I’ve just returned from Colombia, where I’ve been visiting my daughter. She’s doing a modern languages degree and has to spend her third year in a Spanish-speaking country either working or studying. Instead of opting for a university in Barcelona or Madrid, which would be the normal thing to do, she decided to get a job in Medellin. Can’t think where she gets that rebellious streak! So that’s why I’ve spent the past week in South America.
Colombia is quite a long way to go for such a short trip. To get to Medellin, I flew via Madrid, which meant departing from Gatwick at 10 a.m. and arriving at about 8 p.m. local time, a 13-hour journey. If you factor in getting to and from the airport either side, as well as faffing about with security, it took the best part of 24 hours.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed being shown around by my daughter and her Colombian boyfriend, a 26-year-old former professional footballer. They took me on a whistle-stop tour of Medellin’s most famous landmarks, including Comuna 13, a neighbourhood once controlled by Pablo Escobar and now a tourist attraction, complete with outdoor escalators to carry you up to the favela that used to house his private army.
It’s actually legal to possess small quantities of cocaine in Colombia and the President, Gustavo Petro, has just called for it to be legalised worldwide, claiming it’s ‘no worse than whisky’. But to complicate things, it’s against the law to buy it, which means the street dealers offer to sell you a can of Coca-Cola for 50,000 pesos (£10) and throw in a gram of the devil’s dandruff for free.
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