Welcome to CNG

Colegio Nueva Granada is a bilingual international private school in Bogota, Colombia. Students study for both the U.S. High School Diploma and the Colombian Bachillerato Diploma. The majority of the classes are taught in English. The school’s staff includes foreign as well as Colombian teachers. The CNG student body is quite international with 45 nationalities represented.

Meet the Team

Notable alumni of CNG include government ministers and politicians, CEOs, actors and actresses. And then there was our group:

A binational squad of hikers assembled from the elite student body of the CNG class of 1980 for a backpacking trip starting in the coastal town of Santa Marta, located on the Carribean coast of Colombia.

In 1980, Santa Marta was regarded as a wild west town near the marijuana growing region known as the Guajira Peninsula. Following three weeks of independent study afforded all seniors for completion of their senior projects, the team would meet in Santa Marta. Here was the team, in no particular order:

Tomasino: Serious, punctual.

Mateito: Athletic, poised, social.

Estebanon: Loud, gregarious. Estebanon brought an important asset to the team: diplomatic immunity.

Joe-Joe: Picture a young Che Guevara with similar sensibilities.

Robby: Very laid back.

Me: Giddy, clueless.

Part One: The Chevron Sponsored Trip

For my senior project, I chose to report on oil exploration in Colombia. My research would involve a trip to a remote oil well where I would remain for three weeks. My plan was to complete my project there and then join the team in Santa Marta. I would like to thank Chevron for having sponsored this trip and hosting me at the oil exploration site.

The oil well was somewhere in the Middle Magdalena Valley. Did I mention that it was remote? First I flew to Barenquilla and checked in with the Chevron office there. I was set up with a room and expense account at El Prado where I had a whiskey in the bar, a steak in the restaurant and a cigar by the pool.

The next morning I met the company pilot at the airport diner. We travelled south in a little two-seater flying low over the verdant jungle. Upon landing at a dirt airstrip near the Magdalena River, I transferred to a small boat which took me upstream to my jeep driver who deposited me at the exploration site. My roomate was a young British engineer. Upon completing my work there, I would have to reverse the process in order to return to Barenquilla, catch a flight to Santa Marta then taxi to the hotel where I was to meet my team.

Part Two: Rendezvous in Santa Marta

The rendezvous came off without a hitch. We spent one night in Santa Marta playing poker in the lobby and then left the following morning for Parque Tayrona on the Caribbean Coast. But first we had to stop at the bus station in Santa Marta. Joe-Joe knew a guy. Upon leaving Santa Marta we were now in possession of a rather large amount of a certain domestic botanical cultivated in Colombia since colonial times – which today, is perfectly legal!

On the way to the coast the taxi broke. We hitched a ride on a jeep with three of us hanging on the outside and cheering gleefully. Having arrived after dark, we then hiked for awhile before giving up and pitching camp in the sand by the trail. When we awoke, we found ourselves in an unspoiled paradise – complete with a little shack selling cold beer.

Part Three: Hike to Hidden Cove

We began our hike moving west down the coast until we came to a deserted cove. Then we hiked to the next deserted cove. Then we put two more deserted coves between us and the last people we had seen. We would have no human visitors to our cove for the rest of the week.

Part Four: Unpacking the Gold

It was now time to unpack our purchase from the bus station. The package was very compact and about the size of a large toaster. Once freed from its compressed wrapping, the contents expanded many times in volume. If you have never seen one pound of marijuana then let me assure you it is a lot of weed. The Santa Marta region is famous for producing a mellow strain of cannabis known as Santa Marta Gold. According to the internet, “it is energizing, uplifting and keeps you focused. This is a great strain to keep you productive and happy while also providing the occasional hallucinogenic moments.” I don’t personally remember any hallucinogenic moments, although one night when a big wave washed over Estebanon as he slept on the beach he stood up in his little tent thrashing about and shouting something about a muskrat. Let’s just say that the rest of the hike should be viewed through a happy Bob Marley haze – one through which we all know that everything is going to be all right. Don’t worry.

Part Five: Passing Time on the Beach

Aside from Estebanon’s comical midnight tent dance, the week was fairly uneventful. We played cards, swam, hiked, played Frisbee and skin dived. I remember there being numerous Barracuda in the near shore waters. On one hike we disturbed a hornet’s nest and had to seek refuge under the waves. At another point I returned with Tomasino to the palm grove near the village in order to collect coconuts. I was feeling a little feral as I padded around the grove in bare feet and no shirt looking for the best coconuts when I almost bumped right into my physics teacher who was also my project advisor. We exchanged an awkward greeting and I returned to camp with my coconuts.

