“It’s only two dollars,” she coaxed. “And what a wonderful playmate it would make for Dinah.”
Admittedly it was cute, a furry spotted bundle purring contentedly in Helen’s arms, a month-old jaguar kitten. Already bigger than a house cat, in a year it would weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. Dinah was most interested but, remembering the cat in Panama, we decided that this one for sure would be more than she could handle.
By evening the differentials were drained, flushed, and refilled with lubricant, the wheel bearings were cleaned and repacked with grease, the motor oil changed, chassis lubricated, and the brakes completely reconditioned with new cylinders and new linings. When the mechanical work was done, I removed the outboard motor, padded it with life preservers, and lashed it securely to the rack on top of the jeep. We wanted to take good care of that motor; the money from its sale would go a long way toward finishing the trip.
In Turbo I had changed a few dollars for Colombian pesos, but after paying for the brake parts and tipping the mechanics we had only four pesos left, the equivalent of about ninety cents U.S., when we left Sunga. However, Dabeiba, the next town, was less than a hundred miles away and we had enough gas to get there.
From Sunga the dirt road started to climb, gradually at first, through a green wonderland of tall ceiba trees overhung with creepers. Slender trunks stretched their necks for a glimpse of the sun and limbs spread their branches into a canopy to catch the maximum light. Green parrots darted between the trees and lacy ferns covered the ground. Often there were clearings, a lighter green swampland steaming in the heat or man-made clearings where bananas grew luxuriantly. In places the road tunneled through trees, and as it rose even higher the ground fell away on one side, and we drove along a shelf in the side of a cliff. Then at the crest of the foothills of the mighty Andes we stood on the road and filled our lungs with the first naturally cool air we had breathed in four months.
Dabeiba was a small town set on the top of a green domelike hill. There was no bank. We tried to change money at the general store, but the clerk had never heard of a traveler’s check, and the only thing he recognized about a twenty-dollar bill was the numbers. He admitted they looked impressive, but that they should be worth good Colombian pesos, never. We tried the hotel—five rooms and one bath—and the owner, a pleasant woman about fifty, fingered the currency approvingly and agreed to change it. It was late afternoon by that time and we decided to spend the night.
After supper the elderly mother of the innkeeper asked if we were Catholic. At our negative answer she replied “No importa,” and invited us to see the town’s principal church, a new one, in use although not quite finished. The Gothic style clashed with the reinforced concrete construction, but there in the glow of the stained-glass windows and the last rays of the setting sun we felt peace and gratitude at having safely crossed that two hundred and fifty miles of ocean.
The next morning I asked for the bill. Conferring with her mother a few moments, the innkeeper wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. On it was written, “You owe us nothing. May God go with you.” We were overwhelmed.
As we rolled over the hills toward Medellín, however, our money problem was still with us. But we still had four pesos, a little gas in the tank, and there were several towns ahead where there might be a bank. The department of Antioquia is noted for the unique masculine custom of carrying ornate fur-trimmed shoulder pouches. But despite the emphasis on these oversized wallets there was a shortage of moneychangers. In each of the tiny hilltop towns we passed I again tried to convert dollars to pesos. Always there was the same interest in seeing what American currency looked like, but also the same unwillingness to change it. Keeping an anxious eye on the gas gauge, we reduced our speed to conserve fuel, but by noon we had to part with our last four pesos, which bought about five gallons, just enough to get us to Medellín.
As we climbed steadily into the highlands, the air was pleasantly cool. The road wound through rugged country, as green as a park and mostly uncultivated. Sparse herds of cattle grazed, but with nothing to eat since early morning by mid-afternoon I could see them only as steaks smothered in onions. We forgot about our hunger for a few minutes while crossing a seventy-year-old wooden suspension bridge that undulated and swayed several hundred feet above the Cauca River. But on the other side a bakery truck swishing by reminded us. I had a brilliant idea.
