The other night we were driving in a co-workers toyota land cruiser, a very common SUV here. Up until this time I had no idea why. I had heard them called Narcoyota's since they are the SUV of choice for Nacro trafficars but again I had no idea why.
So as we were driving Aaron wanted to roll down the window but the driver (my co-worker) said that they don't go down because the whole car is bullet proof.
This sparked Aaron's interest....
This is what we learned. You send your SUV to Bogota and they add the most insanely thick windows you can imagine (you could roll them down a tiny bit and feel the width, a solid inch thick) the doors are also bullet proof and she said the tires are made out of something special. The doors also have a crazy looking mechanism that allows you to go on lock down in your own car. Needless to say the car is extremly heavy and probably not the greenest car you can imagine....but very fascinating to us.
So I guess that is why these cars are so plentiful here with higher profile people, they are meant to be the easiest car to modify in this way.
So why? Well as many of you already know about Colombia it was and still is famous for it's kidnapping, however it is substantially lower now than 6-10 years ago. But some of her family members had been kidnapped and this is why that had taken these measures.
After getting the details of the car, stories of kidnapping followed and it just reminded me of the insane history this country carries. She spoke of a time where kidnapping was a daily occurrence not only for political reasons but for ransoms.
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