Pacific Puerto Asís

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

'It's a bit "caliente" down there, be careful.'

That was the general response from Bogotá-based acquaintances when I told them I was heading to the town of Puerto Asís in Colombia's Putumayo department, close to the border with Ecuador.

As nondescript as Puerto Asís's urban area is, it takes a hold on one all the same.

Dearth of delinquents

Caliente, hot that is, wasn't in reference to the weather (although, with afternoon temperatures regularly reaching over 30 degrees Celsius and high humidity, it certainly is sultry). No, hot in this context refers to the security situation, as in it's dangerous.

There's nothing too shocking in that. Frontier towns tend to come with a negative reputation. I have, though, been to enough of them in Colombia to know that this label is not always warranted; just don't expect them to feature high in lists of best places to live.

Yet, of the border towns I've stayed in across the world, Puerto Asís ranks as one of the more livable ones — along with Cúcuta. OK, recency bias together with my quite low expectations might be at play in this, however from a safety perspective — often the most pressing concern in such places — Puerto Asís seems almost crime-free.

With the town's population around the 50,000 mark in an area covering roughly six square kilometres — excluding the hinterland, that is — I walked practically every bit of it. Nowhere did I feel unsafe. What's more, none of the residents ever advised me to exercise caution in certain parts, as often happens in other big towns and cities.

'The moto taxi drivers are the most irksome, offering their services by beeping, gesturing and/or calling out 'moto' as they pass by. It's almost as if it's an offence to walk.'

The place appeared delinquent-free. It was even largely devoid of the Colombian-standard, in-your-face wandering street vendors and beggars. (A local tienda bar owner told me that the area has been controlled by non-state actors, hence less obvious delinquency on the streets. Obligatory payments to officially proscribed armed groups come with certain benefits, akin to the days when the IRA allegedly kept drug pushers out of the neighbourhoods it managed in Northern Ireland.)

The most irksome element is the motorbike, or moto, taxi drivers who frequently offer their services by beeping, gesturing and/or calling out 'moto' as they pass one by. It's almost as if it's an offence to walk anywhere or merely stand around. It also seems that the humble bicycle is frowned upon. This is Moto Town, or Motown if you will.

Truck luck

Now, if you ask me what Puerto Asís's unique selling point is, well outside of what I've already described, I struggle to come up with anything. The town itself has no outstanding landmarks and there isn't much on the must-do/visit list.

What's more, the closest water courses, the Putumayo and Cocaya rivers, don't entice one in for a dip. Quite a shame that, considering the heat. Also, the sands on the Putumayo River's banks are inviting, so it's unfortunate its waters don't follow suit.

It's even on the more expensive side when it comes to my BBC (beer, bread, coffee) staples — more expensive than Bogotá's working-class barrios that is. This, though, isn't unusual. Unlike in some other countries, Colombia's capital is cheaper for certain essentials compared to the country's provincial towns. (A special mention to Panadería Mickey, all the same. It offers a decent enough tinto, small black coffee, for a very reasonable 1,200 pesos.)

My most eventful moment was seeing the efforts of a few lorry drivers trying to free a truck stuck in the aforementioned sands of the Putumayo River. The episode did merit a YouTube Shorts video.

Chasing La Chorrera

My visit to Puerto Asís was to use it as a departure point to go by river to La Chorrera, the Roger Casement village as I call it, deep in the Amazon.

Alas, trying to get to La Chorrera from Puerto Asís by boat proved complicated and costly. In fact, it's more straightforward and currently cheaper to fly from San José del Guaviare. From a carbon footprint perspective, the flights might have a bigger impact but I did try to take the more environmentally friendly option. If only the most vociferous climate activists were more like me, eh?

Others may visit or pass through Puerto Asís for similar reasons i.e. to get a taste of the Amazon jungle by boat. And there are more hassle-free places to get to than the isolated La Chorrera. So as a river-port town close to Ecuador and within two days' boat ride of Peru, Puerto Asís is probably an unavoidable town for certain travellers. That it has countless hotels and motels is evidence of that.

Nonetheless, few seem to stay in the town for longer than necessary. A day or two at most.

The nine days I spent in Puerto Asís were less of a ringing endorsement of the place and more a reflection of my current 'wherever I am is my home' state of mind.

However, if I had to base myself in Puerto Asís for an indefinite time, I'd have no complaints about that. I can cope with its caliente air.
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In defence of hoping (and fighting) for, at least, a 'Freer Bogotá'

We came in for a bit of criticism in the wake of our Fighting for 'Free Bogotá' piece a few weeks back. 

