Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown S01E03 2013 1080p WEB DL H264 AAC DDHDTV

this is a good place for both experience fantasy and [Applause] [Music] reality beer explosives and food can't beat that [Applause] look at so you just stand here in the street and random strangers bring you delicious foods this is great country I took a walk through this beautiful world felt the Cain on my shoulder found some good in this beautiful world I felt the rain getting troller [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Columbia ordinarily and for all too many years when this country makes the news or appears in a film or a television drama it's not for its looks which are I should say right up front spectacular it's not for its people who are everyone I've ever met anyway warm proud generous and fun or for its food which is truly great I know what this is but it's good fruit in this country [Music] excellent I'm no stranger to this place generally speaking it's a particularly vibrant mix of Spanish European afro Caribbean and Indigenous people these are deep Waters my friends that no news story or episode of Miami Vice has ever come close to navigating it is and always has been a fiercely fiercely proud country and its people yearn to see international coverage of something other than cocaine and violence but that isn't a legacy that's easy to ignore its Decades of civil unrest have left vast swats of Columbia relatively unknown even to its own citizens to reach a place previously considered a nogo area I'll fly out of an airport in V vieno 45 M South east of the capital city of Bogota on first inspection this is an airplane Boneyard where unwanted props from Romancing the Stone corrode artfully but in reality this sleepy hanger is an important gateway to the more impenetrable parts of the [Applause] country the remote settlements in the Amazon basin are cut off from the country with neither rail nor roads connected ing them there are only two ways in either boat for several days down river or aboard a jungle bus which is what locals call the World War II era DC3 I flown worse I've been brought here by Pablo MOA a teacher at medine University and a particular Enthusiast for this classic of golden age Aviation you've taken this flight before yes every time I have a chance I come here and fly one it's a romantic thing he sees the work that these hoking great airships and their pilots do as Daredevil humanitarian missions for the more remote Colombians do they have an inflight movie no no no nor first class either what no no the planes travel with their own mechanic to Cobble together anything that might go wrong and stuff can go wrong the risk is that will be able to land but not take off again so this guy is our return ticket out of the [Music] Jungle our captain is W sanclemente something of a legend in these parts and his co-pilot Captain constanza r [Music] it's mystical you know and they they develop this sensibility with the plane there's no Intel Inside here there's no software they have GPS but that's about it it's beautiful you know they have to sense everything they know when the sound of the plane is not right it's just man and [Music] machine the weather is the big unknown around here it's changeable enough to ground planes and remote places if they hang around for too [Music] long we have to make one stop on the way to pick up more cargo vital cargo by the way [Music] the land we're passing over is beautiful and Lush but the life for those below has been anything but columia seems to be trapped in a VI has used the territory as a Haven for kidnapping and until recently most of the news coming out of this part of Columbia was not good it was a front line in the war on drugs for lack of a better term and Colombia's long struggle with the farc a Marxist Guerilla Force financed by drug trafficking kidnapping and covert assistance from Venezuela 50 years of very dirty war the stakes not about drugs per se but about the ability of ordinary Colombians to live without fear we land in the jungle Outpost of Mira Flores in the southern province of guaviare in the Amazonian Forest Reserve the heavy presence of Army and special police is a result of its strategic location and recent history as a one-time Center of Coco production Farmers here would grow the stuff and make leaves into paste traffickers would come and buy it the farc had this area under its sphere of influence for years 9 years ago the government moved to expel the farc the traffickers and any paramilitaries with apparently much success overnight however its population shrank by 85% and what remains struggles to [Music] survive so the people here you're telling me either were born here or most of the people came from elsewhere that's we call at the beginning in the 1950s and 60s they were they were escaping from the violence the political violence between the two parties in in Columbia so if you were having problems in the city or in wherever you were from you you came out here yeah so what did you do for living out here cattle and doing some Agriculture and um after that the drug trade began and everything with the with the ca plantations this climate's good for it yeah it's very good since 1999 there was no police or Army Force here so it was just occupied by the park and and then by the paramilitaries could try to yeah so