The puppy is not essential to the cooking of the cocaine, but is hella cute. All photos by the author
Annons
Watch VICE News' documentary 'Cooking with Cocaine'
It was as we all shovelled shit on a volunteer placement last month that I'd first heard about the tours rumoured to be available in Sierra Nevada, Medellín and San Augustin – of backpackers being bundled into 4x4s covered in tarpaulin and taken to the mountains to cook up; of kidnappings and police bribery. But none of us had heard of tours taking place in anyone's back garden.Although Peru replaced Colombia as the world's leading exporter of the white stuff a couple of years back, cocaturisma – the pursuit of the drug as a tourist attraction – is currently booming, and draws plenty of Western tourists to Colombia. Alberto is just one of the many cocaine producers capitalising on this particular gold rush.As Dina leads us up to his house, my chest grows increasingly tight. I catch sight of our distorted reflection in a car door. It's 10AM: what the fuck are we doing?
Annons
Annons
"Tourists get caught because they are so obvious," he tells me. "They are arrested after stepping off the buses. Other tour guides used to take people to factories and then informed police once they returned to their hostel. The police get a big cut. It's more dangerous now, so I'm doing my classes here. I don't work with the police, so the prices are less."Interested in travel? Watch our documentary 'Big Cats of the Gulf'
Annons
Annons
"He was a bastard…a ruthless man," he starts. "He used to have sex with women then kill them afterwards. Bastard. But I did meet him once in 1983, and he shook my hand."[WATCH: VICE News' new documentary, Rebranding the AK-47](Rebranding the AK-47)
Annons