Shotguns in the Dark

This morning, at 4am, I found myself, in near pitch blackness with several armed Colombians that I didn't know! To say that no part of me ever thought this might happen would be a lie. However, I can say that I never expected to intentionally put myself in such a situation! Fortunately, the people I was with were all friends (or friends of friends) of Irene, and the shotguns were purely intended for water fowl of the duck variety.

Irene's sister MariaJose's novio Carlos enjoys duck hunting and he invited us to go along.

L-R: MariaJose, Carlos, his step mother, his sister and Irene's sister Eliana

This entailed leaving at 2am for a place about an hour's drive away and going out in canoes before dawn and than a few hours of carnage before heading back at around 10am. Irene and I didn't do any shooting, of course, but we waited in the main canoe (after dropping off the four smaller canoes with a hunter each at their favourite locations) and enjoyed the sunrise while the hunting commenced. Normally I'd classify hunting as a fairly distasteful activity that I'd prefer to avoid, but I thought it would be an adventure and it was. Of course, any meat-eater can't be dead against it and not be a hypocrite, and Carlos told me that they only keep around 1/3 of what they kill and the rest they give to the people who run the boats. They're quite poor and don't get meat very often, so that seems to me to be adequate justification.

It was very dark when we first set out in the boats, and it's quite a disconcerting feeling being in a very narrow boat that seems likely to tip over at any given moment especially when combined with the idea of not being able to see anything, and not being able to understand what's being said around you. There were 4 small canoes and one big canoe with a motor towing the other four (I was in the large one). The name of the lake (or estuary) was Cienaga de Momil, Momil being the town on the lakeside. It was quite large, and it took us about an 45 minutes to reach the places where we left the hunters. I wondered how they managed to navigate around, because it seemed to me like just miles of endless water with occasional clumps of reeds and grasses. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing though, of course.

The mosquitos were in force, but we'd put on some repellent and they didn't bother us nearly as much as I thought they might. We were all wearing long-sleeved shirts, and even at 4 in the morning, it was only just cool enough to keep them on. When the sun started coming up, it all became worthwhile.

Irene was cold and tired	I chose the orange shirt because it offered excellent camouflage	Everyone was kept busy

When the time came to go back, the engine in the main boat wouldn't start (which, somehow I thought might happen) and we ended up getting in the smaller boats and getting back under human power. Each boat had two crew members, one at the front with a stick and one at the back with an oar (and a stick) and it took us about an hour and a half to get back. Needless to say it was HOT!

When we arrived back there were many people there to meet us, and it turned out to be one family. I remember the grandfather from the before we left talking to himself (or anyone who would listen) about Mosquitos and such, but what I din't know was that he had 10 sons, who made up the crews of the boats. Most of these had children and I counted over twenty kids under 18 who were hanging around when we got back, and it occurred to me that the 70 ducks or so that they were given couldn't last very long! While we were waiting around to leave I noticed that they looked at me as a bit of a novelty - I doubt you get many gringos around here.

Roads

The roads in Colombia are pretty terrible. I had no idea that roads could get so bad, let alone that they would be allowed to deteriorate so much. Massive potholes are a possibility wherever you go, and in a spirit of free enterprise that should make America proud, you often find people standing in the middle of the road with buckets, having filled in the holes with dirt, hoping to be thrown some money from passing motorists. There are dozens of motorcyclists everywhere, and their habits of passing each other and swerving out tend to make driving a pretty......exciting affair. Alertness is certainly key.