Now, this didn't come from Colombians but from fellow expatriates. The main grievance was that we were painting a stereotypical negative, dangerous picture of Bogotá and Colombia in general. The fact that we were writing about particular incidents in one notorious barrio of the country's capital seemed to go over our critics' heads.

The darker side -- entering La Perseverancia.

We did, of course, point them in the direction of previous posts we've written, detailing how we find the external perception of Colombia and how dangerous it is a little frustrating and very often inaccurate, to say the least.* 

Also, the amount of solo travelling we've done around this physically stunning country, most of it detailed on this blog, is, we hope, sending out a positive message that this country is very much open for tourism (and, for some, business) and generally safe.

However, as pointed out in Fighting for 'Free Bogotá', it would be remiss of us to write that there is nothing dangerous at all about this country. A message some of our detractors seemingly wish we would portray. 

There are, though, plenty of other English language websites and blogs about Colombia that set out from the onset not to include one negative word about the place, even if that means bending reality at times.

In any case, what we wrote wasn't inherently negative about Bogotá. In every big (and small) city in the world there are dangerous neighbourhoods where, as a taxi driver once told us about a particular part of Dublin, 'even the dogs hang around in packs and watch each others' backs.' 

Also, we tend to, especially owing to the types of places we like to drink in, take more risks than most other visitors/foreign residents who come to this city.**

We are where we are, we do what we do, and we have our beliefs, likes and dislikes. Right now, for convenience, price but above all, the friendliness of the locals (part of that being the free beers we often get) we find ourselves socialising regularly in La Perseverancia. As stated in previous posts this area is, at this moment in time, as the locals put it, 'muy caliente' (literally 'very hot' i.e. dangerous).

In the last number of weeks, this view has only been further reinforced in our minds. For if we're being honest, we put the minor early morning incident mentioned in Fighting for 'Free Bogotá' down to stupidity on our part. 

Plus, very often when Colombians tell us certain areas are dangerous our first reaction is to shrug it off, believing that they're still thinking of rougher times in the not-to-distant (but distant all the same) past.

However, the kind of things we've encountered over the last few weeks give an idea of this 'darker side'. 

There was the pretty lame attempt – but an attempt all the same – by two young thugs to rob us in broad daylight in the area; the friendly locals insisting they escort us home for our own safety at night; police officers standing guard outside a tienda we were drinking in, in the afternoon, because we were foreigners and 'at risk' (we find this a little hard to believe, but it's what we were told); plus, being witnesses to two local women getting mugged, again in the middle of the day. 

All of the above have firmly illustrated the real dangers that exist in this part of the city, day and night.

Officer 'Wrong Way'.

That last incident was particularly annoying, angering even. We figured had we been a little closer and quick-thinking that we may have been able to intervene in some way. Then again, perhaps it was better we didn't? 

There were people closer to it than us who seemed content enough to let the damn delinquents get their booty; a 'thank god it's them instead of us' kind of thinking and certainly not unique to Colombia.

Yet, this could be one area to, literally speaking, start a fightback. If enough people, particularly the locals, those who might be seen as community leaders (it's debatable if such figures exist in certain lower-class barrios, or if they do, to what extent they encourage a law-abiding lifestyle), confronted such scum rather than turn a blind eye, it might evoke some sort of change of behaviour, for the better.

From what we've witnessed and anecdotally, few assailants, especially in these daytime raids, are carrying firearms. Usually, if anything, they just have knives. And, usually, you don't have to look too far on Bogotá's streets to find some sort of a stick that could be used to confront anyone carrying a blade; something to put more than an arm's length between you and the would-be attacker.

More police on the beat is another deterrent and at times they can be hard to come by in La Perseverancia, but it's not a panacea.

Of course, there are a range of social issues that must be tackled as to why some people get involved in criminality and, for one, with such a huge disparity in incomes in this city and questionable priorities by the ruling classes, Bogotá and Colombia in general have a long way to go in addressing those.**

We're not looking for an unattainable utopia (although it's not a bad goal to aspire to), we just want things to improve; and there's certainly scope for that.

Those who would like us to believe that Bogotá/Colombia is a peaceful paradise are plain delusional. Nowhere is. They're also helping nobody by peddling such a notion.

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*For a start see Dangerous Colombia Part III.

**On both fronts i.e. an idea of the places we like to socialise in and the inequality issues, check out No somos Colombianos, pero... (We're not Colombian, but...).

For some other issues that need addressing in Bogotá read Bogotá's 'broken windows'.