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to check out this Gringo to see what he could take. He brought over a
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He took my hand and poured the Merthiolate into the wound. I steeled
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pointed. He gave me sulfa drug to pour on the wound each day.

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producing about 20,000 barrels a day. The Colombian engineers were
very nice but they pulled a trick on me as a gringo. Cucuta is in a dry
area near the Venezuelan border. However, a few miles out of town the
scenery changes quickly into a jungle. The Colombian engineer took me
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being no such thing as a paved road, he simply drove the Jeep along a
open trail that occasionally would split into a Y, before splitting into an-
other Y a mile or two farther along. We forded a couple of small streams
that were probably 12 to 18 inches deep, there being no such thing as a
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into town?” I agreed.

I realized later this had been a put up job. If the gringo got lost
going back to Cucuta or required help, they would all have a laugh at his
expense. I drove back alone, having remembered that at each fork in the
trail we had always taken the left hand fork. So, going back, I took the
right hand fork at every Y and I emerged into Cucuta with no problem.
My next stop was Bogota, Colombia, at the company’s head-
quarters. The Company president was an American who took me around
on a Sunday. We visited the famous salt mine in the hills above the city
and had lunch at a gorgeous country club. Bogota is almost on the equa-
tor, but at an altitude of about 8,000 feet. The climate was much like San
Francisco, never very warm or cold.

I felt great sympathy for Colombian employees. Very few public
schools are funded by the government. There was a high birthrate and
employees realized that, unless their children were literate or had some
education, they would be condemned to compete for jobs with hundreds
of others. As a result, even a laborer would contribute a small part of his

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