The oak and the bourbon residue in the barrels add to the rum’s aroma and taste, according to Mauricio Solorzano, Flor de Caña’s public relations manager.

“With the wood and with the aging and with the alcohol, we obtain that classical bouquet of the rum.”

After coffee, Flor de Caña’s rum is Nicaragua’s best-known export.

But back in the 1980s, during the Sandinista revolution, Flor de Caña, like many businesses, fell on hard times. Solorzano said supplies were scarce amid the Contra war and a US economic embargo.

“To get the caps of the bottles we had to bring them from Poland. The bottles we used to buy from Cuba because of the embargo and the lack of dollars and everything,” he said.

Then in 1986, the Sandinista government confiscated the sugar mill that supplied the molasses needed to make the rum. Fearing the entire business could be seized, Flor de Caña’s managers began stashing barrels of rum in neighboring Honduras and other hiding places.

“With that threat in our head we started to produce a lot of alcohol, the most possible quantities, and we moved this alcohol to secret places just in case we were confiscated,” Solorzano said.

But the business survived.

After the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990, Flor de Caña got its sugar mill back. And because so many barrels had been stashed away, the company has one of the world’s largest supplies of aged rum.

That would’ve been no big deal a few decades ago. But now the appetite for high-quality rum is growing, like the popularity of single-malt whiskies. Most rum is aged just a few years; Flor de Caña also sells bottles of 12, 18 and 21-year-old rum.

Once the war ended, the company began an aggressive marketing campaign to export Flor de Caña. But from the company’s perspective, something was missing. Nicaragua lacked a national drink.

“Cuba has their mojito, Brazil has their caipirinha. If you are in Vietnam and you try to make a cocktail like a Margarita you are thinking Mexico,” said Solorzano.

So five years ago, the company sponsored a contest that led to the creation of the Macua – it’s rum mixed with orange, lime and guava juice. The Macua’s another way Flor de Caña’s trying to boost sales.

But after the initial excitement of a national drink, the demand for the Macua has died down.

At a sports bar in Managua, waiter Reynaldo Guerrero tells me it’s been three months since anyone ordered a Macua. He says Nicaraguans prefer traditional cocktails, like margaritas, and piña coladas.

But at the Flor de Caña distillery, no one seems especially concerned about the fate of the Macua. Rum-making tours are on the rise amid a boom in tourism, and the company’s building a Flor de Caña museum and theme park.

Besides, employees here claim their rum is so good you don’t need to mix it with anything.

In the past decade, the price of gold has jumped from $300 an ounce to more than $1,800. These record prices have provoked a boom in gold mining across Latin America, particularly in Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti.

B2Gold, a company based in Vancouver, Canada, operates Nicaragua’s largest gold mine. Inside the company’s massive mills in La Libertad, ore is crushed then washed with a carbon and cyanide leach solution to isolate the gold.

B2Gold bought this mine in 2009 and has spent $100 million to modernize the operation. The company’s efforts have helped Nicaragua double gold production in the past three years. It’s also created jobs in La Libertad.

“The mine is very important because it has meant jobs for everyone,” said Cristobal Gonzalez, one of the workers at the B2Gold operation. “It’s also helped develop the community.”

People have been mining gold in Nicaragua for centuries, but the industry fell on hard times following the 1979 revolution. The Sandinista government nationalized mines and expelled foreign companies.

A U.S. embargo in the 1980s made it nearly impossible to buy spare parts for American-made mining equipment. In addition, the gold mines were targeted by Contra guerrillas.

Oscar Vega, the manager of the B2Gold mine at La Libertad, said, “There was a lack of investment and a lot of damage caused by the war. The mines were targets because they were located in remote areas. La Libertad was a war zone.”

But now, the country’s mining industry has come back to life amid soaring gold prices. It costs about $500 to produce an ounce of gold that today sells for about $1,600. Ironically, foreign mining firms are being welcomed back to Nicaragua by their old foes, the Sandinistas, led by President Daniel Ortega. The Sandinistas have ditched their Marxist rhetoric and government officials have reached out to mining executives.

“We work together, you know? If there’s a problem we sit down and we solve it and that’s a huge difference,” said Randy Martin, chairman of Hemco, which runs Nicaragua’s second-largest gold mine.

“This is by far – and you can talk to any mining company in Central America – this is by far the best place to operate,” Martin said.

Gold is now the country’s No. 3 export, behind coffee and meat, according to Jose Aguerri, president of Nicaragua’s private business council. He said gold has helped the economy grow by 4 percent annually in the past year, the highest rate in Central America.

“Gold mining means a lot of investment and a lot of employment for the communities where they are. Also, they have a good relation with the communities. And that has been very important for a sector that is not very friendly, traditionally speaking, with the communities,” Aguerri said.

Indeed, gold mining has been hugely controversial elsewhere in Latin America. It’s caused environmental damage, and it’s disrupted local villages. But in Nicaragua, environmental issues are often overshadowed by concerns about poverty and unemployment.

Another factor, according to Martin, is that firms have so far focused on Nicaragua’s traditional mining zones rather than building open-pit and tunnel mines in untouched areas.

“Because remember, the operations that are here right now are the operations that have been here for 60 or 70 years. They are technically the same operations. There hasn’t yet been that great big new discovery yet in Nicaragua,” Martin said.

