Colombia, Before and After Escobar

                                                                                       
                                                                               

The new Medellin  

Cartagena, Colombia,

April 19, 2025

Saturday

 

     Time was passing quickly. I started on this journey nearly ten days ago, on the 11^th of April, starting in Medellin, famed city of unwanted popular drug lore, or as people say, "Medellin, before and after Escobar. From Medellin, to smaller towns and coffee plantations, I’m ending in this old city, Cartagena, one of the first trading centers of merchandise and humans in the Americas.

     Yesterday, my traveling companions and I visited San Baslio de Palenque, founded in the early sixteen hundreds by rebellious runaway slaves who fought the Spaniards, faced executions and extermination, but fought hard, eventually, failing to surrender, won their freedom. Their descendants still reside in the town, the oldest settlement in the Americas founded and managed by former slaves, with its own rules and citizen police force. The people were kind, danced, played music, offered us a tasty lunch, and a curandero blessed the remainder of our trip.

     My friends and I had spent a couple of days in Santa Marta, the second oldest settlement in South America, where I learned, after reading through a short brochure, Simon Bolivar had died at a friend’s sugar plantation while waiting to be exiled to Europe. I was feeling a bit under the weather, decided to pass on a sailing trip with my friends, and made a pilgrimage to Bolivar’s death bed, instead, for me, a moving scene, and the sight of a beautiful memorial.

     Bolivar had attempted and accomplished military feats no one thought possible, crossing the Andes with his soldiers and animals, numerous times, to defeat his enemies and win independence for what he called El Gran Colombia, today the countries of Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, and Bolivia, which he hoped to unite, as one, under a strong central government, arguing, only then could Latin America match the power of Europe and the United States.

     It was now 5:15 P.M., I stepped out into the heat of Cartagena, a cool breeze blowing in off the Caribbean. My hotel was right behind the cathedral and a few blocks from the city’s ancient walls, much like the walled cities in Spain. I knew Gabriel Garcia Marquez had worked on a newspaper in Cartagena, in his youth, wrote, was branded a socialist, and fled to Mexico, none of it as easily or wholly accurate, I’m sure, as I just stated.

     I googled his name, wondering where he might have worked. The first point to appear was his love of Cartagena, which he chose as his final resting place, at the claustro de la merced in the University of Cartagena. I could have kicked myself for not checking earlier. I figured the university would either be closed now, for sure tomorrow, Easter Sunday, or it would be a long ride from my hotel. Such are the ways of the brain, but rather than surrender, I left no stone unturned.

     I turned to a man whose horse and carriage were parked a few feet from me. “Excuse me, do you know where the university of Cartagena is located? I’m looking for the claustro de la merced.” He looked at me as if I were joking. He leaned forward and pointed up the street. “Three blocks,” he said, “across from the wall.” It was now nearing 5:30. I knew it closed at 6:00, but would it even be open Easter eve? I thanked the man and quickly made the three blocks in a few minutes, the heat pushing in like a warm foam around me.

     It was an interesting gothic building, nothing spectacular, the usual spires and decorations around the doors and windows. A man in a uniform stood at the door. I asked if it was open. He said it was but only for another twenty-five minutes. He pointed to door leading to a bookstore. I entered and asked the entry fee. The young woman told me it was free. I entered the claustro, a lot like many monasteries and church yards I’d seen in Spain and Latin America, quiet, solemn place of meditation.

     In the center of the courtyard was a statue to Garcia Marquez and an engraving indicating it was both his and his wife, Mercedes Pardo’s final resting place, where they wished their ashes to remain. A large scroll covered the walls and told Garcia Maquez’s story, from his birth, his schooling, to his days as a young reporter, his first published literary works, up until his monster tome, One Hundred Years of Solitude, which changed his life.

     Truth be told, I wasn’t a big Gabo fan. I found him difficult to read, his books complex. It took me six months to get through One Hundred Years of Solitude, the English translation. I remember reading, feeling completely lost, literally. I had no idea what was going on, yet, I had to re-read each sentence and each paragraph, not for the difficulty but for the absolute beauty of the writing, even in English. In a book of his short stories, I came across "An Old Man with Enormous Wings," as much a sermon as a story, about an angel, a toothless old man with enormous wings, who drops to earth and is turned into a side show by the people, his owner keeping him in a chicken coup and charging the town a fee to see him, until one day he musters the strength to fly back to where he came.

     For some reason, I kept returning to Garcia Marquez's stories, a mixture of newspaper accounts blended with elements of fiction, going back to influences of William Faulkner, Camus, and Mexican Juan Rulfo, among other masters. I took a seat on a bench. I relaxed. My mind wandered. I’d read Marquez’s autobiography years ago. I considered some of his ideas about Colombia and the places he’d lived, loved, and experienced watching the destruction caused by the United Fruit Co. I’m not much for autobiographies. People tend to keep the juiciest parts of their lives to themselves, careful how much to reveal.

     I entered the bookstore and purchased a copy “No One Writes to the Colonel,” in Spanish. Sixty pages I can handle. It was closing time. I stepped outside and crossed the street, found a place to sit on the ancient wall. I looked back at the university and remembered something Gabriel Marquez had written, something about writers revealing much of themselves in their work. 

     Then he mentioned the secrets we all carry, and how those would probably make the best writing. He said, “Those I will carry to my grave.” I guess he did. 

     The sun had fallen, and the light was quickly disappearing.