Stepping on the gas, I tried to catch the truck. I honked the horn. It speeded up. I honked insistently, but all the driver did was honk back and go faster. After several miles of hare and hounds he saw my frantic waving and pulled over. The driver was about thirty, slender and tall and with the heavy black mustache without which it seemed that all Colombian men would be undressed.
“Pardon me, señor,” I said, “but would you be willing to trade a loaf of bread for some American cigarettes?”
“Ah, señor,” he replied, “but I do not smoke.”
My face dropped. He quickly added, “But if you are hungry I will give you bread.” With that he started hauling loaves of bread and boxes of cookies from the back of the truck until we had more than we could eat in a week. He refused to accept the cigarettes.
“No, señor,” he smiled. “I am happy to give it to you. Besides, Don Luís would want me to.”
“Don Luís?” I questioned.
“Yes, señor, he is a good man, a friend of mine—in fact he is my boss, Don Luís Coulson, owner of the bakery.”
Manna from Coulson! And when the driver learned that we were on our way to visit Don Luís he insisted that we follow him. He drove slowly in front of us for the next sixty miles, stopping at every village for refrescos. Trying to thank him was like trying to talk back to a radio. Becoming satiated after a snack at every town, we finally convinced him that we were not hungry any more. A good-natured happy fellow, he even led us directly to Coulson’s door.
It was after nine o’clock when we arrived in Medellín. When we stopped to telephone Mr. Coulson’s home, a young voice answered the telephone in Spanish. It was Coulson’s youngest son, Jorge, who told us that Don Luís was expecting us, but was away for the evening. He asked us to come to the house and wait.
The Coulson home was a sprawling Spanish colonial overlooking the country club. Jorge met us at the door. A towheaded boy of ten, he assured us in Spanish that he spoke English. But in the few days we spent with the Coulsons we never heard him speak a word of it. He was a perfect host, mixed excellent cocktails, and kept us well entertained for a half hour until the door burst open and Don Luís flew in.
“Howdy. Change your clothes. You have just enough time to meet the new American Ambassador to Colombia. There’s a reception for him at the country club.”
“But all our clothes are in Bogotá,” Helen said. “Frank has nothing but slacks and a sport shirt, and I have only a cotton dress.”
“Well, wear your cotton dress. Dick, my oldest son, is about Frank’s size. Let’s see what he has.” He reached into a closet and pulled out a dark blue flannel. “Here, put this on, and hurry.”
We hurried, but when we arrived at the country club Ambassador and Mrs. Bonsai were just leaving. The Ambassador smiled as Don Luís introduced us. “Well, how do you do?” he said. “Admiral Miles wrote to me about you two. We’ll be looking forward to seeing you in Bogotá.”
Medellín was the industrial center of Colombia, a city nestled in a green valley where the saw-tooth roofs of modern textile factories encroached upon the surrounding hills. But in the center of the city wide avenues and trees festooned with Spanish moss and laden with orchids preserved its colonial heritage. The climate was spring like, warm days and cool evenings, but, at Mr. Coulson’s suggestion, we purchased two ruanas, Colombian ponchos. In the mountains between Medellín and Bogotá these woolen rectangles would be our wraps by day and blankets by night. We had sent even our sleeping bags ahead from Panama. Before we left Medellín for Bogotá, three hundred and fifty miles away, Don Luís warn
ed us against camping in the country, reminding us that there was still an active though unofficial civil war going on. In the midst of so much Colombian hospitality and kindness we had forgotten that, but news of recurring guerrilla activity in the mountains ahead was not reassuring.
“If you insist on camping,” Don Luís said in parting, “stop at any coffee finca along the way and ask permission to camp on their land.”
