Nat Geo Photographer recounts hilarious tale searching for the world’s most poisonous frog

by Justin Delaney on

In this video, National Geographic photographer Mark Moffett retells his hilarious expedition through the rain-forest of Colombia searching for the world’s most poisonous frog. It is a candid glimpse into all of the strange travel details that go into getting a shot for National Geographic.

First, he is set up with an assistant who moonlights as a male stripper in Miami, and the Hunter Thompson-esque tale gets all the stranger from there. They get drunk on an indigenous homebrew mixture of fermented coconut milk and human spit in Guapi. They get exiled from a village for arriving with a sack full of poisonous frogs. They have a hilariously unfortunate travel experience, and that makes for a great story. In the end, Mark comes face to face with the yellow “superfrog” and gets his photographs, without getting poisoned.

The frog is allegedly so poisonous that one specimen could kill 500 people. Normally, tribes must cook poisonous frogs to effectively coat their poison arrows and blow darts. With this frog, one only needs to rub the arrow’s tip on the frog’s back and the poison lasts for an entire year.

Bolivia campaigns to legalize coca

by Laurel Miller on



Four Loko, meet Coca Colla. CNN reports that Bolivia has launched a campaign to legalize coca, a native plant that has been used for medicinal purposes and as a mild stimulant by the indigenous peoples of the Andes for thousands of years. And yes, coca does contain trace amounts of cocaine. The leaves are used in purified forms of the narcotic, which is what led the United Nations to ban coca in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs. The Bolivian government would like the ban amended to make coca a controlled, but not illegal, substance.

Coca leaf is considered saced amongst Andean peoples, and historically has been used to combat everything from altitude sickness to rheumatism (it has anaesthetic properties). The leaves are also used as a digestive aid, and to suppress hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Coca is traditionally chewed or used or as a tea, but now, coca-infused energy drinks are taking the market by storm. Las year, Coca Colla was introduced; it was such a hit that a new beverage, Coca Brynco, debuted this week.

Bolivian president Evo Morales–a former union leader for coca growers–is on a mission to convince the rest of the world of coca’s legitimate non-addictive uses. Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca has embarked this week on a tour of Europe, hoping to convince EU leaders to support the campaign. The U.S. is not onboard the coca train, and filed a formal objection to legalize it on Wednesday. January 31st is the deadline for all UN members to cast their votes.Bolivia is the third largest coca producer in the world, after Colombia and Peru. If legalized, it could provide a signficant economic, uh, stimulus to the country. In addition to energy drinks, Bolivia hopes to use coca in toothpaste, and even flour (I don’t understand that one, either).

I’ve chewed coca while trekking in the Peruvian Andes, and it definitely helps ease altitude-related symptoms. Quechua porters on the Inca Trail (who are employed to haul all of the gear) chew coca incessantly. I have no doubt that, in addition to genetic adaptability, coca aids their miraculous ability to carry loads nearly equal to their body weight, at high speed, even when barefoot. It’s said that coca is what enabled the Incas to build Macchu Picchu.

There are certainly pros and cons to lifting the coca ban, but hopefully world leaders can overlook the stigma long enough to evaluate the medicinal value of the plant.

Medellin then and now

by Elizabeth Seward on

Medellin, Colombia isn’t the way it used to be. Once known for its drug cartels and their inordinately vengeful wars that regularly victimized citizens of the city as well as travelers, Medellin has gone under, well, the knife, in more ways than one. The city’s makeover has made tourists from across the globe feel more welcomed and has brought peace to locals who know what it was like back then. ‘Back then’, a phrase Colombians don’t use lightly, but do use frequently. Since Escobar’s reign of terror, Medellin has reclaimed itself and is now better prepared than ever to brave what’s to come.

No one would have considered Medellin a tourist destination 10 years ago. It simply wasn’t. Hundreds of lives a month were being lost in the city at the hand of relentless drug wars then and the city was dubbed ‘The Most Violent City in The World’. The city sculpted into the Andes was avoided by travelers, and for good reason. Locals at the time could barely call Medellin a home and many were being driven away from their houses, encumbered by fear, and forced into Witness Protection programs or other forms of hiding because they ‘knew too much’. With the waters being so treacherous for locals, foreigners felt even less at ease and found themselves targets in the unforgiving battles for territory taking place, battles headed up by drug-lords who had more sway than city officials back then. When Escobar was killed in 1993 (or when he killed himself, reports vary) and the two drug-lords that stepped up in his place, leaders of the Cali Cartel, were finally brought down, Medellin’s districts were ceded with this trio’s vanishing and the city needed an emergency recovery plan. That plan has helped make Medellin traversable today.