that's when the real violence began so really the problems in this country pre-existed the drug trade what we say here is that the drug trade just made everything work there's no judge here there's uh few institutions here right basically you know that the state is here just because the Army is here so I think here we're going to meet the the major oh yeah Anthony this is the major Cesar Gonzalez is the current mayor of Mira Flores which has seen much better and much worse days how many people live in this town around 1500 2,000 in the municipality the Fark were in Min florid for 20 years and they were the central Authority here if you're running a subsistence Farm growing plantains and not much else you're not eating particularly well you're not particularly happy with the government somebody comes along and offers you a nice machine gun and a cool scarf yeah especially if you're 16 years old that's a pretty attractive off of course it is even if they say you'll probably be dead by the time you're 25 come on it is and they offer you a salary so what what is the future of this town they're providing um free education and uh but there's a lot of potential in biodiversity and ecotourism as well what a lot of people say is without the customer there's no there's no cocaine trade and there's no violence right so if the if the United States and Europe start buying cocaine that's so impossible that I can't think about it about the the situation where the demand is not going to be there but the demand in the states is down 40% as long as there is a market there will be people ready to to do [Music] it the United States spends how many billions of dollars a year paying for guns and uniforms training Etc where should they be spending it I would say that the the the help is very important but more important is to to to end the war drugs it's just it doesn't work here's my problem if crack didn't exist I would have no I would absolutely agree with you but as a former cick addict and as a former crackhead yeah that is a problem the thing is that people think that if you think that drugs should be legalized you're saying that they're good no we're not saying that but just we're just getting rid of one problem the problem that the major has here you also are freeing up a lot of money that you could divert we have two problems I'm with you I agree one is drug addiction and the other is drug trafficking we can get rid of one we're not going to get rid of the other we have to deal with it forever it's a beautiful country uh the people here are everyone I've ever met has been really nice even the bad guys Charming yeah that is true the food's delicious problem is the United States will never legalize drugs it will never happen complicated issues yeah yeah so uh the good people of this town can thank us for bringing in their uh fresh supply of Poa think nothing of a gentleman it was it was really our [Music] pleasure bot the country's capital and an almost 2 Mile High City with new lofty food Ambitions where previously a restaurant scene didn't really exist now young restaurant tours such as musician turn Chef Tomas rowa are beginning to make a name for themselves in [Music] Colombia please please please this is palal this is one of the biggest markets in Bogota this place is very beautiful the colors my mom come here to buy flowers my grandma also did I mention that this city is over 8,000 ft up hence the altitude sickness I'm feeling not good Tomas comes here a few times a week for an early breakfast which I'm hoping will make me feel [Music] better palato Market has been runting in one form or another since the 1940s this place is huge want some juice yeah what do you have I love it the orange juice with the [Music] carrot it's probably the healthiest thing I've had in a while good for the High Altitude no you feel better I'm feeling better every hour yeah first hour is killing me yeah but you have a better face I didn't think I was going to make it out of the airport most of the mornings early in the morning 500 or 6 in the morning I climb the mountain why for air okay you have to come with me hell no ain't [Music] happening you want to taste somea thisa is made with corn it's fantastic I love it chop it tucked away in the back corner of the fish market is a place that serves breakfast to the Market's workers and Shoppers we're talking beef short ribs simmered in an oily broth with potatoes salt and scallions Tomas swears by this stuff a traditional breakfast soup from the andian region we go it's okay gra you like Chile I do yeah now we're talking this is perfect when you have a good party last night I was just going to say this is Hangover food perfect I know hangover food well and this is good it's a nice h of meat in there yeah good broth yes good so what's is dish called beef stock de uh broth rib broth yeah it's a rib rib yeah yes with potato of course everything with potato exact very good Spanish I don't speak Spanish I speak a little Mexican [Music] [Applause] [Music] Bogota back in the 90s a very dangerous and violent place to be today not so much today in my repeated experiences here kind of awesome the condaria is the recently renovated old city where meet up with Hector Abad distinguished author and one of the most important and supremely talented writers in Latin America Hector's recent work a memoir called