I remember New Year’s Eve very clearly, because I posted my 10 Things I Wish I’d Done in Bogotá and now, here I am once again, slowly working through the list (Drunk a spirit-laced coffee in JV? Tick. Avoided drowning in the boating lake in Simon Bolivar park? Tick. But more on those adventures later…)

This long weekend seemed the ideal opportunity to continue doing away with mañana so I persuaded my boyfriend that, while he had Saturday and Sunday to do whatever he pleased, Monday would be the perfect day to continue – with a trip to Simon Bolivar’s old house.

And, while we were so close to Monserrate, we might as well jump into the cable car to the top… and, while we were so close to Plaza Bolivar we might as well have an ajiaco lunch and, we may as well pop into the July 20th museum too. The perfect touristy day.

I was merrily telling two Colombian friends about my plans, when both their faces dropped.

“You’re going to Monserrate?” one ventured, aghast.

“You’re going with your boyfriend?” the other continued sadly.

“You can’t go there with him. It’s a really bad idea.”

It turns out that Colombians, whom I’ve generally found to be as superstitious as I am, believe that couples who visit Monserrate together will break up. I asked a few more friends and universally found this to be the case – not one had dared ascend the church-topped mountain with their husband or boyfriend.

This is hardly as life-governing, though, as the other famous Colombian superstition – that if you put your handbag on the floor “all your money will run away”. We women need to put our handbags on the floor more often that you might think.

A friend once invited me to her office Christmas party, where an older woman approached me. “I remember you coming to the office to have lunch with Andrea once,” she began. “You put your handbag on the floor in her office and I really didn’t know what to do about it.”

How weird is that? But it’s something I understand.

I come from a superstitious family who would probably never admit how superstitious they are. My mother once chased me out of the house as a child because I unknowingly brought her some lilac from the garden. New shoes on the table emit shrieks of horror. The dog is taught to chase the universally loathed magpies. My father would never allow my mother to drive a green car. We should all have splinters for the frequency with which we touch wood.

I feel uncomfortable if I go against superstitions, so I don’t. I avoid ladders without thinking and put boxes of new shoes on the floor out of habit. I joke every time I flick spilled salt over my shoulder, but I do it anyway. It hardly governs my life.

You have to be careful though. Superstitions creep up on you.

I didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable, so I stopped putting my bag on the floor. It meant nothing to me. Now, two years later, I’ve realised it does mean something to me. I have to stick to the damned superstition, because I am the one who feels uncomfortable (I tried on a jacket in an empty shop yesterday and had nowhere to put my bag. I looked around anxiously for a chair before the assistant, equally anxious, took it from me. Ridiculous)

Will my boyfriend and I be ascending Monserrate together tomorrow?

What do you think?

Go with your boyfriend and put your handbag on the floor (Don’t! I’m joking!)

Colombians are defensive about their food and I am defensive about Colombia, but you can’t win ‘em all. I roll my eyes when Colombian friends demolish patacones (deep fried plantains hammered into pudgy discs) and say “Mmmmmmm delicious”… Honestly, if you have to shower something in salt and slather it in ketchup before you can eat it, is it really delicious? It might be cheap, comforting, hot, homely, more-ish and satisfyingly bad for you, but delicious? Really?

I am not one to talk. I am British. And while my country gave the world amazing music, decent literature and an island that somehow contains both benefits and City Boys, we do not shine in the culinary stakes. Irritatingly, we have to hand that one to the French. Fish-and-chips is our equivalent of the ‘delicious’ patacon.

Now some stiff-upper-lippers like to blame the war and rationing for the victory of hot-and-hearty over flair-and-flavour in Britain’s kitchens, but I’ve never bought it. You only have to look at the United States. Place names and Protestantism were not the only traditions that jumped on board with the pilgrims – bland food went too and morphed into the form of burgers and hot dogs.

(I always dread the food in the US and my visit to Louisiana last week was no exception. I was amazed, therefore, to discover the delicious jambalayas and rich shrimp sauces until I remembered the French got there first. Fortunately, in this case)

Of course I’m being flippant. Both Britain and the US have benefited hugely from immigration. It’s no coincidence the humble curry was Britain’s favourite dish for years nor that we have a huge fondness for Chinese. Both cuisines have long since been Anglicised, though – just like tea, we’ve made them our own.