Part Six: Losing Joe-Joe

For our return to Santa Marta we decided to hike the whole distance overland – no taxis. Our route would take us through the jungle and over the mountains. There were lots of monkeys. Joe-Joe wanted nothing to do with the mountain route and decided to stick to the coast. He just wandered off saying “No way, man.” We weren’t sure we would see Joe-Joe again.

Part Seven: Finding Joe-Joe

Once back in Santa Marta, we planted ourselves on the beach and wondered about Joe-Joe’s fate. Did he make it? How would we find him? About twenty minutes into our worried discussion he appeared on the beach walking in our direction and casually sat down next to us. With the gang back together we were once again a happy crew.

Directly in front of us, about 100 yards offshore was a beautiful yacht. We wondered who might be on the yacht. So we spent some time making up stories about the yacht. We all agreed that the yacht was “narcotraficantes”, but each of our stories was a unique variation on that theme.

What happened next was real and in no way a hallucination. Two men ran out onto the deck of the yacht and jumped into a small landing craft and began to speed away from the yacht. Two more men followed them onto the deck and began shooting at the smaller craft. Blam, blam! The men in the smaller boat shot back at the yacht. Blam, blam! Just then, some military police appeared on the shore not more than twenty feet to our right. They started shooting at the men on the yacht. Blam, blam! Just as soon as the shooting started it stopped. All the cowboys put their guns away and the band resumed playing.

As darkness fell, we realized that we had nowhere to stay that night. As we pondered our situation, a stranger joined us and struck up a conversation. As it turned out, his brother had a restaurant nearby with a room in the back where we could spend the night. This was great news, as we had a train to catch early the next morning. The room had a door and one other opening which was a window connecting to the restaurant’s busy kitchen. Room service was taken care of. In one corner of the large concrete room, which had three beds, there was a shower with a drain below it. The shower’s plumbing was loosely attached to the exterior of the wall.

Part Eight: The Alarm Clock

I mentioned that Tomasino was punctual. At this point he pulled a large alarm clock out of his backpack. He shook the sand out of it, wound it up and set the alarm for 5:00 am. We had to be at the train station by six. I questioned Tomasino about the condition of the alarm clock. He assured me that it was a very trustworthy clock. The clock did not wake us up. It was not even ticking when we fell asleep. We were instead awakened by the shower’s plumbing which decided to fail at exactly six the next morning. The pipe came loose where it entered the shower head and was whipping around the room like Wham-O’s infamous Water Wiggle toy.

We were all up and out of bed in a hurry – it was reminiscent of Estebanon’s tent dance. We grabbed a taxi – which broke – but eventually caught the Santa Marta train that would return us home to Bogota. The train ride would last 30 hours.

Part Nine: Returning Home

The return train ride started out quite pleasantly. We had the very last car and dangled our feet off the platform as the tracks unwound below us and the sun set. As we pulled into Bucaramanga the conductor informed us that we should move forward in the train before dark because the rearward cars had no light and would be dangerous. As the train came to a stop we began our move just as mobs of people boarded the train with children, goats and chickens. We were only six hours into a thirty hour train ride and we had no seats. Tomasino eventually fell asleep in the aisle with his head near the door to the overflowing toilet. Every time someone used the bathroom the door would hit Tomasino in the head. He remained in a peaceful sleep.

Epilogue: Good Parenting

We all made it safely home. The following Monday morning, back in school at CNG, we compared notes regarding the parents’ reactions to our returning home. They had all said the same thing when we walked through the door. That was: “Who are you?” Were they trying to be funny, or were we all so filthy and sunburned as to be unrecognizable as their children.

This trip took place just as we were turning 18. During this pivotal period of our lives we lived in what was then considered to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The threat of kidnapping was very real. My father had some scary moments as did I. So did others. There were bombings and violence. The military police could not always be trusted. The country was then governed under both a state of emergency and a state of war. Yet our parents allowed us to experience the beauty of the country and the generosity of its people with complete freedom. There was a spirit of adventure amongst the expatriates who moved there to live and work. We, their children, were being taught to take risks, experience life and have fun doing it. It was such a beautiful gift of trust that has lasted a lifetime. Someone might say it was a poorly judged and misplaced trust, yet all the same- here we are. Thank you Mom. Thank you Dad.

The following year I returned to Parque Tayrona with my Mom, Dad and sister. We skipped the bus station.

(Originally published April 19, 2021)