By Patrick J Heneghan
In the late 1950s, when I was living in Phibsboro on the north side of Dublin City, I regularly attended social gatherings with a group of Spanish students who came regularly to a neighbouring house to ‘hang out’ during the late evenings. One of the group was a young clergyman, already ordained priest, Father Luis Villabona. He was in fact a houseguest where the gathering took place. He likewise was studying English, and I agreed to give him lessons in English, and he in return gave me lessons in Spanish. He went home eventually to Colombia, his homeland, to take up parish duties. We started to correspond, he writing to me in Spanish and I to him in English. His work afterwards occasionally took him to Rome on church-related business, and he rarely returned to Colombia without making a detour to Ireland, to renew acquaintances and to practise his English.
Eventually I received an invitation from my friend to visit Colombia. I initially demurred because Colombia had, and still has, a reputation for being one of the most dangerous countries for tourists in the Western World. A powerful guerrilla group labelled the FARC had for years been engaged in war with the Colombian government. FARC had taken over many of the remote and sparsely-populated parts of the country, financing its political and military battles by kidnapping, extortion and participating in the drug trade at various levels.
I consulted with my wife, who said I was mentally deranged, and that she herself would not go to Colombia for a million dollars. I said I would make a deal with my friend to visit him on three conditions: Firstly, I wanted, like the explorer Cortés, to view the Pacific Ocean from a mountain peak in Darien; secondly, I must take a swim in the warm waters of the Caribbean Ocean; and finally I wanted to go to Leticia, a town from where I could stand on the bank of the River Amazon. Fr. Luis accepted my conditions!
When I went to arrange my passage, the tourist agent said he would sell me a return ticket to Colombia, but that I was the first person for years who came to him wanting to waste his travel money. Nobody returns from Colombia, he said, except maybe an odd missionary.
I have to say that I spent three glorious weeks in Colombia, but my guest, Fr. Luis, who met me in Bogotá, fell a bit short with his end of the bargain.
He first brought me up to a peak on one of the three mountain ranges closest to Bogotá. By the time I had reached the top of the 4,000 metres high peak, a trip achieved by means of a funicular railway, the air had become so thin I could scarcely breathe. On return to base I said I was not overly impressed with the height of the mountain, since some of our own mountains at home seemed just as high. Fr Luis explained that Bogotá from where we started was already 3,000 metres over sea level! Then how about seeing the Pacific? He said that there were two other mountain ranges – cordilleras he called them ¬¬- between Bogotá and the Pacific coast. To my question about Cortés who, I had read, saw the Pacific from a peak in Darien, this area, my friend explained, was in Panama, not Colombia. Cortés had never been in Colombia. Balboa was the one who discovered Colombia. Poets, I discovered - Keats in this case – sometimes take poetic licence, as when he wrote ‘On first looking into Chapman’s Homer’. Check it out!
Next in my itinerary was my swim in the Caribbean Ocean. No problem! Fr Luis first drove me northwards from Bogotá to the Atlantic coast by way of Bucaramanga, where I met Beatriz Turbay, a young lady who had earlier stayed with us in Dublin for a year when she was studying English. Beatriz’s extended family included a former President of Colombia, Julio Turbay, and Paola Turbay, a former Beauty Queen of Colombia and TV presenter. Beatriz brought me in her car around to see the sights of her beautiful city, but first she had to get permission from her father to be allowed out in the family car without the family’s fully-armed guard tailing us from behind. No untoward incident occurred and after an overnight stay in Bucaramanga, following the course of the great Magdalena river we went on to Santa Marta, our only diversion being to visit a pineapple plantation half way along the journey. Going westwards on reaching the Caribbean coast we travelled through an area which was the fictional territory that inspired Colombian Gabriel Marquéz when writing his novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. Finally we reached Barranquilla, home of Mayra Peréz, another of our former student guests in Dublin.
On arrival we were royally wined and dined and on the following day we had a picnic with Mayra, her husband and her three children during which I had my long-awaited swim in the Caribbean. The skies were blue, the heat was the usual 35 degrees and the swim was perfect, so much so that I would never again be tempted to swim from an Irish beach.
