Colombie produit le café le plus doux du monde et en est devenue le deuxième exportateur mondial.

En visitant Carthagène des Indes

Une visite du pays ne serait donc pas complète sans avoir fait un crochet par le triangle du café, qui regroupe les villes et parcs autour d’Armenia. Les nuits passées dans une finca (ferme) de café transformée en lodge simple, de même que la visite du parc national du café, permettent de mieux comprendre la production du café, mais aussi de découvrir le côté sauvage de la région. Et bien entendu, cette incursion dans les terres est l’occasion de déguster une cuisine riche et authentique, ici souvent composée de riz, de haricots rouges, de yuca, mais aussi de fruits succulents.

Un double saut de puce en avion me mène à Carthagène, sur la côte caraïbe. Et ôsurprise, c’est un tout autre visage du pays que je retrouve ici. Carthagène des Indes,qui est le nom complet de la ville inscrite au patrimoine mondial de l’humanité, m’atoujours fait rêver – et je n’ai pas été déçue. Je l’imaginais colorée, chaude, rythmée et historique. C’est ainsi que je l’ai trouvée. Après une balade dans la vieille-ville encerclée de remparts – témoins des nombreuses attaques de pirates – où des soirées exclusives destinées à la jet-set locale sont organisées, une excursion d’une journée permet de découvrir les îles Rosario. Ambiance créole assurée! A ne pas manquer: un plongeon dans les eaux cristallines et chaudes avec masque et tuba – les fonds coralliens sont intéressants et la mer peuplée de poissons multicolores.Un pain au chocolat en pleine jungle

42

Une chose est déjà sûre: je suis conquise par le pays, par ses contrastes et par seshabitants si accueillants. Cela même avant d’avoir cheminé sur les sentiers du superbeparc de Tayrona, à environ 200 kilomètres de Carthagène. Facile d’accès, couvrant unesurface de 15 000 hectares, dont 12 000 de terre et 3000 de côte, il possède une fauneet une flore incroyables. Le fait d’être logée au coeur du parc, de dormir dans un hamacsous le ciel étoilé – je vous rassure, des bungalows sont également disponibles – permet de découvrir sur des sentiers bien entretenus un paysage de montagnes, de forêts et de plages. Quelques jours qui seront marqués à vie dans ma mémoire… J’y ai mangé le meilleur pain au chocolat de ma vie, cuit par Luìs dans un four en pierre à 10 mètres dela plage, en pleine jungle. Un régal!

Ma longue route se poursuit en direction du Venezuela… Je laisse derrière moi un coup decoeur, un pays où il faut savoir outrepasser les nombreux regards curieux, parfois trèsperçants dans les grandes villes, et ne pas prêter une attention démesurée aux mises engarde incessantes. Etre prudent oui, mais renoncer à visiter la Colombie pour des raisonsde sécurité, non!

Dans le parc national de Tayrona, les

visiteurs peuvent dormir dans des

bungalows ou des hamacs.

La cathédrale de Bogotá sur

la place Bolívar.

Les eaux cristallines bordant les îles Rosario, dans la mer des Caraïbes, constituent un paradis pour le pêcheurs et les plongeurs.

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04.07.2010

| BUSINESS | The Secret Life of Juan ValdezBy DANIEL GROSS

How Colombia’s most famous coffee picker is challenging Starbucks.

Remember Juan Valdez? In a long-running series of television ads, the iconic Colombian coffee farmer and his donkey were the embodiment of Colombia’s legitimate cash crop.

Until the emergence of Shakira, Valdez, who was played by two different actors, was the Colombian celebrity most known to Americans. My Slate colleague John Dickerson recalls that on a trip to Colombia with President George W. Bush, the press corps was sequestered at the airport, and “Juan Valdez” was brought out to pose for photographs with reporters. “People took a few and then he hung around smiling at all of us typing on our laptops for the next seven hours.” (Dickerson doesn’t remember whether the donkey was present. After all, when you’re traveling with the White House press corps, it’s tough to keep track of the precise number of asses on the premises.)

In the past decade, Colombia has undergone a transformation—it’s safer, more prosperous, and, while still poor, much more integrated with the global economy. Exports tripled between 2002 and 2008. Juan Valdez has also undergone a transformation. The stock character is gone, but the name lives on. In the past decade, Juan Valdez has shifted from being a person who traded on a stereotypical, pre-modern image of Colombia—lilting Spanish, peasant garb, farm animal—into an international brand and consumer experience.

As I learned from my visit to Colombia last week, where I was traveling with a group of journalists and attending the World Economic Forum Latin America, Juan Valdez is now a brand, not a guy. In 2002, Colombia’s National Confederation of Coffee Growers launched

an ambitious plan to turn Juan Valdez into a sort of Colombian Starbucks. It set up stores to sell beans by the bagful to tourists and began to open coffee bars. Outside Colombia’s borders, expansion has been relatively slow. Juan Valdez has opened stores in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. (though it closed one of its New York stores in February), a few in Spain, and several in Chile and Ecuador. (Here’s a store locator.)

In its home country, however, Juan Valdez is beginning to gain Starbuckian scale, especially in Bogota, home to at least 60 Juan Valdez shops. It’s capitalizing both on nationalism and the significant advances of the Colombian economy. In recent years, as the domestic security situation has improved, Colombia has benefitted from rising global demand for commodities—oil and metals—and steady growth in foreign investment. In the World Bank’s most recent Doing Business rankings, which rate countries on how easy it is to do business there, Colombia scored 37th, the highest ranking of any Latin American country. One of the biggest items in the Colombian news this week was the fact that inflation is running at a meager 1.84 percent annual rate. Growth in extractive industries has spurred growth in banking, transportation, engineering, professional services, and information technology—the type of jobs where you need to pop out for a jolt in caffeine to help you survive the next PowerPoint presentation.

