Fishers come in two types: Crips and Bloods. The Bloods fish one river their whole lives, only changing if they move house. They may go on one or two fishing trips, but these will merely be prejudice-reinforcing ventures. Their home river is the best in the world, which they already knew. The Crips, on the other hand are constantly in search of the new, the different. For them, fly fishing is about adventure and nothing gets them going like a new species to catch. The fishing trip, travelling to far distant places in search of unique quarry, this is the holy grail for Crips. Which am I? Both, my dogg! But don’t tell the real Crips or Bloods as they may bust a cap in my ass.

This trip was hatched in Farlows, like so many millions of other fishing trips. I arranged to meet Sean, the saltwater fly-fishing expert at 5pm. When I walked into the shop he was expecting me.

“Saltwater in Colombia. You know, they’ll have dorado there, a great fish. You should go for that, it’s a great eating fish, too.” And there it was, the idea of going to South America in search of El Dorado like so many thousands of hopefuls before me, was instantly irresistible to me. It would provide a note of heroism to what is, in reality, just a pastime and a holiday. And if I failed? What then? Why, glorious failure, of course! And more heroism. The unattainable, is there anything more romantic?

Cartagena is a beautiful Spanish city on the Caribbean coast. It’s not a bad stepping-off point for fishing. I went to the port and negotiated a day of fishing in a boat for just 350,000 pesos, which is about 175USD. I had dinner with some French people, including Gilbert, a man famed in the guide books for being Mister Playa Blanca. Gilbert explained to me that I could expect to hire a huge white boat with free women and champagne coolers fore and aft for that sort of money. He, as it happened, was going to Playa Blanca the next morning and if I wanted a lift, and he could provide a half day of fishing in an open fishing boat with a professional fisherman/guide for 60,000 pesos/30USD. He picked me up the next day, we went to the port with his weekly supplies and hammered out to Playa Blanca in his little speed boat. The boat was unloaded at Playa Blanca. I set-up my fly gear on the beach with a popper. I cast it out into the surf. My guide strolled over. I tried English, just to see. I was a novice at Colombia. No-one speaks English, even in 4-star hotels. Buy a copy of Spanish for the Fisherman, and keep it very handy, you’ll be using it all the time, and not just with guides, with everyone.

The guide came up to me and stared at my rod. He touched the fly-line, and stroked it with a puzzled expression, then picked up the fly and considered it from every angle and then studied the joins in my leader. You know what this was? First contact! This guy had never seen a fly rod before, and what’s more, he had never heard of fly rods. This scene was repeated everywhere my rod made a public appearance on the coast.

The guide made a movement with the popper, noting that the front would displace the water. He smiled at me, and said “Bueno”, meaning he rated my fly. “Bueno?” I asked, and he smiled again, and said his catchphrase for the first time – “Claro”.
We set off, saw a big old grouper, and some smaller shoal fish. And what do you know? A barracuda mugged my fly as we entered the mangroves. The guide’s lure broke and he asked if he could try trolling one of my flies on his line. He did and he
got a bunch of ‘cudas himself. He was astonished at how effective the fly was. When a bird of prey slapped on the water and picked up my fly before dropping it when the line went taught, he mocked our earlier conversation – “Bueno? Claro!” The guy had some kind of genius though. When he brought ‘cudas in the boat he spoke to them. I never speak to fish, except to name them, but he had all these sounds, tssts, and chitchits. All of them clearly meant calm down, mate, struggling won’t help. I
wish I’d thought of that, and I know I can do it now, but it’s not the same as inventing it.

We went back to camp, where I met a man with faraway eyes who was planning to give up his job back home and dedicate himself fully to cocaine and cheap women. Gilbert cleaned the fish and gave them to me to take to a barbecuda, which went down very well with my new French friends. Perhaps because we were speaking French I was caught off-guard when Gilbert asked me if I believed in creation. I asked him, in reply, “Creation of what?”
“Creation. Of everything”.
“Ah”.
Gilbert produced a small book in which a teacher is teaching evolution with a picture of a monkey on a wall behind him, with the caption – “Our father”. He tried to push other books into my hand. The Collapse of Evolution was offered, and refused. It was a good day at Playa Blanca, which is very beautiful. If you want to stay, facilities are basic, to say the least, and creationism is big.

No El Dorado.

I went to Arrecifes in the Tayrona National Park. The fishermen there took the piss out of my rod and kept harassing me while I fished. I gave it a day, no more.

No El Dorado. But, of course, The Quest is supposed to corrupt, isn’t it? Moby Dick, big white whale and obsessed guy. Arthur, if he went where he thought the grail was and just found it at the first attempt, it wouldn’t really be a compelling story would it? We’re probably only talking about El Dorado to this day because it was unattainable. For all of us there remains, in life, in love, an El Dorado, a golden place that we had a chance at touching. This is the central truth of so many malarial, feverish deaths, and not just those dying in South America of malaria and yellow fever but all those fade-to-grey, Surbiton send-offs, crying “Rosebud” to the end, with the Volvo still rust-free in the driveway. Fishing is living large, and the quest is probably the biggest part of it. My personal El dorado isn’t really a fish, doesn’t live in tropical waters and almost certainly can’t be caught on the fly. In the meantime, El Dorado (the fish) will have to serve as a metaphor for the one that got away.

