The Valle de Tenza in Colombia

The plaza in Guateque

I have traveled to Colombia over a 37-year period and recall seeing many buses indicating that they were traveling to the Valle de Tenza in the province of Boyacá, about a three-hour ride from Bogotá, toward the northeast. Foreign tourists did not appear to visit the region with any regularity, as most of them go to the colonial-style town of Villa de Leyva, also in Boyacá but in a different direction.

The town of Somondoco as seen from Guateque

In December 2015 I made my first trip to the area, visiting the towns of Guateque and Tenza. One can not help but be impressed by the immense mountains and gorges that mark the route once one turns off the main road to Tunja and heads east. After the considerable twists and turns, I stopped in Guateque, the first major town in the valley on our route. Guateque has a temperate climate, warmer than Bogotá and the towns immediately to the north of the city. While in Guateque, I met with a professor named Luis Carlos Uscátegui who was in the area doing research and supporting an artisans' cooperative that specialized in basket weaving. He suggested that I visit Tenza, and I hailed a taxi to take me there. I didn't have a lot of time to spend in Tenza, but it was well worth it: the town was beautiful and quiet. I had some time to meet a gentleman named Marco Antonio Roa, who was the director of folk dance groups in the town.

One of the quiet streets in Tenza

In April 2017 I returned to the valley. This time I passed Guateque and kept going to a town named Garagoa which was a little farther down the route. There were even more landscapes that awaited, and I was taking every photo I could with my iPhone while the bus bounced over the bumps in the road. My time was limited in Garagoa, so I focused on the church, which did not disappoint with its beautiful interior and many statues that were lovingly preserved. The local people were very friendly, and eager to chat with me about American politics.

Valle de Tenza still has more that awaits my discovery, as there are several other towns in the area with their own views and enchantment.

Interior of the church in Garagoa

Role of the Countrystyle Community Tourism Network and Villages as Businesses in Jamaica

Diana McIntyre-Pike, Founder and President of the Countrystyle Community Tourism Network

Diana McIntyre-Pike realized, as she was building her model of community tourism in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean, that there was a need for an organization to serve as a liaison between the visitor and the community, hence Countrystyle Community Tourism Network (CCTN) was born as a nongovernmental organization bringing together the various groups that participate in the tours. This group is designed as a membership organization. Likewise, Diana created a for-profit corporation called Villages as Businesses (VAB) to manage the contracts with the groups, a part of the project still in development. 


What Diana wants readers to know is that the combined efforts of CCTN and VAB will create what she calls "an efficient destination management organization to design the community experience tours." She adds that this organization will distinguish itself by "bearing in mind the clients' interests and budget and also making changes as required by the clients. CCTN with VAB will be providing business development support, marketing support and training support at discounted rates [to the communities] since they are members of CCTN." The network integrates the activities of the tour operators and attractions with the logistics piece. Other roles that the combined organizations will fulfill will be "responding to any emergencies and special requests...and dealing with any problems that may occur in a community." 



Any business that wants to grow has to become increasingly specialized in certain areas. For example, a business may hire individuals to handle sales and the ongoing relationship with clients. The workers in the "back room" are focused on creating the product and shipping it, and don't have the time to handle client relationships and drive sales at the same time. Likewise, CCTN and VAB fulfill this go-between function, and have an enormous amount of credibility with the villages, accommodations and tour operators that form part of the network.

CCTN/VAB also play a vital role as advocate for the community, which cannot be overemphasized. Diana notes that CCTN/VAB act as a "'go between' with organizations like Sandals Resorts, Island Routes, and other local and international tour companies and travel agents." Yet this role, while being vital for keeping the whole operation functioning, is the area that tends to be overlooked because it is so seamless and invisible to the client as well as to internal stakeholders such as foundations or government agencies. One essential component of advocacy which I have experienced firsthand, is CCTN and VAB "sticking their foot in the door." Communities often encounter considerable obstacles when dealing with government agencies or funders, due to the uneven power relationship which favors those who control the allocation of resources. Diana and her collaborators have fought hard to gain a fair hearing for sustainable tourism projects, but always insist that those who would oppose unsustainable programs not just criticize but also offer viable alternatives. This is where the truly hard work of advocacy comes in. 

When it comes to politics and especially dividing up the spoils of politics - wealth, influence and hegemony, those who would seek to retain these for themselves and their associates have to create some type of noise to destroy the credibility of a legitimate alternative. If this activity is allowed to be unchecked, politics, economy and the social fabric acquire a dysfunctional nature. The best approach to counter this tendency is to stick to logic, hard evidence and the legitimate rule of law to gain public support for valid ideas, which are more difficult to ignore once their worth has been proven and the public base becomes convinced of the resultant benefits to society. For me, it is exciting to witness the growth of this grass roots initiative to develop a sustainable economic model and channel the enormous power of a well-designed tourism product to go beyond providing leisure and truly create good will between people.

Back in Providencia, Colombia (2010)

Ten years after making an overnight trip to Providencia, a remote island in the Caribbean belonging to Colombia, in 2000, I had the opportunity to return and stay for three days. Providencia, according to what I heard during my stay, only attracts 11,000 tourists a year (compare the Dominican Republic at about 4 million), but those who go there never forget the place because of its isolation, the beauty of its landscape and the warmth of its people. My impression is that it is sought out by a small group of travelers representing a cross-section of the whole world, based on the tourists I met during my brief stay who were from Colombia, the United States, the Netherlands, England, Argentina, Malaysia, and Switzerland. On my first trip I had also met a tourist from France.

The photo of Providencia, with the well-known Split Hill or Loma Partida in the background, was taken from the smaller island of Santa Catalina, which is connected to Providencia by a small floating bridge for pedestrians. Speaking of Santa Catalina, biologist Germán Márquez Calle notes in the booklet A Guide to the Environment of Old Providence and Santa Catalina (a gift from Javier Archbold Hawkins, one of my gracious hosts on this trip) that there is a striking resemblance between Providencia and the map of the fictional island from Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel "Treasure Island," in that the map of the island in Stevenson's novel includes a small island with roughly the same proportions to the larger island as Santa Catalina has to Providencia. Though the association between the real island and the fictional one has not been proven conclusively, to my knowledge, it's still fun to speculate. What we do know about Providencia is that pirates did inhabit the island at certain times in its history, most notably Henry Morgan, who used Providencia as a base to invade Panama and other Spanish possessions. Looking at certain parts of the island, you definitely can imagine a pirate movie being filmed there.