Starbucks hasn’t figured this out yet. Starbucks sells Colombian coffee at its stores in the United States and in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. But it doesn’t have any outlets in the land of Juan Valdez. In the base of an office building in Bogota, Colombia, the Juan Valdez cafe is very similar to a smaller Manhattan Starbucks. The décor is modern—a red color scheme, with no kitschy weavings or hats. Professionals in smart casual sip caffeinated concoctions, generally ignore the wan pastries, and peck away at smart phones. And, like Starbucks, Juan Valdez tries to infuse its caffeine-delivery vehicles with dollops of off-putting connoisseurishness. At the airport in Bogota, I picked up a pound of Juan Valdez’s Amazonico. This bean, the package tells us, hails from the Amazon Basin and is “clean, with a strong hint of the wild and a rich residual flavor.” Whatever. This morning, I whipped up a double shot, sat down at my desk, turned on the computer, and looked out the window. There were squirrels and deer in the yard, but no donkey. Still, Juan Valdez was definitely in la casa. “Bueeenos Dias.”

Daniel Gross is also the author of Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation and Pop!: Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy.

46

Higher, deeper, wetterByline ABUL TAHER Abul Taher is left breathless by an adventure holiday in Colombia

I had read of the dangers of Colombia - a country most people believe is plagued by cocaine and Farc separatist guerrillas. Once there I saw a different country, a largely peaceful place whose people are delighted to see overseas visitors. Most Colombians I met said that there were troubled areas, but these were confined largely to the jungles and borders of the country.

My first destination was the village of Utica, about 1,600ft above sea level in the Andes, which is a cen-tre for adventure sports. In one day I was able to ride a quadricycle along ancient dirt tracks made by native Indians as they trekked up the Utica mountains, then walk with a team of local guides along the river Negro where it was no more than a shallow stream. After half an hour of walking along the muddy river, we came to a series of five cliffs that the river cascades down.

We abseiled down each one, the first four almost 200ft high and the final one nearly 230ft. It was a gruelling exercise and both my arms and legs had turned to jelly by the end of it.

Then the whole team got on a raft to ride about seven miles of middle-ranking rapids back to Utica vil-lage. The raft was thrown about like a boat in a stormy sea, and it was a mission just managing to stay on board. I realised why the river was called Negro - its water was coal-black due to the rocky mud.

Armando Serrano, who runs a hotel in the village and offers package deals on all the sports, told me that Utica was becoming a magnet for western adventure-seekers, who could experience the activities in Utica for a day for about £ 45 per person. At Suesca, about 40 miles north of Bogota, I had a go at rock climbing in the mountains, part of the Andes, then trekked to the top of the Suesca range, which was 328ft above the canyon. We came down via another route, which was far steeper and far slippier.

09.11.2008 But I wasn’t done yet. The capital of adventure in Colombia is the Santander region, about 180 miles north of Bogota. It has several paragliding clubs, and the one I chose, Bolladera Las Agilas, launched me into tandem paragliding: running off a cliff with an American instructor. Once we were up, the view was spectacular, with villages, valleys, waterfalls and rivers running through canyons. And there were mountains in all four directions. The cool breeze of 1,000ft above the ground made the experience seem dream-like.

After paragliding came torrentismo - abseiling down a 230ft Juan Curi waterfall. This is safe but it is an exhausting experience - not helped by the occasional icy cold drenching. I had to stop a few times due to sheer tiredness, and one or two others had the instructor abseil down with them on a parallel rope, as they were scared into immobility by the height.

Six hundred feet below the village of Paramo is a mile-long cave. Exploring it meant walking through it, and then crawling through it, and then jumping 16ft down into dank water and swimming the rest of it. The whole experience takes more than an hour - but it feels longer.

Santander is not just about adventure sports. No visit to the region is complete without a tour of Barichara, a beautiful Spanish village that has changed little since the 17th century. It is a popular holiday destination with Colombians and for tourists like me, it was an ideal place to relax after the excitement of fly-ing, climbing and crawling.

Abul Taher travelled as a guest of Proexport, the Colombian Tourist Office (020 7491 3535, www.visitcolombia.com). A 16-day guided trip to Colombia, which includes adventure sports in Santander, costs £ 2,795pp with Wild Frontiers

(020 7736 3968, www.wildfrontiers.co.uk), including flights from the UK, transfers, accommodation, meals and guides

48

| EXPLORER |

Above the Clouds in a Secret ColombiaBy MATTHEW FISHBANE / Photos DENNIS DRENNER As crampons crunched ice, our guide, Rubará, raised his traditional woven sisal-thread handbag by his face and asked me to snap a photo. We were climbing above 17,000 feet, just shy of the summit of the Ritacuba Blanco, a glaciated peak shaped like a soft-serve ice cream cone, at El Cocuy National Park in Colombia. Aquamarine-hued icicles hung from the maw of a crevasse and, far below, clouds blanketed the Orinoco Basin.

The landscape stretched across dozens of ice-capped peaks and deep cirque valleys. Moraine lakes, formed by the natural erosion from glaciers’ unhurried flow and retreat, shimmered in mineral hues. Nearly 30 miles away, we could just make out the telltale church spire of the town of Soatá. Save for a photographer friend and one other guide on the ice field, no other people were in view. The February day was bright. I’d finally caught my breath.