Mining companies are also winning hearts and minds by sponsoring health, education and recreational programs. Tom Lee, who’s head of corporate social responsibility in Nicaragua for B2Gold, shows me a company project to install lights and a new roof at the town basketball court.

“The idea is to give recreational opportunities to some of the youth, the kids here in La Libertad so that they have something to do in the evenings,” Lee said.

B2Gold has also hired contractors to pave streets and build houses for miners. Lee said the company intends to invest heavily in both mining projects and community development while the price of gold is still high. That way, he said, Nicaragua will have something to fall back on when gold rush ends.

“We know that the price of gold is cyclical,” Lee said. “At some point it is going to drop again and we have to be prepared for that.”

Gustavo Petro (Photo: Agustin Fagua)

The Colombian capital of Bogota has a combative new mayor. Gustavo Petro, who was sworn-in this past Sunday, once belonged to a leftist guerrilla group. He also served as a crusading senator who exposed links between fellow lawmakers and rightwing death squads. Now Petro has to pivot from government antagonist to CEO of a city of eight million people.

Petro, who is 51, has spent most of his life opposing the powers that be. In the 1960s and 70s, leftists like Petro were frozen out of Colombian politics. That gave rise to several rebel insurgencies that tried to overthrow the government.

As a teenager, Petro joined one of these rebel groups, the M-19. Although he was arrested, imprisoned and tortured, Petro said he has no regrets.

“Societies always need rebels,” Petro said. “There was Washington, Bolivar, and Robespierre. Then came later generations of rebels. They changed the world.”

In 1989, the M-19 disbanded. Petro and other M-19 members received amnesties and formed a political party.

“He is the son of a peace process,” said Daniel Garcia-Peña, a former government peace negotiator, who met Petro soon after he laid down his weapons.

“He came to the conclusion that armed struggle had no possibility of successfully changing Colombia. He saw how the armed struggle led to the creation of many of the paramilitary groups and he was convinced that the moment for armed revolt in Colombia had passed.”

Petro eventually won a seat to the lower house of congress, and was then elected senator. In 2006, Petro stood up on the senate floor to denounce many of his fellow lawmakers, accusing them of collaborating with far-right paramilitaries who trafficked drugs and murdered thousands of Colombians.

“By cutting deals with the paramilitaries,” Petro said at the time, “these lawmakers turned over governing powers to the worst criminals this continent has seen in recent decades.”

Petro received a flurry of death threats. But one-third of Colombia’s legislators eventually ended up under investigation, on trial, or in prison.

Francisco Anzola, a Bogota politician and boyhood friend of Petro’s, said the senate speeches raised Petro’s stature and paved the way for his election as mayor, often seen as a launching pad to the presidency.

But critics question Petro’s moral authority given his membership in the M-19, which carried out targeted killings and occupied the Palace of Justice in a 1985 siege that left more than 100 dead. Petro has said he wasn’t involved in the violence. But former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has called Petro a guerrilla disguised as a politician.

Meanwhile, guerrilla groups that continue to fight against the Colombian government despise Petro. Former peace negotiator Garcia-Peña said that’s because Petro’s success proves that armed uprisings are no longer necessary.

“The triumph of Petro in Bogota is a sign that it’s possible through the democratic process for the left to achieve power,” Garcia-Peña said.

Petro takes over a city with crumbling streets, monster traffic jams, and a widening kickback scandal that landed the last Bogota mayor in jail.

In his inaugural speech, Petro’s biggest applause line was his plan to deal with rising crime. Instead of more police, he proposed a ban on carrying weapons in the city.

In some ways, it was a nod to his guerrilla past. As Petro reminded his audience, the M-19 laid down its weapons 23 years ago.

Bogota’s new mayor now stands as exhibit A that disarmament can work.

That means climbing 48 floors, a total of 980 steps. Most will make it to the top in 10 to 15 minutes.

The elite athletes, competing for the tower running World Cup, this year held in Colombia’s capital, go last. They run the course in about half that time.

Tower running, the sport of sprinting up the stairs of skyscrapers, may sound monotonous and a bit claustrophobic, but it just may be a sport for our times. In an increasingly urban world, running up stairwells is one way to get exercise while avoiding traffic jams, street crime and severe weather.

The first modern tower race was at the Empire State Building back in 1978. Since then, the sport has spread across the globe. Though short, the races are pure torture.

“For a lot of us elite climbers, it’s under the theory that if you’re not collapsing when you get to the top then you didn’t push yourself hard enough,” said Kristin Frey, who’s from suburban Chicago. Frey is ranked number 2 in the world among women tower runners. Still, she has to pay her own way to races because she can’t find a sponsor.

“A lot of companies are like: ‘Stairclimbing? You know, we don’t want to sponsor stairclimbing.’ Because they don’t know much about it,” Frey said. “They think it doesn’t really have a big audience. But some of the races get thousands of participants. But so far no one’s biting.”

Michael Reichetzeder, an Austrian tower runner who organized the sport’s World Cup, said there are certain tricks to winning, like using the railings to pull yourself up the stairs.

“Some athletes can make very good use of it. There are people even who spend hours before in the stairwell measuring out the steps to find the exact way to use the railing. Because if you do it right you can save a lot of energy,” Reichetzeder said.

