Colombia: Impromptu Conscriptions And Endless Possibilities
By Christopher Kirk

You can try crossing the street to avoid the soldiers, but they’ll come after you anyway. First, they’ll stop and search you, and then they’ll demand some ID. Spread-eagled against the wall with a strange man’s hands feeling you up in new and uncomfortable places, you pray: please please let this go smoothly. Not because you’ve done anything wrong. Not because the soldiers are particularly menacing.

But because you know what they say: everything is possible in Colombia.

Military service is compulsory for all men in Colombia, or at least, the ones who can’t afford to pay the standard $1000 bribe to get out of it. If you serve your time or pay the bribe, you get a military ID card that you need to carry with you at all times. Every few months, a plain-looking canvas-walled truck will show up in the neighborhood, and soldiers round up every male they can find. The bars close early on those days, and the sidewalks clear out. If you’ve got your military ID, they’ll let you go, but if you don’t – welcome to the army, son, you’re on your way to basic training, right then and there.

Hope you didn’t leave the stove on.

Jushim, Ivan, Jorge and I had only stepped outside our gated apartment complex for cigarettes and arepas, round white bread commonly grilled and sold on the street, when the soldiers stopped us. I was carrying a photocopy of my gringo passport. I had the page with my photo, at least, but I didn’t carry the page showing my tourist visa, which had quite thoroughly expired. This was a matter of some concern. I was exempt from the Colombian draft, but I wasn’t exempt from Colombian arrest and extradition for overstaying my visa. This may or may not be likely in practice, but everything is possible.

Jushim carried his bribed military ID card in his wallet at all times. Ivan had a bribed military card, but since we’d only stepped outside for a moment, he’d left it at home. Ivan was facing a 72 hour visit to an army holding pen, where his family would either produce the card or he’d go off to basic training. Ivan jovially tried to convince the soldiers to give him a break, his hands were too greasy and full of arepa to reach into his wallet, but it wasn’t looking good. And Jorge? Well, his family couldn’t afford the bribe, so it looked like Jorge was about to get fitted for a camouflage suit.

It was, shall we say, an uncomfortable situation.

The soldiers asked Jushim, Ivan, Jorge and I for our papers. Jushim coolly showed his ID. They weren’t buying Ivan’s story that his hands were too full of arepa to reach for his wallet, but they looked hesitant about how to proceed. Jorge simply tried to blend into the background while I sheepishly handed over the tattered, folded-up photocopy of my passport. The soldier was confused at first, and he asked if I was from the United States.

“Yup,” I said. “That’s a photocopy of my passport.”

The other two soldiers overheard this and crowded around. They all wanted a look at the gringo’s ID, and then they looked at me like an alien. One of them patted his rifle and asked if I knew what it was.

“Sure. That’s an American M-16,” I said.

They all smiled and nudged each other. One of them said they had a group of American Special Forces soldiers attached to their unit, helping to train them. What could I say but chevere, cool, and give them an awkward thumbs-up. There are times for political grandstanding, and then there are times to just give them what they want and hope they’ll go away.

They laughed and slapped me on the shoulder and shook my friends’ hands and casually strolled away, wishing us all a good evening.

When we returned to the safety of our apartment complex, my wide-eyed friends gathered around to thank me. They laughed and were amazed by the gringo power – the soldiers were so surprised and impressed to meet an American, they let us all go without any hassle at all.

Everything is possible in Colombia.

This is the part of Colombia the typical gringo tourist doesn’t get to see. Not that there are many of those “typical” tourists. Thanks to Colombia’s sinister international rep, the only gringos you’re bound to see in Colombia are up to some kind of no good, working for the US military, or both.

You’ll find differing opinions about the safety of Bogotá for travelers, but I’ve never met the gringo who’s had a problem. Street crime happens, of course, but it doesn’t seem to be particularly endemic. I have a gringo friend who’s lived in less safe parts of Bogotá for nine years, and he’s never had a problem. As long as you don’t go where you shouldn’t go – and Colombians will certainly tell you where those places are – any half-sensible traveler should expect nothing but a great time.

Chia, for example, is a little town just north of Bogotá, and it’d be just another speck on the map if it didn’t inexplicably have some of the best bars on the planet. The most famous, Andres Carne de Res, is the world’s largest, most intricate art project, a gigantic, rambling restaurant and bar where every part of every surface is covered with ever-changing stuff. Signs, mannequins, candles, folk art, bicycles, lights, paintings, yo-yos, stars, and things you can’t recognize. It’s the Sistine Chapel of bars, a true wonder of the world. Like the Grand Canyon, you can describe it and you can photograph it, but you’ll never really understand what it’s like until you’re actually there. And the atmosphere every weekend is like Paris being liberated from the Nazis.

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