Destination: Colombia
Is Colombia the New New Zealand?
by Eva Holland | 10.16.07 | 2:11 PM ET
We’ve been tracking Colombia’s rise from narcotics netherworld to “hipster tropical destination du jour” for some time now, and it looks like an upcoming potential blockbuster movie could help complete the transition. “Love in the Time of Cholera,” based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, hits North American theaters in November. Last week Jaunted predicted an accompanying movie-tourism explosion. Amandak writes: “If you haven’t read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s fantastic book Love in the Time of Cholera you should, now. It’s about to become for Colombia what Lord of the Rings was for New Zealand: a major tourism generator. The nice part is that Garcia Marquez really did set his book in Colombia, whereas the whole Lord of the Rings thing was kind of a scam, really.”
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Yahoo! BuzzNotes From a Month in Colombia
by Jim Benning | 08.31.07 | 12:46 PM ET
World Hum contributor Emily Maloney writes about a visit to Colombia’s Lost City, not to mention a cocaine paste factory, in The Smart Set this week. She even takes a gander at the jacket drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was wearing when he was shot. Good times.
Related on World Hum:
* Drexel University Launches ‘The Smart Set’
Medellín, Colombia Gets Thumbs Up From Gray Lady
by Michael Yessis | 08.15.07 | 11:24 AM ET
In the ongoing debate over whether its safe to travel to Colombia, the New York Times has weighed in with a yes, at least for the city of Medellín. “[I]n the last decade, this city of two million, with its beautiful colonial architecture and year-round spring-like weather, has awakened from its drug nightmare,” writes Grace Bastidas. “Mr. [Pablo] Escobar and his minions are gone and the cocaine trade has been largely dispersed. Bullet-riddled neighborhoods are coming to life with art museums and well-designed parks. And the constant rumble of construction—new shopping malls, flashy casinos and luxury hotels—can be heard throughout the city.”
UNESCO Adds Three Sites to Danger List, Names Next World Book Capital
by Michael Yessis | 07.10.07 | 11:14 AM ET
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has had a busy few weeks. Not only was it busy issuing a press release claiming no affiliation with the new seven wonders, during meetings in Christchurch, New Zealand, the group added the Galapagos and their surrounding marine reserve; Samarra, Iraq; and Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park to its list of endangered World Heritage sites. Two more sites—the Royal Palaces of Abomey, Benin and Kathmandu Valley, Nepal—were removed from the Danger List.
Aracataca, Colombia: It’s ‘Latin America All Wrapped Up In One Small Place’
by Michael Yessis | 06.01.07 | 5:13 PM ET
The impression of Aracataca, Colombia as a representation of the entirety of Latin America stems from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the man who 40 years ago thinly disguised his hometown and used it as a setting for his classic novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Marquez returned to Aracataca for the first time in 25 years the other day, an event noted by many news outlets, including NPR. Juan Forero covered the homecoming for ‘Morning Edition,’ and his audio postcard from Aracataca gives a great sense of the town and just how much the residents love and appreciate the man they call Gabo.
Trouble in Cartagena
by Jim Benning | 03.28.07 | 3:36 PM ET
Thanks to reports of dropping crime under President Alvaro Uribe, Colombia just might be the hipster tropical destination du jour. International visits to the country have risen by two-thirds since 2002. But according to an Associated Press report, those flocking to the celebrated colonial port city of Cartagena expecting to find a similarly shrinking crime rate are in for a surprise.
Colombia: Besieged By Narcoterrorists or Emerging Hot Destination?
by Michael Yessis | 02.14.07 | 11:40 AM ET
Colombia ranked No. 2 in the Happy Planet Index last year, which seems an impressive finish given the country’s well-known problems. Drug cartels and years of civil war have colored the world’s impression of Colombia, and though those dangers have begun to recede the U.S. State Department has kept its travel warning in place. So how should we characterize Colombia? Daniel Kurtz-Phelan ventured to Bogotá and Medellín for a piece in the March issue of Travel + Leisure, and he writes of a country in transition. “Throughout my visit,” he writes, “everyone from government officials and security experts to shopkeepers and demobilized rebels told me that Colombia is becoming ‘a normal country’—or, if not quite normal, at least one where violence no longer defines daily life but merely infringes on its margins.”