“The snow is sacred to us,” said Rubará, the only indigenous U’Wa ranger of the eight who work in the park (he used only his single U’Wa name), before acknowledging that, as a guide, he’d never been this high before. “We should be heading down.”

Down was the only way to go, but I wanted to linger.

Solitude at high altitudes is increasingly rare. Unlike congested climbing destinations like Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua, Cocuy, both remote and, until recently, risky to visit, has been South America’s undiscovered gem of mountaineering.

This may be a temporary condition. The park has also had a marked increase in visitors. Fabio Muñóz, the park’s director, said it registered nearly as many tourists in January as in all 2008.

But for now, at least, there are no 200-tent shanties there. No trail quotas, lottery peak permits or trashed base camps. Roberto Ariano, a ranger for the park, who focuses his efforts on conservation, called Cocuy a “lost corner of Colombia.”

02.08.2009Rising from the Plains of Arauca, near the Venezuelan border, El Cocuy National Park covers over 1,000 square miles of terrain and 15,000 vertical feet. Its stratified ecosystems shelter red-footed tortoises, pumas, howling monkeys, tapirs and, soaring above them all, condors. U’Wa Indian reservations make up half the park’s domain. Tourism is concentrated in the Sierra Nevada, covering just 2 percent of the park.

Erwin Kraus, a dapper Colombian of German descent, was the first explorer to document the sierra thoroughly, in the late 1930s and ’40s. Kraus photographed and painted the range, producing important baselines in the study of glacial retreat, on his way to several first ascents of peaks in Colombia.

By the 1980s, the intrepid backpackers and climbers who made the five-to-seven-day trek through the range or opened routes on virgin rock faces usually kept news of its surpassing beauty to themselves.

Today, much of the glacial area of the park is disappearing. In Bogotá the week before we began our trip, the Colombian glaciologist Jorge Luis Ceballos showed me evidence of the rapid retreat of Cocuy’s ice cover. From a single, 57-square-mile sheet in 1850, he said, just 7 square miles of scattered snowcaps remained in 2007. Recent photos displayed side-by-side with Kraus’s black and whites showed distinctly different mountains.

Within three decades, Mr. Ceballos estimates, the Cocuy will be nothing but mostly barren rock and high-altitude tropical tundra. Mr. Ceballos attributes this glacial retreat primarily to warming temperatures. (During our trip up the glacier, we came across one of his red-tipped ice-mass probes: the Ritacuba had shrunk about six and a half feet in just two months, well beyond normal seasonal fluctuations.)

It was the tail end of the dry season when the photographer Marcos Roda and I made the 250-mile drive north from Bogotá: an 11-hour journey, almost all of it curvy, most of it paved. Marcos throttled his Mitsubishi jeep northward, slowing only for military checkpoints.

For years, any point past the sixth hour of that trip was a no-go zone, home to competing fronts of guerrilla and, later, regional paramilitary. At times, Mr. Ariano said, the state simply abandoned the park.

In 2003, though, as part of a broad military offensive, the Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, installed an elite brigade high in the Cocuy. The ensuing battle over the strategic corridors between the northern Amazon and the Andean plateau was bloody and brief. The park is now considered safe, and pro-guerrilla graffiti has been scrubbed off walls in the towns of Güicán and El Cocuy nearby.

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From El Cocuy (elevation, 9,000 feet), a pristine colonial town of uniform whitewash and light-green trim, acclimatizing and donning layers of fleece as we went, we churned 4,000 feet higher into the misty alpine tundra of the Lagunillas Valley, past potato farms and long-haired dairy cows. These soon gave way to stacked stone walls and grazing Merino sheep. At the end of the road lay the campgrounds long owned by the Herrera family. (Miguel Herrera, 50, climbed with Erwin Kraus, as did his father.) The Herrera camp also serves as the gateway to the striking southern peaks of the range and a staging ground for the more elaborate 44-mile trek through the whole park. The latter route laces together lakes and exotic vistas over a series of strenuous passes, the highest of which tops out at 15,000 feet.

A pair of Austrians, whom we had met at the camp, spent half their parkwide, eight-day trek huddled in a tiny lightweight tent, away from freezing rain. Nevertheless, they bagged two summits that required technical-climbing gear and mountaineering expertise, and only encountered an American and six Slovaks along the way.

“Wonderful, despite the rain,” said Gerhard Tüchler, Austrian No. 1. “We’re repeat visitors.” “Best-kept secret in the Americas,” said Stefan Pappernigg, Austrian No. 2. “But perhaps Gerhard and I now know each other a little too well.”

That night, as Marcos and I sipped steaming potato soup, Mr. Herrera told stories about Erwin Kraus, roaming Andean bears with unusual facial markings that resemble glasses, and his father’s pack horses sinking in brittle snow on the passes. Drowsy from the altitude, I retreated woozily to a well-blanketed bed.

The next morning, we walked the valley. A marked trail took us up a ridge into fields of furry 15-foot-tall plants called Frailejones because they are thought to resemble hooded

monks in silhouette. Over 700 species of endemic flora have adapted to the conditions of the Cocuy. The combination of wonder and isolation felt akin to a scuba diver’s at a remote but lively reef.

Above the valley, the rocky moraine afforded spectacular views of the ice-carved granite faces and snow caps. From there, on a clear day, you can see El Púlpito del Diablo, the Devil’s Pulpit, a perfectly hewn cube poking out of the snow-draped shoulder of Pan de Azúcar, and the twin bell-shaped peaks called the Campanillas.

