Colombian jungle experience: Tanimboca reservation – 18-4-2007

On our way to Tanimboca we passed a site where “terra preta” had been found. I even looked with the microscope at samples from this site (obtained from Juan Carlos Berrio, University of Leicester, UK) ! But what could I do here now? The site was a 100 m from the road into the jungle and the others were waiting in the car at a temperature well above 30 degrees..... With admiration for those who had discovered this site I joined the others. For the rest of the trip I forgot about terra preta, about which I had been reading a lot. After all, La Condamine didn’t know what it was. It was he who remarked that places where Orellana had found large populations of indians, were now deserted.

At Tanimboca, 8 km NW of Leticia, we were hoisted up to a platform some 35 m high, overviewing the canopy. Then we had to slide to another tree with a pulley. I now admired the indian instructors who skilfully played with our lives (I still weighed 93 kg!). At this time of the day few animals defied the heat, but it was a great experience anyway, especially the canoe trip through a black-water creek, where we saw the Mariposa diurna and where we heard for the first time the call of the "piha", heard so often in the jungle of Surinam.

Flight to Leticia on17 April 2007

On April 17 the four of us (Hilbert, his son Hilbert-Jan, Boudewijn and myself) departed for Leticia. From the airplane we had a beautiful view on the rivers and forests below us. We saw the large Rio Caqueta paralleled by the much smaller and stronger meandering Rio Canuinari. From the shadows the clouds casted on the forest surface it was clear that the mid-day sun was standing in the north! Nearing Leticia we saw signs of deforestation.

Visit to the Embajada Real de los Paises Bajos on 16 April 2007

Octavio Martinez, the chauffeur of the then ambassador Frits Regtdoorzee Greup, still recognized me over the telephone! He came immediately to the Embajada to fetch us. The present-day ambassador, Frans van Haren, was not interested to hear some history about his house “Klein Soestdijk”, where we stayed 32 and 29 years ago (perhaps because the house was now surrounded by a bullet-free wall and could not be seen from the street anymore...). Octavio took us to his house in the north of Bogotá (BoliviaX), filled with dutch souvenirs and served us colombian drinks and fruits. What a warm reception!

Visit to “La Casa de la Madre y el Niño” on 16 April 2007

As a younger member of the french expedition (he was 30 years) La Condamine had a mission to fulfil in Quito. By chance, he ended up in Paramaribo where he could get a boat to Holland.
After our visit to Paramaribo in 2005 we wanted to come back to Suriname. But what brought us to Bogotá in the Andes?
We wanted to visit again “La Casa de la Madre y el Niño”, for a third time after 29 and 32 years, together with Marius and Boudewijn. For the third time we were sitting in the waiting-room, but this time together with our two sons. And it was still Ines Elvira de Fajardo that came to inform us, showing us all the adoption documents they had in the archive, the only connection to the roots of Antonio Fernando and Jeronimo Pico.....She also showed us the whole Casa, which had extended considerably.
With her 40 years of adoption-experience she examined the two young men asking them how they felt and what they were doing. They were asked to write their feelings in the special guestbook. Then she made a picture of the four of us, which ended the “ceremony”.

Bogotan experience 15-4-2007

If La Condamine received hospitality and friendship from the Maldonado-brothers in Quito, so did we experience a cordial reception by the Lopez-family in Bogotá. Jose Lopez, the uncle of Eulalia whom Hilberto had met in Naarden, guided us to Zipaquira where we visited the ´Catedral de Sal´. 
The Muisca indians there had traded salt for gold for many centuries, until they were wiped out.
In the afternoon we visited the ´Museo de Oro´, where we saw the famous objects the indians had made of gold.
In the evening we were brought to Jose´s house in the north of this 8 million people-town. The small house was filled by the six of us, by the family of the two daughters of Jose and Martha, and by their two sons, Camilo and Mauricio. To our embarassment we were seated at a table of 8 to eat the "ajiaco bogotano". The others came by to get their share.
The guitar was played, we laughed, drank wine, exchanged presents, told our life histories and thanked for this wonderful day. Seldom we had experienced such hospitality from people we we had never met before!