But I can hardly say I’ve missed British food – I’ve replaced greasy fry-ups with huevos pericos, arepa and hot chocolate. I’ve grudgingly given up the beef and yorkshires for bandeja paisa and, more importantly, I’ve lived on the everyday Colombian fare of grilled chicken, tiny cuts of beef, mounds of rice, kidney beans, salad and plantain for almost two years now.

What a difference it has made to my body.

At first, the gin-and-tonic and apple-crumble weight I shouldn’t have been carrying, simply disappeared. I don’t do any more exercise here – more dancing perhaps, less spinning – and they still have Dunkin’ Donuts. The only difference then, is the everyday food. I’ve started to wonder if I ever ate real food at all.

In Colombia, chicken looks like chicken. It can be a bit scrawny or slightly off colour and no two bits look the same. Just like chickens. Think about the uniform plumpness you see in Britain. Don’t you think that’s a bit weird?

The same goes for fruit and vegetables; tomatoes here are different sizes and colours, bananas can bend a multitude of ways and don’t get excited about the strawberries. I have a Colombian friend who swears he stopped living in the United States because he started having nightmares about the uniformity of fruit.

So I am slimmer and I think the US might be going the other way – based on my trip to the ironically-named Banana Republic at least. I tried on a size two dress in the Miami store, then collapsed in giggles as I asked the Peruvian assistant to grab me a size zero. No amount of rice and salsa could turn this 6ft sugar addict into a genuine size zero, which can only mean they are making the clothes there bigger. Terrible eh?

Still, it was probably why, despite the Louisiana loveliness, I came back desperate for real Colombian food and my dear boyfriend, now very used to hanging out at El Dorado airport, immediately swept me off to our local cafe for a 7,000 peso special – rice, beans, soup, chicken, the whole shebang.

The plates were huge and everything, as expected, was comfortingly familiar, but he couldn’t help noticing the envious glances I was sneaking at the plates of other diners.

“Are you alright?” he asked eventually. “What’s missing?”

“Oh nothing,” I replied grumpily.

“I was just really craving a patacon.”

Bandeja Paisa. The patacon is included. The prospect of being size zero is not.

Yep, sometimes in life, you get lucky.

A few weeks ago a friend invited me to breakfast at Bogotá’s members-only Gun Club for brunch. I knew it was going to be a good day because I am British and, obviously, I arrived before everyone else (I also got some funny looks on the colectivo at 10.30 on a Sunday morning, which was probably the fault of the nice dress and the, er, make-up) Anyway, I decided to hide in the bathroom until the others arrived, only to be confronted by a powder room, a selection of peppermints in a pretty glass bowl and assorted, immaculate, cosmetics.

That was when I knew it was going to be a nice day.

When I eventually emerged from the bathroom, the others were waiting and together we glided through wood-panelled corridors, past vast bowls of fresh pink roses and a little man playing a harp. There were jaunty stag heads on the walls and an enormous painting of what looked like The Charge of the Light Brigade.

The waiters wore grey suits with dark blue linings and replaced endless arrays of silver cutlery with such deftness, you never had less than three forks beside your gold-plated crockery. There were champagne flutes and chairs gracefully eased out for your arrival. It reminded me of a forgotten, faded yet enduringly elegant corner of above-stairs England.

But you don’t visit for the wood panels, the harps or the antlers. You go to Bogotá Gun Club for breakfast and what a breakfast it is. Besides the filet mignon you’ll find eggs benedict, smoked salmon and sushi. In the ‘egg corner’ there are endless options; the same in the Japanese corner, the pancake corner, the cereal strip, the fruit table, the vegetable table and the ‘Latin corner’ where empanadas fight it out with the best the continent can offer.

The juices, of course, are divine but the pink champagne is better. There’s no point loading your plate, you’re expected to eat four courses. There’s no point making other plans, you’re expected to dine for four hours. You can eat as many hot desserts as you like – think pancakes, crepes and waffles – but you must save room for the cold dessert too – it’s the best corner in the house. Eat like you have never eaten before.

We did our best people, we did our best. Some of us were already on the pecan pie when others were still tucking into the teriyaki. A few managed the mignon, most managed dessert, no-one managed sushi. The fruit table was more beautiful than a Great Master still life, but precious room cannot be wasted on fruit. The chocolate fountain beat everyone down to a single strawberry.

We had a good natter – films, gossip, politics, travel, more gossip – and we attacked that feast with the energy it deserved. But, of course, somewhere between the delicacies of Japan, France and Venezuela combined, I asked the question asked by many a satisfied stomach before me.