That afternoon we drove 45 minutes north to the Posada Sierra Nevada, a work-in-progress guesthouse perched at 12,960 feet, where we rested. Before dawn the next morning, Belisario Santisteban, who runs the posada, saddled four mares, while his wife, Nelly, prepared a breakfast of cheese, eggs and hot chocolate. Several hours of riding later, we reached the lip of the Ritacuba Glacier, where we laced on crampons and roped up for the white icy incline ahead.

Rubará led the way past the science station, shaking his head. “The glacier suffers from our trampling,” he said, repeating a common U’Wa belief. We set rest targets of a few hundred yards, one foot at a time, breathing heavily. Slowly, the Cocuy’s 30 other rugged peaks began to reveal themselves over cornices, more fierce and vertical than their lakeside views had suggested.

Rubará gazed over his tribal lands, thousands of feet below to the east. I thought of Colombia’s audacious new tourism slogan: “The only risk is wanting to stay.” Almost alone at the top of the Cocuy, this slogan rang true.

Unlike congested climbing destinations like Kilimanjaro, El Cocuy National Park in South America is still an

undiscovered gem of mountaineering. Peaks can top 17,000 feet. Until about a half decade ago, the area was

virtually off limits because of guerrilla activity.

Guides Omar Lopez, left, and Roberto Ariano take their morning coffee.

A campsite at Laguna Grande de la Sierra.

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GET READY TO RIDE A BUS FOR 11 HOURS, RENT A HORSE AND DRINK BEER AT HIGH ALTITUDE

GETTING TO AND AROUND THE PARKIn January, JetBlue (www.jetblue.com) began a route between Kennedy Airport in New York and Bogotá, Colombia, with a stop in Orlando for as low as $325 round trip. Similarly, Spirit Airlines (www.spiritair.com) flies from La Guardia Airport through Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for $330, according to a recent Web search. Continental, Delta and Avianca all operate six-hour flights to Bogotá from New York airports.

For the trip from Bogotá to the towns of El Cocuy or Güicán, prepare yourself for an 11-hour day (departing at 5:30 a.m.) or overnight (departing at 8:30 p.m.) bus journey. Unless a car is included in your itinerary — rentals are prohibitively expensive — there is no other way. One-way tickets are 40,000 pesos, or $20 at about 2,000 pesos to the dollar, though, so consider buying two seats in the name of comfort. Libertadores (57-1-295-1803) has the most reliable service.

December to February tend to be the driest months, hence the most crowded. The rest of the year can be unpredictably wet; either way, gear for high-mountain weather is essential. Temperatures are 40 to 70 degrees during the day and freezing at night.

El Cocuy National Park charges foreigners a 29,000 peso entry fee. From any of the three main access points, horses are 25,000 to 50,000 pesos for a day. Expect to pay local guides 30,000 to 60,000 pesos for a day’s work, depending on distances covered, and feel free to tip. Many spectacular day hikes require neither guides nor horses. Inquire at the park office in El Cocuy, just off the town plaza (57-8-789-0359). The Colombia National Parks’ Web site (www.parquesnacionales.gov.co) also has information about arranging visits.

LODGING AND OUTFITTERSAny of the half dozen guesthouses on the western approach to the park can arrange treks, hikes, food, camping and shelter, but the Posada Sierra Nevada, an Alpine-style refuge above Güicán (double beds are 30,000 pesos; www.posadasierranevada.com), is best prepared to cover all the bases. The Herrera campground (57-311-214-9255) is bare-bones and cold, but dirt cheap, with a small number of simple beds available for 12,000 pesos a night. High-altitude beer costs 1,700 pesos.

Arrange more advanced rock and ice climbing through the mathematician and guide Nicolás Moreno, at Altitud Adventures (57-310-814-8797; www.climbelcocuy.com), or Rodrigo Arias (57-320-339-3839; www.colombiatrek.com). Both speak English and offer all-inclusive itineraries from Bogotá.

For a less piecemeal approach, the upscale outfitter Mountain Travel Sobek (888-687-6235; www.mtsobek.com) plans to resume package tours to Cocuy in 2010, after a 24-year hiatus.

A burro hauls camping gear for hikers. Rising from the Plains of Arauca, near the Venezuelan border, El Cocuy National Park covers over 1,000 square miles of terrain and 15,000 vertical feet.

A blooming Frailejones plant in the Lagunillas Valley. Over 700 species

of endemic flora have adapted to the conditions of the Cocuy.

A Cocuy mountain scene at twilight.

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| VAMOS A...LA COLOMBIA DE GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ |

Macondo o el vallenato más largo del mundoPor EUGENIA RICO / Foto THIERRY BORREDON

De Aracataca a Cartagena de Indias, por el Caribe colombiano tras los pasos del autor de ‘Cien años de soledad’

Macondo o el vallenato más largo del mundo. Muchos años después, con los ojos cerrados, ante el caserón a punto de aplastarle con su sombra, el viajero recuerda el momento en que el abuelo de García Márquez llevó a su nieto a conocer la fábrica de hielo. El mismo edificio de madera de época republicana al otro lado del río donde las mariposas no son amarillas, sino negras, y las piedras son redondas, de antes del diluvio, de antes incluso de que el coronel Nicolás Márquez llegara a Aracataca. Entonces nadie llamaba aún Macondo a este pueblo, ni siquiera Gabito, que aún no había nacido ni aprendido a contar mentiras mejor que nadie. El pueblo vivía la belle époque de la compañía bananera estadounidense y todos los prodigios parecían posibles: incluso el frío. Al niño García Márquez le sorprendió más la dureza de aquella blancura tan fría que quemaba que la ausencia de su padre que quemaba también.

