The Placi Years - A Digression to 1979

I digress - sorry but if I don't enter this now, I'll forget it. When Maya was approaching three, I swung a deal with Avianca Airlines that got Elliot and me a sweet ten day vacation to Cartagena, Columbia. In return I was to take a series of travel photos for the airline. So we headed for South America with joy and anticipation. We were both sober and in control of our lives. There was nothing to fear from the rumours of easy drugs.

Things went well for about five days and I took many photos. We hired a boat to the Rosario Islands where we snorkeled, swam, walked on white sandy beaches and looked for shells. It was a peaceful unpopulated island among a chain (rosary) of other similar islands. Some wealthy Colombians had cottages on a few islands, but mostly it was parkland. I found a conch shell there that I still have. Back in Cartagena, we enjoyed the old world grace of our hotel, its lovely pool and the fine dining. I did a lot of exploring in the old town, but the old fortifications fascinated Elliot more. I was beginning to notice though, that he would decline to join me more often as the days progressed.

He hung out a lot with another US couple and they frequently were joined by a couple of seedy local men. My antenna went up and it became clear to me that Elliot had fallen thunderously off the wagon. Even more alarming was the type of people he chose to be with. He was taking crazy risks to connect and I was sure trouble was immanent. We had to get out of this mess soon and fly home. Elliot had no wish to leave. He was in bliss and refused to give it up. I had to leave alone.

Elliot spoke Spanish but I didn't, so how was I going to change flights, cash travellers' cheques, do last minute shopping and leave? I had no idea. Then I remembered the tour guide that hung out at the hotel. He often took guests on guided tours of the city.

I left Columbia four days early but Elliot wouldn't budge. He stayed at the hotel until the scheduled return date, hanging out with the people who enjoyed the same hobbies. I hired a tour guide (Marco) to help me with details like changing my departure date, staying with me while I finished some last minute stuff like, photographing the inner city of Cartagena, shopping for gifts for the folks back home, and converting some money for my ride to Barranquila the next day. Marco had convinced the Avianca rep that it was an emergency and I had to leave as soon as possible. I was booked onto a return flight for the next day, but departing from Barranquila.

Marco believed that I was forced to fly home immediately because my child was ill and took his job as my protector very seriously. I needed him because I didn't speak Spanish and almost no-one spoke English. All the stuff I had hoped to do over the next few days had to be compressed into one. Those photos needed to be completed to honour the deal with Avianca Airlines. In Colombia an American woman alone is fair game. Marco's savvy and protection was a Godsend.

So while Elliot was out of his face by the pool, I was out taking care of business. Marco was tall for a Colombian man, and missing a few teeth (normal in Colombia). He had hired a car to pick me up at the hotel the next morning and rode with me to Barranquila, stopping in villages to buy local foods for me to taste and explaining the history. He was very attentive, stroking my hair and caressing my hand. He was hoping he could change my mind and return to Cartagena to stay with him. Utterly insane, but strangely good for my morale under the circumstances.

He no longer believed my sick child story because he realized that my husband was the idiot he was supplying with cocaine back at the hotel. In Marco's fantasy I was the independent woman who was leaving her idiot husband and that made me available. Since Colombian women wouldn't dare walk away from their men like that, I was very exciting to him. But I stuck to my sick child story. All I wanted was to get to the damned airport without a new drama in the back seat of the taxi.

At the airport, he got me through check-in, kissed my hand and then suddenly, ever the Latin romantic, he grabbed me tight around the waist for an intense farewell kiss. It was like a bad romance novel. I was so relieved to be free of him that I let him play out his fantasy and waved good bye. He wanted people to see him saying good-bye to a lover not a client. I hope he went home and bragged all around the cantina about his romantic tryst with the tall, sexy blond American woman. He deserved that story.

He was a Colombian small-scale entrepreneur, living by his wit and English skills to provide the tourists with whatever they wanted. With us, he made money coming and going: supplying the husband with drugs, and rescuing the wife from the fall out. Had he also seduced the wife, his life would have been perfect.