I had instructed both Jorge and Danny to take lots of photos of anything of interest. The three of us sat with cameras at the ready. That was when I discovered that, as stimulating as I had first thought the boat ride to be, there was very little of interest to see. For a start, there were no roads, no bridges, no buildings of any kind, no telegraph poles, no animals and no people. And as both banks were lined by tall reeds, all you could see in every direction was a brown-green wall that served to obscure everything else.
I was soon bored. The few birds we might have seen were frightened off by the roar of the outboard, which, as the river narrowed, seemed deafening. Then there was the percussive drumbeat of the bottom of the boat striking the water as it skimmed across the waves. This was aggravated by the boatman criss-crossing the river to avoid the shallows. Resist it as I might, whatever position I adopted it still sent shockwaves all the way up my spine. Now I could appreciate the value of the muscle-relaxants. My romantic conception of river travel was rapidly undergoing a marked transformation. Already I longed for the boat-ride to be over.
But, as Edgar was quick to inform us, we had just over four hours of this before we got to our destination. This was another thing I was discovering about Edgar. Although, at first sight, he didn’t seem to be a morbid chap, he was an absolute fund of disturbing information. All conversations had to be conducted at a shout, to be heard over the roar of the outboard, so there was no ignoring what he was saying. Either he was bored too and was talking to pass the time, or he saw it as part of his duty as tour guide. However, he told us in quick succession that, the river was teeming with piranha, some of them so large they could bite your hand off; there were also lots of alligators and crocodiles, some of which could grow to 20 feet or more and, there was the ever-present danger of colliding with sunken logs as we sped along the river. I briefly contemplated the prospect of some scaly, armoured behemoth pulling me from the canoe, as his smaller brethren, all snapping teeth and flailing fins, tore chunks of flesh from my bones. I resolved that the first Spanish phrase I must learn would be, “For fuck’s sake shut up, Egdar.”
Half an hour into the journey the river suddenly widened again and there, on the bank about 200 yards away, was some kind of military checkpoint. Two soldiers wearing Army fatigues, crouched over a heavy machine gun. “Don’t let the soldiers see the cameras”, shouted Edgar, in a determined attempt at a whisper. “If they think we’re journalists they might turn us back or confiscate the cameras.”
You would have thought that, with so little else to occupy them, the soldiers would have taken the opportunity to at least search the boat and question us about where we were going. For, if Europeans were scarce in the jungle towns of Colombia, you could bet your life they were virtually non-existent on the rivers. But not at all. Without even standing up they glanced down into the boat, checking, I guess, that we weren’t carrying weapons. Then they waved us on.
On the bank, perhaps 50 yards past the check-point, was the wreckage of a crashed plane. It was a small, two-seater job that looked relatively intact, except for the tail-section, that had broken off and was lying separate from the rest. Edgar said that it was probably a narco-traffickers plane that had been forced down. Soldiers or no soldiers, I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to photograph the first interesting thing we had so far come across. Shielding the camera with my body, I took several surreptitious snaps of the downed plane.
The next three and a half hours seemed to pass exceedingly slowly. Occasionally a straw hut would break the unchanging backdrop of the wall of vegetation. From time to time a native fisherman would stare at us as we sped by. The monotony of the unchanging surroundings, the roar of the engine, the buffeting from the boat, the heat and the mosquitoes all combined to make an experience that was little better than purgatory. The only moments of interest were when the river narrowed to such an extent and the shallows became so difficult to pass that the boatman and his assistant both got out of the boat and, waist deep in the opaque water, guided us through by hand. My thoughts firmly with the crocs and the pirhanas, I wondered out loud if the time would come when we too would have to do the same. I took little comfort from the fact that Edgar didn’t see fit to reply.
It was during one of these periods, when the boatmen were out of the boat and the outboard noise was just below the pain barrier, that Edgar decided to share one of his gems with us. He remarked that he had been kidnapped a total of five times by the various armed groups. Discussing it later, Dan and I were of the considered opinion that he had left it rather late to tell us and, seeing as he had left it so very late, why did he bother to tell us at all?
