Experiences on the Streets of Bogota
As I approached La Plaza de Los Torros from the northern direction of Avenida Septima on a crowded bus, clouds of white and grey smoke belched from the area.
A traffic jam caused the bus to screech to a sudden halt and calculating that my journey would probably not continue for some time I got off the bus and began walking towards the plaza.
As I got closer I noticed large orange flames through the clouds of smoke and dark figures running chaotically in all directions. When I reached the plaza I could clearly see the devastation. Rows of cars were on fire, the windows had been blown out of virtually every building in the area, including those of the Colmena skyscraper that towered over the plaza and the Hotel Tikendama. People with blood streaming from their heads sat on the ground or staggered around in a dazed condition. A few bodies lay motionless on the ground. Two policemen were putting a blue plastic cover on one of these as I approached. I asked a blood soaked man in Spanish if he needed help but he refused as he tended an injured woman sprawled on a bench. Countless pieces of shattered glass covered the pavement below the surrounding buildings.
I later learned that the Medellin Cartel had been responsible for the devastation as part of their drug war against the Colombian government. Two vehicles laden with dynamite had been placed each end of the plaza then exploded simultaneously, killing five people and injuring 192. This was Bogota in 1995.
As I stood staring open mouthed and horrified at the devastation several fire engines arrived. Firemen with hoses ran towards the blazing cars on one side of the plaza while the police cleared bystanders from the scene. Suddenly, a television camera crew from Caracol TV surrounded me and a microphone was held up to my mouth as a presenter asked me questions in Spanish.
“Can you give me your views on what has happened”, asked the reporter.
“I think it is shocking”, I replied in Spanish. “The government must act more firmly with the mafia and also improve the economic situation for the poor people of Colombia.”
The questioning continued for several minutes then the crew moved on to question more people. I watched the news on TV that evening but I didn’t appear. My interview had been cut.
Scenes of violence became commonplace during my stay in Bogota in the mid 1990s which included the exploding of a pizzeria in the centre of Bogota which killed 32 innocent civilians. This rocked the building where I was staying and shook the TV violently even though the explosion occurred several blocks away.
I was personally affected by the political violence as my business partner Jairo Castiblanco who was also an airplane pilot with Avianca Airlines was killed in May 1989 when the plane on which he was travelling from Bogota to Cali was blown to pieces two minutes after take off. The debris luckily came down on a piece of wasteland in the suburbs of the city and not on a heavily populated area. Fortunately, this became the only act of terrorism involving a Colombian plane during the conflict between the government and the Medellin Cartel. At Jairo’s Memorial Service which I later attended at the Catholic church in Modelia, I met two men who tried to protect then Vice President Louis Galan when the Mafia had him assassinated. They showed me their bullet wounds. Jairo had been a close friend of Galan.
Political trouble was not the only hazard to be wary of on the streets of Bogota as the city was teeming with thieves and beggars, desperate for money and keen to rob.
Groups of filthy beggars slept in shop doorways at night. Sometimes a pool of blood was all that remained of some. During the night police disguised in black balaclavas and boiler suits regularly came, murdered the beggars in their sleep by shooting them in the head and then took the bodies away for disposal. Some beggars sat on the streets all day smoking Bazooka, a cheap derivative of cocaine which would stem their misery for a while and give them short term relief from hunger. Ragged children, small but highly dangerous, armed with razors, knives, pieces of sharp glass and sticks wandered the streets by day and slept in the sewers at night. I once saw a beggar stabbed to death by his companions in the street after an argument over money.
My first experience of a mugging wasn’t so bad because it happened quickly. I was walking to a local post office in the centre of the city just as darkness arrived. As I turned off Avenida Septima into Calle 10 near the Colmena skyscraper, I was suddenly surrounded by a gang of dirty, ragged beggars, about six in total. One of them wielded a small rusty knife which he pointed at me as he slowly but nervously approached. The others, holding sticks, stood watching but had me trapped. As I gave all my attention to the knife wielding beggar and prepared myself for an attack another beggar rushed me from my blind side and tore my breast pocket completely from my shirt containing several hundred pesos. He and the others ran and disappeared into the darkness leaving me shocked with the speed of the incident.
The most serious incident occurred at 6 a.m. on my way to work in the centre of the city. The problem was that I had to stay in a hotel temporarily until I could arrange an apartment. I usually stayed in the Hotel Italia in Avenida Septima. Because this was situated downtown there was an element of risk, particularly at night and early morning when there were few people on the streets other than beggars and thieves.
On this particular morning I left the hotel as usual and made my way along a deserted Avenida Septima towards La Plaza de Los Torros. After walking several hundred yards I noticed three youths wearing baseball caps seated on a wall near a set of traffic lights. Their eyes were focused on me as I strode briskly along the pavement on the opposite side of the road holding my bag of books. I sensed they were no good so I kept a wary eye on them as I passed by. They did nothing and remained seated as they stared at me.
After I had continued for a further twenty yards a dirty, ragged female with long black hair and no teeth came out of a side street towards me with one hand behind her back and the other extended outwards as she asked me for money in Spanish. I continued walking briskly but she kept up with me.
“Give me pesos”, she repeated. “I have five children, I am starving and I have no money.”
“Go away”, I said. “I don’t have money.”
The woman persevered with her desperate pleading almost leaning against me as I gathered pace to reach my destination as quickly as possible.
