Untangling Chaparral

Back in mid-2009 during my few weeks travelling around South-East Asia a German I met, a guy who had been in the region for some time, introduced me to the initialism AFW. After seeing my relative excitement about the prospect of visiting another impressive Buddhist place of worship, he said he could take or leave viewing an AFW.

"An AFW?"
"Another f**king wat!"
"Ah. I see." (Well, something like a punny WTF would have worked better. He was German, though, so I cut him some slack.)

I didn't stay in that part of the world to become completely indifferent to the, um, power of the wat but I could see where he was coming from.

A helpful reminder of where you are!

After a while, no doubt, the novelty of seeing these magnificent monuments well and truly wears off. A case of, 'seen one wat, seen them all.'

Same same but different
This thinking, superficially at least, could be extended to the small towns in this part of the world: 'Seen one Colombian or South American pueblo, seen them all.'

A colonial-style main square home to a standout cathedral/church with, if the settlement is of adequate size, another few similar squares dotted around, all in the standard grid plan.

In terms of Colombia, the general belief is that if you've been to either Barichara or Villa de Leyva (or both, as I have), then you've seen the best the country has to offer in this regard.

Again, aesthetically in any case, there is merit to this viewpoint. Yet, such high acclaim tends to reel in the tourists in big numbers. For some, this isn't a major deal. Plus, off-peak visits usually see the towns at their more normal rhythm, whatever that actually is nowadays.

"A 'town' of 50,000 people here seems rather rural."

Nonetheless, as I've let it be known on umpteen occasions, their obvious similarities aside, I do like to check out the less well-known towns. And in a big country of close to 50 million people, there are many to discover. 

What's more, each place has its own story to tell, its own unique character with its own unique characters to boot (not literally, now), from the interesting to the annoying and everything in between.

My recent trip to Chaparral in the Tolima department certainly fell into this category. Why I decided to go there was simply down to the fact that an employee in a local panadería told me she was from there. 

I'd never heard of the place but at about a four-hour bus journey from Bogotá it fell, just about, inside the travel-time limit of a long-weekend escape from the madness of the capital city.

Dry surrounds.

A quick Wikipedia check confirmed that it also met another important requirement. It was small enough, just under 50,000 people in its greater urban area. (By Irish standards that might seem pretty big. Here, though, a town of that size is relatively bucolic. It must be down to the way they space themselves out. Or is that cramp themselves in?)

Now, I generally don't like travelling on holiday weekends as you've to deal with all the extra traffic. However, the full-time job these days has limited my flexibility — I'll have my vengeance on that yet — so I have to take advantage of a day off when it comes along.

To give me a little more time and avoid the horrible traffic returning to Bogotá on the holiday Monday, I booked the next day off. Unfortunately, it seemed a lot of other people had the same idea considering the Tuesday afternoon's congestion entering the capital.

Outbound, the queues to buy bus tickets at Bogotá's southernmost terminal on Saturday morning almost led me to abort 'Operation Chaparral' before it got going at all. 

Thankfully, these were for the more popular destinations such as Girardot and Melgar. My hour or so wait was relatively minor all things considered. Indeed, being allocated the passenger window seat in a minivan for the trip was a nice little bonus.

Great chaps
Now, before I start talking up Chaparral, I must say I went with little or no expectations. I knew it would be warm. I knew I could grab a beer or two or three to unwind in a location that was new to me and with few other tourists around. 

I didn't need anything else really. Anything different from Bogotá would have sufficed, it just needed to be somewhat rural.

Aesthetically, there's nothing too special to the place. One immediate difference I noticed from other similar towns is that its main square, the plaza principal, isn't named after the great liberator Simón Bolívar (akin to Paipa). It's called Parque de los Presidentes, the Presidents' Park.

The reason? The town is the birthplace of no less than three men who held the office of Colombian president: Manuel Murillo Toro, José Maria Melo and Darío Echandia. Attorney General Alfonso Gómez Méndez was also born there. It's not for nothing that its old mottos were 'Tierra de Grandes' and 'Cuna de Presidentes', 'Land of Greats'/'Cradle of Presidents'.

"Chaparral has played a significant part in Colombia's history."

The story also goes that Chaparral and its surrounds, in the form of the Pijao people, was one of the last bastions of indigenous resistance against the Spanish conquistadores. There's a monument representing this a few streets down from Parque de los Presidentes.

More recently, it was this part of Colombia that gave rise to the Farc guerilla movement. So in terms of the country's history, it's well served, for good and bad, whatever your viewpoint. (Perhaps as a nod to emerging, hopefully, from that recent bloody past, the town's current motto is 'Cradle of Peace and Progress'.)

The last stand: A monument to the Pijao & other indigenous peoples. 

As regards tourism infrastructure, common to most less-popular Colombian locations, it's not well served. It did, after all, have to deal with more life-or-death matters of late.

Nonetheless, there are some locals trying to change this as I found out thanks to a serendipitous encounter — you never know what afternoon beers in a quaint tienda might throw up.

