Arab tradition glitters in Colombia
(Artdaily.org)

With strong yet delicate hands, Daniel Alfonso Garrido masterfully manipulates fragile threads of gold to craft fine jewelry, perpetuating an ancient Arabic art handed down by generations of Colombian goldsmiths. Lacy spindles of silver and gold have been used to make jewelry in the isolated northern Colombian town of Mompox since the time of the Spanish conquest. Built on an island on the wide Magdalena river, the town`s colonial beauty inspired Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian magic-realist partly setting his `General in his Labyrinth` there. However, tourists make their way here -- four hours upriver by boat, an hour`s droning by small aircraft -- for the magic realism of handcrafted jewels. `It`s an Arab tradition, and the Arabs taught it to the Spaniards who, when they conquered us, brought this art to America, and especially