The mistake I made was that I had taken my eyes off the three youths sitting on the wall some distance behind me and concentrated my attention on the woman. Suddenly, I felt someone grab me from behind. I thrust out my arm and turned quickly to find the three youths facing me. They initially jumped back but in a flash two of them rushed me and tried to grab my bag as I put the strap around my neck. As I fought them off the woman tried to hit me across the head with an empty bottle that she had held behind her back. She missed and struck me on the shoulder then jumped back. The third youth had moved behind me and as I grappled and fought with his companions he thrust his hand into my right trouser pocket and removed my ID card and some pesos. In seconds all of them turned and ran leaving me stunned in the middle of the street. I continued to walk and caught a bus but after twenty minutes I got the shakes because I knew that I had been lucky. The youth who had got behind me didn’t use a knife but if he had I could have been killed or at least badly injured. I was lucky to escape uninjured.
I gradually developed tactics to reduce the risk of being mugged at prime times of the day. I would always walk on the outside of the pavement, I would not stop and look in shop windows, I always walked fast and would cross the road and walk on the other side if I noticed a suspicious group of desperados ahead. This became second nature for me in central Bogota.
Another dangerous incident occurred in the early hours of the morning after I had been to a night club with a friend named Nigel Barling. As we were about to enter the club a dirty beggar asked me for money. I pushed past him and started climbing the stairs. As Nigel followed the beggar asked him for money which he refused. The beggar grabbed him by the arm but Nigel, being of an aggressive nature delivered a heavy blow to his head and the beggar stumbled backwards.
After several hours dancing Salsa with the senoritas of Bogota and having a good time both of us had forgotten about the beggar. During the early hours of the morning we left the club, happy after a fun night. As we walked into the street we were suddenly surrounded by a group of armed and aggressive beggars. They held sticks, pieces of glass and one of them held a brick. I recognized one of them as the beggar who Nigel had struck hours earlier. He had returned with his friends to await our appearance from the club to get his revenge. An escape looked impossible but Nigel was quick thinking. Pulling some change from his pocket he told me to run straight ahead after he threw the coins on the ground. He threw several coins between the legs of the beggar directly in front and others to the side. As the beggars gathered the coins we ran at full speed through them towards Avenida Septima about fifty yards ahead. The beggars pursued us waving their sticks in the air shouting in Spanish that they were going to kill us.
We reached Avenida Septima some distance ahead of our pursuers who were less fit than us but continued their pursuit. We continued running at full speed side by side along the pavement until we reached some traffic lights at a junction not far from Avenida 19. As our pursuers closed in I told Nigel to cross the road as the lights changed from red to orange. As we did this the traffic sped through the lights and cut us off from the beggars who were left motionless on the other side of the road realizing that we had escaped. It was comical but potentially very dangerous. We reached our hotel unscathed.
The unexpected and shocking were commonplace on the streets of central Bogota. Beggars standing in the middle of the road screaming and shouting could be regularly seen. I once saw a bearded and dirty beggar walking completely naked down the centre of the street with a sack slung over his shoulder as cars passed each side of him. He seemed oblivious to crowds of people staring at him from the pavement. At the traffic lights groups of beggars would form a circle and as the lights turned red they would close in on a stationary car and dismantle as much as possible before the lights turned to green with a terrified driver watching helplessly from inside. On another occasion I remember watching a young woman carrying several boxes of goods in her arms in a crowded street when a group of filthy street urchins, less than ten years old approached. Two of them lifted her dress high above her waist exposing her bare legs and panties underneath. The woman shouted and dropped the boxes but in seconds the urchins had gathered up the boxes and ran quickly down a side street with their loot, leaving the woman shocked and empty handed.
The low life usually worked in groups so the public had to be careful about retaliating in an incident. I remember watching a Chinese waiter pursuing a beggar who had just stolen something from his restaurant. He caught up with the beggar and struck him across the head. Within seconds at least five beggars were on the waiter and one of them just missed his head with a heavy piece of wood. The waiter ran back into the shop and as a large group of beggars descended on the restaurant about four Chinese waiters had to push their bodies against the door to prevent their foes from entering. Low life descended on the restaurant from all directions and I thought they were going to destroy it. The Chinese staff successfully blocked the entrance until the police arrived and calmed the situation.
After several years in Avenida Septima I gradually got to know the people there. A man patrolled the street with a white lama, equipped with a saddle on its back and gave rides to people. Several buskers played music including a group of Andean Indians who played panpipes. An old man with a white beard hopped around on crutches, conversing in Spanish with everyone. A woman with a strap around her neck sold home made sweets from a tray and had to give a percentage of her takings to the low life to avoid robbery. A black Colombian man dressed in the national Colombian football strip regularly performed his skills with a ball in the street for a few pesos. An Indian woman with long pigtails sold Chicha from a flask and a whole range of people sold their goods on the pavement. Occasionally, on a Sunday morning a party would take place in the street when large speakers were set up and loud Salsa music was played. Even the beggars joined in the dancing. It was all good fun.
Where were the police? A highly corrupt and useless set of people who broke every law they were expected to uphold. They regularly rode their motorcycles on the pavement, dodging pedestrians, sometimes eating hamburgers at the same time. One night I remember watching a policeman having sex with a prostitute against a lamp post. Usually at night the police could not be seen as the low life came out in force and the streets became completely lawless. Every Friday evening, the main social night of the week, soldiers were deployed on the streets of central Bogota. Groups of armed soldiers dressed in green uniforms and white helmets marched in groups along the streets dealing with incidents and crime.
During the mid 1990s central Bogota was a dangerous and lawless place where the law of the jungle prevailed and it was all about survival. Friends tell me that things have now changed but during my time in Colombia I had some eye opening experiences on the streets of Bogota.