The Colpatria tower is only half as high as the Empire State Building, which stretches up 102 floors. But Bogota’s building is especially tough due to the altitude; the city sits 8,600 feet high in the Andes Mountains.

“Obviously, altitude is a factor that helps Colombian runners and hurts the foreigners,” said Juan Pablo Rangel, a Colombian who’s won the Colpatria tower race twice.

And sure enough, when the elite runners start up the tower, the locals dominate. Angela Figueroa of Colombia wins the women’s division, clocking in at 6:32, about 45 seconds ahead of American Kristin Frey.

At the finish line, several runners collapse into the arms of first-aid workers, panting heavily.

Rangel wins the men’s race for the third time and sets a new course record of 4:42. Reichetzeder, the race organizer, straggles in several minutes later. But he says just finishing is a victory.

“I couldn’t do one extra step. I felt the altitude completely,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “So hard. But I did it.”

Volcano boarding in Nicaragua (Photo: John Otis)

This newly invented sport involves sliding down the side of a volcano on a wooden sled. Most Nicaraguans will have nothing to do with it. But it’s attracting thrill-seekers from all over the world.

Volcano boarding was the brainchild of Darryn Webb, an Australian who climbed the 2,400-foot high Cerro Negro in 2006 but was looking for a faster way to come down.

“He decided to go down the volcano on surf boards, fridge doors, mattresses anything he could find,” said Gemma Cope. “Then he came up with the idea of the board that we have now and realized that you can go pretty damn fast on those boards.”

Cope runs volcano boarding tours from her hotel in the city of Leon.

List of volcano boarding speed records for women. (Photo: John Otis)

That’s about 54 miles per hour.

Our volcano boarding expedition starts with a bumpy truck ride from Leon to Cerro Negro. I’m here with a group of other foreigners, mainly from Australia and the US. Our guide is Anthony Alcalde.

“Cerro Negro is a cinder-cone volcano,” Alcalde said. “What we’re looking at right now is the height of the volcano. It’s 726 meters in height and we’re going to be volcano boarding 600 meters of it down.”

At the base of the volcano, there are no gondolas or chairlifts. We have to carry our heavy plywood boards, which are the size of snow sleds, to the top.

“Everyone have a board?” Alcade asked. “You don’t want to get up there and not have a board. That would be very awkward.”

Cerro Negro volcano, Nicaragua. (Photo: John Otis)

Still, Nicaragua, will take all the visitors it can get. Tourism has been slow to take root since the Contra war in the 1980s. Now the country is at peace and tourism is finally growing. More than 17,000 visitors have sped down Cerro Negro.

At this point, Nicaragua is the only place where you can volcano board. Melinda Vorisek, who’s from Miami, said that’s the reason she’s here.

“We saw it online with things to do in Nicaragua so we basically planned our whole trip around this”

When I ask would she have come if there weren’t volcano boarding, Vorisek said probably not.

“I mean it’s gorgeous so far, but this was a big motivator,” she added.

At the top of the mountain, we don protective orange jump suits and plastic goggles. Alcalde tells us how to sit on our boards and use our feet for brakes.

“You’re going 50 or 60 kilometers per hour, just like a car, you don’t want to slam on the brakes. You don’t want to slam on the brakes like this because the board will stop.”

One by one, we take the plunge, and start sliding down the mountain.

Our boards fill with volcanic rocks, and the black dust makes it hard to see. Several people wipe out, but they seemed thrilled.

Walking up the volcano. (Photo: John Otis)

For surviving the 45-second run, the volcano boarders, now coated in dust, receive free cans of beer for the truck ride home. Back in Leon, I ask Alcalde where volcano boarding goes from here.

“I think the next level would be just creating different aerodynamic boards,” Alcade said, “and maybe increase the speed from right now where we have our record set at 87 kilometers per hour to possibly getting into the triple digits.”

However, Ortega was on the ballot in defiance of a constitutional ban on the re-election of sitting presidents. In fact, his refusal to step down has critics comparing Ortega to the Somoza dictatorship, which ruled Nicaragua for 43 years.

As a guerrilla leader, Ortega helped topple the Somoza regime in 1979 and his Sandinista government confiscated all of the Somoza’s land and businesses.

But one member of the Somoza dynasty has since returned to Nicaragua in a quest to rehabilitate his family’s name.

Alvaro Somoza takes me on a tour of what was once the presidential palace, where he grew up.

“This is where I took accordion lessons as a kid,” he said.

Somoza is the son of Luis Somoza, the second of three Somoza dictators who ruled Nicaragua between 1936 and 1979.

By all accounts Luis Somoza was the best of the three Somoza rulers.

“My father started the social security system in this country,” Alvaro said. “The minimum wage was established by my father; the labor code, the right to syndicate. I could go on and on and on and on.”

But Luis Somoza died of a heart attack in 1967 and his younger brother, Anastasio, who was commander of the country’s military, took over. Anastasio Somoza’s corruption, massive wealth and violent crackdowns on the opposition helped fuel the Sandinista revolution.

Shortly before his uncle was overthrown, Alvaro Somoza, who was then 27, fled Managua aboard his Cessna airplane.

