My last night at the missionary compound I played cards with the family of a mission pilot who was out on duty. After a few hands the lights flickered, then died. The guerrillas had sabotaged several high voltage towers. 'In Guatemala,' I told my aunt as word filtered in with respect to the
causes of the blackout, 'our guerrillas would never get off with dynamiting main power lines.' Other reports had the guerrillas attempting to blow a bridge along the main conduit between Villavicencio and the capitol, stopping traffic coming out of mountain tunnels in order to spray paint on vehicles slogans of the revolution, and hijacking a plane at the Villavicencio
airport.
To the Villavicencio airport we flew from the mission air strip on a midweek
morning. We were already in a cab about to begin the long ride back up to Bogota when it occurred to me I had misplaced something. My sketchbook! My big black sketchbook! I'd left it on the plane. Much to the unease of the others in the cab who entertained the notion I suppose that I could be mistaken for a hijacker, I ran out to the airport entrance and through the security gate, which was actually a wide open access to the air field, secured entirely, should any incident arise, by machine-gun fire.
Knowing little Spanish then, I gestured to one of the machine-guns if I might be allowed onto the field and was waved through, catching the plane with my book while it was yet refueling.
The cab ride back 'up the hill' was much more complicated than the jeep ride
down. Two feet of rain on the eastern exposures to the Andes had precipitated what one could only describe as boulder slides. Stones, many the size of Volkswagens, littered the road to the capitol along most of its path. As if the mountain road wasn't curvy enough, the cab seemed to veer left or right as much to negotiate rocks as curves.
Pulling around a series of boulders that mimicked a semi-trailer rig, we
came to a bridge with a manhole cover sized gap in it's middle and eased effortlessly around the obstacle, the 'blown job' of the resistance. Mother nature had superseded the guerrillas in hampering travel between the llanas and the capitol. Indeed, within two more weeks the road would be entirely impassable due to rock slides.
In Bogota, my aunt decided she did not want her stash of poison arrows tucked
away among her other souvenirs and gave them all to me. I was travelling light and had only one small bit of luggage, a bag woven in Mayan Cakchiquile which was two inches too short for most of the arrows. They stuck out of the bag, the end of which was left unzipped to reveal the cotton swab shafts rather than the razor sharp tips which were for safety's sake plunged into dirty socks deep within.
With all good-byes said, I was on my own as I approached customs at the
BogotaAeropuerto Internacional. Due to the daring feats of the guerrillas, security was tightened and all passengers were being hand frisked and their luggage thoroughly searched. It at this point crossed my mind that attempting to board the plane with poison arrows in full view might constitute a touchy circumstance and I was only minutes away
from being frisked myself.
It was my turn for security check. I first handed my bag over to be searched, which was almost immediately set back down aside for me to claim. As I had to assume a position to be hand searched, I handed my sketchbook to a soldier with a machine-pistol hanging at his side and went through to be frisked. A dozen cotton swabs from the ends of the poison darts jutted harmlessly out of the sketchbook, having the appearance of art paraphernalia. I picked up my bag, claimed my sketchbook, and boarded the plane.
Travel by plane in Latin America has one considerable drawback--carry on luggage. As I boarded my plane I saw every conceivable item dragged up to and stuffed in the craft's stowaway compartments: champagne, statues, golf clubs, knickknacks, and backpacks. A
couple with a child claimed the two inside seats in my row. They stuffed the overheads full and then proceeded to fill any remaining space underneath.
I was able to chuck my Mayan patterned bag into a small space I was allowed
under the seat in front of me, but all the junk of the passengers to my side forced me to roll my poison darts inside a newspaper and leave them precariously stationed on the very
outside of the space beneath my seat.
After the meal was served, the plane hit some turbulence and the newspaper
unrolled. I was suddenly startled by a stewardess who shoved an arrow right up to my face and spouted the ultimatum, 'Señor!'
I arrived in Guatemala on a Saturday and the next day El Presidente Serrano was scheduled to give a big speech simulcast on both TV and radio. Five minutes before the event guerrillas blew a key power grid. A photo of the toppled tower splashed the next day's Prensa Libre. For the first time since arriving in Central America, I was without power.
I was not yet finished with the poison dart dilemma. As I left Guatemala months
later, I still faced the task of getting them through Dallas customs. As anyone returning from the third world finds out, honesty is not always the best policy when filling out a customs declaration card. And because I admitted to having visited a farm while outside U.S. borders, actually a coffee plantation, I was pulled over for the inspection.
'That one,' the Dallas customs official pointed. It was the suitcase with the poison darts from Colombia. In my hurry to pack, I had tossed them all loosely into the bottom rear sateen pocket of one of my two king-sized suitcases. I lugged the baggage up to the counter where it was zipped open. The inspector took no notice of the clearly visible poison darts whose unsecured razor sharp tips had penetrated though the pocket's lining and lodged themselves into the myriad of luggage contents. He merely plunged both hands into the mass of soiled clothes and assorted souvenirs and began a rapid swirling motion in
search of various contraband. I wanted to stop him, but wasn't in any particular big hurry to say, 'Er...watch out for the poison darts, will you.'
Swirling his ungloved hands within inches of the tips of my Macu poison arrows, the customs official suddenly stopped, pulled up his hands and said, 'You’re out of here.' And indeed so I was.
I later heard that two of the mission families I'd encountered at the school compound had family members kidnapped and murdered by guerrillas when a ransom wasn't paid. The mission compound itself was evacuated due to the widening guerrilla war and to my knowledge continues to remain abandoned. I would return to Colombia again several years afterwards, but only to visit Cali.