Medellin’s makeover began within. City officials rallied and conjured up support from nations far and wide, raking in investment money for the city chunk by chunk. Citizens bound together and formed a bit of a union, a promise to rebuild their city and keep out the bad. They joined forces while unblinkingly awaiting the support that eventually came from around the globe. With foreign aid, a devoted community, and a powerful drug-lord out of the way, the city had promise and the building was underway.

During a recent trip to Medellin, I walked through places that were monumental in the city’s development.
%Gallery-113677%The public library sits atop a hill, silky clouds from the mountains slither between the modern structure’s sleek twists and turns. The attention-grabbing building was placed smack in the middle of a neighborhood in Medellin once known as one of the worst. Still neighbored by poverty-stricken homes that steadily climb the mountainside, the library was placed intentionally, just like the high schools. The idea was to positively influence children who only had seen the worst.

And the plan seems to be working. Babies born into these neighborhoods become children who frequent the library with their parents or teachers and those children become industrious teens who attend high schools that have perks, like running water in some cases, that they never saw at home. These teens, of course, become better-rounded individuals more capable of considering the colorful expanse of possibilities for their future.

In a further attempt to improve this area of the city highly affected by the pain of the past, Medellin installed its metro system in such a way that it runs straight through this same district. The city’s subway isn’t too unlike the subway system in New York City. Trains arrive at and depart from even cleaner stations (no eating on the metro in Medellin) and commuters flip through their iPods and books while eyeing the bright advertisements in their peripheral. What’s unlike New York City is the cable car portion of the metro system.

These cars ascend into the clouds that roll off the Andes. They are pulled gently and at such an elevation, it’s not difficult to see what those investing in Medellin see: a beautiful sprawling city tucked into a lush valley, hungry for the chance it deserves. For just 70 cents, passengers are slowly raised up the mountainside. The ride is serene and the to-be destination on the top of the hill is even better: a massive city park that will eventually be available to everyone for hiking, camping, and other outdoor recreational activities. But for now the cable cars provide opportunities for those living on the hills beneath. The opportunities provided? Jobs mainly.

Without proper roads or means to travel on those roads even if they did exist, many people born into these neighborhoods have found themselves a part of a cyclical depression, one that carries over from generation to generation. The cable cars have made it possible for employable residents of this area to not only find work throughout the city, but to actually mobilize.

The dedication to Medellin extends beyond cleaning up dirty neighborhoods. The campaign, in fact, has been widespread. From the loft-like Brooklyn-esque Medellin Museum of Modern Art to the towering Botanical Gardens, the city truly survived a nightmare with the power of a dream.

I attended the annual Christmas lighting ceremony–a celebration that unites the city with the holiday spirit. I watched as locals enjoyed the fantastic displays of light and water and I couldn’t help but suspect the locals were cheering for something far beyond the engineering of man-the potential of man. And if any city ever had potential, it’s this one.

Although Medellin’s crime rate decreased steadily in the years following Escobar’s fall, it should be noted that the crime rate has been on the rise again in more recent years. But before you rethink your Colombia travel plans, consider this: Medellin has dealt with worse. From abject misery to widespread hope, Medellin is better equipped this time around.

A good traveler is one who is always aware of his or her surroundings, and if you’re a traveler in Medellin, you need to be a good one. Follow the obvious rules of travel (don’t travel alone, don’t travel into dangerous neighborhoods, be weary of traveling at night, don’t carry valuables you can’t afford to lose with you, etc.) and you should be fine in Medellin.

And remember: the more support Medellin has, the better it will do. Already triumphant in its plan to take back the city, imagine the lasting transformation that will be cemented with increased support from travelers everywhere. When all is said and done, Medellin gives me hope for Mexico.

Bogota: Hernan Diaz retrospective

by Alex Robertson Textor on


Fernand Léger’s map of Colombia.

If for some reason you need another reason to visit Bogotá soon, here it is. There is currently a retrospective of the late famed Colombian photographer Hernán Díaz on display in Bogotá.

Hernán Díaz is a Colombian treasure. The photographer, who passed away in November 2009, was loved for his portraits of Colombian artists and other important cultural figures. There are the labored, precise photographs of his own cohort of artists, besuited men who reveal little. Then there are the more joyful images of actors, artists, politicians, and other figures from the artist’s later years.

