News of a Kidnapping

Started reading Marquez's The News of a Kidnapping, a journalistic account (in Marquez's inimitable and magical style of narration) of a string of actual kidnappings of some journalists and high profile people in Colombia during the height of the Cartel menace there. I have just finished 45 odd pages of the almost 300 page book and have absolutely fallen in love with the gripping tale. Its a departure from the other books I have read of GGM - The General in his Labyrinth, Chronicles of a Death Foretold. But even then, you get a sense of the amazing interweaving of classic magic realism with a real life drama unfolding in the avenidos and casas of Bogota, The Extraditables (the body of drug dealers most prone to getting extradited to the US, headed by the one and only Pablo Escobar) who seek recourses such as kidnappings as a measure to weigh upon the political leadership headed by Gaviria to change the Extradition policies of Colombia. For me, the setting holds a special place in my heart since I was a part of the team working for an IT project for Banco Concasa spA, a Bogotan bank a long time back - in 1998-1999, and we were told that our onshore personnel were strictly instructed to use the shuttle provided to them from their hotel to the office premises and not venture anywhere else. Bogota was, like Manila and Baghdad, a dangerous place to be in during the Cali cartel menace. And we could easily have been mistaken for locals, with similar physical features....I though am quite intrigued by South America and would love to make a trip to all those exotic and esoteric places rich in Mayan, Aztec, Incan and the myriad other cultures that have formed the rather strange (and quite India like) culture there....coming back to the book, I guess through the writings of Borges, Marquez, Fuentes, Paz, and many others , we get to sneak into that unique culture with a lot more awe because through their eyes, it looks all the more magical...