Now came up for discussion the arrangements for my trip to Leticia on the banks of the Amazon. We had to consult with Mayra’s uncle about this. He had been a doctor in the service with the United Nations medical arm. His first question was whether I had taken all the necessary injections for the journey to Leticia. What injections, I asked, with some surprise. I was certainly taking my quinine tablets against malaria. But, he asked, what about yellow fever and tetanus? .... hepatitis, typhoid...? Hold on there, Doctor, I interjected, how long is the list? Just a few more items, he said, but the odds on your catching any of them are quite low. Without going any further, my enthusiasm for going to Leticia evaporated. Mayra settled the matter for me, telling me that in Leticia illegal drug trafficking had become a new way to make money, and narcotic drugs were bought and sold there in broad daylight. She consoled me by offering to ask her brother to take me out to a local desert, where I could see interesting wild life, cacti and other plants. On the following morning her brother turned up in his car and took me several miles westward. Our first incident on entering the desert was to see a tortoise, which was crossing the road in a leisurely style. We put the tortoise in a box on the back seat of the car, from where it was to be installed in Mayra’s back garden and to be called Paddy in my honour. Cacti and other plants abounded, on some of which - including the cacti – grew delicious fruit.
I was destined afterwards to return to Colombia four more times, and I left behind so many new friends that subsequently our home in Dublin became almost an unofficial Colombian Embassy. Further adventures in Colombia will be recounted elsewhere.
If it is any comfort to those intending to visit Colombia, I can say that having abandoned my proposed visit to Leticia I never even saw a mosquito in Colombia, much less did I ever get a bite! I am not saying that there are no mosquitoes in Colombia, but not in areas I visited. Your best protection in Colombia is to have good friends there, follow what they say and don’t go to places which they say are dangerous. They will quickly tell you where the ‘mossies’ can be found!
In the late 1950s, when I was living in Phibsboro on the north side of Dublin City, I regularly attended social gatherings with a group of Spanish students who came regularly to a neighbouring house to ‘hang out’ during the late evenings. One of the group was a young clergyman, already ordained priest, Father Luis Villabona. He was in fact a houseguest where the gathering took place. He likewise was studying English, and I agreed to give him lessons in English, and he in return gave me lessons in Spanish. He went home eventually to Colombia, his homeland, to take up parish duties. We started to correspond, he writing to me in Spanish and I to him in English. His work afterwards occasionally took him to Rome on church-related business, and he rarely returned to Colombia without making a detour to Ireland, to renew acquaintances and to practise his English.
Eventually I received an invitation from my friend to visit Colombia. I initially demurred because Colombia had, and still has, a reputation for being one of the most dangerous countries for tourists in the Western World. A powerful guerrilla group labelled the FARC had for years been engaged in war with the Colombian government. FARC had taken over many of the remote and sparsely-populated parts of the country, financing its political and military battles by kidnapping, extortion and participating in the drug trade at various levels.
I consulted with my wife, who said I was mentally deranged, and that she herself would not go to Colombia for a million dollars. I said I would make a deal with my friend to visit him on three conditions: Firstly, I wanted, like the explorer Cortés, to view the Pacific Ocean from a mountain peak in Darien; secondly, I must take a swim in the warm waters of the Caribbean Ocean; and finally I wanted to go to Leticia, a town from where I could stand on the bank of the River Amazon. Fr. Luis accepted my conditions!
When I went to arrange my passage, the tourist agent said he would sell me a return ticket to Colombia, but that I was the first person for years who came to him wanting to waste his travel money. Nobody returns from Colombia, he said, except maybe an odd missionary.
I have to say that I spent three glorious weeks in Colombia, but my guest, Fr. Luis, who met me in Bogotá, fell a bit short with his end of the bargain.