Eventually the river widened out again and a there before us was El Baigre, our destination. You could barely call it a village, just a collection of wood and straw huts clustered along the river bank. As Edgar had explained to us, it was a point controlled by FARC. It was one of them who would direct us to the ‘cocina’ or coke kitchen. They didn’t call them farms or factories.
We made our way up the bank and Edgar introduced us to Comandante Alphonso, who was the senior FARC guerilla in charge. Alphonso was a very laid back black guy. He said he would phone HQ and find out what had been arranged for us. Still in a very laid back manner, he cautioned us that if we were spies we would be shot.
Minutes later he told us that a FARC boat was on its way to take us on the next leg of the journey, as there were no ‘cocinas’ in the immediate area. I settled down in the shade to wait, all the while observing daily life in El Baigre.
The sun was exceedingly hot and the humidity made breathing difficult at times. So all activities were conducted at a very leisurely pace. There were about 30 villagers in all and amongst them I saw two more guerillas patrolling slowly between the huts. Alphonso told us that the Paramilitaries had attacked El Baigre two weeks previously. A FARC guerilla had been killed and ten villagers massacred, whilst the Paramilitaries had lost ten of their own. It seemed hard to believe in a place that looked so idyllic.
From time to time, boats stopped at the bottom of the bank. One of the guerillas would walk down and check the cargo, money would exchange hands and then the boat would be on its way again. Mostly they were carrying clearly visible drums of gasoline and bags of cement. Other cargoes were hidden under covers. Edgar explained that it was all connected with the coke trade. The gasoline and cement were used in the production process and the hidden cargoes were the finished product. All cargoes were taxed by FARC before being allowed to go on their way.
Occasionally other people arrived and came to sit around a hut that served drinks and snacks. Their city-smart shirts and slacks made them stand out quite clearly from the villagers. Danny was quite an authority on the coke trade himself. He pointed out two well-dressed, serious-looking guys sitting together by the snacks hut. “They’re both from Cali”, he said. He pointed at two other, similar guys sitting a short distance away, “And they’re from Medellin. That’s something you wouldn’t have seen a couple of years ago. They’d have killed each other on sight. But the big cartels have been broken up and there are hundreds of smaller cartels and people have learned to cooperate.”
Dan went on to explain that these guys were here to buy the coca base produced in the ‘cocinas’. They would pay about £600 a kilo for it. Back in their home cities they would process the base into its crystalline form and its price would increase to about £1,200 a kilo. Quite amazingly though, they wouldn’t take so much as one gram back with them. The actual bags of coke they bought and paid for at El Baigre would be exactly the same ones delivered to them by FARC in their home cities!
All of a sudden the soporific effect of the heat was causing my eyelids to droop and I felt an irresistible urge to sleep. I found an empty hut that must have been used as a store and fell asleep immediately. When I awoke a couple of hours later, Danny was standing outside, “’Ere come and have a look at this, Norm”, he urged. “See what you’ve been sleeping next to.”
I stumbled outside, blinking in the bright sunlight. The hut I had been sleeping in was divided in half by a wall. Danny was pointing to the inside of this other half. Stacked against the wall was about three dozen clear polythene bags containing large, off-white granules “You’ve been sleeping right next to 40 kilos of coca base, Norm.”
If nothing else, it was an excellent photo opportunity. I fetched a clean ‘Front’ t-shirt from my bag and put it on. It was a black t-shirt, with ‘Front’ printed on the front of it in big yellow letters. Then, holding several kilo bags of coke in my arms, but with the word ‘Front’ clearly visible, I got Danny to take a dozen or so photos. I guessed that these photos alone would be worth the trip to the boys back at the magazine.
For a while I sat watching some women of the village washing clothes in the river down by the bank where we had landed. Due to the heat I had been going through clean socks at an alarming rate. It caused some amusement amongst the women when I joined them to wash some socks out in the river water. I reasoned that, in the heat, they would be dried out before we went on our way.
Ever mindful of Edgar’s crocs, alligators and piranha, I was paying more attention to what was going on in the nearby waters than I was to the actual washing of the socks. I only relaxed as I was hanging them on a line stretched between two huts. Suddenly there was a loud explosion. I cringed and ducked with everyone else. All eyes turned to focus on a young, city-dressed guy standing next to a group of playing children. A pistol was lying on the ground between his feet. Clearly, it had dropped from his belt and accidentally gone off. I watched as the nearest guerilla walked across and roundly chastised him.