Santander Department, Colombia
by Ben Keene | 10.20.06 | 7:25 AM ET
Coordinates: 7 0 N 73 15 W
Area: 12,382 sq. mi. (32,069 sq. km)
With this year’s Nobel Prizes still in the headlines, the words of the 1937 winner in medicine, Albert von Szent-Györgyi, spring to mind. “Discovery,” he opined, “consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” If he was right, then the two scientists who ventured into deep into the jungle-covered slopes of the Yariguies range in Colombia’s east Andes should be commended for boldly going where no one had thought to before. Their commitment to documenting bird diversity led them to the Santander Department, an administrative region that is at once isolated from the rest of the country and yet roughly 100 miles from Medellín, Colombia’s second most populous city. News that Thomas Donegan and Blanca Huertas had discovered an unknown species of brush finch in Santander’s shrinking cloud forest was released this month.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Vanuatu Tops “Happy Planet Index”
by Michael Yessis | 07.14.06 | 11:42 AM ET
And the nations with the world’s largest economies finished down the 178-nation list. Way down. Germany ranked 81st, Japan 95th and the United States 150th. The New Economics Foundation, which bills itself as a “think-and-do tank,” says its inaugural Happy Planet Index “moves beyond crude ratings of nations according to national income, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” The new index, they say, produces “a more accurate picture of the progress of nations based on the amount of the Earth’s resources they use, and the length and happiness of people’s lives.” A BBC News story quotes Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, as saying that the index “was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life’s environmental impact.” Layard continues: “Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier.” So which countries besides the island nation of Vanuatu are happiest? Colombia and Costa Rica round out the top three. Burundi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe finished at the bottom.
The New Latin American Sensibility
by Jim Benning | 05.19.06 | 1:30 PM ET
The ever provocative Richard Rodriguez wrote an eloquent essay in today’s Los Angeles Times about all the immigration fuss these days, and about the changing character of the United States. Among the highlights: “A new Latin American sensibility is being born - here, in the U.S.! One of the things I’ve seen in the huge pro-immigrant demonstrations is not simply families walking together—the son walking with the father, the mother with her babies—but also Colombians walking alongside Mexicans, walking alongside Dominicans, walking alongside Guatemalans. These people are no longer members of their ethnic or national groups; they’re marching as some new nation of the ‘Hispanic’ world. That is quite revolutionary.”
When the Stone Age Will no Longer Do
by Jim Benning | 05.11.06 | 11:10 AM ET
Fascinating story in today’s New York Times about the roughly 80 people living Stone Age lives in Colombia who suddenly marched out of the jungle recently and declared their desire to live in the modern world. “The Nukak have no concept of money, of property, of the role of government, or even of the existence of a country called Colombia,” reports Juan Forero. “They ask whether the planes that fly overhead are moving on some sort of invisible road.”
Darién National Park
by Ben Keene | 03.03.06 | 12:46 PM ET
Coordinates: 7 36 N 77 57 W
Area: 2,305 square miles (5,970 sq. km)
Depending on your fondness for off-road driving, improvements to infrastructure in the past few years have made possible excruciatingly long road trips where intrepid motorists would once have been forced to find a detour. February 2004 saw the last stretch of the Chita-Khabarovsk Highway open in Russia, and later this year an upgrade to the road connecting China’s Yunnan province to Myanmar will be complete. In the Western Hemisphere, however, the Pan-American Highway ends abruptly in Yaviza, Panama, just outside Darién National Park. A World Heritage Site since 1981, Darién’s diverse range of virgin habitats occupies most of the Colombian frontier, forming a final fragile obstacle to an intercontinental thoroughfare begun nearly nine decades ago.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Air Marshal Fatally Shoots Man on Miami Jetway
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.05 | 5:04 PM ET
A federal air marshal today shot and killed a man who said he had a bomb in his carry-on luggage at Miami International Airport. According to a CNN report, the man, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, and a U.S. citizen, was reboarding an American Airlines flight after a stopover between Medellin, Colombia and Orlando. “The killing marks the first time a federal air marshal has fired a weapon at an individual since the program was bolstered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” CNN reports.
British Cyclist Completes Four-Year, ‘Round-the-World Trip
by Jim Benning | 11.30.05 | 12:35 PM ET
You have to admire Alastair Humphreys’ determination. He left England in 2001, explaining that he was “trundling along towards getting a job” and “just wanted to do something a bit more difficult and challenging.” So off he went on a ‘round-the-world trip by bicycle. He wanted to quit many times as he struggled with loneliness. But the 28-year-old endured, and earlier this month, having passed through Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa, he was in Paris and finally pedaling toward home, where he planned to write a book about the journey.
Visit Afghanistan: “Urban Attacks Are Infrequent”
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 1:12 PM ET
That’s but one of Robert Young Pelton’s “once dangerous, now safe (sort of)” travel recommendations for 2006. Pelton’s picks, published in National Geographic Adventure, also include Colombia (“Yes, I did get kidnapped in Colombia”) and Sabah, which he calls, curiously, “Borneo for grown-ups.” Ever cautious, Pelton suggests avoiding central Iraq, delicately noting that “People are hunting you.”