What on earth do they do with all the leftovers?

“Well, that’s a funny story,” my lovely friend replied, except it’s not that funny a story really, more a troubling one.

It turns out, under Colombian law, you’re not allowed to give leftovers to people on the streets (and there are people on the streets, of course, I’d almost fallen over a man snoring merrily in the sunshine when I stepped from my bus that morning) But not only are you prevented from giving leftovers to people on the streets, you’re not even allowed to donate leftover food to animals. That’s right, animals.

I found this hard to believe, but rather than wade through Colombian Law looking for “Don’t feed poor people or animals” clauses, I asked some friends who should know – chefs.

My friend Cesar confirmed it, blaming an incident a few years ago when a homeless person was accidentally poisoned by a mouldy hamburger (I tried to locate this news story to no avail, by the way, so please beware the classic Bogotá urban myth)

But it does seem the law, at least, is pretty clear for people who work in the catering trade – leftovers go to waste. Poisonings aside, I’ve seen people eating out of bins in this town. Do you think we’re doing something wrong?

Best not to have any leftovers methinks

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 fair.

Magical realism, if you didn’t already know, is a literary style where the supernatural is blurred with “real life” in a manner far cleverer and more evocative than that bald little explanation might suggest.

Colombia’s Nobel literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez famously cannot resist mixing a bit of wizardry into the everyday well of human shortcomings and ever since he did so liberally in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colombians have claimed magical realism as their own.

They just don’t normally hear anyone claiming Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and co were doing the same thing almost two thousand years ago and not least when their stories would eventually end up in the Good Book. Luckily, Mr Safran Foer had the good grace to smile in the face of potentially dangerous territory.

“I better be careful now,” he grinned, a Jew from New York City speaking to an audience in an outwardly conservative Roman Catholic country. But his words passed apparently without offence, as well they should.

In fact, it was another “know your audience” moment that was far more telling – and gave a good insight into some of the misconceptions that exist about Colombians.

“I couldn’t imagine who would possibly come tonight,” Mr Safran Foer continued, explaining his surprise that Colombians – “who might not necessarily speak the same language as me or come from the same socio-economic background” – would want to know anything about his novels.

(These include Everything is Illuminated – which is drenched in magical realism – and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, both of which, incidentally, are mainstream enough to have become Hollywood movies. The latter stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock)

It may have surprised Mr Safran Foer, then, not only how many people braved Bogotá’s bastard weather to see him, but how many exciteable young Colombians were desperate to quiz him, in English, after the event – on everything from plots to inspiration.

I’ve lived here for almost two years now and it didn’t surprise me at all. One of the first Colombians I met, Eduardo, demonstrated to me the importance this society places on literature.

He didn’t like books at all – in fact, he hated reading – but he was so desperate to ‘fit in’ he lived in perpetual denial (his friends used to call him ‘Cliff notes’ and warned me that if he ever started waxing lyrical about a novel, I should just ask him how it finished)

Still, Eduardo would gleefully pretend to have read everything from Sherlock Holmes to The Count of Montecristo. Coming from England – where my old newspaper colleagues used to refer to my Book Club as ‘Lesbian Club’ – it was very strange indeed. Reading back home is just something some people enjoy. Carrying around a copy of Pride and Prejudice hardly makes you cool.

But this is Bogotá, the ‘Athens’ of Latin America, or rather it used to be – because nowadays the state of reading, or access to reading, in this city seems more like a Greek tragedy. Forget whether or not Bogotanos love books, the not-so-magical reality here is that most people can’t afford them.

Just look at Colombia’s most famous work. A paperback copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude, new, will set you back something like 20,000 pesos (£7) Now while that might seem a reasonable price in England, this is Colombia. That kind of money could buy you three three-course lunches or 13 bus journeys. In English terms, it’s more like £20. Here, it’s a day’s work on the minimum wage. For a paperback book. Would you?

And if you consider the inability to buy new books just another misfortune of life in Latin America, consider this instead. The Colombian Government has even passed a law which appears specifically designed to make books cheaper.

The beautifully titled Law of the Book or Book Act (la Ley del Libro) exempts book publishers from having to pay tax on their profits. But if the savings enabled by this law aren’t passed onto consumers in the form of cheaper books, where exactly is the money going? Does it just disappear in a puff of smoke? I doubt even the magical realists would buy that one.

