July 16, 2007 | Pulitzer Center
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."