Almost immediately there was a flurry of activity down by the river bank. A canoe pulled up carrying four heavily armed guerillas in jungle fatigues. They trudged up the bank, the bright sunlight glancing off the machine guns and bandoleros of bullets they were carrying.
Two things surprised me. Firstly, they were ELN guerillas. ELN were supposed to be fighting with FARC at our original destination, yet here they were comrades and friends. Secondly they were all so very young. They were also very friendly. Edgar did the introductions. Ernesto, their leader, was still only 20 and had been training to become a doctor before he had joined the guerillas. I asked him, through Danny, why he had joined. “When you see the Paramilitaries come to your town and massacre people, you know it could be your turn next. It is only common sense to fight”, he said with passion.
Although friendly too, Elena said little. She was barely seventeen and clearly quite shy, but there was something more. It was as if she had retreated from the world. When we got Ernesto on his own he told us that her whole family had been massacred by the ‘death squads’. That was why she had joined ELN. He added that she was a fearless fighter and offered the opinion that it was very sad, because it seemed that she was searching for death.
By now Danny, in his own inimitable way, was on excellent terms with all of them. He had Ernesto laughing heartily and even Elena was smiling. Next thing, he had their M16s and Kalashnikovs off them and he and I were holding them over our ‘Front’ t-shirts for another set of photos. When they asked what we were doing here, Danny told them about our mission to find a ‘cocina’. Ernesto said that if we couldn’t do it through FARC, we should come to their base at a nearby lagoon in the morning and they would try to help us. I got Danny to take full details of exactly how to get there. I wanted to give myself other options, because I was becoming worried now by the lack of results at our current location.
It was as they were leaving that I suddenly realized that the boatman who had brought us to El Baigre was nowhere to be seen, neither was his boat. Edgar said that I shouldn’t worry, because his job was only to bring us here. River travel was the only way to get about here and it would be the easiest thing in the world to get another boatman to take us where we wanted to go.
Then the senior FARC Comandante everyone was waiting for arrived. He was a serious-looking, no nonsense sort of guy in his forties, wearing the regulation jungle fatigue and the equally regulation heavy, black moustache. He moved about with an air of authority, as if he was used to being obeyed. The pace of the three local FARC guys quickened visibly, as they hurried about to his barked orders.
Even with Edgar’s influence, the best we could achieve was a place at the back of the queue behind the guys from Cali and Medellin. Quite clearly, the important business of the day was coke business. I watched as local growers and vendors brought their bags of coca base out for the inspection of the city guys. Quality was discussed and price negotiated. Money was handed over and delivery details given for where the coke should be delivered to. All the while, the senior FARC Comandante supervised proceedings.
With our turn came our latest and biggest disappointment. We found out that the only reason the Comandante had come to El Baigre was to do the coke business. He said that there were too many things going on in the area for him or FARC to accommodate our wish to see a ‘cocina’. And he said it in a manner that brooked no argument. Almost before we knew it, he was back in his canoe and speeding away up the river.
So what did I do now? I looked at Edgar enquiringly and his gaze could hardly hold mine. The reality was that I was deep in the Colombian jungle and I was no closer to finding a ‘cocina’. Edgar suggested that we go to see Ernesto at the ELN base in the morning. “What’s the matter with now?”, I demanded aggressively, the prospect of failure looming like a spectre before my eyes.
“It’s almost 6pm and FARC shut the river at six”, said Edgar sheepishly.
“What?”, I barked.
“It’s a curfew, Norm”, added Danny. “After 6pm nothing moves on the river and anything that does gets shot at by FARC.”
Well that was straightforward enough. Whatever our next moves were going to be, the sure thing was that we were going to spend the night at El Baigre.
There was no such thing as a hotel, of course, just a wooden hut partitioned off into absolutely basic rooms. Luckily for us there was one room left. Unluckily for Jorge and Edgar it only had two beds. To be honest I would have tossed a coin to see who slept where, but Edgar, overcome with guilt no doubt, volunteered to sleep in the cane chairs near the café. At the same time he volunteered for Jorge too.
