Colombia's FARC guerrillas have been busted transporting explosive mattresses - well, really, explosives in mattresses.

In a statement, the police said they had recently stopped two such shipments. 

In one set of six mattresses they found 206 packages of pentolite, almost 800 meters of detonating cord, and a PKT machine gun.

In another mattress shipment, they found 177 kilos worth of explosives. This is the first time the police have detected Colombia's illegal groups making transfers inside "comfortable mattresses for sale in specialized stores." Read the full press release - with additional pictures - here. 

The seizure comes as the FARC is accused of stepping up its bombing campaign amid increased military presence along drug routes.

Colombia will have to rely on some crafty diplomacy if it hopes to overcome the brewing US-Ecuador standoff at the Summit of the Americas. During a recent trip to Venezuela, Ecuador President Rafael Correa asked the eight-members of the ALBA bloc of countries to boycott the Summit of the Americas (which will be held in Cartagena in April) if Cuba was not invited. 

Colombia's foreign ministry said it would begin negotiations to make sure the island nation makes it past the velvet ropes. But it's not clear that the United States is going to budge. During a State Department briefing on Tuesday, the spokesman said the following: "Our view on the posture of Cuba has not changed with regard to the Summit of the Americas and we don’t think that the posture of the Summit nations should change either."

In theory, the meeting is only open to active members of the OAS. You may recall that the body dropped its 47 year ban on Cuba in 2009, but the country decided not to pursue membership.

Washington has been edged out of some of the more important pan-American bodies. (The Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations, in particular.) 

This Summit would give Obama a rare opportunity for Washington to rub shoulders with all the regional leaders. And who doesn't want to go to Cartagena?

In late December, Medellin made international news when it cranked up a massive public escalator that benefits tens of thousands of people who live in the cliff-hugging Comuna 13 neighborhood. The daily walk up to La 13 is the equivalent of hiking up 23 floors, according to El Espectador. 

Now, some in the community are complaining that local gangs are muscling in on the project and charging up to 5,000 pesos (about $2.50) to use the escalator. According to El Tiempo, the same gangs that shakedown bus drivers are the ones behind the escalator scam.

Authorities say they are investigating and have stepped up security along the escalator. (Pic courtesy Medellin mayor's office.)

Inside South America is on vacation. But over the holidays I'll be posting some of my favorite photos from the year.

Colombians are renowned in the region for being go-getters, and that's definitely on display on most streets. In downtown Bogota, dozens of street performers elbow for space on busy sidewalks hoping to make a few pesos. Below are a few that caught my eye: 1) man with his head in a cage. 2) the human Transformer. 3) a traditional dancer gets patted down on his way into an event. 

Inside South America is on vacation. But over the holidays, I'll be posting some of my favorite photos from the year.

Below, are pictures I took in Segovia, Colombia in February, while I was working on a story about illegal gold mining. In the first picture is Segovia Mayor Luis Alfonso Ochoa - dressed in traditional hat and poncho from Antioquia. He's a former gold miner and had on three gold rings, a gold watch and a heavy gold chain.

The next one is a gentleman working an illegal mine far off the beaten track. He was very excited about the quality of the water in the region and was encouraging us to have a drink. But the fact that his basin was a discarded cyanide barrel made me a bit uneasy. 

On Thursday night, arepa vendors and bundled-up couples dodged skateboarders and cyclists for a massive evening ciclovia that marks the beginning of the Christmas season.

Ciclovia — “bike lane’’ in Spanish — is one of Colombia’s most successful exports. Starting in 1974, this Andean nation began closing down major streets of the capital to make way for bikers, walkers and joggers. Now, every Sunday andholiday, some 700,000 people turn those streets into a massive urban park that winds 75 miles through the city.

“Some people complain that the ciclovia paralyzes the traffic,” said Patricia Pérez, who was walking with her dog and two children Thursday night admiring Christmas lights. “But it’s worth it. It lets you get out of the house and de-stress.”

Although the name refers to bike lanes, the roads are so crowded with pedestrians, pets and joggers that biking can be a challenge.

In the past, the big event that kicks off the Christmas season has drawn an estimated 2.8 million to 3 million people — or about a third of Bogotá’s population, the city said. 

The concept has been exported as far away as Canada, Peru, Chile and Mexico. Portland and San Francisco have copied the model. Miami, briefly, rolled out a monthly bike ride on Brickell Avenue after former Mayor Manny Diaz talked to his counterparts in Bogotá.

“The ciclovia is like a positive epidemic,” said Jorge Mauricio Ramos, who coordinates the program for the city’s District Institute for Sports and Recreation. “We have people come from all over the world to look at our model — Bogotá is undoubtedly the reference point.”

Read the full story here.

And watch a doc about the ciclovia here. Thanks to reader "Vernon6" for pointing it out. 

Ciclovia: Bogotá, Colombia from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Tens of thousands of Colombians hit the streets today to protest the recent execution of four hostages who had been held by rebels for more than a decade. 

You can read about the march here, and you can read about the executions and one man's narrow escape here. 

Today's outpouring comes as many activists complain that the plight of the country's hostages is no longer on the national radar. That's probably a testament to how much safer Colombia has become. Take a look at the chart below to see just how grim things were in the1990s and early 2000s.

Even so, the government says there have been 146 kidnappings in the first five months of this year — that’s up 40 percent versus the same period in 2010. 

To complicate matters, the number of people still in captivity is a matter of debate.

In 2009, the department within the Ministry of Defense that tracks kidnapping cases said it had combed through more than 2,000 reports and determined that were 125 people still in captivity. Human rights groups and researchers at the time balked and accused the government of playing politics with the statistics. País Libre - a foundation dedicated to the issue - said the new administration has agreed to let it look through the reports again to come up with fresh figures. We'll keep you posted.

The FARC's new commander, Jorge "Timochenko" Londoño, issued his first press release over the weekend. Not surprisingly, Timo said the FARC are in no mood to give up and are ready to die for their cause. He also blasted the "immoral" government for celebrating the deaths of previous FARC commanders.

In a rather rambling statement published on the Agencia Bolivariana de Prensa, Timo compared the FARC to Jesus Christ.

"Very few people remember under which Roman emperor Jesus was crucified...But everywhere, he [Jesus] receives the highest respect, because he preferred the ordeal and the cross before renouncing his ideas."

Timochenko took over the FARC after the prior No. 1, Alfono Cano, was killed Nov. 4.

Analysts suspect that Timo spends much of his time on the border of Venezuela and Colombia and often takes refuge in the neighboring country. 

Read about Cano's death here, and about Timochenko here. 

More details are emerging about the final days of Alfonso Cano. According to El Tiempo, the hounded FARC commander was living in a squalid shack and had a limited supply of food.

The paper said the only members of his group that had any luxuries were Conan and Pirulu, his two dogs. One of the FARC guerrillas was charged with cleaning their feet before they were put to bed with Cano. The guerrilla leader himself bathed them every 15 days.

The men were required to call the animals by name and never to refer to them as "dogs," according to the paper. 

During the Friday night firefight that ended with Cano's death, Pirulo ran away and Conan was injured.

I was in Popayan on Saturday and met some of the special forces soldiers involved in the raid. Among their ranks was Onyx (pictured above), one of the mine-sniffing dogs that helped them safely make their way to Cano's camp. 

The weary men had stayed up all night celebrating their victory. Apparently Onyx did too, because even crowds of photographers and the sounds of choppers failed to rouse him. He was the definition of dog tired.