There I met Diego Ceballos, son of the very affable owner Cesar. Diego is currently taking a course in tourism and has already established a fledgling company with a focus on birdwatching. He gave me an impromptu photo presentation of the impressive, secluded sights — with an ornithological flavour as is his wont — all around Chaparral, areas that were very much 'off-limits' to most only a few short years ago, being in rebel hands as they were.

Time constraints meant I couldn't actually visit any of them (did I mention that uncooperative full-time job?) on this occasion. Their apparent remoteness and very interesting recent history have given me solid reasons to return, though.

For sure, you can find comparable places all over Colombia. Yet, as similar as Chaparral is to other towns, it has, as we’ve seen, its standout differences. In the region's bid to join Colombia's tourism rush, here's hoping it doesn't lose sight of its unique identity.

*For a town that doesn't seem to get too many tourists, it is well served on the hotel front. The one I happened upon was Hotel Tuluni, a couple of blocks from the main square on Carrera 8a #6-54. At 20,000 COP for a basic yet spacious en suite room with fan and a decent internet connection, you could find worse (I didn't bother trying!). Mob: +573183178898.
______________________________
Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan - The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".
Listen to The Colombia Cast podcast here.

Wonder women

I recently received a somewhat fitting, reassuring reminder from Twitter (see image below). It was a notification informing me that my report of behaviour unbecoming from a particular user was deemed to be a rule violation under "hateful conduct".

A virtual slap on the wrist. That'll surely teach her! 

This nasty episode happened quite some time ago that I can't fully remember exactly what the woman in question — @NanaMGNS is the handle, very much a former friend/acquaintance now — wrote but she basically went on a virtual tirade, calling me a misogynist (and then some) following a tweet I posted. (Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't provide the tweets in question when giving its response to complaints.)

"They say what they like about the other 'side' and this must go uncontested. This is their version of 'equality'."

From what I recall, my tweet was in relation to an incident I'd had with a Colombiana, in a dating sense I think. 

It was probably along the lines of previous blog posts where I've detailed what I see as some common traits in women I've encountered in these parts. See A prostitute by any other name or Ignoring is bliss for an idea of where I'm coming from in this regard.

Radical logic

The offending, nay offensive, woman, a radical feminist by all accounts, took umbrage at the line I was taking. 

Contrary to what she seemed to believe, however, I wasn't having a go at all woman. I was merely commenting on experiences with, on this occasion, one particular individual whose conduct I'd also witnessed in some other Latinas.

Again, not all that is to say, but some, and enough to notice a connection among such types. My bad luck that I keep meeting them. Or kept meeting them really; I'm largely managing to avoid them these days. 

So this was my perspective on real events that happened to me. I wasn't making it up or just trying to have a cheap, unsolicited shot.

I say this notification from Twitter labelling @NanaMGNS's comments as "hateful conduct" is reassuring because in terms of verbal or written attacks against men by women these days the general attitude is to laugh it off. To lap it up even. "Sure you're a man! Suck it up lad, grow a pair."

Fair enough, I guess we are the stronger sex. 

Oh no, wait, isn't that the thing these radical feminists are raging against? We're only the stronger sex when it suits their narrative to say so. 

And how dare a man comment about women in the first place. How discriminatory and sexist. Only women can talk about women. What's more, they can say what they like about men and it must go uncontested.

This is equality for 21st-century radicals, of all shapes and sizes. 'Careful now, don't nonchalantly refer to their shape or size. You might get yourself into trouble.'

"I do more practical stuff to help feminism than most feminists."

The thing is, I'm more on the side of the feminists and the quest for gender equality than the campaigners might care to imagine. 

For example, I pretty much demand 50-50 when it comes to paying bills. Or, on the rare occasion where my earnings are more than the woman I'm sharing time with, I suggest we pay the appropriate percentage based on our income.

For the first couple of dates I don't bother bringing assets and the like into it, I'm happy to let that slide at the start. One wouldn't want to over-complicate things.

'Equality on our terms'

I also don't go out of my way to be extra special with women on a day-to-day basis, that is to say, treat them any differently to men when it comes to engagements in the office or in public life (if a woman, um, takes advantage of me in a private setting, things could play out differently, closer to the way Mother [and Father et al., for equality's sake] Nature intended).

Unlike a lot of other men, especially here in the Latino world, I don't condescend or patronise.

Yet, in the female-dominated advertising/marketing job I'm currently engaged in, I've been talked down to, indeed screamed at on one occasion for simply explaining, calmly, why the use of one English word worked better in a certain context over another, by a colleague who is of the not-so-fair sex, so to put it.

It's safe to assume that had it been the other way around, a man carrying on that way towards a woman, disciplinary procedures would have been instigated. But we're men, we're meant to take all of this on the chin whilst constantly being told how everything is fixed to our advantage.

For these radical feminists, it's a case of, 'be careful what you wish for'. Equality, "the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities" to give it its dictionary definition, is just that.

What some women appear to be looking for is the complete subjugation of men. They might just find that the status quo in many liberal democracies is already tipped in their favour. If it goes any further, we could all tumble over the edge.
_____________
Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan - The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".
Listen to The Colombia Cast podcast here.