39 



and as the only camera offered as evidence against us was 

 claimed by Otoya, we were released immediately by a very 

 courteous desk sergeant. We passed through the other reten 



Pacho 



without questioning and continued our way down the valley 

 of the Rio Negro. Pacho is^ a representative Colombian town 

 that is evidently something' of a summer resort as there are 

 two better than usual hotels. The Astoria, in the town it- 

 self , is quite presentable from the road. The Claridge, on 

 the road below the town, is more pretentious; it is a large 

 two story building with outside recreation facilities, such 

 as a swiinming pool. Our destination was a citrus grove a 

 few miles down the valley and we stopped there for lunch and 

 collecting, which was not very good. We started back around 

 three o'clock, collecting from time to time along the road. 

 Ve were passed through the Pacho retens without discussion 

 and between there and Zipaquird we stopped once more to col- 

 lect, this time on the high ground above the city. It was 

 almost dark when we reached the first Zipaquiri reten and we 

 were stopped on the grounds of having faulty licence plates! 

 Inch telephoning by the police and in perhaps 1$ minutes a 

 motorcycle with sidecar appeared. Wa were escorted to the 

 main police station where we were accused of illegally tak- 

 ing photographs in and about Pacho. Evidently the Pacho 

 authorities felt that they had made a mistake in releasing 

 us and would thus put the responsability on Zipaquird, a 

 more important station. Murillo did the talking and in a 

 few minutes the sergeant was satisfied. He sat down at the 

 typewriter and picked out an open letter to all retens to 

 the effect that we were the individuals who had been taking 

 photographs near Pacho, that we had been fully investigated 