Oblivion is about his father who was killed for his outspoken attempts to change things for the [Music] better so first of all where are we puera fala this is a place where many botanos come to eat something in the middle of the morning or in the middle of the afternoon the tamales here are made with chicken and pork belly combined with vegetables rice and Masa wrapped in a banana leaf and slow cooked for hours this place has been serving chocolate completo to the politicians of nearby Plaza bivar for a couple of hundred years um here are the tamales it's beautiful it is a thing of beauty isn't it let's see if it is like my mother's I oh well that's a high standard I suppose it is not I was just in Mila Flores yesterday yes what economy there was was entirely drug- based economy I mean now the drugs are gone there is no eony it's a ghost town it's a military and people sitting there staring at the space waiting for the beer to arrive that's I can understand tell me something hopeful I think we are becoming more and more conscious that this past Decades of violence have been absolutely useless is and that we have to to change many many many things MH so I think it's not as good as my mother's I'm sorry well it never is if you remove cocaine from the equation if you remove the drug trade as a financial engine you would still have serious divisions over ideology here uh is that improving things are changing in a good direction but very slowly I think you know 10 years ago in medin they killed 7,500 people every year and uh 3 years ago this number came to 700 people killed in medine in the year so the situation changed right I have only questions I have no answers I'm so sorry if I were the president I really I I don't know what to do you you wouldn't know what to do no I wouldn't I wouldn't to suggest that a nation should expand its social services do its best to lift people out of poverty uh to provide uh medical care for everyone as you well know that made you in the minds of many uh as the same as a communist are those as as as dangerous and potentially deadly ideas as they used to be well 25 years ago my father was killed just because he was asking for these basic things like clean water a glass of milk and uh Ana for every child that was we still don't have that and we need that now we in Colombia maybe we are trying I think there are some people here even in the government who are working for that [Music] Bogota is the largest city in Colombia and the economic heart of the country about a fifth of the population lives here many of them very well but some not so well it's a city with a marked north south divide Chef Tomas Raa tabula and donosa restaurant sit side by side in the Macarena neighborhood where the city center meets the [Music] north the lunch tomasa serving us here at tabula is defined more by high quality fundamentals than by high concept theories if there's a theme here it's the ingredients this good meticulously prepared are the essence of great [Music] eating it's a beautiful space so how's the restaurant business in uh in B it's a very good business a lot of people with money they don't know how to cook nobody Cooks at home maybe they cook does they eat out a lot yeah it's a new part of our culture everybody wants to go to restaurants so 10 years ago 15 years ago what traditional casual food a few fine dining you know white table clo serving what French or Continental or Italian but this is new yeah it's a new stuff it's a new business it's a new world I think the the two great values from Colombia food the mixtures of the culture yeah right black people Indian people white people that mixture is beautiful and the other one is all of this region all the mountains all the valleys all the rivers all the sea we are like a a big farm a beautiful Farm to send all these products to the world I believe more in a in a beautiful carrot than a great recipe yeah [Music] right this one is a crab salad right and this one is our homemade pasta thin sheets of handmade pasta are filled with labet cheese and finished with a chesa sauce so you used to be in a band you used to be a musician yeah I'm still still so what happened man how how did you go from music to restaurants rock and roll don't give me money good it's good yeah it's really good well it's great that business is good because generally speaking the only worse idea that I think I'll try to make a living making music is I think I'll make a living like opening a restaurant I see why that's so popular good stuff thank you Tony tomas's take on asabuko uses beef shank instead of ve which is brazed overnight with vegetables wine and broth in a Woodfired oven oh w W it's got to it's huge yes it quit oh yeah you don't need a knife only with the spoon you're right you now do you cure this first in salt or no dry it salt it no just fresh you know the yes delicious so you're never getting this off your menu you'll have to keep this on your menu forever right forever yeah oh the best part Mama didn't raise no fools Santiago de Cali or just K as everybody calls it in these parts is a city in the southwest of Colombia known for its proximity to the Pacific Coast and its semi-tropical temperatures but I'm not really here for the climate I'm here for Taho it involves alcohol and explosives Colombian Mario Galino xbat Will Holland and their bandmates are to be my