18 November 1810

We are back in the mountains and this seem a good place to locate a base camp.  The last couple of weeks we spend in the San Juan river plains, moving by boat or by foot, talking with locals and hiding from authorities.

I have to admit that I had a complete different concept of what Chocó was, but I am more and more convinced that this region have the potential to become the axis of my independence movement.

Most of the people I found were miners.  Both free Negroes, Mulattos, Zambos, Indians, Criollos and also slave Negroes and Indians.  Anyhow the way Slavery works here is quite different to the way slavery was portraited in movies on the US South as slaves are able to extract their own gold and sell it.  Lozano even tells me that the gold Slaves find in their free days once a week outweights the gold they find for their masters.  Some platinum is also mined here.

The other thing that surprised me was the variety of goods, surely smuggled from the USA.  Wheat, Iron, pants.  I believed I was coming to the end of the world and I find this is the most cosmopolitan region in the New Granada.  Well, this is still the end of the world and this combination could actually be better than I thought.

I could convince about a dozen people to join us. Both because I did not want to tell everybody what we were here for, and because people would better be mining than fighting a war they did not understand.  One thing I am sure: I don't want escaped slaves nor Indians in my army.  Well, pure blood Indians that have no relationship with an Indian community would be acceptable.

Any how the most we were coming closer to the main settlements we decided that would be safer to got back to the mountains, at least the terrain would be less muddy and would not rain every single day.

I wonder how I had not fallen ill, but I better not test destiny.  Probably my Yellow Fever vaccine is helping me and I have been lucky to avoid Malaria.  But up here in the mountain I feel I am more in my territory.  Lozano agrees with me, but some of the Negroes that we recruited complain on the chilling nights.  Chilling?  I wonder if these guys would have any decent performance near Santafé.  That's chilling!

This seem a good place to camp.  If Lozano is correct no shooting here will draw attention to any Spanish, the weather is fine for me and the terrain looks good.  We arrived yesterday evening and I could not see how fine this was until this morning.  We improvise a ball and played football in the morning and practiced some shooting in the afternoon.  I was a little afraid if the weapons had survived the trip, as I don't know if these rifles were designed to the humid, torrid, muddy, rainy, hot environment they had to support.  But they shoot.  I suppose that the targets were not hit due to our aiming skills.  Something to improve in the following days.

I have to departure tomorrow to Urabá, not sure if I will use the mountains or go back to the Atrato.  Lozano will be in charge of the base camp, and I will took four men with me: two of Caicedo y Cuero men and two of the Chocó recruits.

-- Carlos E. T. Pinzón G.
   Base Camp 1, West Cordillera
   New Kingdom of Granada