There's a "New Venice" in the Columbian Everglades.

According to foreign media reports, 4 hippos illegally imported by a big drug lord in Colombia have been breeding wildly for decades near the mouth of the Magdalena River, and now, nearly 100 hippos pose a great threat to ecology and human security. These hippos live in areas with large swamps of lagoons, and a floating city called "New Venice" has come into view.

New Venice is a true water city, unlike other water cities such as Venice in Italy, where there is no land, only vast rivers and swamps, and the local residents live in tall wooden houses in the water (pictured), maintaining a traditional way of life since ancient times. More like a fishing village than a city, New Venice is more of a fishing village with just over 400 households and a population of more than 2,000. The local residential layout is neither contiguous nor symmetrical, but is scattered irregularly over large areas of water, far apart from each other. This highly distinctive human settlement planning is the result of human adaptation to nature. Here, where the house is built depends on the current of the water. Because there is no land, the residents' domestic sewage and sewage must be directly discharged into the river, and the houses are staggered with each other and not connected together to ensure that the sewage and sewage can be smoothly washed away by the water flow, rather than gathered around the house. The orientation of each house is also slightly different, because this depends on the direction of the wind, the wide river is very windy, and when building the house, try to avoid the incoming wind to ensure that the roof is not blown away.

The stilt house is built by piling up wood from the mangrove forest, and the house is also a pure wood structure, which has a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. For locals, it is not too difficult to build a house from local materials, but it is difficult to have a yard, which requires financial resources, connections and time. The courtyard is important to the locals, as a dock for mooring boats, a workbench for drying and smoking fish, and a place for social gatherings, play and entertainment. To build a courtyard, a circle of wooden stakes is placed around the house to enclose a water area, and then during the dry season, it is filled with oyster shells, silt, broken wood, etc. by boat. The process is long, and it requires the help of the residents of the entire community, and over time, it often takes two or three years for a courtyard to be built. The courtyards of the New Venetians generally range from 20 to more than 80 square meters. Some public facilities such as churches and schools are usually gathered together, connected by wooden bridges, which is the center of the water city. These facilities are also built slowly and painstakingly through a series of processes such as piling and land construction. Interestingly, even under such difficult conditions, there is a football stadium in the local area, which can also give a glimpse of Colombia's strong football atmosphere.

The locals mainly live off fishing. Thanks to the confluence of brackish water and fresh water, the local fish resources are relatively abundant, and different waters such as mainstream, tributaries, and swamps can catch different fish. Fishermen generally set out in the middle of the night to go fishing, and the operation process varies from more than ten hours to several days depending on the distance. There is a traditional canoe purse seine fishing method, six or seven canoes are separated by a certain distance and surrounded in a circle, and the fishermen cast their nets at the same time, and the nets are just connected to cover the entire water.

This traditional way of life also has distress. The first is the insecurity caused by the dispersion of people, as New Venice was attacked by armed thugs a few years ago and dozens of fishermen were massacred. Because of its unique environment, it has also been chosen by drug traffickers as a place to hide drugs, and Colombian police have seized a large number of drugs in the area. In recent years, the discharge of sewage and mining in upstream large cities has had a serious impact on the living environment of local people, especially the fishery. In particular, the drinking water of the locals is also taken from the Magdalena River, where pollution poses a serious threat to health. The threat of exotic species such as hippos is also a disadvantage, and there have been many incidents of hippos injuring people in the area.

Some young people are more willing to live in big cities because of various disadvantages. With the troubles brought about by development, the living culture of the new Venice Water City, which is full of traditional characteristics and regional customs, is facing the risk of gradually disappearing.