“I managed to get to the airport with an overnight bag for three or four days, hoping that the shooting would be over,” he said. “I got in my 1-85 and flew to El Salvador, and I never came back. The shooting never stopped.”

Alvaro Somoza resettled in Florida where he sold luxury cars and started one of the state’s largest landscape nurseries.

After the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990, he became the first Somoza to return to Nicaragua. By then, the Sandinistas had torn down the statue to his father. They also rechristened hospitals and schools built by the Somozas with revolutionary names. Luis Somoza’s former mansion now houses the defense ministry, and it was renamed after a Sandinista guerrilla leader.

According to the guard at the gate, “This was part of the Somoza dynasty and when they were defeated, many things had to be changed, including the names of buildings and anything else that smelled of Somoza.”

The Somoza name remains so controversial that Alvaro has had no luck in persuading the government to return a confiscated cement company and other businesses and properties that he says were legitimately acquired by his family.

Still, Alvaro Somoza, who is now 59 and makes a living running fruit farms in Nicaragua, is well received by many older people who remember his father.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, but in the 1960s when Luis Somoza ruled the country, Nicaragua boasted one of the fastest growing economy in Latin America.

“I knew Alvaro’s father,” said Alberto Quiroz, a 64-year-old security guard. “He would sit down and talk to average people. He was an excellent president, one of the best.”

Hoping to trade in on that nostalgia, Alvaro Somoza has jumped into politics. He was campaign manager for presidential candidate Enrique Quiñones, who finished far behind Ortega in Sunday’s election. Alvaro Somoza is also considering running for mayor of Managua, or even president, in 2016.

As for whether his name would be a liability, Somoza said he thinks it would help.

“People in Nicaragua are clearly aware that they were taken for a ride in 1979, a communist ride that promised everything and delivered little or nothing.”

But economist Mario Flores, who worked in both the Somoza and Sandinista governments, said Alvaro would face long odds because Nicaraguan history books focus on the corruption and human rights violations of the Somoza family dictatorship.

Ironically, Alvaro Somoza now sees many similarities between his Uncle Anastasio, known as “Tacho,” who was overthrown by the Sandinistas, and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, who used dubious legal maneuvers so he could run for a third term in Sunday’s presidential election.

“Though my family did a lot of good things, they made a lot of mistakes,” Somoza said. “Not only that, but I go further to tell the current politicians: ‘Don’t make those same mistakes yourself.’ The last one, I’m telling President Ortega on a regular basis: ‘What is it that you don’t realize. Continuity is not something these people want. Didn’t you understand what happened to Uncle Tacho?’”

But when it comes to roller derby, it was a Hollywood film that inspired legions of Colombian women to lace up their skates. Watch a slideshow of the Bogota Rock and Roller Queens below.

María Paola Hernandez is founder and captain of the Bogota Rock and Roller Queens, Colombia’s first-ever roller derby team. She’s a graphic designer who roller skated in her spare time. She’d never heard of roller derby, though, until she saw “Whip It,” Drew Barrymore’s 2009 film about a Texas misfit who joins a Bad News Bears-like roller derby squad. (Watch the trailer here.)

The movie was a box-office flop. But Hernández was fascinated by the women hip-checking their way around the rink in wild costumes and old-fashioned four-wheel skates.

“I learned about roller derby from the movie,” Hernández said. “I had no idea what it was so my friends and I began to investigate.”

After downloading the rules from the Internet and watching roller derby online, Hernández began recruiting skaters via Facebook and teaching the sport.

Since then, nearly a dozen roller derby teams have sprung up here, with names like Bone Breakers and the Pain Dealers. Hernández’s husband, Diego Reyes, who coaches the Rock and Roller Queens, said most of the players like the action.

“Without fight, you know. I think that’s the principle attractive of the sport. The action,” Reyes said.

Roller derby is enjoying a renaissance in the US, where hundreds of teams have formed. It’s played with two five-member squads skating around a track. Players score by lapping members of the opposing team, checking and bumping to prevent enemy skaters from passing them.

It’s largely a women’s sport, and many find it liberating, especially in Colombia where there’s still the macho notion that they should stick to more ladylike endeavors, such as beauty pageants.

Francisca Perdomo, who skates for the Rock and Roller Queens, likes the combination of the aggressive play with the risqué spandex outfits and heavy makeup that the players wear.

“I think a girl could be tough and strong, but you can also be feminine and girly,” Perdomo said.

Still, Perdomo has paid a price. She hurt her knee and her foot, but that hasn’t stopped her.

“I came back because I love it. I really do.”

In some ways, it makes sense that roller derby caught on in Colombia. The country is a mecca for roller skaters. The national team has won the World Roller Speed Skating Championships 9 times in the past 12 years.

But national team coach Elías Del Valle said roller derby often seems more like a violent spectacle than a sport.

“It’s for athletes who are a little more aggressive and who may not be suited for speed skating, hockey or artistic skating,” Del Valle said.

Indeed, roller derby is still so strange and new to Colombians that players are constantly trying to convince people that they’re not just making it up.

Still, they did persuade the Colombian government to take them seriously. Last month, roller derby received official recognition from the Colombian Sports Federation, which could lead to more money to build rinks and train teams.