I’m telling you, Taganga is another world. It isn’t on the main coast road of Colombia, and it retains its charm as little more than a fishing village with incredibly loud music in its beach-front bar/restaurant/cocaine dealership/knocking shops. Wherever you go in Colombia people will pop up selling cold things, it’s a wonderful feature of the country. You need never worry about having water with you. They will find you. They have a catechism that they reel off, “Coca Cola, agua, gaseosas, helados, cervezas”. The sound becomes so familiar, you get used to it. I thought my ears were playing tricks with me, but no, as the guy got nearer I heard his incantation clearly “Cocaina, marijuana, Coca Cola, gaseosas, helados, cervezas”.

One of the great things about Colombia is the fruit juice, available everywhere for 1USD. Lots of them you’ve never heard of, dig in and try the ones you don’t know. But at this juice bar, in Taganga, the first guy who came up to be served said “Shalom”, and got a hearty “Shalom” right back at him from the girl making the juice. And the next guy, clearly and distinctly said “Shalom”, and also got a big fat “Shalom” from her. I had noticed a few haircuts around town that would not normally be seen outside the early rounds of the Champions League, but hadn’t put two and Tel-Aviv together with the preponderance of Kelly McGillis Aviator shades, and realised I was in a new promised land. Taganga’s tourism is a striking 80-90% Israeli, and while fashion makes its shifts and tweaks in the rest of the world, ponytails, Alice bands and Aviators are always tip-top fashion in Jerusalem.

I sat out at a restaurant, in the shade, with a margarita, and watched the people come with their amazing catches of sea-beasts, soon cooked and presented to thrilled punters.

Fishing wakes me early. I need no alarm, the sea calls, and I rise. I was on the beach the next day before five. I was told Alex would be sitting by a palm at the edge of the hotel and he would take me for a reasonable price. He didn’t show. I asked an old boy, but he had no motor, just oars, he said, you need to ask El Niño. So El Niño was woken and arrived at the beach in no time, we fuelled and were off.

No guide I had or saw in Colombia would accept guiding alone, all of them fish as well with gusto. El Niño dragged two rapalas behind the boat and we got tangled a few times. He took us to a spot to do some bait fishing, and we caught a few small fish, but I made it clear if I was paying I wanted Dorado. We headed further out. El Niño nattered away to me in Spanish all day. Occasionally he apologised, explaining he had never met anyone who didn’t speak Spanish before. We met The Old Man of the Sea while we were out. I only caught one half-pound bonito on the fly, which is just down to incompetence: the water was full of fish. We went back to shore, a crowd gathered to see my rod, touch the line, feel the fibres of the fly. Milson, who runs one of the beach restaurants, prepared a red snapper for me that someone else had just caught. He wanted to know about the world I was from. He asked me if London was like Santa Marta. We got onto music. A weird thing in Colombia is that you don’t hear any international pop. For two weeks I hadn’t heard any Madonna or U2. Just Salsa, Reggaeton, Spanish Rap, Vallenato, etc. They have a genre of music in Colombia that is unbelievable, Ranchero. It’s Spanish Country and Western, but not like Dwight Yoakham or anything, it has yodelling, and the fashions look like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Oklahoma. It is shocking stuff. Milson found it funny too. We laughed and laughed and imitated it.
“I like English music”, said Milson. I was shocked, I didn’t know it existed in Colombia. “Yes, my favourite artist is English”.
“Really? Who is that?”
“Bob Marley”.
“No. Bob Marley is Jamaican”.
“No, he’s English”.
“No, well he was born in Jamaica, but grew up in England”. Milson jumped up and put on Is This Love? on the stereo.
“What’s this song about?” He asked me.
“It’s about a man who is in love with a woman and is offering her everything”. Milson was surprised. I began to translate, and the lyrics are really simple and repetitive. The chorus line, ‘Is this love, is this love, is this love is this love that I’m feeling?’ Was a doddle, and as it had the same number of syllables in Spanish I sang it over the top of Bob. “Es amor, es amor, es amor, es amor que siento?” Milson loved this, he joined in and others came from the next restaurant to hear the words of Is This Love? I had to resort to gestures for ‘I lay my cards on your table’. Then I got to the line – ‘Jah provide the bread’. I translated it as ‘Bob Marley’s god provides the bread’. Shock and awe.
“God provides the bread?”
“Bob Marley’s god, Jah”, I explain.
“He doesn’t own God. God belongs to everyone”.
“Yes but his god is different”.
“Your Spanish is not so good”.
“I’m saying his god because he is a Rastafarian”.
“This word is not a Spanish word, Rastafarian, what does it mean?”
“He has a different religion, Bob Marley is not a Christian”. The crowd that had gathered dispersed up and down the beach to spread the news, ‘Bob Marley not a Christian’. The following day a man stopped me in the street to ask me if I was the one who said Bob Marley was not a Christian. It was funny, he didn’t contest it or anything, he just wanted to confirm that I was the man who had said it. He went with the words, “I thought it was you, you don’t look Israeli”.
I came to realise that I was in breach of Starfleet’s General Order Number 1 aka The Prime Directive: Not to interfere with the culture of alien life forms, specifically primitive cultures (those yet to achieve warp drive). If you go back to Taganga in 300 years or so, I like to dream you’ll find a fucked-up culture with bits of mistranslated Bob Marley and sections of Spanish for the Fisherman revered as holy texts, with people eating oatmeal porridge an ting, and having no fear for atomic henergy.
A bunch of English people staggered up to Milson’s place. There are dangers of totally pure cocaine being just 5USD per gram. One guy looks up after a few minutes and says, “Scuse, mate, do you know how to get served here?” I turn round and shout,
“Oye, Milson!” Milson leaps out of the back and comes to serve the new guests. The English guy smiles and sniffs violently,
“You so obviously live here”.
I didn’t want to tell him that an attempt at Spanish and going fishing gets you right under the skin of any place in 24 hours, but that was the truth of why I was sitting in Milson’s place like it was my regular chair.

