Port of Call

If it were not for the shipping business, no one in his right mind would choose to live in the steaming, noisome port of Buenaventura. More than 350 inches of rain fall every year. Humidity is so high that shoes and clothing must be kept in "hot closets," where electric light bulbs dry the air, slow down blue mold. Malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis are endemic. Yet Buenaventura (pop. 15,000) is the busiest port in Colombia.

Because of its location (the first good Pacific harbor south of the Panama Canal) and the importance of the area it serves (up-&-coming Medellin, and the coffee lands of the Cauca valley), Buenaventura is also on the way to becoming the best-equipped port on South America's west coast. Last fortnight, a U.S. contractor (Raymond Concrete Pile Co.) finished two new storage warehouses and a 1,057-ft. wharf extension, which increased total berthing space to 3,432 lineal ft. Last week, the Colombian government signed a new, $4 million contract with the same company for 1,000 more feet of wharf, two more warehouses, two railway stations, a new coaling station.

Higher & Higher. The new facilities, to be completed late this year, will solve some, but not all, of Buenaventura's problems. They will allow more ships to dock at the same time and will provide storage for the goods they unload. But about 30,000 tons of cargo are unloaded monthly at Buenaventura, only 25,000 tons can be carried out. Last week TIME Correspondent Jerry Hannifin cabled this description of the jam-up:

"The freight overflows the docks, the warehouses, runs out into the streets and public parks. Alongside the Pargue Infantil are stacked weather-beaten wood cases containing tractors, electrical transformers, construction steel, concrete mixers. Up past the cathedral on the road to Cali stands a broken-down road grader, tires deflated, blue-flowered vines curling around its steering wheel."

Lower & Lower. "The stevedores'morale is low. One shipping official said: 'My God, there's a strike every day. The rest of the time it's a slowdown, with half the stevedores sleeping in the warehouses on coffee sacks and the hold gang bedding down aboard ship. What in the hell can we do?' "

Nobody had the answer: already stevedores' wages were better than those paid in other ports of Colombia. As for the cargo bottleneck, it will be eased only when the single track railway and the unpaved highway leading into the interior are improved, and so far no plans are afoot for the work.

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