Another Blow for Bogotá's Rivers

Around noon today, this truck rolled down an embankment into the Rio del Arzobispo, which flows thru the Parque Nacional and the Teusaquillo neighborhood. It's one of Bogotá's few rivers which is not hidden in a pipeline. But, like all of Bogotá's long-suffering waterways, it's smelly and polluted.

A repoter informs the world about the event. 

The fall of this half century-old truck (its driver was bruised by okay) was only the most dramatic of the many abuses against Bogotá's rivers. Many poor hillside neighborhoods lack sewage pipelines, so their waste goes right into the neighborhood rivers, which carry it into the highly polluted Rio Bogotá. The city has created repeated plans to clean up the rivers, but they get postponed and pushed back.

Ironically, on the neighboring sidewalk, someone had erected this tree carrying memorial cards for victims of traffic accidents. 

Bogotá's transit fatality rate would drop if authorities would actually enforce mechanical maintenance laws. Even more importantly, authorities should enforce laws against pollution, which must harm many more people than transit accidents.

Cards memorializing victims. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Nicas, Ticas and Colombia

Costa Rica calls them police, but they sure look like soldiers.

So, let's get this straight. Nicaragua sends troops to what just about everybody else seems to agree is Costa Rican territory, justifying its actions on Google Maps - and long-suffering Colombia somehow gets tangled up in the mess.

Costa Rica appears by all measures to be the good guy in this ridiculous border dispute. Costa Rica, whose people are known as ticas, had accepted an international tribunal's ruling giving Nicaragua, whose people are known as nicas, sovereignety over the San Juan River, which forms their border. However, not satisfied, Nicaragua pushed on onto the Costa Rican side, damaging the environment there by piling up dredging waste.

Just about all of the region's countries, with the exception of Venezuela, for whom anything generating political booty is righteous, have sided with Costa Rica. But that so far hasn't provided much help on the ground for little Costa Rica, which doesn't even have a military.

Both nations' official maps show the riverbank as belonging to Costa Rica. So Nicaragua backed its claims using Google Maps as its official reference. But Google officials quickly declared that their maps are not intended to be geopolitical references, and were wrong in this case, anyway.

Exactly where does Nicaragua end and Costa Rica begin?

Who's the demonic puppetmaster heading this international conspiracy against poor, victimized Nicaragua? Colombia, of course. Coincidentally, Nicaragua also claims several Carribean islands over which Colombia has long held autonomy.

But Nicaragua's leftist Pres. Carlos Ortega, no matter how desperate he may be to whip up nationalism at home, must also care about international opinion, and he must be looking for a graceful way to declare victory and back out of this mess he's made.

By Mike Ceaser of Bogotá Bike Tours