We are terrifyingly close to June now, which means we are terrifyingly close to being half way through 2012 (which, as it turns out, might not be our last year to live after all… who knew?) I remember New Year’s Eve very clearly, because I posted my 10 Things I Wish I’d Done in Bogotá… [Read more…]
May 16, 2012
I’m the first to admit Colombian food is not that flavoursome. If you put even a decent ajiaco or an authentic bandeja paisa against a tasty treat from, say, Thailand or India, you’re always going to have a loser on your hands. As cuisine goes, it can be a little bland. Colombians are defensive about… [Read more…]
May 7, 2012
Sometimes in life, you get lucky. And if you get really lucky, nice people invite you to do nice things – which involve putting on a nice dress, a bit of make-up and eating filet mignon for your breakfast. Yep, sometimes in life, you get lucky. A few weeks ago a friend invited me to… [Read more…]
May 4, 2012
“I mean, if you think about it, the New Testament is basically just magical realism. Unless you, er, take the whole thing literally…” That was my favourite quote – a few words that made me glad I’d braved the afternoon rains to see the American author, Jonathan Safran Foer, speak at the famous Bogotá book… [Read more…]
April 30, 2012
Sometimes amazing, unexpected things happen. Sometimes, on completely ordinary days – when the skies are thundering and you can’t decide between television or the gym – truly extraordinary things occur. This is a story about one of those things. A friend was calling me. “How you doing?” I yelped, trying not to lose my precious… [Read more…]
April 26, 2012
There is only one thing that divides people more than poverty – and that’s talking about poverty. Take, for example, those people in Bogotá who sell products on buses. A pen salesman will sell you a pen, but most of his pens come packaged in his unverifiable sob story. Some of my friends – those… [Read more…]
April 23, 2012
Every country needs one poor town to be the butt of all its jokes. And while people in Bogotá can be pretty stereotypical about ‘lazy Costeños’, not even the laid-back, fun-loving folk of the Atlantic Coast have it quite as bad as the good citizens of Pereira. Pereira is an otherwise ordinary Colombian city. It… [Read more…]
April 22, 2012
I like many things about my new neighbourhood. I’m within spitting distance of Simon Bolivar park, my gym is over the road and there are more bakeries here than one person could ever frequent (Sundays are also crazy; today I was accidentally caught in a Scouts’ treasure hunt and nearly fell victim to an enthusiastic… [Read more…]
April 17, 2012
I have spent the day expecting to be struck down by a bolt of lightning, which has nothing to do with the cataclysmic thunderstorm unfolding above us and everything to do with the fact that last night, I think I did something really awful. I have just rented a room from a lovely lady, for… [Read more…]
April 15, 2012
I used to love Sex and the City, back when Hollywood was a mere twinkle in the creator’s eye and those four famous characters were sharper, funnier and less one-dimensional than they are today. I was always fascinated with the way New York City was a part of the plot – a character whose moods,… [Read more…]
May 20, 2012
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