Reflections on Ecuador and Colombia

I went to Ecuador thinking it would be a parallel to Peru, where I had the opportunity to travel several years ago.  I went to Colombia thinking it would be a sweaty, pressing place, still working its way out of years of drug-fueled warfare, internal upheaval, and a wide-held external view of travel risk.  On both counts I was wrong.

The goal of this post is not to make a travel advertisement for Colombia; or a geopolitical warning about Ecuador.  Rather, it is to muse on how easy it is for external views on a place to ossify, and how, to an outsider, particular geopolitical perceptions all too quickly conflate: Ecuador – part of the “good South America;” Colombia – part of the bad.

I found Colombia to be a great place: the people were friendly (a local surgeon we ran into on the street offered to give us a ride to dinner when he realized we didn’t know exactly where our restaurant was), the weather was lovely – hot, sunny, with spotty but high Carribean-esque cloud-cover, and getting around was straight-forward.  Go.  To Cartagena (great food scene), to the Islas Rosarios (we were on Isla Pirata, which is adjacent to Pablo Escobar’s former private island lair) – I found Colombia to be a terrific place for a vacation.

Ecuador was another matter: hosted by a friend from college, we were forewarned to be very careful about which cabs to get into (lest we get kidnapped or worse) and to not enter bars, for risk of local roughnecks responding to our obvious US-anianness.  Ecuador’s government recently aligned with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (yes, I say this is a definitively bad thing).  Talk of widespread property seizure (individual and corporate) has led to capital flight, and a collapse in the local real estate market (as anyone who can liquidates their hard assets so as to expatriate capital).  And unrest is visible: in one particularly intense 20-minute interval, our host was pick-pocketed by a thief ring (we pieced this together after the fact), we were hit with pepper spray as police beat back protestors outside a social event for the rich, and we witnessed some unpleasant police violence toward a group of teenagers who had some role in the protest and following conflagration.

On its current path, I can’t imagine Ecuador remaining a tourist-friendly place.  Perhaps this will be all the better for the Galapagos, suffered as they have from over-visiting.  And so perhaps perceptions will change.  Fortunately, Colombia is right next door.

Bull Fighting

Having now seen it, I can’t justify bullfighting.  In my mind, there is no question that many aspects of the sport stray far too far into the realm of animal abuse to be seen as justifiable.  Moreover, to me, something “sporting” is something where all participants have a reasonable chance of winning.  In bullfighting, the bull inevitably is killed (a small fraction of bulls are spared due to their courage during the fight – as determined by the judges), and the matador and his entourage seem (and I saw the #1 and #3 ranked fighters in the world) too protected, and too quick to run even to make it seem like they are taking on that much risk (though as many as 100 gorings occur per year, only 5 matadors have been killed in the past decade or so — see here).  This is not to argue that the sport is skill-less; the sport would be death for amateurs (as shown for example by the death of a imitator this summer in Peru — see here).

I intellectually believe in what I just wrote; still, the guttural aspects of the sport – its intensity, its colors and noises, compelled my attention in a way that few other things have.  What is it about bloodsports that allow them to so easily grasp our attention?  Would it be different if it were man v. man? – indeed, I think not.  In writing this I realize I am admitting to a certain primal hold that something, somewhere deep down has over my worldview – or at least that perceptory filter that modulates what I enjoy.  Does this admission compel me to curtail that which is internal to me, or, rather, does this point to the need for institutions to help us save us from ourselves?  I strongly believe the latter to be true, even though the Hemmingway-wannabe in me hopes to see these fights again.

Doddsville: The Intelligent Investor

Simple, logically self-sufficient, and reflective of norms now outside much financial thinking: focused the values of transparency and simplicity.  If you are at all into investing (or want to understand the advisor/s who do so on your behalf), read this book.  My regret is that it took me so long to get to reading this…