Colombia is home to one of Latin America’s oldest democracies. Still, its elections are not always clean and tidy. Facundo Castillo is running for governor of Arauca, an oil-rich state on the Venezuelan border. Castillo gets a warm reception going door-to-door. But his political rivals claim Castillo and his family have close connections to Marxist guerrillas, who control much of the surrounding countryside.

Castillo insists he has no links to the rebels. Serious questions have also been raised about Castillo’s main opponent in the race for governor, Carlos Pinilla. The leader of Pinilla’s own party has denounced him for his ties to a jailed politician who sponsored paramilitary death squads.

Part of the problem in policing local elections is the sheer volume of candidates. There are 130,000 candidates running in the October 30 elections for governor, mayor and local councils. More than 10 percent have criminal records, according to Colombia’s interior minister.

Candidates often campaign in remote areas controlled by guerrillas and drug traffickers. Armed groups have killed about two dozen candidates on the campaign trail over the past five months. In other cases, experts say, the groups are backing candidates with cash.

“It doesn’t sound like democracy,” said Andres Ceballos of the Electoral Observation Mission, an independent monitoring group based in Bogota. He said rebels and drug traffickers want to elect mayors and governors who will turn a blind eye to their criminal activities.

“That collusion between these actors is really what puts at risk the elections,” Ceballos said.

Violence and corruption have also marred recent local elections in Mexico and Central America.

“We’ve seen that in Guatemala, in the Honduran elections, Salvador,” said Nhelly Saleh-Ramirez, of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Washington. She added that most outsiders focus on Latin America’s presidential elections, which have been mostly free and fair, but they pay scant attention to state and local races.

“For the most part, the international community feels that the Americas have ‘graduated,’” she said. “But we have definitely seen a backsliding of democracy in the region.”

Intimidation is not the only problem. Out in the sticks, it is easier for candidates to get away with wrongdoing.

In the city of Arauca, a reporter named Eduardo Cedeño recently discovered that one of the mayoral candidates has plagiarized the political platform of another politician. Cedeño said vote buying is also common.

“Gubernatorial candidates will pay up to $40 for people’s votes while mayoral candidates pay $10,” he said.
On the Arauca River, which forms the border with Venezuela, Jose Ceballos makes a living taking passengers across the river in a wooden motor boat. He is 48 and cannot read or write.

He said the Arauca government gets millions in oil revenue, but corruption has left his state mired in poverty.
“On election day, the politicians give you money to vote for them,” he said. “But look at the streets. They’re full of holes. Look at the public housing in Arauca. It’s horrible.”

Gubernatorial candidate Castillo promises a new era of honest government. Yet his campaign tactics have raised eyebrows. Castillo, a doctor, doesn’t buy people’s votes, but he does set up free mobile clinics in the slums of Arauca and personally attends to potential supporters. Castillo’s team also provides dental checkups, soft drinks and haircuts for the kids.

Just to make sure people remember who to vote for, loudspeakers play songs with lyrics extolling the virtues of Facundo Castillo.

Venezuela has a shortage of affordable homes so acute that squatters have moved into half-built high rises in Caracas. And there are also countless families left homeless by flash floods and landslides that swept the country six months ago. And there’s pressure for the government to solve the problem.

“I know it’s going to be difficult,” said Maria Mendoza, who lives with her family in a homeless shelter in Caracas. “But I hope the government will give us a new home. And we’re not the only ones in this situation.”

Experts say there’s a deficit of more than 2 million housing units in Venezuela. In the 1950s and 60s, Caracas was one of Latin America’s most modern cities. Amid an oil boom, gleaming high rises were built downtown. Government housing projects rose from the slums.

But more recently, high inflation has made banks wary of signing mortgages for private home building. Under Chavez, the public and private sectors have put up just 28,000 houses per year, less than half the number built during previous governments.

“The construction was not a priority, even though Chavez talked about that,” said political analyst Luis Vicente Leon. He added that Chavez preferred to spend billions of petro-dollars on schools, clinics and food programs for the poor. These projects touch millions of Venezuelans and their widespread popularity has helped Chavez get re-elected, twice.

By contrast, Leon said, each government-built house benefits just one family. “The quantity of money you need to build a house is so high and the quantity of votes that you get from it is low.”

But now, with a new presidential election approaching, the Chavez government seems to be focusing on housing at last. At an outdoor plaza in Caracas, people can register for what’s called “The Great Housing Mission.” The government program aims to provide low-cost housing and easy home loans. Plans call for building 350,000 homes ahead of next year’s vote.

“The flood refugees, the homeless and the squatters are top priorities,” said the program’s Dilumar Rodriguez.

Venezuelans have heard such promises before. Five years ago, Chavez pledged to construct 75,000 new houses for Caracas. Fewer than 3,000 have been built. Those numbers feed the suspicion that the new housing program is nothing but campaign trickery.

Though Chavez is being treated for cancer, he intends to run for re-election next year. Even if the housing program proves to be a bust, Leon said that people expecting a house from Chavez are unlikely to vote for the opposition.

“He’s blackmailing people with that,” said Leon. “He’s trying to say, if you vote for me, somebody is going to build a house and this house is going to be yours. But if I am not going to be the president, the other guy is not going to do anything for you.”