He first brought me up to a peak on one of the three mountain ranges closest to Bogotá. By the time I had reached the top of the 4,000 metres high peak, a trip achieved by means of a funicular railway, the air had become so thin I could scarcely breathe. On return to base I said I was not overly impressed with the height of the mountain, since some of our own mountains at home seemed just as high. Fr Luis explained that Bogotá from where we started was already 3,000 metres over sea level! Then how about seeing the Pacific? He said that there were two other mountain ranges – cordilleras he called them ¬¬- between Bogotá and the Pacific coast. To my question about Cortés who, I had read, saw the Pacific from a peak in Darien, this area, my friend explained, was in Panama, not Colombia. Cortés had never been in Colombia. Balboa was the one who discovered Colombia. Poets, I discovered - Keats in this case – sometimes take poetic licence, as when he wrote ‘On first looking into Chapman’s Homer’. Check it out!
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| When you’re already 3,000 metres up, another 1,000 metres will finish the climb! |
Next in my itinerary was my swim in the Caribbean Ocean. No problem! Fr Luis first drove me northwards from Bogotá to the Atlantic coast by way of Bucaramanga, where I met Beatriz Turbay, a young lady who had earlier stayed with us in Dublin for a year when she was studying English. Beatriz’s extended family included a former President of Colombia, Julio Turbay, and Paola Turbay, a former Beauty Queen of Colombia and TV presenter. Beatriz brought me in her car around to see the sights of her beautiful city, but first she had to get permission from her father to be allowed out in the family car without the family’s fully-armed guard tailing us from behind. No untoward incident occurred and after an overnight stay in Bucaramanga, following the course of the great Magdalena river we went on to Santa Marta, our only diversion being to visit a pineapple plantation half way along the journey. Going westwards on reaching the Caribbean coast we travelled through an area which was the fictional territory that inspired Colombian Gabriel Marquéz when writing his novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. Finally we reached Barranquilla, home of Mayra Peréz, another of our former student guests in Dublin.
On arrival we were royally wined and dined and on the following day we had a picnic with Mayra, her husband and her three children during which I had my long-awaited swim in the Caribbean. The skies were blue, the heat was the usual 35 degrees and the swim was perfect, so much so that I would never again be tempted to swim from an Irish beach.
Now came up for discussion the arrangements for my trip to Leticia on the banks of the Amazon. We had to consult with Mayra’s uncle about this. He had been a doctor in the service with the United Nations medical arm. His first question was whether I had taken all the necessary injections for the journey to Leticia. What injections, I asked, with some surprise. I was certainly taking my quinine tablets against malaria. But, he asked, what about yellow fever and tetanus? .... hepatitis, typhoid...? Hold on there, Doctor, I interjected, how long is the list? Just a few more items, he said, but the odds on your catching any of them are quite low. Without going any further, my enthusiasm for going to Leticia evaporated. Mayra settled the matter for me, telling me that in Leticia illegal drug trafficking had become a new way to make money, and narcotic drugs were bought and sold there in broad daylight. She consoled me by offering to ask her brother to take me out to a local desert, where I could see interesting wild life, cacti and other plants. On the following morning her brother turned up in his car and took me several miles westward. Our first incident on entering the desert was to see a tortoise, which was crossing the road in a leisurely style. We put the tortoise in a box on the back seat of the car, from where it was to be installed in Mayra’s back garden and to be called Paddy in my honour. Cacti and other plants abounded, on some of which - including the cacti – grew delicious fruit.
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| Colombia is richly endowed in flora and fauna. |
I was destined afterwards to return to Colombia four more times, and I left behind so many new friends that subsequently our home in Dublin became almost an unofficial Colombian Embassy. Further adventures in Colombia will be recounted elsewhere.
If it is any comfort to those intending to visit Colombia, I can say that having abandoned my proposed visit to Leticia I never even saw a mosquito in Colombia, much less did I ever get a bite! I am not saying that there are no mosquitoes in Colombia, but not in areas I visited. Your best protection in Colombia is to have good friends there, follow what they say and don’t go to places which they say are dangerous. They will quickly tell you where the ‘mossies’ can be found!