Aracataca

Frente a la Casa del Telegrafista, donde se guardaron todos los enseres de los Iguarán aguardando el museo que acaba de abrirse, una anciana de dientes arrancados al hielo y a los cien años de soledad que vive el departamento de Magdalena -al norte de Colombia, al que pertenece Aracataca y de donde hace mucho que se fueron los americanos, sus grandes coches, sus muertos y su prosperidad, y se quedaron sólo las palabras del gran

29.08.2009 palabrero- recuerda cómo tuvo al niño Gabriel José en sus rodillas y que, al contrario de todos los niños del mundo, no quería oír siempre la misma historia, sino una diferente cada vez.

Aracataca es una palabra indígena que significa río de piedras; los de aquí llaman al pueblo Cataca y rechazaron en 2006 en un referéndum llamarlo Macondo a pesar de que por todas partes la palabra se levante en cercas, en casas sociales, en escuelas. El hospital lleva el nombre de la madre del premio Nobel: Hospital Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán. El recién inaugurado museo (Casa Natal de Gabriel García Márquez), en el mismo lugar donde estaba la residencia de los abuelos maternos del escritor, es un edificio de nueva planta que imita los zaguanes antiguos donde las tías se mecían sin descanso en el corredor de las begonias. Sólo quedan los espíritus, un árbol milenario y el chiscón donde vivían los indios esclavos que contaban a los niños las historias de la Sierra Nevada. Aquí nacieron, en un rincón de una alcoba sin ventanas, Gabriel García Márquez (el 6 de marzo de 1927) y el realismo mágico. Aunque Alejo Carpentier fuera el partero, el predecesor, los muertos que comen con los vivos, los aparecidos de la abuela Tranquilina Iguarán y los relatos de las guerras del coronel Nicolá s Márquez -que sí tuvo quien le escribiera- darían lugar al mayor mito literario en castellano del siglo XX. Era un niño en un caserón de mujeres cercado por los fantasmas de la abuela y los cuentos de guerra del abuelo.

Ryszard Kapuscinski creía que Cien años de soledad (publicada en 1967) era el mejor reportaje de la historia y los colombianos dicen que es el vallenato más largo del mundo. Lo cierto es, sin embargo, que casi toda la obra de García Márquez es fruto de sus ocho primeros años, cuando vivía con sus abuelos maternos en la gran casa poblada de espíritus y de consejas de Aracataca. Las palabras son conjuros para librarse de los demonios que llevaban acechando a la cándida Eréndira durante más de quinientos años de soledad (La increíble y triste historia de Cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalmada, 1972). Por eso, muchas páginas después, ante el caserón insolente que se sostiene a duras penas al otro lado del monumento a Remedios la Bella (de la cuarta generación de Cien años de soledad), el lector convertido en viajero siente el calor agobiante de la fábrica de hielo abandonada y recuerda a Melquíades y a su hielo mágico.

Barranquilla

El viajero también recuerda el cajón de hielo del bar La Cueva, en Barranquilla, donde se reunían sus amigos escritores ricos en torno a la historia de un náufrago sin sospechar que el joven muchacho que escribía en El Heraldo, al que las putas de la pensión El Rascacielos lavaban la ropa, convertiría a aquel hombre en el náufrago más famoso del mundo (Relato de un náufrago se publicó por entregas en 1955).

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En Barranquilla, unos niños felices se asoman a las verjas de hierro de la casa donde el niño García Márquez vivió con sus padres tras la muerte de su abuelo en 1936. Al abandono del padre, que acabó trayendo a casa varios medio hermanos, siguió una epopeya que la madre y Gabito, convertido en prematuro padre de familia, trataron de sortear con talento. Hoy, en el mercadillo vecino al Rascacielos, vendedores ambulantes pregonan ediciones pirata de Cien años de soledad. Por la escalera más desigual del mundo se atraviesa el infierno de los cuartos misérrimos donde mujeres de ojos oscuros intentan vencer a la soledad y a la pobreza malvendiendo su piel. Desde su terraza, García Márquez hacía señas a sus amigos de El Heraldo, que todavía no eran el grupo de Barranquilla; desde aquí el infierno se convierte en un cielo por el que se divisa la iglesia en la que García Márquez se casó con Mercedes Barcha, una de las dos mujeres de su vida. La otra es Carmen Ballcells, su agente literaria. La herrumbre de un espejo refleja a los desgraciados cubiertos de polvo que arrastran una bicicleta en llamas por las calles. El sol es de fuego, y el hielo, un sueño lejano, tan sólo una palabra como las de los libros.

El viajero abandona Barranquilla no antes de visitar el recién inaugurado Parque Cultural del Caribe, un museo sorprendente que próximamente tendrá una sala dedicada a García Márquez (cuya apertura está prevista para finales de este año).

Tren Amarillo

“Yo nací y crecí en el Caribe. Lo conozco país por país, isla por isla, y tal vez de allí provenga mi frustración de que nunca se me ha ocurrido nada ni he podido hacer nada que sea más asombroso que la realidad”. Las palabras de García Márquez se me aparecen cuando la guagua se para en los billares de Sevilla en la zona bananera que recorrió García Márquez en el Tren Amarillo. Niños pelirrojos venden tucanes, monos, serpientes y camaleones a los transeúntes, y el olor de la guayaba se mezcla en el aire con el tabaco rancio y la pestilencia agria de los orines de tanto animal muerto de miedo. García

Márquez siempre ha afirmado que el realismo mágico era simplemente realismo, contar cómo es la costa caribeña de Colombia donde todos los milagros dejan de serlo ante el milagro único de que todo siga venciendo a la violencia y al olvido, venciendo incluso a los muchos más de cien años de soledad del departamento de Magdalena.

