JACK´S LETTER

This is a letter that the 9th of August of the year 2006, will receive in Scotland a Investment Banker, sent by its brother:

Dear Jack:

In fifteen days we will be seeing each other again in Edinburgh, where as always you’ll entertain yourself listening to my stories of my journeys all over the world. Nevertheless, in this opportunity I have not been able to hold the desire of telling you early part of my impressions on this Colombia that you said at home, constituted the most difficult destiny of all of what I had visited. My curiosity did more on knowing what in the world of tourism is being called "THE NEW DISCOVERY".

This nation, Jack, has the most spectacular landscapes than a human being can imagine, you can go in a few hours from the fascinating caribbean sea to the top of one of it’s three mountain ranges, to converse with a millenarian tribe, the Kogis Indians and also to receive from them their rich cosmology in symbols but in realities, with an infinite kindness. Not very far from there, in a zone of salt operation, called the “Guajira”, where the old ranch homes hospitality, the exotic beauty of its indigenous women and the amplitude of their spirits impressed me. I went to an Island, Providence, where the colors of the sea would bewitch the most exquisite of the painters and where the placidness of its abundant orange crab beaches is fed by its exotic inhabitants, brown men of blond hair, polyglots, with a music that gathers with delight and harmony the crossing of human races and cultures. I do not know what happens there, but the sensuality is at skin level. The natives make the tourists float in the space with the calm interpretation of the relation between the sky constellations in one starred night and love. I also went to one of the most rainy places on the planet with the greatest biodiversity known, the “Chocó”; in the middle of colourful butterflies I learned what is matting fishing, where the calmed and generous “BOGA” shared to me, speaking very gentle, the secrets of the rustic surroundings and the centennial pain remedies for the body and soul, and I bathed in immense cascades. In Colombia, within its forests, I understood the Earth lungs matter.
I lowered later to the “Vallecaucano” Pacific to appreciate the arrival of the hunchback whales, that every year for decades, have been coming from the South Pole to mate in these warm waters and they return to continue with the gestation period, until a year later when they return to give birth to their breeding; here they learn to swim and here they will return throughout its life. The region is populated with descendants of Africans where their music and gastronomy makes them proud of that umbilical cord.

Soon I went to the coffee zone where the landscapes generated by the sinuosity hills, and the diverse tree shades over the coffee plantations, give a gorgeous contrast to the above added, majestic wax palms which have been standing elegant watching the arrival of tourists in small trucks,which are conserved perfectly, manufactured for more than 40 years ago. But nothing more pleasant than getting in the mornings the kind smile of a countrywoman from Salento that has just brought to you the strained coffee and enjoys as nobody does, seeing you delight it with its scent and its flavor.

Throughout the day, the family of farmers, brings to you fruits of those shaded trees, sometimes as juice other times in their natural state and you happen to see the glad passage of "jeeps" loaded with goods and hens or in the afternoon the return of the children which come in bunches from the nearest school.

When we'll chat in Edinburgh, I will tell you some other pleasing surprises: as diverse people as charming, the valleys landscapes; in short, I have spent nights in blank thinking about what I have told you here and about so many good people those who I have known. You might be asking yourself why I don’t talk about the cities? I believe that it will be your duty now that you are the financial brain of the family. If you don’t come as soon as you can, you will lose magnificent businesses opportunities that are being held specially in Bogota, Cali and Medellín. They told me that at their magnificent hotels amounts of investors arrive from America, Europe and the Eastern countries. Imagine how would be like wasting a potential of 45 million consumers, in a country with a privileged position, great influence on the countries of the Andean area and with an industrial infrastructure that would turn it into the ideal supplier for Central America and Caribbean islands. In addition, it has received the solidarity of some of the most powerful nations as a result of its fight against drugs, which has generated preference tariffs that made Colombian products so competitive in the United States and Europe. Do not doubt about it Jack, that great part of your businesses future is here.
But you might ask me what happened, why that Colombia that would be in 2006, is so positively different from that impossible country of which it was told until some time? The answer is that during the previous Government, the visionary governors and the guerrilla leaders agreed that after so many years of conflict, Colombia deserved a better destiny. The Presidents were conscious that the country needed to change and that their fellow citizens had to make sacrifices, to find peace and a more tolerant and balanced way for all. The veteran guerrilla leader understood that the balance of its existence would not have to be in harvested human lives, in the number of widows or orphans or in the amount of blood spilled all over the country. That great revolutions heroes must go beyond posterity, not by the amount of generated violence, but by the effective success of a social transformation. That a life achievement is not to receive a small revolutionary army and to return a big one, but to be born in a country with injustice and at the end of the days be one co-protagonist of a new country where everyone fits peacefully and with a clear future.

Finally Jack, everyone here realized that and great sacrifices were made. It was not easy. Many of the guerrilla men make part of the army now. Others are ecotourism or agricultural entrepreneurs in their regions. All of them understood something that I hope to have transmitted to you with this letter. That the best of all the Colombian landscapes, is the human. Each beautiful place of this land, is complemented with good, amused, laborious and warm people. That sum of factors, people, climates, biodiversity and mainly the peace that was obtained and that was welcomed by all the guerrilla groups and supported by the Government and the society, is what has given origin to which the Travel agencies worldwide call "the new discovery". The great beneficiary of all this subject are not just the great cities executives that are receiving the foreign investors, are the million countrymen, the “bogas”, butler’s children cattle carriers, young guides, rural small hotels that have made of the tourism their more beautiful form to live and to share.
Jack, don’t hesitate to come, this country of these days is so fascinating that it would be irresponsible to die without coming to know it.

Your brother, Andrew

Eduardo José Victoria / Stellar Hotels Manager
(translation done by GMS)