Journey Down the Rio Magdalena Via Your Armchair – Eye On Sun Valley

BY KAREN BOSSICKThe Rio Magdalena runs a thousand miles through Colombia from its source high in the Andes to its mouth on the Caribbean coast.Taking its name from Mary Magdalena, it is home to 66 percent of the people of the country. It’s rich in fish, but it’s also rich in invasive hippopotamus imported by Pablo Escobar.It’s been traveled by the Spanish conquistadors and Simon Bolivar. And, more recently, it was traveled by Jordan Salama, a National Geographic contributor of Argentine, Syrian and Iraqi Jewish decent.Salama has written a book, “Every Day the River Changes.” And he will tell of his journeys down this river for Wood River Valley residents in a Vimeo session at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8.Salama will tell of meeting a canoe builder, biologists studying invasive hippopotamuses and a traveling librarian whose hauls books to rural children via donkeys. And he will tell of a country that’s too often seen as only a site of war.Salama will be in conversation with Melissa Gonzalez-Maza, a Wood River High School graduate and former Community Library intern who now is a second-year student at the University of Denver where she is working towards her Bachelor of Arts degree in…
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