Tayrona

En el parque Tayrona, en la sierra nevada de Santa Marta, los indios kogi cuidan de la armonía universal. De aquí baja un arroyo que se llama Macondo y aquí consigo ver por primera vez el árbol con ese nombre, que ignora su fama y se agarra a

las rocas blancas y prehistóricas como las túnicas impolutas de los indios. Macondo es también el nombre de una finca de Aracataca y el de un mundo que nació mientras García Márquez viajaba en tren con su madre para vender la casa del abuelo y leía a Faulkner. A través de los platanales, “cada río tenía su pueblo y su puente de hierro por donde el tren pasaba dando alaridos, y las muchachas que se bañaban en las aguas heladas saltaban como sábalos a su paso para turbar a los viajeros con sus tetas fugaces”. Hoy no pasará el tren (existe un proyecto para volver a ponerlo en marcha para el turismo). Es la guagua la que sigue entre plantaciones y niños desnudos hacia el horizonte blanco.

Cerca de Santa Marta, el calor es agudo como el hielo. Escolares con corbata recitan los últimos días de Simón Bolívar

en la Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino. García Márquez los recreó en El general en su laberinto (1989), alejándose de Macondo para caer en un laberinto literario del que le salvarían los vericuetos reales de Cartagena de Indias y sus mansiones coloniales. Aquí nacieron obras como El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985), inspirada en los amores de sus padres, y Del amor y otros demonios (1994), donde narra la historia de la novicia adolescente Sierva María, que transcurre en el convento de Santa Clara. Amores prohibidos, contrariados, fértiles en hijos y en páginas.

Cartagena de Indias ha inspirado obras de Gabriel García Márquez como Del amor y otros demonios. / Thierry Borredon

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Cartagena de Indias

Por la Ciénaga de la Virgen, de aguas dulces y saladas, entramos en Cartagena de Indias: sueño de piratas y de escritores. El calor se convierte en delirio y todos los demonios tienen nombre de mujer en el Portal de los Dulces: ajonjolí, cabellitos de ángel, maná de leche que curaron el amor de las doncellas, pero no la cólera de los esclavos. La ciudad es un párpado de piedra que se cierra en torno a la nostalgia de tiempos mejores. La casa de García Márquez se arrima a la muralla frente a un malecón por el que pasan coches que nunca se detienen. Una casa que Gabo casi no visita, quizá porque ya no le hace falta pisar el Caribe para recordarlo. García Márquez es el Caribe para millones de lectores de todo el mundo que padecieron el idilio de Sierva María y enloquecieron con el olor de las madreselvas.

“Para mí, el rincón más nostálgico de Cartagena de Indias es el Muelle de la Bahía de las Ánimas, donde estuvo hasta hace poco el fragoroso mercado central. Durante el día, aquélla era una fiesta de gritos y colores, una parranda multitudinaria como recuerdo pocas en el ámbito del Caribe. De noche era el mejor comedero de borrachos y periodistas. Allí estaban, frente a las mesas de comida al aire libre, las goletas que zarpaban al amanecer cargadas de marimondas y guineo verde, cargadas de remesas de putas biches para los hoteles de vidrio de Curaçao, para Guantánamo, para Santiago de los Caballeros, que ni siquiera tenía mar para llegar, para las islas más bellas y más tristes del mundo. Uno se sentaba a conversar bajo las estrellas de la madrugada, mientras los cocineros maricas, que eran deslenguados y simpáticos y tenían siempre un clavel en la oreja, preparaban con una mano maestra el plato de resistencia de la cocina local: filete de carne con grandes anillos de cebolla y tajadas fritas de plátano verde. Con lo que allí escuchábamos mientras comíamos, hacíamos el periódico del día siguiente”. La voz de García Márquez resuena a lo largo del viaje, cuya mejor guía es Vivir para contarla (2002), sus memorias.

Muchas palabras después, el viajero metido a escribidor recordará los callejones de Cartagena donde un premio Nobel le enseñó que ser escritor no es otra cosa que estar loco y volvería a recorrer la ruta de García Márquez. Esta vez, con los ojos cerrados.

Cómo ir

Iberia (www.iberia.com; 902 40 05 00) vuela desde Madrid a Cartagena de Indias, vía Bogotá, desde 684 euros ida y vuelta con todo incluido.

Avianca (www.avianca.com). vuela de Madrid a Cartagena, vía Bogotá, desde 689 euros.

Visitas

Casa Natal de Gabriel García Márquez. Entre las calles seis y siete de Aracataca. Abierto todos los días de 8.00 a 12.00 y de 14.00 a 18.00. El museo está abierto desde hace un mes y, aunque no está terminando del todo, se puede visita.

Entrada gratis. Casa del Telegrafista. A dos manzanas de la casa natal del escritor. Abierto de 8.00 a 12.00 y de 14.00 a 18.00 diariamente. Entrada gratis.

El proyecto del Tren Amarillo propone dos rutas que salen de Santa Marta y recorren la región. Un itinerario está centrado en la ruta bananera y otro es el recorrido Macondo que llega hasta Aracataca. Aunque aún no tiene fecha de inauguración, en la actualidad la ruta se puede realizar por carretera con guías.

Parque Cultural del Caribe (www.culturacaribe.org; 0057 53 72 05 83). De 8.00 a 17.00

(viernes hasta 18.00); fin de semana, de 9.00 a 18.00. Cierra lunes.

2,75 euros.

Información

www.colombia.travel. Corporación de Promoción turística Tayrona (0057 31 57 21 13 99).

