Post #327360 by The Gnomon on Wed, Aug 22, 2007 10:25 AM

On 2003-03-29 02:14, Jungle Trader wrote:
Another one, go to putumayo.com, then click "Our Catalog", then click "Caribbean", then "Jamaica", then "Midnight in Ethiopia" by Rico. But you'll have to buy it to hear it all and it's worth it too.

When I saw the word "putumayo" I had to check it out. I went to the site and learned that the founder, Dan Storper, had visited the jungles of the Putumayo about three years after I had spent a month there. It's a rather enchanting place. No wonder he named his enterprise after it.

In 1971, I started out from a place called Mocoa in the eastern cordillera foothills of southern Colombia with a few fellow international relations student companions. First, we went overland to go down the Caquetá River that borders the Department of Putumayo on the north. We embarked from a small village on a tributary of the Caquetá catching a ride with a Comerciante (Jungle Trader). After a couple of weeks going down river we stopped at a riverside jungle air base (Tres Esquinas) and flew south to a big town on the Putumayo River (Puerto Leguízamo). There we hired another Jungle Trader (one of their businesses is water taxi) to take us upriver for a couple of weeks until we reached Mocoa where we'd started.

Couldn't make that same trip today without probably being kidnapped by guerillas and held for ransom. Early 70s was the perfect time there. Thought you might be amused.