In 2004, I set out to a new exciting part of the world –
South America – to examine the role other raw materials
– namely drugs – play in armed conflicts. After learning
Spanish in beautiful Buenos Aires, I traveled for many months
through the Andes and the Amazon jungle in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru,
and mainly Colombia. For ten days, I hung out with a drug gang
in one of the most violent favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Then I spent
a memorable night with convicted cocaine kingpins in the notorious
San Pedro prison in La Paz, accompanied Peruvian traffickers on
the Amazon river, and finally interviewed the top paramilitary
commanders in the Colombian mountains. Pure fun indeed!
