CULTURE SHOCKED

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007 | 7:09 a.m.

It was 4 in the morning and Rogelio Mejia Izquierdo couldn't figure out how to call from a pay phone in the Luxor to a cell phone in his village, tucked into the world's steepest coastal mountain range - the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta in Colombia.

Mejia Izquierdo has the stringy black hair and white robe of an Arhuaco Indian. He was one of a bizarre crew of eight in town last week for the Latin Grammys - four Arhuacos, two aging black gaiteros, or flute-players, and two documentary filmmakers.

He was up at 4 because the trip to Vegas had stressed him and he was chewing more coca leaves than normal. That's the same coca used to make cocaine. The leaves are part of daily life among Arhuacos but are as illegal as the powder under federal law.

So their passing 2 kilos of coca leaves through customs at airports in Bogota, Miami and Las Vegas was only one of the surreal details in their passage through the Strip.

Moments before sitting on the steps of the Mandalay Bay Event Center's stage while the reggaeton duo Calle 13 pounded out a chaotic, powerful rap to immigrants, Mejia Izquierdo fixed this reporter's eyes with his own.

"Now, at least people will know this culture exists, and it needs protection," he said. Then his fellow Arhuaco, Amado Villafane, sprinkled more of those leaves into the palms of Eduardo Cabra, or Visitante, of Calle 13.

The ceremony made Cabra pure, so he could play to the sold-out theater and a TV audience in 100 countries.

The Indians and the gaiteros had gotten here because of those serendipitous star-crossings that happen among artists. Colombian documentary producer Alexandra Posada took the Puerto Rican reggaeton duo to Colombia's Caribbean coast this spring as part of a film they were making about their search for the soul of Latin America.

It led them to the gaiteros - a rural Colombian version of Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club - and up the Sierra Nevada. Rene Perez, half brother to Cabra, had never heard the gaitas, an Indian flute with a mouthpiece of beeswax and quills. And the Arhuacos impressed him with "their way of thinking, of respecting nature."

So when the gaitero group, Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the category of traditional music, Perez - whose duo was nominated twice in urban music categories - decided to bring the whole bunch to Las Vegas.

He did it as a statement, he said, to make millions aware of musical and cultural traditions that are threatened - by Colombia's violence; by the war on drugs, including U.S.-funded coca crop-spraying; by commercial, top 100-driven tastes.

So the Arhuacos and a pair of 70-something-year-old musicians found themselves in Las Vegas.

Walking along the Strip, Posada and the rest came across some tourists who confused the white-robed Indians with kung fu-fighting Shaolin monks.

Within 48 hours of arriving, the gaiteros were transformed from curiosities to celebrities by winning the Latin Grammy early in the ceremony. Manuel Antonio Garcia Caro, whose home has a dirt floor and sits in a town with no running water, offered his calloused hands to red carpet fans. It was a powerful demonstration of the star-making machinery.

But since they were able to obtain only tourist visas on such short notice, they couldn't appear onstage with Calle 13, and instead had to sit at the foot of the stage during the group's scheduled performance.

Which is what they did, Garcia Caro clutching his gaita and the Arhuacos chewing their coca while Calle 13, a Cuban group called Orishas and the Las Vegas act Stomp Out Loud banged out their high-energy number.

What were their impressions of Las Vegas?

"There are a lot of buildings, a lot of machines, a lot of things," Mejia Izquierdo said. "People are betting a lot of money, while in other places, people are living other realities, with a lot of needs.

"This world," he said, motioning to the walls of the casino and to the streets above, "is the opposite of our world."

Villafane stood nearby. "People here are very distracted," he said.

"Everything is so monumental - but ... there's no feeling in their hearts."