17 Octuber 1810
Cauca Valley
This trip has lasted a little longer than I suspected and I have no confirmation from Cascadian vice-president and fellow Uptimer James Dahl, who had promised me some weapons to support the revolution. As my primary goal to move West was to meet with Dahl, I have expressed my doubts on continue this trip.
We are near Santiago de Cali. Not a big city downtime but has big sugarcane properties, and Pombo has suggested that we should move to the quinta of this guy, Joaquín de Caicedo y Cuero, a Criollo plantation owner that is close to the revolution ideal. I have some doubts also on entering to a sugarcane plantation, full of slaves, but after more than two weeks on the run, my companions feel that it is time to take a rest.
And we need a rest. Climbing the Central Cordillera was not an easy task. All those mountains that uptime were covered of Coffee plantations are plain forest downtime, with almost no paths and the few paths mostly avoided just to be sure that we did not run into hostile Indians or a Spanish patrol. And once we reached the valley we had to be avoiding properties and plantations.
We expect to arrive tomorrow noon to the property of Caicedo. Now it is time to sleep for a while.
-- Carlos E. T. Pinzón G.
20 Octuber 1810
Caicedo Property, Santiago de Cali
Well. My fears on coming to a sugarcane plantation have revealed to be justified. While Joaquín de Caicedo is a nice guy, a liberal Criollo for his time, and someone convinced that America should be free, he is a land owner and a slave holder and I am not the kind of guy he would think on as a guest.
Even if I am allowed to enter the living room and join the conversations, I have to sleep and to eat with the peons, who are people that would prefer that I ate and slept with the slaves. There are vivid talks on the revolution. We still ignore what has happened in Santafé and we are interpreting the lack of news as no good news.
Trying not to importunate our host, I have gone for a little work with the peons. Not the kind of work I was used uptime but not too hard either. Feeding the horses, keeping the hardware in order, etc. At least this is not plantation job, and I have nobody giving me orders.
I don't have news on Dahl so far, but it seems that other Uptimers are also willing to help. Tom Adams from USA who does not want the Cascadians to know (as Dahl wants nobody to know) and Vegard Valberg from Denmark-Norway and Demetrio Rammos from Greece have all offered some help.
I am being realizing that we really need a revolution here, but not in the way it happened in the history I knew where it was actually a civil war between the Criollo Spanish and the Royalist Spanish, and at the end my country ended with a debt to Britain and the USA.
I do not want either this to become a revolution of non-Whites against Whites or poor peasants against oligarchy.
For obvious reasons I have not commented anything of this with my companions or my hosts. I am not sure either how effective and how uninterested are the help that Dahl, Adams, Valberg and Rammos are offering. Neither am I sure on what I am going to do with such help. Should I start a revolution? Should I forward these help to my Criollo "friends"? Should I wait that these guys start the revolution and then help? Should I just prepare myself and possibly and army? Should I just leave the country?
There are many things that I have to think about while I am here. Tomorrow is Sunday. Probably I will go to church to listen a mass in Latin and understand nothing.
-- Carlos E. T. Pinzón G.