guides to this ancient and traditional Colombian sport than how do you play this [Music] game I guess that's how it's [Music] done what do you call this object El hence the name of this exactly [Music] I should be good at this I've been throwing pots into the dish sink from across the room for years you win more points if you get it in the middle without hitting them oh yeah so but that's doesn't sound like any [Music] [Applause] [Music] fun everyone has a different style it seems so you got to do like one step and then another and swing I didn't think that style is going to work for me h after some early success it turns out we all pretty much suck at this not enough beer that's my problem time to bring in some outside muscle we're going to mix in now experts who am I with over I'm over here these [Music] guys [Music] whoa see on my team holy crap two in a row this is dismaying oh no wait one of those guys had to be on my team right so the guy in the white stripy shirt his name is Elo Vio which is the old chicken the old [Music] chicken I need a poultry name he's calling himself the old chicken I shall be the enormous [ __ ] chicken dude is killing it yeah he's every time must be the chicken that's what I'm talking about but I wanted something to blow up T is hungry work but the kitchen here is up to the challenge making a Colombian picato this is a huge selection of fried pork pork rib steak cassava potatoes and deep fried plantain I smell food oh oh thank you oh that's good you know beer explosives and food can't beat that [Music] [Applause] yes nice yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] if bogot is Colombia's Financial heart then Kali is its shaking hips people here like their music my Teo buddies Mario and Will are the founders of a collective called on the tropica their idea was to reinterpret the tropical music Heritage of Columbia what often sounds like salsa in style is actually Kum if there one type of music that can be classified as distinctly Colombian this is it kumia draws on the music of the African indigenous and European mix that makes up the country so will and Mario created something a long way from the pop music that's a staple here they brought together musicians who'd been famous on the Kumbia scene in the ' 50s and 60s and matched them up with younger counterparts as if the impressive amount of fried meat we ate at the teaho quarts wasn't enough we go for dinner at one of the band's favorite spots the recording that we made which we did for 3 weeks in medine had 42 musicians so it was a big sort of Ensemble and there were musicians from what I think the youngest was 25 maybe and the oldest was 82 old school and new school mixed is that oversimplification that was the idea so we can meet not only doing music but like also exchanging lots of like uh information about how music was made how music was recorded what was the spirit of the music so that's the idea it's to get back to the roots first up the Ki version of Ceviche cooked shrimp slathered in mayonnaise ketchup and Wier Shear sauuce essentially a 70s shrimp cocktail [Music] where native to the mangroves of the Pacific coast the pangua mesk is a staple used in everything from tamales to stews so it's rice and like a qucha kind the m not a clam it's like a rock mollusk pretty much it's delicious o wow so this is like pal specifically from the Pacific this is Paro like red snapper uh-huh steamed shrimp oh very cool and some nice green tomatoes you always find them Bon is everywhere is plantain like plantain with all of this food you have to accompany it with some beaches yeah I'm learning that it's the best way to just handle this from cane sugar yeah cane sugar like homemade like a Ral firewood so I'm just going to take one right now so what are your favorite places in Colombia Colombia is like a five countries in one when you come to Colombia you definitely have to go to some pacifical experience it either would be in Cali or go straight to the coast M you have to have like an Atlantic or Caribbean Experience Rio AA you definitely have to have like a mountain experience which would be like meene or bota right another would be like just go to the Amazon you know like just go to the jungle and just check going so I'm planning a vacation yeah should I come to Columbia should I come to K most definitely man like you will find great music great partying great food beautiful views beautiful nature around yeah yeah look the country is beautiful we know this okay but most Americans they're afraid to come is Columbia any more dangerous for a tourist than than Rio or uh Puerto Rico or South Central I mean my impression is no you know when you go to Rio you don't wear a big watch you don't wear an expensive suit you don't you don't behave like an idiot and life is going to be good like maybe I've been lucky but I've never been either mugged or kidnapped or robbed most people will tell you like we had an amazing time we heard some great music we met some beautiful girls or guys uh we drank some great drinks and uh we just hang out and we went to the beach and we it was great and we we want to come back you know I mean there's a lot of heart here people feel very very deeply yeah about things it is the most welcoming country in Latin America that I've been salute salute [Music] salute I leave the subtropics for more extreme climbs