For one Caracas resident, the program does indeed seem like his only chance to become a homeowner. John Checa, is a tailor who earns $1,000 a month and has been renting a two bedroom apartment for 7 years. He wants to buy it but lacks the $16,000 for the down payment. So he registered with the housing mission for a low-cost government loan.

“A lot of people are going to benefit from this housing program,” he said. “I just hope I’m one of them.”

Fifteen thousand feet up in the Colombian Andes, Jorge Ceballos climbs the windswept edge of Nevado Santa Isabel, one of country’s few remaining glaciers. He’s found his way back to an 18-foot-long measuring stick that was buried in the ice here a little more than two years ago. Since then, so much of the glacier has melted that all but three feet of the stick are now exposed.

“If you come back next year,” Ceballos says, “the entire thing will be exposed. Isn’t that incredible?”

Ceballos works for the government’s Hydrology and Meteorology Institute. He is the country’s top expert on glaciers, and a big part of his job is monitoring their disappearance.

In the 1800s, there were 19 glaciers in Colombia. Today, there are only six, and Ceballos says they’re losing three to five percent of their ice every year. At this rate, he says, they’ll be gone by mid-century.

Santa Isabel is one of three glaciers here in Nevados National Park – “Nevados” is Spanish for glacier – and Ceballos says it’s likely to be the next to go, due to its relatively low altitude and small size of just three square miles. The slopes of Santa Isabel are already alive with the gurgle of melt water rushing in dozens of rivulets down the mountain.

With Global Warming, Rain Replaces Snow

Ceballos says there are several reasons for what’s happening here. One culprit is dark ash from a nearby active volcano, which settles on the ice and accelerates melting. But he says the main problem is global warming. Fifty years ago, he says, the park’s glaciers began at 13,500 feet. But now, he says, due to rising temperatures it rains at that altitude, and researchers have to climb farther and farther up the mountains to find snow and ice.

Glacial retreat receives more attention in neighboring Peru, where the massive ice cap is critical for the water supply. By contrast, Colombia has plenty of water but very little ice and snow. Here, people’s attachment to glaciers is more emotional.

Park guide Juan Pablo Gomez says the glaciers provide a rare chance for Colombians to touch natural ice and play in the snow and that they come away awestruck.

“It’s like the first time you see the ocean,” Gomez says. “Many people cry. Others hug me and say: ‘Thank you so much. You’ve made my dream come true.’”

An Emotional Loss

For returning visitors to the Park, the shrinkage of the glaciers has been shocking.

Colombian oil worker Johnny Reyes remembers exploring the park’s vast network of ice caves a decade ago. But when he came back recently, guides told him they’ve melted.

Reyes says his first question when he got to the park was, “Have you still got the caves?” He says a ranger told him, “No, not the caves, not any more.

“So I got really sad that day,” Reyes says. “So I said, ‘I got my pictures.’ He was like, ‘keep your pictures with you, because that’s the best you’re gonna have.’”

Reyes is among 60,000 visitors a year to Nevados Park. But ranger Gabriel Echeverry wonders whether tourists will still come to a glacier park with no glaciers. He laughs while suggesting a rather desperate alternative.

“We could stock the park with deer so tourists would have a reason to come.”

In reality, there might not be much else that Colombia can do. It can’t stop the glaciers’ demise, since the warming temperatures are largely the responsibility of the US, China and other industrial giants. That leaves Jorge Ceballos focused on the sad task of documenting the glaciers’ disappearance.

Brief Respite from Retreat

He and a team of assistants climb Santa Isabel every other month to dig into the snow and collect samples. Colombia has just gone through 18 months of cold temperatures and extraordinary precipitation, provoked by the recent La Niña weather phenomenon. Ceballos says that thanks to La Niña, the top of Santa Isabel, at 16,000 feet, has actually accumulated five more feet of snow in that time. Even better, his samples indicate the snow is turning into longer-lasting ice.

Still, La Niña is over. Warmer weather is on the way and Ceballos suspects the build-up won’t last.

In fact, he’s so concerned about protecting what little ice remains that his exhausted team spends its last hour on the summit carefully shoveling snow back into all the test holes they’ve dug before heading back down Santa Isabel.

“Our children and grandchildren will look at photos of glaciers,” Ceballos laments, “and (they’ll) ask, ‘what happened? Why did they melt?’”

What would you call Nevados National Park … or Glacier National Park in Montana … when the glaciers are gone? Post your thoughts below.

Twenty-four teams, including Mali, North Korea and Brazil will play in the three-week tournament. The United States didn’t qualify.

Compared to the main World Cup, the U-20 is small potatoes. There’s no bidding war to host the event, which is played every two years. There is also no media frenzy. At the Colombian team practice for its opening match against France, I’m confined to a large holding pen for journalists. But for most of the session I’m the only one there.

Still, it’s a chance for Colombia to show off. The matches will be played in Bogota and seven other cities. 500 million people around the world will watch them on TV. They’ll learn about Colombia’s natural beauty, booming economy and improved security, even as a drug-fuelled guerrilla war grinds on. Cristian Bonilla, the Colombian team’s goalkeeper, said they’re proud that so many countries are participating and so many tourists are coming.