Turismo de Santa Marta (www.santamartaturistica.org).

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Colombia’s addictive charmBy DARALYN DANNS

Formerly known for its drug cartels, the country has gained some serious Latin class.

Cerro de Monserrate, the Bogotá hilltop offering superb views of the spectacular city Colombia has to be South America’s best-kept secret. To me it instantly conjured up coffee and emeralds; for my friends, kidnappings and cocaine spring to mind. The country used to have a reputation for violence and drugs, but when Álvaro Uribe became president in 2002, he cracked down on the drug traffickers and armed gangs.

Now Colombia is mainly safe for tourists, although it is best to avoid areas around the borders with Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru.

Bogotá, the capital, is a vibrant, modern city where high-rises and universities fuse with colonial houses and shanty towns. The Bogotanos are extremely welcoming and even going through immigration was easy because the staff were so helpful.

Perched in the Eastern Andes, Bogotá is around 8,700ft above sea level and basks in year-round spring-like weather, with warm days and chilly nights.

Once you acclimatise to the altitude, you will find that the city’s grid system of carreras and calles makes getting around easy.

There is a great café culture here. The smell of coffee wafts through the streets and you will find plenty of places to people-watch and get your caffeine fix. Juan Valdez is the best local coffee chain, where often in the mornings you will find Bogotanos not only drinking their espressos, but dunking cheese-bread in their hot chocolate.

30.12.2008 I began my sightseeing tour wandering round the La Candelaria. This old part of Bogotá has narrow streets crammed with wonderful colonial buildings, museums, market traders and restaurants as well as the Hotel Centro Plaza, which has a kosher kitchen.

Of the city’s museums, take a look at the new Gold Museum — or Museo del Oro — in Banco de la República which was due to reopen in November – and the Museo Botero in Calle 11, named after the Colombian artist Fernando Botero and housing some of his renowned works of voluptuous figures. After I had done the culture bit, I took a cable car ride up Cerro de Monserrate. There is a church on the top of the hill, but the main attraction is the spectacular views of the city. The Santa Clara restaurant is the perfect place to stop for lunch, offering both permitted fish and vegetarian dishes on the menu.

Shopping is great in Bogotá as there are plenty of names you won’t see at home. The Centro Andino, El Retiro and Atlantis Plaza are good malls and not to be missed is a stroll down so-called Fashion Street — Zona T — which is a showcase for the top Colombian designers.

The food in Colombia is delicious, fresh and full of flavour. There is good fish and a wide selection of fruit and vegetables and plenty of excellent restaurants in the city serving dishes that the kosher-observant diner will find acceptable. Parque de la 93, Zona Rosa and Usaquén are all hot areas for dining.

Harry Sasson, I was told by a local friend, is Jewish and Colombia’s most famous chef. He owns some of the city’s coolest restaurants though, sadly, none of them is kosher. We had an enjoyable meal at Harry’s Bar which was handy for my hotel, the luxurious Charleston Casa Medina. Located in the financial centre, the hotel offers a perfect combo of old world charm and all mod cons.

If you have time, go see the Salt Cathedral, carved out of a salt mine, at Zipaquirá, just north of the city.

For a complete change of pace, I headed to Cartagena de Indias, a hot and steamy city on Colombia’s Caribbean, which beats to the rhythms of salsa, cumbia and vallenato.

Cartagena is surrounded by stone walls, built to protect the city from plundering invaders, including Sir Francis Drake, who wanted to get their hands on the city’s treasures. Inside the walls is a well-preserved, colourful old town, now a Unesco world heritage site, with beautiful colonial buildings, bougainvillea-filled balconies and pretty squares.

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Travel facts

Last Frontiers (www.lastfrontiers.com; 01296 653000) offers tailor-made holidays throughout Latin America. A seven-night trip to Colombia, spending three nights in Bogotá at the Charleston Casa Medina and four nights in Cartagena at Sofitel Santa Clara on a bed and breakfast basis, costs from £2,365 per person (based on two sharing). This includes international flights (Iberia via Madrid) and internal flights, private transfers and private city tours of Bogotá and Cartagena. For more information about Colombia visit www.visitcolombia.com

Jewish Colombia

Jews arrived in Colombia in the 16th century from Spain, fleeing the Inquisition. Many were Conversos, who concealed their identity.

The next wave of Jewish immigrants came from Jamaica and Curacao in the 18th century, followed by a huge influx from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century

There are 5,000 Jews in Colombia, half of whom live in Bogotá.

Cali, Barranquilla, and Medellín also have Jewish communities.

There are four synagogues in Bogotá, as well as a Chabad House (0057 5 360 2279)

Hotel Centro Plaza, Carrera 4 No 13-12B, La Candelaria (0057 124 33818)

My base in Cartagena was the Sofitel Santa Clara where an eclectic bunch of past guests includes the King and Queen of Spain, Mel Gibson and Bill Gates. Originally built in the 17th century and a former convent, it is known as a holiday magnet for the Panama Jewish community.

With superb seafood restaurants (most also serve permitted fish), such as the Club de Pesca overlooking the sea, it is easy to see why Cartagena is so appealing.

If you prefer the beach to the pool, Bocagrande, Cartagena’s answer to Miami, is only a short cab ride from the hotel. The beaches are not as beautiful as the ones you usually find in the Caribbean, but Cartagena’s culture and pulsating nightlife offer so much more than the average Caribbean island.

An hour’s boat ride from Cartagena are the Rosario Islands, an archipelago of pretty coral islands. Sailing out of the bay through the open sea, the colour of the water changes from dark blue to an eye-ravishing shade of turquoise.