Worth a fortune?

A friend was calling me. “How you doing?” I yelped, trying not to lose my precious TransMilenio balance. “I’m fine,” she snapped. “But tell me, is that really true about your friend? The one called Luis. Is he really going to lose his university scholarship?”

“What?” I said. “Oh, you mean the blog. Yes, he’s lost it already I think. Why?”

“No way,” she said furiously. “I want to give him the money. I don’t think you realise just how difficult it is to win a scholarship here.”

When I eventually worked out that my friend wanted to pay Luis’s fees, I immediately tried to talk her out of it. “You don’t know him,” I said. “The university is a black hole. It takes every peso he has. He’ll need forever to pay you back.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied firmly. “I think if someone wants to study that badly, they should be able to. I’ve already made up my mind to help him. Now call him and see if it’s too late.”

Luis struggled to grasp what was happening too (He didn’t know I’d blogged about him, to be fair). He also couldn’t fathom why a complete stranger would lend him money so, eventually, I stopped trying to explain and just passed him my friend’s number. Then I waited.

“She’s really going to lend me the money,” he gasped, when he came back on the line. “She’s really serious about it. She told me to go to the university now to see if I still have my half-scholarship. Then you have to go with her to the bank and bring me the money so I can pay them today.”

An otherwise ordinary Friday had suddenly descended into panic.

An hour later my friend stood watching me, with some concern, as I stuffed crisp 50,000 peso notes into my socks.

“What if someone robs you today?” she whispered. I was carrying a sum roughly equivalent to three months labour on the Colombian minimum wage.

“If someone tries to rob me today, I feel sorry for them,” I grunted. “I am already starting to feel quite emotional about all this and today is now far too important for any messing around.”

She stayed quiet. I should have said something to her then. I should have told her how remarkable she was, how kind and how daring, but I didn’t. I think she was embarrassed by the depth of her spontaneous generosity – at her need to put something right in the world – and she just wanted to pretend it wasn’t a big deal.

It was clearly a big deal.

“I can’t believe he managed to get the scholarship back,” I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere as the bank notes cut into my ankle flesh. (I’ll never smuggle money in my socks again, by the way, it was surprisingly painful)

My friend laughed.

“I told him to refuse to leave the office until they agreed,” she confessed. “He’s only missed one week of the semester. He can definitely catch up.”

I gave her a hug. Sometimes little miracles happen in Colombia.

Once upon a time, in Colombia...

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 who veer to the right – call it begging. To me, it’s a trade – they try to sell, you buy if you want and what corner of capitalism has yet to be infected by a little emotional engineering?

I have two rules when it comes to buying goods on buses: 1) I buy if I want or need the product, usually pens or chocolate and 2) I buy if I like the person and I think they’re doing a good job – the amounts involved are small and I consider it my contribution to the shadow economy.

And so I recognised today’s sweet seller immediately. His name is Gabriel. I boarded a bus in the middle of one of Gabriel’s sales pitches once, seconds before he asked his disinterested audience if they could remember his name. I accidentally caught his eye and shook my head awkwardly. “That’s because you arrived late Miss,” he scolded. “Don’t let it happen again.”

I hid a smile and, obviously, I bought some sweets.

Now, finally, I’ve heard the whole story. Gabriel professes to be yet another some-time student who can’t afford his university, yet refuses to quit the dream of graduating. He reminded me so much of a good friend of mine that I started scrabbling for change before he even paused for breath.

We’ll pretend my good friend is called Luis.

But before you hear about Luis, I should tell you, if you didn’t already know, that Colombia operates a two-tier university system. Only those with the very best school grades can attend public universities, which are essentially free to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. The rest pay through the nose for private universities, which can be a bitter struggle.

A university education is so important in Colombia, my dear friend initially starved himself to attend a private university. In the beginning he only had enough money for his lodgings, his fees and one meal a day. So he skipped breakfast, studied, ate the biggest lunch he could, studied, then went to sleep at 6pm to ensure he wasn’t hungry again. Apparently homeless people also employ this tactic. When Luis’s family found out what he was doing, they briefly forbade him from attending university.

A few months later he started attending again, from 7am to 9am, working 10am to 3pm, studying briefly, then working again from 6pm to 10pm, plus all weekend. If I could, I would send Luis to England where he could roam between university campuses, seeking out those who drink their way through their degrees, then protest at how much they have to borrow for the privilege.