All that day we alternately froze and roasted as the dirt road took us high into the Andes and then quickly down into tropical valleys. It seemed that we never actually crossed a range of mountains, but just ran along the side, climbing to the ridge, shooting down to the valley and back again up the other side. Dark green patches of cultivated coffee land, where some of the best coffee in the world is grown, stood out vividly from the fallow pastures. It was slow going, the little engine whined and puffed up the steep grades, and at altitudes greater than five thousand feet the power fell off rapidly, so that we were in low gear much of the time. When dusk came, we decided to heed Don Luís’s advice. At a sign that said Finca de Café we turned onto a narrow track, still muddy from the recent rain, and followed it for a quarter of a mile. At the end of it was an eight-foot wall with an iron-studded wooden gate. Raising the heavy brass knocker, I let it fall. Almost immediately we heard a shuffle of footsteps, a sharp click, and from behind the closed gate a muffled voice asked, “What do you want?”
“We are North Americans, tourists. We would like permission to camp on your property for the night.”
“All Americans are rich,” was the answer. “They do not need to camp. I do not believe you.”
The newspaper in Medellín had run a story about the trip; I slipped a copy under the still closed gate. I heard two men talking. One said that he thought it was all right, but the other said that it was a trick, that we were guerrilla bandits, that he was afraid. The fear of the finca guards was too real to ignore. We spent that night parked in front of a police guard station on the highway.
The next morning we continued over the roller coaster road, bumping and jolting, along the sides of cliffs, through lush valleys, and once in a while over a pass where the chill wind whistled under our ponchos and tugged at our thin clothing. Late in the afternoon we were winding down the side of a long steep hill when the wheels hit a deep chuck-hole and a metallic clunk came from the transmission. When I tried to change gears, the shift lever was immovable. It was jammed in high.
Coasting to the side of the road, I unbolted the plate in the floor boards and removed the cover of the transmission housing. It was a futile move since the design of a jeep transmission is such that no part can be adjusted or replaced without removing the whole unit, but I was anxious at least to see what was wrong. I was too concerned to notice the jeep that pulled alongside. We were accustomed to having people stop, gawk a bit, and then go on without a word. But this time the driver got out and approached us. About twenty-five, slender, clean-shaven, and wearing a dark blue beret, he bowed gallantly to Helen and then in Spanish addressed himself to me:
“Tomás Escovar at your service. May I be of some assistance?”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I’m afraid not. We have transmission trouble.”
“Well, you can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous. You can coast to my finca at the bottom of the hill and work on it there.” And then he added, “Aquí se matan rápido.” In Spanish it sounded even more ominous than its English translation: “Here they kill quickly.”
All day we had seen no more than a half dozen cars, and as we coasted behind Tomás I was convinced of two things: that the proverbial luck of the Irish—from my maternal grandmother—was riding with us, and that Colombians were mighty nice people.
The sun was low when we pushed La Tortuga under the overhanging eave of the big two-story house where Tomás lived alone except for an old servant woman. At supper he unnecessarily apologized for the fare, explaining that it was simple Colombian country style. But to us the hard biscuit like arepa, crisply fried bacon chicharón, brown beans, and fresh milk were all treats. Especially the fresh milk. Afterward on the broad veranda we sat watching the sun slide behind the quiet rolling hills and listening to the stream bubbling over rocks a few yards away. The tranquil mood made my question seem almost ridiculous. I asked Tomás what he meant by “Aquí se matan rápido.” In answer he took from his pocket a small German pistol and spoke of a loaded rifle by his bedside. He whistled once, and almost immediately four dogs bounded toward him from the shadows.
“Without these,” he said, “it would not be safe to stay alone in the country. Although the civil war ended three years ago, there are still guerrilla bandits.”
A gentle, soft-spoken man, Tomas went on to discuss with a modest assurance the economic problems of his country, the lack of roads, the potentials, and untapped resources. After listening to him for a while I wasn’t surprised to learn that the finca was merely a summer home. Tomas was an economist, a graduate of the National University in Bogota.
Early the next morning I began work on the jeep. But not with enthusiasm. It was then that I began to think about resigning my membership in the “Do it yourself club” and applying for that more exclusive group, the “Let somebody else do it club.”
