Story

El Charco, 7 July

Carlos Avila Gonzales and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
El Charco, Colombia

To get to El Charco, we headed for the coastal city of Tumaco and then caught a motorboat that would take three hours moving north along the Pacific coast into a vast delta and then finally into the Rio Tapaje. The first hour on the launch was on the open ocean, a rough ride, and a campesino next to me struggled to hang on to his pet ducks as the boat tossed around on the waves. A passenger commented, 'Well, if the ducks go overboard at least they are prepared for it."

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