Some credit Díaz with single-handedly raising the profile of Cartagena among Colombians. Prior to the publication of a book in 1972 by Díaz on Cartagena’s people and sights, the city had little standing in the country. It was simply a neglected colonial city on the country’s sweltering Caribbean coast, a forgotten backwater. Díaz considered Cartagena his adopted home and spent a great deal of energy documenting it.

To round out the focus on Colombia and various forms of documentation, there is also a set of male nudes included in the exhibit. Lastly, there are a number of images of a vanquished New York City, including one of a Horn & Hardat food service automat.

Anyone visiting the city shouldn’t miss the opportunity to obtain a look at modern Colombian history. This intense retrospective of Hernan Diaz’s works at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá is open through January 15.

Is Bogota really the next Buenos Aires?

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Yes is the short answer. Bogota is indeed the next Buenos Aires. But before we get to why this is the case, we need to understand why Buenos Aires is the current Buenos Aires.

Travelers have an insatiable appetite for great cities that are cheap, and there’s probably no demographic that pursues this particular type of destination more than the next-destination-early-adopters, or NDEAs. Buenos Aires enchanted the NDEAs back in 2002 and 2003 when the Argentinian economy was in terrible shape and things were dirt cheap. Here was a beautiful, European city reminiscent of–gosh, what? Paris? Madrid? Rome? Milan? A little of all of these, and yet unmistakably Latin American, too.

There were rich neighborhoods where things were very cheap for visiting North Americans and Europeans, and slightly gritty tourist neighborhoods like La Boca with good restaurants tucked away on side streets. There was Palermo, a massive neighborhood with pockets of cute little streets and boutiques that seemed as if it might transform into an outpost of international cool. Visitors saw for sale signs across wealthy neighborhoods. They saw enormous lines of Argentines in suits queuing up in front of banks; other banks, covered with spray-painted graffiti, appeared to be essentially boarded up.

Things changed. The Argentine economy made its way out of the cellar. In 2006 a splashy article in New York Magazine broke the then-mainstream story that New Yorkers could live high on the hog in this charming, warm, incredible city at a fraction of the cost of staying at home. There was a time when every other 28 year-old in New York was openly fantasizing about spending a season in Buenos Aires. I exaggerate, but not by much.

Will this sort of thing happen to Bogotá? In 2014 will we see a story in New York Magazine about how Bogotá is the perfect place to live well on not all that much? Probably not. It’s cheap and it’s got lashings of the fabulous, but it doesn’t have the glorious weather that Buenos Aires enjoys for eight months of the year. Nevertheless, there are at least five powerful forces at play that will continue to motivate journalists and other serious travelers to proclaim Bogotá a next big thing for the foreseeable future.

1. It has lots of rich people. Most tourists like being around rich locals doing things that would cost more money at home. The north of Bogotá sees one rich neighborhood after another full of shopping malls, rich ladies, and teenagers projecting clubby ennui.

2. It’s starting at a terribly low point in the international public imagination. In other words, the Colombian national brand really sucked until fairly recently. The news stories about drug cartels, politically-minded paramilitary organizations, physical danger, and kidnapping came to define the entire country. No matter that my new Colombian friends tell me that they’ve never felt unsafe in Bogotá. The narrative is out there, and only recently has it begun to assume a different shape.

3. It’s a completely exciting city, both pretty and brutal. Candelaria, the area of the city that grabs so much attention, is Bogotá’s colonial core, with excellent museums, awe-inspiring churches, tourist shops, and restaurants. It feels vaguely chaotic, and happily unpredictable. Colonial abuts art deco. It is less a union of opposites as a planning crapshoot that turned out well. And while it doesn’t exactly feel dangerous, it does feel like a place to mind your backpack or purse, and this is part of the city’s lure, frankly. It’s a crowded city that, despite its many upgrades (see below) remains gritty and crowded.

4. The city is in flux. Road works are everywhere, and it’s clear that the city is fully swept up in a state of development and renewal. Two mayors over the last several years (Enrique Peñalosa and Antanas Mockus) both engineered significant changes in Bogotá. The result: a series of real improvements for residents as well as major urban planning upgrades. The latter includes bike lanes, fewer vehicular fatalities, an improved park system, pedestrian-only roads on Sundays, and a mass transit system.

5. Bogotá is not that far from the United States. It’s five hours from New York by airplane, and the frequency of air links is decent. It’s an easy place to visit from North America for a long weekend, and it’s been a consistently well-priced route for several years now.

Want more Colombia travel inspiration? Check out Elizabeth Seward’s recent Medellín itinerary tips post for Gadling.