Working on La Tortuga is especially difficult since, unlike conventional vehicles, it is completely enclosed on the bottom. Everything must be done in the cramped confines of the cab where the chief asset of the mechanic, besides the proper tools, is his ability to work standing on his head or contorted into a corkscrew. With the experience gained in overhauling the jeep initially I had become mildly proficient in this art. Before the trip was over I was a master at it.
I hadn’t had time to give more than a superficial examination to the transmission before Tomás came by the previous day, but I had determined where the trouble lay. The bronze synchronizing rings that made shifting smoother between second and high gear were worn and had slipped out of alignment. Even if I had replacements for the rings, to install them meant removing either the motor or the transfer ease. Either way it would be a three-day job with the best of facilities.
Not at all eager to begin, I sat in the jeep staring through the hole in the floor boards at the black oily interior of the transmission. If only the engineers who had designed these things, I thought, had tried to work on them. If only the synchronizers could be kept closer together, then they couldn’t slip out of alignment. A spacer behind them would do it—if only I had a spacer. But even if I did I would still have to pull the transmission to install it. But a split spacer might be the answer—if I had one. What a lot of wishful “ifs.” Then I had an idea. That old standby, bailing wire. If it worked we might be able to make it to Bogotá. If it didn’t—well—nothing would be lost but a few hours.
Pawing through my collection of bolts and miscellaneous supplies, I came up with a roll of wire, but it was too thin. Tomás, however, contributed a piece of fence wire which was about the right thickness. Cutting it to length, I wrapped one turn around the shaft behind the synchronizing rings. When the nut on the shaft was tightened, the wire was clamped in place. I put the cover back on the transmission, started the motor, and shifted into low. As I let out the clutch I held my breath. I didn’t have to hold it long. The jeep lurched forward and screamed a howling protest. In reverse it clashed and groaned. And then mysteriously the noise stopped. I tried the other gears. They worked smoothly. Shifting several times through all the gears, I drove around in front of the house. Everything functioned quietly. Thinking it best to be under way before La Tortuga changed her mind, we thanked Tomás and left for Bogotá. It was rugged driving over pitted roads in the shadow of mighty snow-capped ridges half hidden in the afternoon mist, but the transmission ran perfectly. Even in the torrid Magdalena Valley it didn’t overheat, and when we reached the outskirts of Bogotá late that night it was working so well that we decided to leave well enough alone. In fact, our bailing-wire repair job lasted for more than five
thousand miles, and when we did have trouble with the transmission it was from another cause.
Bogotá was cold. After spending a rather restless night in a gravel pit outside of town we were anxious to pick up the sleeping bags and clothes we had sent ahead from Panama. But first we needed a hotel. As usual, the one recommended was the most expensive, the Tequendama, a tall concrete and glass bit of contemporary architecture. It had been the same all along the way. In Panama it was the exclusive El Panamá, which even exiled Perón joked was too expensive for him. Ask anyone about a hotel, be it policeman, taxi driver, or bartender, if you are an American the only hotel for you is the most luxurious one. Reverting to our established practice of scouting for ourselves, we were soon comfortably located in a modest hotel a few blocks from the center of town.
The Hotel Claridge, with its mellow wood paneling and worn velvet drapes tied with gold tassels, had the dated dignity of a nineteenth-century carriage. The straw mattresses were not Beauty Rests and it was a long walk to the bath at the end of the hall, but the hotel was very clean and the four-dollar-a-day tariff included three good meals. After a hot bath we walked down to the dining room, where the white linen glowed in the yellowish light of undervoltaged bulbs. As we started to sit down, the maître d’hôtel scurried over to us. His black dress suit was frayed and his stiff shirt kept popping out, but he couldn’t have been more solicitous:
“Surely you must be tired after your long trip. Wouldn’t you care to take dinner in your room? Of course there would be no extra charge,” he added hurriedly.
“No, thank you,” I said. “We feel fine.”
“Oh, but you would be so much more comfortable in your room. I’ll send the waiter up right away.”
20,000 Miles South Page 17
