With a folding knife in my pocket, I set out to search the dark, rutted streets of southern Bogota. I was in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of one of the most dangerous cities of the world. And, of course, I was half drunk and fueled on false bravado.
Even though I had just successfully fought off an armed attacker and turned the tables on him – at least for a while – I felt I still had something to prove to myself. Looking back, I can laugh at how pathetic it was. But, at the time, it was deadly serious, and potentially fatal.
I spotted a figure coming down the other side of the street. He was just a shadow as few of the streetlamps worked. Even in the darkness, my clothing and my gait marked me as a foreigner. He crossed the street and headed straight toward me.
At perhaps 20 meters away, I could make him out clearly. He wasn’t one of my muggers. But he did have the same drug addled, desperate look. No doubt, under the right circumstances, he would try to mug me too. The right circumstances being, of course, if he ever found me alone in a dark area of southernBogota.
I reached into my pocket, unfolded my knife, and picked up my pace toward him.
He slowed, stopped, and then made a beeline across the street.
I was obviously even a madman in silhouette.
I visited the bar the thieves were supposed to frequent, and then another, and another, until I decided my attackers were probably stoned on my money and passed out somewhere.
Then I talked to the two policemen I found on the corner, giving them the descriptions of my attackers and telling them I was out searching for them. They laughed but said they would help.
Earlier that night, not far from my neighborhood, drug dealers had bombed a police bus, killing 16 officers. The police that night, like many others, were out for blood.
The two cops hatched a plan that would best work with the cooperation of a half-crazy North American. They would take me to the most dangerous bars in the neighborhood. I would walk in, make my presence known, and walk out, hoping I would get attacked outside, where the police were hidden.
We struck out in bar after bar. Perhaps it was the way I looked at my potential attackers – as prey rather than predators. Or perhaps it was the general climate of police rage that was hitting the streets that night.
By dawn, we gave up, and I went to work. The adrenalin had long since faded into a self-conscious giddiness. By the time I sobered up and was out of any danger, I felt more foolish than I had ever felt in my life – at least until then. I no longer saw myself as the adventurer who braves the wilds of the world’s most dangerous places to tell its tales in moving color. I realized I might be the idiot who gets bumped off early in the movie – maybe even as comic relief.
At work, Jhon called and told me he wanted more guarantees from the DEA before he would agree to leave Bogota and meet them in a safe house. If he left for a day, his absence would certainly be noticed by the police who were supposed to be watching over him.
He left me with a plea.
“Please make them understand,” he said. “The trial is ending and I could be killed any time. They have to hurry up.”
I never again heard from Jhon. He never called to collect his diary or to bargain or plead again. I imagine he was killed, like he said he would be. In Colombia in the middle of the drug wars, it was all too common.
Playboy Magazine, which had agree to pay $10,000 if I delivered on the story, instead paid me an ironically named “kill fee” – the payment a writer receives when, through no fault of his own, the story doesn’t work out.
Growing tired of covering only the drug war, I used the kill fee to buy a one-way ticket to the heart of the Amazon, on the border of Colombia and Brazil. I would return to the country of my dreams – the mulattas, the samba, Copacabana. My plan was to travel by boat down the Amazon and by bus south to Rio de Janeiro.
I had saved up to buy a Lonely Planet’s guide to Brazil and, for months, I wore out its pages dreaming.
When I had set out for adventure with a one-way ticket to El Salvador 2.5 years earlier, I never really thought about how long I would be out of Canada. Perhaps six months, maybe a year. While packing my backpack to leave Colombia – my home for the past 10 months – I realized I was growing weary of that instability.
Brazil just may be a place for me to settle down.
{ Comments are closed! }