When I saw the room I realized that he hadn’t made much of a sacrifice. I don’t know what impressed me the least, the two hammocks slung between the rough wood walls, the open gaps for windows or the bare earth floor. Before leaving us for the night, Edgar just couldn’t resist imparting one last gem of wisdom. “Make sure you sleep with your shoes in the hammock with you, under the mosquito netting”, he called out. “Otherwise poisonous scorpions, snakes and spiders could get in them in the night and sting you when you go to put them on in the morning.”
I knew I was going to have difficulty falling asleep. I was roasting in the heat, suffocating in the humidity and my right arm was on fire from a dozen mosquito bites. Now, as I swung perilously in the unstable hammock, a sweaty trainer nestling snugly under each arm, all I could think of was the big, bristly tarantula, poised at this very second to launch itself upwards and bite my unprotected bum through the hammock canvas. I briefly toyed with the idea of waking Dan up and asking him how high the Colombian spiders could jump, but I knew he wouldn’t thank me for it.
I must have laid there for a couple of hours, listening to the sounds of the jungle. The myriad rustlings, chirpings, buzzings, hissings, slitherings, croakings, hummings, screechings, growlings and Danny’s snoring acted as a backdrop to the sudden sharp death cries, as nature’s creatures fell upon each other in an orgy of mass slaughter.
Just as I was finally dropping off from sheer exhaustion, there was a piercing shriek ending in a throaty gurgling, that brought me fully awake and nearly pitched me out of the hammock I heard Dan stir and I called out in a breathy whisper, “Dan, what the fuck was that?”
There was silence for a couple of seconds, over which I could hear the continuing gurgling. “Sounds like someone slaughtered a pig”, said Dan and, with a grunt, turned over and fell asleep again. I lay there wondering what sort of idiot slaughtered a pig in the middle of the night.
I wasn’t in the best of moods in the morning. I had just spent the most uncomfortable night of my life and I had awoken to find that toilet arrangements were basic in the extreme. Residents took turns to fill a bucket from a large vat of river water, then wash in the bucket. I improvised slightly by filling several bucket with the relatively cool water and tipping them over my head. Bliss, utter bliss. But only for about half an hour, when the cycle of sweating and overheating began again.
We ate breakfast at the café, then the four of us trudged back down the bank to where another boatmen was waiting with his motorized canoe. The ELN base was located at a nearby lagoon called San Lorenzo. We sped along narrow rivers that were little more than streams, turning sharply round tight bends and sending our frothy, white wake crashing into the reedy banks.
I had promised Marsha I would phone her every day. I knew that a little detail like being in the middle of a tropical rain-forest would carry little or no weight with her should I not do so. There had been no phone at El Baigre, so I told Danny to ask the boatman to stop if there was a place with a phone.
The canoe slowed as we suddenly came to a junction where four small rivers met. The boatman pointed to the bank and spoke to Danny. “He said that there’s a small village over there called ‘Four Mouths’ and it’s got a phone”, said Dan in a tone that sounded not at all pleased.
“So let’s pull over for a minute”, I replied, puzzled. This was good news. In a few minutes I would be talking to my dearly beloved and getting myself off the hook for another day.
“It aint that easy, Norm”, Dan’s tone was still grim. “The boatman says that the ‘head-cutters’ have been active in this area recently and they may have attacked this village.”
I digested the information and conjured up two images. One was of a death-squad comprising bloodthirsty cut-throats: the other was of an irate Marsha. It was no contest really. “Fuck ‘em, Dan. I’ve got to phone Marsha so let’s put ashore, eh.”
There was a large hut situated right on the shore line, so we coasted in close by. Behind it, through the trees, could be seen similar huts with a narrow, earth road between them. All was deathly quiet and it seemed as if no one was about.
It was only at the last moment that we noticed the painted slogan daubed on the side of the hut in large, white letters. Danny translated, but I already knew that the letters A.U.C. stood for ‘Autodefensas de Colombia’, the preferred name of the Paramiliary death squads. So we now knew for sure that they had been here. The burning question was, were they still about?
to be continued in part 4