Rio AA is a city 600 Mi Northeast of Kali on Colombia's Caribbean Sea the guira is the most northern part of South America and borders Venezuela in the East it's home to the native semi-nomadic people of Colombia called the Wu the Wu are a tough autonomous tribe who've never taken sides with either the government the farc or the paramilitaries as a result they remain independent politically and live pretty much by their own code I'm meeting Juan Pablo Mayorga a chef from bogot who comes to this spot on a regular basis this is not another country this is Colombia uh but but it's a very different part of Colombia the waita is a very rugged terrain but it's desert uh there's not that much water so that's part of why the Spaniards they weren't able to colonize them you've been coming here for some time I became very interested in waj because I began dealing with uh fresh fish and uh fresh Lobster fresh shrimp and for uh gold meat to take back to cook the bo is it good it's very good goats are important to the Wu as they're used for food for bartering and even as dowy payments Rancho owners come to the Old Market in riaa to sell Slaughter and cook goat in the mornings [Applause] today we're having fi FR is a traditional uh dish from the W it consists of the tribes uh the heart the intestines the oal of the goat so it's pretty fresh cuz they slaughter them back here uh-huh and uh this is where the Wu women cook it so this is really fresh and traditional so this is breakfast this is breakfast for them the frii and is a little bit of everything in there yeah we have heart we have a little bit of meat of ribs now uh and it's interesting cuz this one it's for breakfast and it's almost done where this lutter they have to eat this fresh fresh this is delicious not fresh this would not be so good no this is where I say something that takes us seamlessly from a discussion about fresh meat to me hauling my aging carcass on a an ATV sugar bear [Music] style tribal members of the Wu have dual citizenship and could cross the border into Venezuela to live or trade there whenever they need to luckily for us it means that cheap gas is easy to come by in these parts there are no stations as such you just keep an eye out for the cans [Music] most of this gasoline is from Venezuela it's uh extremely cheap I think it's like um 50 cents a gallon the government subsidizes a lot of it they're able to buy Venezuelan gasoline and sell legally Venezuelan gasoline in colia having taken on as much gas as can be mouth siphoned in one sitting we're off again [Music] let me set the scene it's hot out here desert hot and we plan to Ride 3 hours along the coast to our lunch spot and I ate salty goat iners for breakfast and I refused to wear a helmet or sunblock we avoid wild donkeys and goats and get lost more than a few times so a little heat stroke leads to a lot of horsing around and we decide to open these puppies up [Music] well a momentary concussion is seldom a good thing waking up in Colombia on a beach almost always is having abandon the Epic ride we're back where we started at mayao in the guira at the Blue Sea Restaurant how come you're all clean I changed you brought a change of clothes yes I'm hurting enough I'm feeling every minute every hour every month and year of my age so you ready for some Cella yes and I I trust it will make me feel all better much better it's a good end to a fun day oh man you can't ask for better cedering it's beautiful here a beer I need the anesthetic qualities of the local fir waterer you got probably a really good idea that's going to be a good start for uh for the night good start I'm done oh man that dog has the right idea see I would be very happy if that was me right now you I just like laying down in the S with like chin out like that man it's so beautiful here who comes here it's basically tourists from Colombia and a lot of Backpackers that are making their way up to the northern W right but I mean we saw one tourist all day man it's nice you can really just get completely off the grade this used to be a fisherman Village there are definitely worse places to eat seafood than Beachside in a fishing Village and the strength of this stew Casella de Mariscos lies in the variety of fish available it's basically a like a fish uh chowder right made with uh shrimp clams right chippy chippi which is a small kind of clam a lobster fish yeah and conch oh I need a bad very clear sky for the Caribbean oh yeah oh man that's always accompanied by um by lemon and coconut rice and plantain some hot sauce in there some good food a few shots of agente the sounds of waves in the background a nice Sunset these are things in my experience that will set most things right thank you to gu to gu and colia [Music] salute we had good fun we had good fun [Music] cheers on I always find Colombia encouraging they face problems more extreme and seemingly more intractable than many of us can imagine and yet every time I come here it gets [Music] better don't get me wrong problems serious problems remain which is particularly heartbreaking in a country so beautiful so generous so proud so eager to love and be loved back I come back to my own country from Colombia and I think if they could fix that if they can make things better then surely there's nothing we can't do for now however I'll settle for fixing my headache that hurt