Colombian Peace

One lazy afternoon in Mocoa, Colombia, I was chatting with a security guard, Miguel. He talked about growing up in the forest and how Colombia had changed over the years. He said it was a lot more dangerous now and unpredictable beacause at least before, everyone knew everybody, but now there were outsiders doing things in crazy ways. He said there were some places in the forest it was too dangerous to go and no one had been there except the guerillas for 30 maybe even 50 years. He said, he knew the forest like the back of his hand and would love to one day walk freely in it again. I thought about it for a while and impulsively said “ I would go with you if you want, I’m not scared”. He looked at me shocked, and quietly said, “you don’t know anything, your vegetarian, the FARC would kill and string you up in a second”. There was another long pause and I said “I’m really not scared, are you ?”. He didn’t look at me for a while, then suddenly sprung to his feet and shouted “let’s do it “. We got some quick supplies for about a weeks walking, didn’t tell anybody and within a couple of hours were deep into the forest.After two days of nervous walking came our first encounter with the FARC. They didn’t even look at us as we walked by. On the third day, we came across another group. One of them shouted out if we had any cigarettes, to which Miguel replied with “If I had cigarettes, I would make sure I wouldn’t see you” to which we received giggles. About an hour later we came out through a clearing and saw this. It was a symbol off all things being well in the forest. Everything was in place and all of nature was at peace.