Nighttime Adventure to the Colombian Mines
/**This is the first of two blog posts focused on specific parts of my recent trip to Colombia**
Getting hired to simultaneously travel and make movies is a job I couldn’t have dreamed I’d land within 6 months of graduation. Alas, thanks to Peter Henry and Market Square Jewelers, I found myself in Bogota this last week following around Lonnie McCullough as he collected emeralds to be turned into beautiful jewelry.
For majority of the trip, I filmed Lonnie as he sought out the best emeralds with sellers in Bogota. “Limpio” was the key word: clean emeralds without any noticeable blemishes. You’d be surprised how few he even considered, let alone purchased, amongst the thousands offered for sale. But within 24 hours of arriving, we had another adventure to attend to.
At 9pm on Monday night Lonnie and I were picked up at our hotel in Bogota for an overnight tour of the mines, a trip we had only made arrangements for that afternoon. Jairo and Orlando would be our guides. Essentially I found myself among 3 people I had recently met (Lonnie and I met the day before in the Houston airport), 2 of whom only spoke Spanish, driving in a Jeep to an unknown destination. For the first hour, still within the city limits, I had my first opportunity ever to actually utilize the Spanish I spent years in classrooms practicing. By 10pm, the roads we took changed drastically. The road into the mountains wasn’t made of pavement or even dirt: it was made of rock, and essentially felt like climbing uphill in a Jeep going full speed. I felt every single bump as we were jostled about only being held in place by a seat belt. Sleeping wasn’t even close to an option and the noise made conversation impossible. At first, there was plenty to look at in the light of the headlights, primarily farms and animals of all kinds (dogs, chickens, horses) hanging out alongside the road. As we got further into the mountains, this diminished.
By 11:30pm, the roads were almost entirely trees on either side. I can’t remember the last time I was this car sick. . After an hour of this the feeling crept from my stomach to my head. “Two and a half hours, certainly it couldn’t be too much longer,” was the only thought I had as my body reached delirium.
We reached a town. This is it! It wasn’t it. The mountain roads continued. At some point we took a wrong turn – there was no distinguishing these mountain roads at night, and after reaching a dead end, retraced our tracks and kept the same pace and the same level of bumpiness. Surely it couldn’t be much longer? I turned to Lonnie who similarly had no idea how far we had to go. At one point around a bend, Orlando showed the first signs of slowing the relentless pace. Almost there? He spoke quickly in Spanish so I couldn’t hear what he said. I asked Lonnie what he said: “He said that a month ago someone was shot right there.”
At 12:30am the car stopped and Orlando got out to pee. The break was more than welcome as I thought I was going to burst. As he got back in the car Lonnie leaned forward and asked how much longer we had to go. “Dos mas horas.”
I laughed in disbelief. We were scarcely halfway through the madness. Yet somehow, in knowing the amount of time that remained on this wild journey through the night, all of my symptoms slipped away. I was no longer anticipating being “done” with the trip, I was now fully aware of how much lay ahead. And the journey was a mix of agony and humor. It was now an opportunity for my brain to run free with no expectation other than to endure. I could think about anything I wanted. I thought about people I cared about, future travel ideas, as well as more trivial manners. In such a turbulent ride it was impossible to be bored. But there is not much better of a place to let the mind wander than in the back of a Jeep in a foreign country.
The two hour mark from when we had stopped came and went. I didn’t mind. Knowing this journey would be so long made it more palatable. Shortly after 3am, we turned off the road and somehow found ourselves at our stopping point. From sitting in the backseat, I have no idea how the driver was able to distinguish any landmarks on this road at night, but we made it!
We’d be spending the night on a farm where I local politician lived. She had extra bedrooms in her house presumably for migrant miners to rent out. This was the type of place travel junkies seek out: far off the beaten path and among the company of locals. It was quick to bed with an early morning ahead of us.
The following day we started in Muzo and made our way through the mountains to visit 3 mines. We had anticipated seeing more industrial scale mining operations, but all of the places we went were much more small scale projects. The only point of access was on these same types of insanely bumpy roads, yet during the day it wasn’t particularly bothersome because of the spectacular view and being divided up by occasional stops.
Overall, this adventure not only would make for a great story and a great feature of the documentary, but allowed me to see Colombia beyond the city and witness the spectacular countryside. More will be shared on this experience. For my next blog post, I’ll be focusing specifically on my experience in Bogota, and my experience there.