“Perhaps they will come away with a different image from what foreigners normally think about Colombia,” he said.
Bonilla and his teammates will be playing for more than national pride. The U-20 is a showcase for young talent, according to Johanna Palacios, a reporter who covers soccer for Colombian TV.

“Messi of Argentina and Kaka and Ronaldinho of Brazil all burnished their credentials in U-20 games,” Palacios said.
The U-20 can also serve as a dress rehearsal. Successful tournaments in Japan, the former Soviet Union and Qatar helped persuade soccer’s governing body, FIFA, to award the main World Cup to those nations.

In Colombia, it was the other way around.

Juan Felipe Mejia, press officer for the Colombian Soccer Federation, said that FIFA selected Colombia to host the main World Cup in 1986, but due to economic problems and the huge cost of building new stadiums, Colombia embarrassed itself by backing out of its commitment.

“By a decision of the government, they finally decided not to play it here. So it went to Mexico,” Mejia said.

FIFA was not pleased. It took 25 years for the organization to give Colombia a second chance with the Under-20 World Cup.

“It was like a big challenge because FIFA didn’t trust at the beginning in us. These guys are crazy. Why are they demanding a World Cup when they rejected one in 1986?’,” Mejia said.

This time around, Colombia seems prepared to host its biggest-ever international sports event. Most of the tickets have been sold. The government and private sector have spent $100 million to upgrade soccer stadiums. Thousands of fans showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Bogota’s renovated El Campin stadium, where the championship game will be played on August 20th.

Colombia expects 35,000 foreign visitors. They will be snapping up t-shirts and souvenirs stamped with the U-20 logo featuring, what else? – a cup of coffee. At the opening ceremony, Colombian vallenato singer Jorge Celedon will perform the U-20 theme song.

The song is called Nuestra Fiesta, Spanish for “Our Party.” It’s an apt title, Mejia said, because the U-20 is Colombia’s coming-out party.

“People are gonna see ‘Oh, this is Colombia. These are people that are really nice. The stadiums are packed.’ It’s fantastic for nations like us,” Mejia said. “We really want to show the world that we can do good things here.”

After inaugurating a basketball court in a Caracas slum, Antonio Ledezma demonstrates why he’s no Michael Jordan.

The mayor misses eight consecutive free throws. He’s so bad it’s excruciating. But the crowd urges him on.

Ledezma is a persistent guy. He was expected to lose the 2008 mayoral election. Instead, he trounced a Chavez loyalist. Since then, Ledezma and his staff have faced physical abuse and legal roadblocks as they try to run Caracas, a chaotic, crime-ridden city of 5 million.

In 2009, the pro-Chavez National Assembly passed a law stripping Ledezma of nearly all his budget and responsibilities. Ledezma protested by staging a week-long hunger strike. It didn’t work.

City treasurer Hector Urgelles says Ledezma lost control over the city’s hospitals and schools as well as the police and fire departments. They’re now run by a Jacqueline Farías, a Chavez appointee. She’s become the de facto mayor of Caracas.

Like Ledezma, several opposition mayors and governors have been sidelined by parallel authorities named by Chavez to rubber stamp his policies. Ledezma says these maneuvers show that, when his side loses, Chavez acts more like a dictator than a democrat.

“He is a president who ignores the constitution, tramples on the rule of law and tries to undermine popularly elected officials,” Ledezma said.

He says Caracas residents still consider him the legitimate mayor. Though, he no longer operates out of City Hall. Soon after Ledezma took the oath of office, pro-Chavez thugs occupied the ornate, colonial building, painted graffiti on the walls and urinated on the floors.

“It was very, very difficult to get in there, said Maria Valero, a Ledezma staffer.

Valero says she and fellow Ledezma staffers faced constant harassment.

“People insult you,” she said. “One day we have to get in the car very quickly because they were with sticks to hit the car.”

For the safety of his workers, Ledezma moved his base of operations to a Caracas high rise. Farías, the Chavez appointee, now works out of city hall.

At Ledezma’s new headquarters, many of the offices are vacant. The mayor’s workforce has been cut from 17,000 to 3,000.

There are signs of life in the office of parks and recreation. It’s one of the few departments Ledezma still controls. But he’s not moping. The mayor’s diminished role means he has more time to pursue his ultimate goal.

At a campaign event the crowd yells in Spanish “Se siente, se siente, Ledezma president!”

Although the Venezuelan elections are 17 months away, Ledezma has launched his campaign for the presidency.

Ledezma must first win a February opposition primary. If he does, Ledezma would likely face his long-time nemesis — President Chavez — who is expected to seek re-election if he fully recovers from his recent cancer surgery.

Still, Ledezma is used to being the underdog. His current job is all about making something out of nothing. His tiny budget means Ledezma must pass the hat among private donors and enlist neighborhood volunteers to build projects, like that new basketball court.

And as Ledezma proves at the free throw line, he’s got a stubborn streak. The mayor keeps taking errant shots until he finally puts the ball through the hoop.

Hugo Chavez was first elected president of Venezuela in 1998. He came to power vowing to use the country’s oil wealth to improve the lives of its poorest citizens. By some accounts, he is delivering. Living standards are improving in Venezuela.

But the president’s critics say Chavez is falling short of his own rhetoric. Given the country’s vast oil wealth, they claim Venezuela ought to be in much better shape.

