A life in Colombia
“You say you’re a writer,” a rude Colombian once sniffed at me. “But you never write anything.” Hmmph. I rarely claim to be a writer and anyway, sometimes you’re too busy living life to describe it – does that explain my mere two entries on Peru? I may have fallen in love with this country, […]
MoreLife wasn’t all bliss in Lima. I had a lovely final morning – hunting for ‘conqueror’ Francisco Pizarro’s statue (it’s been relegated to a lonely park corner) and later examining his now empty coffin in the cathedral. I went to the bullring too and the adjacent bullfighting museum, because although the sport is bloody and […]
MoreI love cities. I bloody, bloody love them. I arrived in Lima at 8am. It was a gloriously sunny day. My hostel – Hotel Espana – was one of the most charming places I’ve ever stayed. It was three storeys of curiosities, packed with huge pre-Raphaelite paintings and faux Roman classical sculpture, culminating in a […]
More“I’m sorry. I marry an old man for money, but, it’s better I marry a young man?” I slowly repeated my schoolgirl Spanish as I craned forward and stared intently at the cards fanned across the pavement. “No. Listen one more time,” Julio replied impatiently. “You marry an old man. But he doesn’t function in […]
MoreYou should never judge a book by its cover. But you should always judge a country by its customs. Some of you may remember that when I arrived in Bogota – ready to transfer to Cartagena for my ‘two week’ Colombian holiday – the immigration official wanted my height as well as my telephone number […]
MoreOkay, I’ll admit it. I spend most of my morning wondering where to eat lunch. I was on the bus when I made a firm decision. It was a sunny day. I had cash in my pocket. I felt like a treat. I decided to dine at Crepes and Waffles. My phone rang. Unknown number. […]
MoreI scrabbled through my bottom drawer. I scattered my passport, several tickets, my cuddly giant tortoise and three ear plugs onto the floor and, eventually, I found what I wanted. I returned to the living room and triumphantly threw three battered bars of chocolate onto our dining room table. Caroline, my French-Colombian housemate and Andres, […]
MoreThe police officer, wearing a fluorescent yellow coat, pointed to a wall of bodies blocking the top of the staircase. “You’re up there,” she barked. Great. We didn’t have seat numbers and we could hear that the match, Colombia versus Peru, had already started. “You sure about this?” I asked Julian, our token Colombian. He […]
MoreI have always been friends with loads of lawyers. I have no idea why I am attracted to these people – perhaps it’s their natural charm and quick wittedness, or simply the fact they argue about bloody anything. Colombia is no different and last week, after a dinner party, I was left drinking and debating […]
MoreWhen I met Mauricio three months ago, I filed him away as a tall, smiley lawyer with a skinny dog in tow. We swapped numbers then, but only spoke for the first time last Tuesday, when he called me during lunch. I was stuffing my face and struggling with Spanish. “Hey Vicki, how are you?” […]
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