Nick Curry

! The reason for shortening my stay in Medellin was to meet up with my friend Zulma in Bogota, with whom I had studied for my MA in London. Her extensive lauding of Colombia’ many virtues is one of the reasons I had planned on visiting it despite its reputation, and her advice had definitely been appreciated. We first headed off to Leticia, in the colombian rainforest and on the border with Peru and Brazil. A friend from the Lost City had given us the contact details of the head of the local Huitoto indian community, organising tours off the beaten track, with whom we managed to meet after a few interesting diversion including a 2 hour wait in a dentists’ salon and a taxi driver with the voice and appearance of Tom Waits. Overall we spent 2.5 days We also went for a quick boat trip up the Amazon, which featured feeding monkeys in Monkey Island, spotting freshwater dolphins, meeting Kappax, the colombian face of the Amazon whose portrait decorates Leticia´s airport, and swimming in the Amazon itself. One thing is for sure, the rainforest does inspire respect- although the guides insisted they were following the path, I certainly couldn’t make it out, and one really had the feeling that losing them would mean a slow and horrible death through hunger, madness, or snake bite.