The next day was my last day; El Dorado or bust. We headed out early. I caught a garfish. That’s a weird looking fish. El Niño brought his kid brother with him. We saw a big shoal of bonito whipping through the surface, creating little whisps of white. But I’m incompetent and didn’t catch any. El Niño got a beast, he lifted it into the boat in my section, right by my feet. The speed with which it arrived didn’t allow for identification, and my bare feet came out of there at warp factor 5. El Niño thought this was hilarious, and he imitated me several times while he fetched his priest to kill the fish with. He let out great big peals of laughter. I am a bit embarrassed by not knowing anything about sea fish and being a little scared of them, but they have more razor edges and chivs concealed all over them than a seventies Millwall crowd. I was feeling cowed, but not for long. El Niño’s priest was too small for the job and he was battering away at this fish. Suddenly the fish struggled and moved forward, where his head had been was now his tail, El Nino brought the priest hard down on the fish’s tail as it flapped violently towards him. The priest flew away from the fish at El Niño’s head, and made a hugely satisfying ‘tock!’ sound before bouncing into the water with a loud ‘Ploop!’ and disappeared into the Davy Jones locker. We stared at each other for a moment and burst out laughing. El Niño imitated himself laughing at me and withdrawing his feet, and then re-enacted the embarrassment of getting the priest upside his head while laughing at me.

No El Dorado. I came up short. We went back to the shore. Milson found it all funny, and his daughter came over to show off her fish to me, which in truth, wasn’t much smaller than my garfish. One of the guys passed us selling his wares. He had an incantation I hadn’t heard before “Sin dios, sonomos solo Coca Cola, helados, gaseosas, cervezas”. I stared and waited for him to repeat it…
“Without God, we are just Coca Cola, ice creams, soft drinks, beer”. The next morning I left Taganga again, but this time inland, broken like Klaus Kinski, like the most hopeless conquistador. South America made me her bitch and sent me packing back to fresh water and trout. But it was fun.

This is the true story of everything I did in Colombia. Honest.

Tips: You need Spanish. English is not spoken at all, not even at hotels to book a room. Bear in mind that you may be the first person to charter a boat, and it will inevitably be from a fisherman who will insist on fishing himself. You will meet with a lot of curiosity not merely about fly fishing, but also because fishing is not practised by wealthy Colombians, it is a poor man’s job, never a pastime. The boat will be basic, but make sure you have a canopy and plenty of factor 40+, a hat, etc. El Niño told me that February and March are the best months for giant shoals of bonito. The dollar used to command a lot of respect worldwide, but where the local currency is massively outstripping the dollar (Russia, Brazil, Colombia) they don’t like the green stuff any more. Colombians are also incredibly reluctant to take what they consider large banknotes. A huge fuss will be made for anything over 10,000 pesos, and they may refuse to sell you stuff at all. Even in a four-star hotel, getting change can be turned into a Monty Pythonesque, half-hour scene. Be prepared, get small denominations at banks.

For Playa Blanca, Gilbert’s cell number is 311 4366215.
La Ballena Azul is a nice hotel on the beach in Taganga – 5 421 9005. Be aware that Taganga is noisy, the music is loud at outdoor restaurants. Cocaine-fuelled Hebrew is shouted through the night. If that doesn’t suit you, Taganga doesn’t suit you.

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