Cali, Colombia 1998

Columbia, 1998

So, there I was, sitting in the Cali airport, waiting for my plane. I had made it through the military security guards and was watching the sun come up over the mountains. The flat section of land on which the airport is located is surrounded by green jagged mountains that had early morning wisps of cloud lingering.

I was heading home after a three-day trip to Columbia. The trip had started out OK with a safe arrival in Cali. We made it through Immigration and the expected car and driver were at the airport and we made it to the hotel. Armed security guards were all over the lobby including a plain-clothes guy with a shotgun hung down his back with an over-the-shoulder lanyard. We were advised not to leave the hotel due to all the kidnappings and murders.

The thing I had to do the next morning went well and I was back at the hotel by lunchtime. It was National Secretary’s Day and there was an afternoon of festivities at the hotel for the local businessmen and their secretaries. There was music, a fashion show, buffet lunch and a constant stream of drinks leaving the bar where I stood and watched. I commented to the bartender that all of the women were gorgeous and he agreed. He explained to me that most of the men had two secretaries, one who could do the work and one who it didn’t matter if she knew how to sharpen a pencil. Apparently the older, less attractive capable secretaries were still back in the office working. He also explained to me that I was lucky to have gotten a room because most hotel rooms in Cali were fully booked on National Secretary’s Day.

I went into the American Airlines office that afternoon to change my return tickets. Just as it was my turn for service an armored van pulled up front and three armed guards got out for the daily mail run. Two had pistol gripped shotguns held high, fingers on the triggers, not on the trigger guards. The third had a 45 in one hand and the canvas sack in the other. One shotgun stood at the rear of the office, one waited by the front door and the hand gun did the bag swap. I stood at the counter, hands flat on the surface, unwilling to reach inside my jacket for my passport until their trade was done and they were gone.

On the way to the airport the next morning I saw a dead man lying in the street with a pool of blood seeping out from under the jacket someone had placed over his head. The driver didn’t seem fazed; he just swerved and kept going to the airport. The airport security guards showed a keen interest in their x-ray of a box of golf balls in my carry-on luggage but I had managed to convince them that the balls were neither explosives nor drugs. It wasn’t easy considering I didn’t speak Spanish, they didn’t speak English and they were heavily armed and very excitable.
So, there I sat. The morning breeze was coming through the open walls of the airport. With it came the bats, home from their night of doing whatever it is that bats do. The bats flew into the airport and disappeared up the cracks between the precast concrete roof panels. The cracks must have been just wide enough for the bats to roost. That would explain the long lines of bat crap that were evenly spaced across the airport floor, one line under each crack.

From the terminal we could see the aircraft being loaded with luggage. They took the job seriously with armed sentries, locked luggage wagons and a manifest against which to check each bag. A few bags that didn’t match up were left on the tarmac. The plane was swept by sniffer dogs before we were allowed on.

Security in Miami was tight on arrival as well. Random flights from Columbia were met by an advance contingent of federal officers. Their job was to check the passengers over before they got loose in the terminal. My papers were in order but I am always nervous entering the US. We walked single file through the jetway into the terminal. We had to go single file as the DEA was in there with drug dogs. I wasn’t carrying anything but one of the dogs took a keen interest in me anyway and I was pulled aside at the end of the jetway. The DEA patted me down, searched my carry-on and let his dog have another go at me. When he was done I got passed around to Immigration, FTA and Customs agents, all in plain clothes with badges on their belts. This was all before going through the terminal to the regular Immigration and Customs lines where I had the same questions asked of me again. Welcome to America.