Because Luis believes higher education is a privilege. When other students took to the streets to demand free higher education for all, as a “basic human right” I asked him what he thought. He grimaced. “Food and clean water is a basic human right,” he shrugged. “University is a sacrifice.”

(I think deep down he half hates it too, dreaming of that distant day when he has that all-important paper in his hand)

Last time I saw him he told me his grades were so good he’d won a scholarship which would cover half his fees for the next semester. Unfortunately, he had to turn it down. He can’t afford to study two semesters in a row, even at half price. He has, however, found a temporary job which pays 15,000 pesos a day (£5.26) for a seven-hour day. I assume he’s still open to other offers.

Anyway, Gabriel reminded me so much of Luis – he’d travelled to Bogotá to study but was currently on a forced ‘break’ from university, he said – that I resolved to give him every coin I had, in exchange for one of the pink lollipops he was selling. It amounted to the tragic sum of 500 pesos, which is around 18p.

“You’re so lovely,” he lied, ever the salesman as he flirted his way through the bus. “This is in case you feel hungry later,” he whispered, slipping me another pink lollipop.

Hmmmm, food for thought. I should probably give it to Luis. Just to show my support.

Never give up

Pereira is an otherwise ordinary Colombian city. It has shops, houses and around 600,000 inhabitants which makes it the biggest city in the country’s beloved coffee district.

It also has a reputation for rumba, loose women and gratuitous nudity which has somehow even managed to ensnare the dear Liberator, who sits proudly astride his horse in the centre of the city, as naked as the day he was born.

I first heard about Pereira from a friend of mine, who is from there. “She’s not really a Pereira girl,” her husband said, laughing as he put his arm around his wife and ignoring her rolling eyes. “You know what they say about Pereira girls, right?”

I didn’t, but I do now. It’s something akin to the English Essex Girl, only worse – Colombians would have you believe Pereira is the origin for all the nation’s prostitutes (you may have heard something lately about the existence of prostitutes in Colombia)

My friend denies this profusely – she’s a fiery Pereira girl – but did let on that the city has a dark side. It’s famous too for the other kind of nightlife, she says, which locals call: “Querendona, transnochadora y morena,” – something like “Loveable, dark and all-night-long,” which is rather unfortunate considering they are trying to move away from the prostitution jokes. The phrase actually refers to Pereira’s bars.

(Pereira also made the headlines six years ago – back in Colombia’s darker times – when a wave of gang-related violence killed almost 500 men in one year. A gun amnesty was announced but the women of Pereira feared their men wouldn’t hand over their weapons, so got together with the Mayor and imposed an official sex ban until the guns were collected. You can read about the so-called ‘Cross-Legged Strike’ here)

Anyway, I was just passing through on my way to the peace and misty dawns of the nearby coffee lands. Pereira looked pretty ordinary to me, there was certainly no evidence of a dark side when I arrived on the red-eye flight from Bogotá.

But I couldn’t resist a peek at that naked Simón Bolívar. Statues of Simón – that great liberator of five nations – are another one of my peculiar collections (which I may one day share with you, I even found a bust in Chile) so I walked discreetly to the city centre to see him while no-one was looking.

Disappointing is not the word. Nothing, as we discovered to our cost with that Annie Leibovitz shot of John Lennon for Rolling Stone, damages a man’s masculinity more than seeing him naked and in a near-foetal position. Liberating it may be, but there is nothing sexy about that statue. Perhaps the ladies of Pereira could kindly go on strike again until it is removed?

That cannot be comfortable

But one of my favourite things is my new proximity to a hub of Bogotá street performers. Every afternoon I can watch three fire jugglers stand atop one another’s shoulders or see a Pelé-esque youth dribbling a football with his neck. A few days ago I passed a guy with a bicycle balanced on his forehead and stopped short. He looked so familiar. And then I remembered: I interviewed him two years ago, I mean, who could forget a guy who balances a bicycle on his forehead?

Traffic light performers were some of the first Bogotanos to enchant me and the first I interviewed, when I wrote a piece to mark the opening of a film about them in 2010. Lots of locals loathe them (“It’s so disorderly,” one friend told me at the time. “I bet they don’t do that in London.”… “No,” I replied. “They don’t bother with the circus tricks, they’ll just sell you a rose or smear your windscreen instead.”)

Anyway, I remembered the piece and it’s one I’ve yet to share on this blog, so here it is. Maybe you can make up your own mind.

