Between the green of nature and the crystal clear water of the La Miel River, in Norcasia, Few know the wonder hidden behind one of the places hit by conflict for many years. A paradise that is now coming to light thanks to the work of young entrepreneurs like Oliver Pescador, one of the people who saw the incredible tourism potential of this place and who showed it to the world.
“There are many destinations in Colombia, but “The ones that are being rediscovered as a result of the post-conflict, that were kept stored, hidden today among mountains, are more beautiful,” he assured.
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Oliver is 30 years old and has a life that could well become the script of a movie. He arrived in Norcasia, Caldas, by accident in 2017. He still remembers the first time he saw the La Miel river and says he stared at it for hours. His parents abandoned him shortly after he was born.
“My mother leaves me when I was 8 days old, my grandmother takes charge because my father never answers for me,” said Pescador, who remembers that he grew up with his grandmother until he was 8 years old in a squatter neighborhood in Riosucio, Caldas. until he ran away from home due to abuse.
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“I had to go begging to be able to bring food home and if I didn’t get home with food, I was already guaranteed a fight, so from there I still have consequences today, like scars that now expand and that every time I have “A conversation with my wife or I take a bath and see them, it brought me back to that past that I would never want to have again,” he said.
The Family Institute for Family Welfare intervened and that is how he began the stage in foster care and the possibility of being adopted. However, as the years passed and it became less and less likely that he would be adopted, he went through 7 homes until he was 15 years old.
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Oliver finished school at the Children of the Andes Foundation and fulfilled his dream of studying social communication at the University of Manizales, but At the age of 21, his time with the ICBF ended, he abandoned his degree in the sixth semester and began selling bicycles in the city.
In 2017, he visited Norcasia, a place stigmatized for many years by the armed conflict, but that did not matter to him. “My dream was to set up a travel agency in the municipality of Norcasia and show the people who had been calling the territory a red zone, that this destination was a beautiful place, that they could visit it without problem and that it was being rediscovered,” he assured.
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Those years of terror are left behind, now, it is one of the tourist destinations that no one can miss. And where many of the inhabitants have seen that as a life and future project for their families. There are around 300 families who live from community tourism in Norcasia, in 2023, more than 20 thousand people visited paradise, national and international. A must-see site for nature lovers.