One focus of the Chavez government is education. To improve computer literacy, the government is giving away nearly 2 million laptops to primary school students.

A school girl with a new government-issued computer. (Photo: John Otis)

In fact, government statistics on health, education and economic development point to a substantial, if not great, leap forward. All this comes after Venezuela registered one of the world’s worst economic declines between 1970 and 1998, the year Chavez was elected.

Under Chavez, unemployment and poverty have been cut by half. Infant mortality is falling. New clinics and hospitals are going up.

But for all the positive data, Venezuela is rarely held up as a model for development, largely because Chavez himself is so controversial.

Critics view Chavez as a populist demagogue. They dismiss his social welfare programs as cynical maneuvers to win over the masses and remain in power. They also claim that soaring street crime, frequent power outages and the highest rate of inflation in Latin America have wiped out some of the gains.

Luis Pedro España, a development expert at Catholic University in Caracas, said Chavez has simply lucked out by presiding over Venezuela’s first oil boom in 30 years and record high petroleum prices.

Slum residents buy food at a government grocery that sells subsidized food. (Photo: John Otis)

España called the changes under Chavez more superficial rather than structural.

For example, the jobless rate has dropped partly because the government has nearly doubled the number of state workers. Doctors and nurses have been stationed in poor barrios to serve as first responders. But those who need major surgery must often rely on rundown public hospitals that lack medicine and equipment.

At a government store that sells subsidized food, orthodontist Rosalva Mogollon said her office at a nearby public hospital lacks an air compressor. Mogollon said she can’t treat her patients, so she’s out buying groceries.

Not far from the grocery store sits a community center where the government’s largesse includes a large dose of political ideology. At the center, people get medical checkups and attend workshops on how to defend the Chavez revolution.

At a workshop at a government community center, people learn about their rights enshrined in the Venezuelan Constitution. (Photo: John Otis)

As they prepare for presidential elections next year, even opposition politicians are now borrowing a page from the Chavez playbook, according to pollster Luis Vicente Leon.

“Everybody is supporting social programs because we realize that we need to help these people,” he said. “I think this is the best thing that Chavez has done in Venezuela in these 12 years.”

With his anti-American rhetoric and socialist policies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has long symbolized the overturning of the status quo. But amid the uprisings in the Middle East, Chavez has voiced distaste and alarm. And in many cases, he’s come down squarely on the side of the region’s despots.

Chavez defended embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a recent speech. “Just because the whole world calls Gaddafi an assassin doesn’t mean Chavez will call him an assassin. That would be cowardly,” Chavez said. “He’s been a friend of mine and a friend of ours for a long time.” Chavez has also described Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad as “a humanist and a brother.”

In recent years, Chavez won legions of fans in the Arab world for breathing new life into OPEC, embracing the Palestinian cause and breaking diplomatic relations with Israel. So his recent comments have disappointed pro-democracy activists in the Middle East.

True, Chavez cheered the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, mainly because the Egyptian president was a staunch U.S. ally. But Chavez has also forged close ties to some of the Middle East’s most notorious leaders, including Gaddafi, Assad and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And in their darkest hours, Chavez has stood by them.

For example, Chavez backed Ahmadinejad during Iran’s disputed elections in 2009. Chavez also defied Washington by cutting business deals with Tehran.

Last month, the U.S. State department slapped sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company, known as PDVSA, for selling a gasoline blending component to Iran.

Critics contend Chavez wants to be president-for-life and has been spooked by the Middle East uprisings. By voicing support for pro-Gaddafi forces in Libya and the government crackdown on protesters in Syria, Chavez is sending a message to his own people, according to Jose Toro, a political analyst.

“What he is saying is:’Don’t dare to do anything like that here in Venezuela because I am not going to accept it.’”

Yet Chavez isn’t the only leader with questionable allies in the Middle East. This month, President Obama welcomed the Crown Prince of Bahrain to the White House despite that country’s fierce repression of pro-reform activists. Washington also supported the Mubarak government at the start of the protests in Egypt.

Comparing Chavez to faltering Arab autocrats is also problematic. Polls show that Chavez remains quite popular at home. Some of Chavez’s staunchest supporters come from the half million people of Middle Eastern decent who live in Venezuela.

Al-Ibrahim mosque in downtown Caracas (Photo: John Otis)

“Whether Chavez backs this person or that, I don’t know anything about it,” Salem said. “That’s politics and I can’t to get involved in that.”

Support for Chavez is also strong at an outdoor market in Caracas dominated by vendors from the Middle East. They see Venezuela as a land of political freedom and business opportunity. Some got their start here with low-cost government loans.

Syrian immigrant Fadi Humsi, who sells sheets and towels, is about to open his second store. “In Syria,” Humsi said, “if you don’t have money, you can’t start your own business. You have to be an employee. But here, if you want to work and get ahead, people help you.”

But not everyone at the market is smitten with the Venezuelan president. Lebanese immigrant Charles Massad said that in the Middle East, Chavez has sided with the bad guys.

“He wants to make Venezuela like a dictatorship and we don’t want that. And that’s the reason he’s with Gaddafi,” said Massad.

When it comes to the Arab Spring, Massad said, Chavez is showing his true colors.