Is it art or not?

JIMMY Monroy gives a huge smile as he catches the brightly-coloured baton for the last time and waves cheekily to the crowd.

His routine might last just 60 seconds, but it will earn him 1,000 pesos – assuming he can collect his tips before the lights change and he loses his audience forever.

The 22-year-old, with his lively brown eyes and dreadlocks tucked neatly into a red bandana, is a proud member of the Traffic Light Society – the performers and tradesmen who earn their living at Bogotá’s busiest red lights.

This wildly disparate group, which places fire eaters, jugglers and acrobats alongside window cleaners, florists and DVD salesmen, were the inspiration for La Sociedad del Semaforo, a gritty Colombian drama.

The film follows a roguish but loveable band of artists and chancers, who work their magic at one of the city’s busiest junctions.

It’s an interesting tale. The main character, Raul, is no hero (he swears, he steals, he sniffs) and the action occasionally descends beyond gritty (think violence, suicide and prostitution) but it is still shot with a warm humour and touching community spirit.

Raul’s home is a shack built meticulously from the rubbish he has scavenged, which leaves you wondering where his other, less creative friends spend the night.

But if the film’s producers are priding themselves on their realism, there are some prospective audience members who certainly won’t be buying a ticket.

“No way,” says Jimmy, carefully placing his batons on the pavement as he waits patiently for the lights to change.

“I’ve heard the film makes people like us look bad and I don’t want that. They are talking about drugs and violence and we don’t want to be stigmatised.

“What we do is art. It has nothing to do with violence.”

Jimmy has performed on Calle 71 # 5 for three months now, practising a difficult Russian juggling trick called Devil Sticks. A friend taught him the skill in a fortnight, he says. One week later Jimmy was working the traffic lights when an impressed driver handed him 20,000 pesos.

Now he works six hours a day, three days a week, while living with his family in Chapinero Alto and finishing his education. He hopes to obtain an apprenticeship.

“I do this because it is an economic help. It’s not my life, but I love it,” he smiles.

“Often people have nothing to give but they still say something good about what I do. Not everyone approves of this work, but people rarely criticise.”

He believes the performers bring art to people who would otherwise sit bored in their cars.

“Even if I’m in a park and I’m just practising, people say something positive to me or they ask me for lessons,” he grins.

“What I do is art and art should be shared.”

La Sociedad del Semaforo shows the traffic light workers in frequent conflict with the police.

Jimmy shakes his head.

“I have some friends who were once told to move on,” he says.

“But the police can pass two or three times a day and say nothing. I don’t think they like what we do, but they aren’t aggressive about it.”

He makes around 40,000 pesos a day but insists this is modest compared to other, more ostentatious, performers who can earn up to 150,000.

Those artists are often reluctant to talk about their earnings, he says, yet they will still share the secrets of their skills with others.

But although the street performers co-operate, they follow a strict code of conduct. The first artist to arrive at a junction ‘owns’ it and has the right to decide who performs, except when a performer uses one set of lights consistently and becomes the ‘permanent owner’ – regardless of when they report for duty.

Jonny Sanchez has worked Bogota’s traffic lights for five years, juggling knives and fire and mastering the art of balancing a bicycle on his head.

The 25-year-old sees the trade as his permanent career.

“I started practising in the park one day and when I looked at the traffic light performers I realised it was a really good way to make money,” he said.

“I work five hours a day, every day. I can earn 60,000 pesos on a good day and 20,000 on a bad one. Once a driver handed me a 50,000 note.”

He is happy because he is “doing what he loves” he says.

“There are some people who don’t understand our art, but the majority of people are good to us,” he confides.

“My family really support what I do.”

Inconveniently for the performers, Bogota’s traffic lights all run on different timers, which means there is a skill to calculating exactly when each light will turn green.

Jimmy leaves just enough time to scamper between the cars for his wages.

“I don’t own a traffic light just yet,” he grins as he counts the coins in his palm.

“But I’m working on it.”

Me interviewing the lads. Yes, it's an old pic.

I have just rented a room from a lovely lady, for a very good rate in a part of town I was desperate to live in. I couldn’t be happier – especially when I discovered dozens of old books on my bookshelf, including a Pablo Neruda anthology and a Spanish translation of Pride and Prejudice, both of which will do far more for my waning efforts at fluency than grammar studies ever will.

