I was drunk on the beauty and newness of everything around me. Fernando and I were in total agreement—we wanted to live here. The mountains captivated us. The life-giving spring water convinced us. Not even the giant constrictor I’d seen in the woods could deter us.


That evening, by candlelight, we planned an offer. We were at the end of the road, literally, in Vistahermosa, at the town’s only hotel, a one-story cement building with a few rooms along an interior patio, each with a single bed and mosquito netting, a square wooden stool and a candle. The toilet and shower, in separate stalls, were shared by all the guests. On this particular night that meant only us.
On the way back through San Juan de Arama the next day, we stopped at don Raul’s large brick house on the corner of the main plaza. Sitting in the spacious central room, the conversation led to a big glob of shiny metal hanging on the wall. “That,” don Raul told us, “is the remains of a DC-3 that crashed nearby. As it was taking off it got stuck in an ant mound. Its contents of marijuana exploded into flames melting the aluminum craft into that piece of ‘modern art’.”
He said it with such naturalness, that I took it in stride. But really, was this a common occurrence—planes filled with marijuana burning in the fields? As if reading my mind he added, “The marijuana business has dropped off here since now more is being grown on the Caribbean coast. From there it can easily be sent north in boats.”
Actually, we had originally planned on going to that part of the country but had been warned that the drug-trafficking had made the area dangerous. We hoped the Llanos were safer.


Don Mario handled the negotiations. I didn’t understand much of what was being said, but before long we were all shaking hands, congratulating each other. “We just bought a farm!” I said to myself. “I haven’t been in Colombia a month and we’ve already found a perfect place to homestead.”
Or so I believed, until we returned to Bogotá and heard the news that our new neighbor, the owner of Los Micos, a large, well-established cattle farm adjacent to ours, had just been kidnapped by the guerrilla!
I was totally taken aback. Kidnapping? Guerrilla? Just how dangerous was this place? What were we getting into? I certainly didn’t write home about my confusion. What would my parents think if they knew kidnapping went on where I was moving? What was I supposed to think? Fernando had warned me about the poverty and pickpockets, and about being taken advantage of in his country, but we’d never talked about kidnappings or guerrilla.


Although no one else seemed alarmed, and my father-in-law, don Mario, still wanted to buy a farm in the area, we were disillusioned. We had to rethink the idea. Maybe living with the guerrilla as neighbors wasn’t worth the risk. Fernando took a bus back to San Juan de Arama, looking for don Raul. Waiting in the shade of a mango tree beside a creek at the edge of town, Fernando watched as women in everyday clothes stood in thigh-high water washing their laundry on smooth rocks, and bronzed children played in the pool formed by a dam made of sticks and mud.
After a while, don Raul approached leisurely on a tall brown mare. Smiling, he dismounted and extended his hand. Fernando, shaking it, told him about the kidnapping and asked don Raul to return our money. “I’m sorry, don Fernando, I’ve already spent it on cattle. But don’t worry,” he went on, “this area is peaceful. People die of old age here, not from violence.”
“What about the guerilla?” Fernando asked.
“Los muchachos,” the kids, meaning the guerilla, “don’t want trouble,” said don Raul. “They only wanted to question don José Manuel,” our neighbor. “He’s already been released, unharmed, and is back with his family in Villavicencio.”
Don Raul’s confidence was reassuring and after talking with others, Fernando learned that the guerrilla was held with respect among our neighbors—not the large landowners—but the farmers, cowboys, and homesteaders—the regular people of the area. The guerrilla was there to protect and help them.
In the region around our farm, the army and the guerrilla had a mutual understanding and an invisible line they didn’t cross. The FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was the law in the mountains and the army controlled the plains. The two powers co-existed like this for years.


I felt I’d been thrown into a parallel universe, certainly one not as consistent as the Midwestern United States of my childhood. In Colombia, where most people have little, and a few have more than they could possibly need, the disparity between classes is gaping. The fact that inside this country guerilla armies were fighting the established system, demanding equality and justice for the poor masses, made me realize just how different a place I was in.
Nevertheless, after considering the options, we decided that the privilege of living in such a pristine area outweighed the fear and prepared to embark on our adventure. I truly believed it would be peaceful and idyllic living on this remote farm, and it did prove to be so for years, until another power came to the area, disrupting the balance.
But we had no way of predicting the future.