My base was the San Pedro de Malagua Hotel and my guide told me people stay there to escape the world and it is easy to see why. Rooms in this tranquil spot have no TV or phone and guests are encouraged to switch off mobiles and BlackBerrys.

Besides walking along the beach, trying some watersports or going to the spa, there is little else to do — just eat, chill out in a hammock, watch the sun set and gaze at the stars. If you want to take a trip, you can take the short boat ride to the open-water aquarium to see the dolphins and shark perform.

Back in Cartagena, the late afternoon, when the sea breeze cools the air, is the best time to explore. A ride in a horse-driven carriage around the old town is the perfect way to see it. Though it may sound cheesy, it is rather nostalgic and romantic which is what Cartagena is all about.

Afterwards, explore the cobbled streets where Afro-Colombian women carry fruit balanced on their heads, a reminder of the cultures that have left their mark on this city.

The Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas — considered the finest fortress built by the Spaniards in the colonies — is a must-see as is the city’s own Gold Museum on Plaza de Bolivar. And for unmatchable views of old and new Cartagena, take a cab up to the mountain-top monastery of Convento de la Popa.

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| INTERNACIONAL |

Envidiando a Colombia Por MOISÉS NAÍM

No es solo la economía.El país también ha tenido milagrosos cambios en cuanto a la seguridad.

Envidiarán, por ejemplo, a un país donde un presidente con enorme apoyo popular y obvias ganas de seguir gobernando acepta abandonar el poder e irse a su casa al final del periodo porque así lo decidió un tribunal. Esto es inimaginable en varios países de América Latina, donde los jueces son propiedad del presidente. También envidiarán una contienda electoral en la cual todos los candidatos tienen credenciales serias, larga experiencia, propuestas válidas y la voluntad de no imitar el populismo tan de moda en la región.

Colombia no solo suscita envidia por su democracia. Los milagros también dan envidia. Y en estos últimos años Colombia ha vivido varios milagros.

Quizás el menos reconocido internacionalmente es su progreso económico. En 2002, cuando Álvaro Uribe comenzó su presidencia, Colombia solo exportaba 5.330 millones de euros en productos que no son tradicionales como el petróleo o el café. El año pasado, las exportaciones de estos otros productos alcanzaron 12.100 millones de euros, a pesar de la recesión mundial y del bloqueo comercial que le impuso Venezuela.

20.06.2010

Durante la presidencia de Uribe, la economía colombiana se expandió todos los años, creando así casi tres millones de nuevos puestos de trabajo. La inversión privada, tanto nacional como extranjera, aumentó sustancialmente y la inflación cayó del 7% en 2002 a un insignificante 2% en 2009.

Para poner estas cifras en contexto, la comparación con lo que le sucedió a Venezuela en ese mismo lapso es tan odiosa como reveladora: el desabastecimiento y la carestía son habituales, la destrucción de empleos en el sector privado ha sido masiva, su inflación es la más alta del mundo, la economía se contrajo en un 3,3% en 2009 y un 5,8% en lo que va de año, y es la de peor desempeño de toda América. Todo esto a pesar de que, durante la década en que ha gobernado Hugo Chávez, Venezuela ha disfrutado de los mayores ingresos petroleros de su historia; ingresos que además se vieron acrecentados con préstamos internacionales que ahora le imponen al país una deuda externa cuatro veces más grande de lo que era en 1999.

Aunque fuese solo por esto, la envidia de los venezolanos por Colombia estaría más que justificada. Pero no es solo la economía. Colombia también ha experimentado milagrosas transformaciones en cuanto a la seguridad de sus ciudadanos. Bogotá, Medellín o Cali solían ser sinónimo de asesinatos, secuestros y crimen generalizado. Hoy día ese trágico reconocimiento le toca a Caracas y a algunas ciudades de México y Centroamérica.

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Y luego están las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), esos sanguinarios mercenarios que, disfrazados de luchadores sociales, han sobrevivido gracias al narcotráfico y el secuestro. Esta cruel guerrilla ha aterrorizado durante décadas a los colombianos, sobre todo a los más pobres y vulnerables. Durante mucho tiempo, profesores, políticos y periodistas nos explicaron que el dinero de la droga, la inhóspita selva colombiana, la debilidad del Ejército y de la policía, la venalidad de los políticos y la pobreza del país hacían de las FARC una maldición con la cual los colombianos tendrían que vivir para siempre. Se equivocaron.

En la prensa internacional hoy leemos titulares como este: “La guerrilla ya no es el gran problema de Colombia”. Más aún, los medios informan de que las FARC están disminuidas, desmoralizadas, aisladas y sin la influencia que solían tener. Las FARC ya no aterrorizan a los colombianos, y si esto no es un milagro, se le parece mucho.

Obviamente, Colombia no es un paraíso. Casi la mitad de los colombianos siguen siendo inmensamente pobres, y la desigualdad económica, las injusticias sociales, la violencia, la corrupción y el narcotráfico siguen siendo realidades cotidianas. Pero menos que antes. Este no es un dato menor en un continente donde el progreso es tan infrecuente que, cuando ocurre, parece un milagro.

Los avances experimentados por Colombia durante la presidencia de Álvaro Uribe son innegables. Y sus éxitos no solo provocan envidia, sino que también sirven de ejemplo y de esperanza para otros países que siguen empantanados en el autoritarismo y el mal gobierno. Los colombianos le han demostrado al mundo que los pueblos pueden revertir tendencias y evitar destinos inaceptables. Por eso, un día como hoy se pueden sentir orgullosos y admirados. Y envidiados.