My landlady is a grandmotherly age and keeps a spotless house, but I think we’re friends since she let me sit on the end of her huge bed and watch the Colombian X Factor on her plasma screen.

Similarly, the lad who rents the other room is a shy accountant who laughs at my jokes but is generally quiet as a mouse and therefore unlikely to disturb me when I am working.

There is just one potential cloud on this sunny horizon. My new landlady is devoted to the Catholic Church and even though I am definitely a fan of Jesus, I am not particularly fond of God.

Despite this, I’ve respectfully tucked away the prayer cards I found in my room and won’t be touching the portrait of the Virgin Mary, complete with rosary beads, which hangs on my wall.

When I opened the wardrobe to find a poster of Jesus I giggled and left him there, hoping he’ll sleep well at night surrounded by my party dresses and over-priced make-up.

My helpful boyfriend even told me a candle in the living room had been lit in my honour, both as a tribute to a minor Virgin and to ensure my lifelong happiness.

What could possibly go wrong?

Oh dear. I cannot believe I am about to admit to this.

It should have been a normal night. I went to the gym. I came home. I made myself a cup of tea, dug out some biscuits and sat in bed reading my book. Later, I cleaned my teeth and then, for some inexplicable reason, I decided I needed to wash my mug.

When I walked past the lounge, I saw a flickering light and realised with a cold shock of horror that the candle was still lit. Everyone was in bed which meant the responsibility for their lives – and those of everyone else in the apartment block – lay in my hands.

You know I’m a Health and Safety nut. You should also know I spent six years of my life writing about house fires, including the ones that killed people. You may or may not know that Colombians are so cavalier about fire safety, I’ve never even seen a home smoke alarm here, let alone fireproof stairs or a bloody ladder.

I stood there frozen. I thought about going back to bed but knew I would force myself to stay awake all night if we were to run the gauntlet of an alarm-less night beside an unattended candle.

And so, at the risk of forever ruining my own happiness, I blew the candle out. If you see me looking fed up and miserable, that’s why. I can’t speak for the Virgin.

Can I blame it on a rogue gust of wind? Every night?!

I was always fascinated with the way New York City was a part of the plot – a character whose moods, whims and fancies rumbled along in the women’s lives like an ever-present mother-in-law.

But how daft, I thought. Cities don’t have moods.

And then I moved to Bogotá, possibly the most exasperatingly moody city this planet has ever seen.

I left the sunshine, beaches and palm trees of Rio de Janeiro in a reasonably jolly mood. It will be nice to be back in Bogotá, I reasoned, the place is so comfortingly familiar, it’s like an old slipper – just one I haven’t worn in a while.

I landed in the afternoon. It rained, then it thundered like a huge bowling ball rolling around the heavens. Then it rained a bit more, flashed a bit of lightning and, er, rained a little more.

But that’s what always happens in the afternoon. The only respite we city dwellers enjoy from the afternoon rain is at New Year and for a few days in August. That’s why we always get up so early.

And so I got up early, only to be confronted by a few stubborn clouds that were apparently leaking rainwater. Yes, it was raining and it continued bloody raining until the afternoon, stopping only to allow the afternoon rains to begin right on schedule.

That’s weird, I thought. It never rains in the morning.

Well, it has rained almost every morning since. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t spent the last four months outside of the city.

That means I have absolutely no idea what happened to the last umbrella I owned and, worse, no-one in their right mind would buy an umbrella in Bogotá when it’s raining.

Normally, you get to walk past the morning umbrella sellers with a supercilious smirk on your face. “Would you like an umbrella miss?” they venture politely. “They only cost 8,000 pesos.”

“Oh, no thank you,” you laugh, slinging your jacket over the crook of your arm and enjoying the Andean sun on your face as you dance jauntily past the huge cracks in the pavement.

Of course, you will always pass the same seller on your way home.

“How much for an umbrella?” you scream through the torrent of water that is thrashing sideways at your jeans.

“15,000 pesos,” the vendor yells back. He’s not joking. No-one in their right mind would buy an umbrella in Bogotá when it’s raining.

And so I don’t own one. I’m convinced this city has a personality of its own and, right now, it’s stroppy because I danced off to Cartagena, Buenos Aires, Rio and the like without so much as a backward glance. So it’s going to rain all day and I refuse to buy an umbrella until it stops.

I wonder which one of us will crack first.

The perfect day... to buy an umbrella in Bogotá