Leticia is gateway to Colombia's Amazon region, and like nearby Iquitos, in Peru, it is accessible only by airplane or boat. Its airport is Alfredo Vasquez Cobo Internacional -- an elaborate name for a simple, somewhat downtrodden facility cooled by ceiling fans. The airport has something of a frontier feel, with its open-air baggage claim and murals of Amazon wildlife. There are a few small craft shops and snack bars. No jetways. Check-in and boarding are straightforward and efficient. After seat assignment, AeroRepública passengers may proceed through security (no ridiculous shoe removal or liquid confiscation, thank you) to an air-conditioned holding room.
I was excited to see the gleaming new Embraer ERJ-190 pulling into the apron. I'd never flown one, and had heard good things. Built in Brazil, the 190 is somewhere between a regional jet and a mainline jet. AeroRepública uses an all-economy, four-abreast layout with seating for 108 passengers. (In North America, U.S. Airways and JetBlue are the plane's biggest customers.) The jet was immaculately clean and the handsome leather chairs were considerably more firm and comfortable than the flimsy seats found in most larger jets. The cabin bins and sidewalls were to give an illusion of spaciousness. The 190 is a small jet, but it doesn't feel small. (Mind you, for the time being most of AeroRepública's fleet consists of aging McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series planes, which are older and less comfortable.)
We departed about 15 minutes late because of late arrival from Bogotá, where the weather had been stormy. For this the crew offered apologies, in both English and Spanish, on at least three occasions. From my window seat on the left side, takeoff provided a splendid westward view of the Amazon. My only real gripe was the in-flight snack. Colombia isn't known for its gourmet cuisine, but the stale, cellophane-wrapped pastry provided made the usual peanuts or pretzels seem like a gourmet meal.
In the end I was neither wowed nor disappointed. It was, on the whole, not terribly different from a flight in the United States.
Check-in and boarding: B
Punctuality: C
Aircraft cleanliness and decor: A
Food and onboard service: D (Even with the low expectations of economy on a short flight, that petrified knot-roll was unacceptable.)
Customer service: B
From Bogotá we traveled to the Colombian town of Villa de Leyva, about three hours north. This was by bus, not by plane, and I submit that Bogotá's central bus station is both cleaner and more user-friendly than its airport. At about 8,000 feet in the Andean foothills, Villa de Leyva is a protected national monument of whitewashed façades and old colonial churches, with cobbled streets, virtually no modern architecture and few cars. It's a great place for walking, particularly in the early morning or at dusk, when the nuns are headed to Mass to the ring of church bells. It's a tourist town, but not overrun.
Nearby to Villa de Leyva is the village of Ráquira, known for its ceramics. Ráquira makes for an acceptable half-day trip, but it belongs to a peculiar and slightly discomfiting category of places that travelers will occasionally encounter -- the type of town that appears to exist wholly for the benefit of tourists, and that seemingly could not exist without them. Towns like Ráquira have circular popularity; they are visited not so much for anything that is there, inherently, but because they are known and understood to be tourist towns in the first place. People go there because people go there.
That's good and bad, I suppose. It brings in money and gives people jobs. On the other hand, it makes for a contrived and sterile environment.
I know, that's being brusque. Some of you will call it ignorant. Had I taken the time to stroll Ráquira's side roads and gotten to know any of its 1,500 or so citizens, I'd maybe have discovered some deeper sense of its existence. But the town's main drag consists entirely of souvenir hawkers and relentlessly kitschy craft shops. I didn't feel like I was in Colombia -- whatever that is supposed to feel like, exactly. I felt like I was in an open-air gift shop, a Disney presentation of Colombia.
There are similar places scattered around the world. Of those I've seen, several are worth visiting by virtue of the nearby attractions (e.g., Victoria Falls), but the towns themselves tend to be tedious. Below are a few that jump to mind, but I'm curious what others might be lurking out there. Readers are invited to share their observations on similar spots they might know of or have visited.
Ráquira, Colombia (As above.)
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia (Most of Bali is wonderful. Ubud is intolerable.)
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (The falls themselves are a world-class attraction, but the town is honky-tonk tourism at its worst.)
Vang Viang, Laos (A shantytown of backpacker joints, bars and restaurants selling banana pancakes.)
At the other end of the scale is what I call the fly-in/get-out city. Fly-in/get-outs are places like Lima, Peru. They offer very little for the tourist, but are mandatory landing spots if you want to visit the country. You can't get to Cuzco or Machu Picchu without landing in Lima first. I'm sure Lima has a few interesting spots, but they are not the reason a tourist comes to Peru. Spend the night if you must, and move on.
One of the things I've discovered is that people have a very city-centric way of judging other countries -- as if a nation's largest or most notorious city represents all there is to see. When I was planning to visit Nicaragua, a colleague of mine, another pilot, remarked, "Why the hell would you want to go there?" The only place he'd ever been was Managua, its noisy and crowded capital. When I think of Nicaragua, I think of the otherworldly scenery of Ometepe Island, the cobblestone streets of Granada, or swimming in the crater of an ancient volcano. Canaima National Park in southeastern Venezuela is one of the most beautiful places on earth, but tell people I spent a vacation in Venezuela and they usually turn up their noses, no doubt picturing the slums and traffic jams of Caracas.
Amman, Accra, Santiago, Casablanca and Guatemala City are some other fly-in/get-outs. That's Jordan, Ghana, Chile, Morocco and Guatemala, respectively. All are outstanding countries to visit, but their busiest cities aren't exactly seductive. The best of them are boring; the worst of them are oppressive, giving whole nations an unfairly bad reputation.
Do you have questions for Salon's aviation expert? Contact Patrick Smith through his Web site and look for answers in a future column.
About the writer
Patrick Smith is an airline pilot. His column is archived here.
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