Cali (or)

There and Back Again
by Alan Carter (a human not a hobbit)

This tale begins much like that of the Hobbit Bilbo and his companions. However, unlike JRR Tolkien's classic, this story is a little different. It involves two friends, who are a little bigger than hobbits, who leave their shire, Bogota, in search of a ring. This ring however is not one to rule all rings, but it is a 5th year anniversary ring that had to be repaired. It was not made in the fires of Mordor, but by a husband and wife team from a place in the Andes called Cali. There were no orcs or evil horsemen to stop our journey, but there are guerrillas around the area. We needed to travel safely, and we were to keep the ring secret, keep it safe.

So my friend, Ben, and I began our travel not on horses but in a valiant carriage called Chevy Spark. We had no elfin bread, but we did have Doritos and carrots. We left early in the morning and drove through the valley of the Colombian Andes. We traveled swiftly through the countryside enjoying the scenery and the conversation. Our trip was planned for three days. It was to take us eight to ten hours to reach Cali. We would spend a day hanging out in Cali to pick up the ring, go to church on Sunday, and then come back to our "Shire."

It was in Ibague, a town in the mountains where we met our match as the mountains began to shed some of their sides. This caused more than four landslides that blocked all passages through the mountains. We could not, like our hobbit friends, go into the mountains with the dwarfs. Our options were to find another route, wait for the roads to be cleared, or go home. The road through Manizales was closed because of a bicycle race. The other road through Huila and La Nieva would take us to some less safe areas. Taking an alternate route was out of the question. We could wait, but we remember that the clean up is on a Colombian schedule. It could be cleared in a couple of hours, or a couple of days. We did not want to wait around in Ibague for an indeterminate time and traffic was starting to back up behind the landslides.

Our final option was to turn around. Ben & I returned very much unlike Tolkien's heroes who trudge on. We made it back to Bogota in time to return the car and take our wives out to dinner. Thus our adventure ended with less glamor and honor and more time to be at home on the weekend.

And the ring? We had it mailed in a box of panela sugar.