Editorial Unimagdalena

Description in English: A Reclus StopoverOne hundred and seventy years ago, Élisée Reclus, then twenty-five, boarded a schooner in Colón, Panama, bound for Cartagena. Somewhere in the Sierra Nevada (the snowy mountain range), he thought of founding an agricultural colony and pursuing his geographical explorations. He completed the colonizing project in San Antonio, in the vicinity of the Chiruá River, after overcoming a shipwreck at the mouth of the Dibulla and the steep cost of contracting an infectious fever that kept him confined for several weeks in a dilapidated house in Dibulla. The business enterprise failed before reaping its first fruits when his partner, Jaime Chaistang, a slightly older Frenchman whose irascible character alienated the mestizo workers and deteriorated relations with the Arawak indigenous people, neighbors, and food providers of the nascent colony, finally deserted. Still ill, with no capital or strength left, he returned to Dibulla on a mule and then to Riohacha by sea. Journey to the Sierra Nevada," aside from a personal adventure, offers vivid first-hand accounts of the populations and human types that Reclus dealt with once he disembarked in Cartagena: a port fresh out of the cholera plague. His observations on Barranquilla, Ciénaga, Santa Marta, and Riohacha are cited time and time again by regional scholars in the second half of the 19th century. His appraisals on the Sierra Nevada’s economic possibilities and the conflicts spotted between its human groups –indigenous, mestizo, black, and white settlers– maintain surprising validity, even if the mountain massif has lost a significant part of its natural benefits, especially in the last half-century of armed conflict and drug trafficking.A riveting read, its style combines the naturalist's virtues and the storyteller's frank narrative spirit. Although he failed as a businessman, optimism abounds inside the text’s pages, written by a man grateful for his experience during his stay in the region. Respectful of his ideas and faithful to the tenacious spirit of his intellectual enterprises, it is hard to acquiesce that every hope is lost for this region’s creatures: in whose future of free men and women he believed with his eyes wide open. His is an inspiring text, rejuvenated with each reading, that the University of Magdalena is relaunching at a time when the country needs to resume its journey safely.ClINSERT INTOn Ramírez C.