First Week: Bogota to Leticia, Amazonia

On the first morning of my stay in Bogota I was priveleged enough to be in a meeting attended by a visiting representative from the Nasa tribe in the Valle de Cauca. Their organisation CRIC are a remarkable grass roots attenpt at indiginous autonomy from the state. They boast their own indiginous guard (armed with battons) and are developing their own system of governance, health, education and commerce. They reject all armed actors in their territory and mainstream politics as amethod of change. Instead they are fiding their own alternative to the neoliberal "development" model.

One such attempt is to develop their own drinks industry in the face of Coca Cola´s monopoly. In doing so they can develop their own small scales fruits and beverage industry. Profits are then returned locally and not to distant shareholders. For he Nasa tribe, Nestle and Coca Cola represent as much a threat to their way of life as narco trafficing, re-mobilsed paramilitary groups and guerillas. The threat they pose to Colombia´s food and drink sovereignty is one of the main reasons the national food and drink workers union SINALTRAINAL campaigns against the two companies.


Here in Leticia Amazonia, Coca Cola own the local beverage company Gaseosas Leticia. As such they own the only supply of drinking water.

Despite the friendlyness of its inhabitants, Bogota is typical of latin american metropolises in its bad air quality. The polution is so thick it almost bangs you over the head as you walk down the street. The former mayor, Enrique Penalosa, effectively went to war on cars. His vision was of a Bogata where kids are safe on the streets and the rich do not steel the sidewalks by stackng their personal cars along them. He persuaded local councils to restrict traffic at peak times and hike the tax on petrol. This money was churned into building the Transmilenio. This unique dual-carriageway bus link traverses the city with stops that resemble tube stations. Every day it serves 500,000 of Bogota´s 7 million inhabitants. There are also measures to develop the bicicle as a viable transport alternative. These have sparked interest globally. One such attempt is to close down half the roads in the city every sunday for a giant bike ride!



After a few days I took a flight to Leticia in the ranforest province of Amazonia. The flight was breathtaking. Uder the clouds the Amazon carpets the landscape like a sea reflecting the blue of the sky. It is snaked by emense leviathon rivers that work their way back and forth accross the forest leaving its many scars in the form of giant oxbow lakes.



It is sad to see how the lakes are followed by logging activity that eats into the the virgin jungle like a nasty rash. To view this for yourself just visit Google Earth. In the distance you can see the curviture of the earth which reminds you how small it is. I wonder how much of what I saw will be there in 40 years time. I guess thats for us to decide today.



Leticia is a friendly and tranquil frontier city in the middle of the rainforest bordering Brasil and Peru. It is possible to walk into Brasil just by strolling accros town. It is incredibly humid here so everything shuts down between midday and 2pm. Tomorrow I will go for one week into the national park to help with a wooley monkey conservation project. A former Oxford Brookes student is working with indiginous communities to protect the forest from huntng and logging.
Will write soon
Pete x