Tag Archives for #Lifestyle

I’m back

Did you miss me? I missed you.

My trip was epic. It was great! I went to Montenegro, Salento, Santa Rosa, Manizales (the coffee country), Sante Fe, Medellin (Antioquia) and Santa Marta.

Phew.

During my trip, I was rode in planes, taxis, buses, cable cars, metro, boats, (Jeep) Willy’s, horses, tuk tuks, VW Camper vans. I slept in hotels, coffee haciendas, fincas, houses, apartments and hammocks. I swam in rivers, swimming pools and oceans. I had an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite and suffered a boat of tonsillitis. I ate. And ate. And ate. The worst being the expat food in Salento, the best being the local cuisine which was cheap as chips.

I hung out with local kids, hippies, back packers, Colombian families, Americans, elderly Bogotanos, expats and pretty much anyone who was willing to engage me in polite conversation.

I had a blast and have lots of stories to tell you. Too many in fact.

So instead of telling you everything in one go, I will give you the best bits. If you want to know anything else, just ask me!

And, sorry if I haven’t replied to your message yet…I have lots to get through and will reply shortly. Promise!

Independence Day

Friday was (another) bank holiday weekend in Colombia. Yes, there are a lot of bank holidays…17 in fact. There are Bank Holidays to celebrate Saint Joseph’s Day, Labour Day, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Assumption of Mary…etc. etc. The UK had 10 in 2012… This bodes well for when I start working.

Friday, it was Independence Day. This one I’m on board with. The man above is called Simon Bolivar and he liberated Colombia from the Spaniards… According to Wikipedia, he “was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Together with José de San Martín, he played a key role in Hispanic-Spanish America’s successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire, and is today considered one of the most influential politicians in American history.” and “Bolívar remains regarded in Hispanic-America as a hero, visionary, revolutionary, and liberator. During his lifetime, he led Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia to independence, and helped lay the foundations for democratic ideology in much of Latin America.”

So a pretty awesome guy.

He is hailed in South America…There’s money named after him, ships, his statue is in most cities and towns in Colombia and Venezuela. In fact…every city or town has a main square known as Plaza Bolívar.

So, how did I celebrate the Independence Day? By going to a finca in Carmen de Apicala in ‘terra caliente’. AKA ‘hot country’. Yes, it’s cold in Bogota, but to get some heat, all you have to do is descend the mountain to get a warmer climate.

Beats taking a Ryan Air flight.

I was invited to a finca with a pool and 15 other new friends. Hard to resist. It is a custom that many other Colombians enjoy up and down the estratos.

Here are the photos.

Let me know what you got up to.

x

Girl with parrot pet

On the way back to Bogota, we stopped off for lunch at an arepa house

I had arepa with cheese and chorizo with picante sauce. It was DELICIOUS and only 4,000 COP

How they made the arepas with cheese…They reminded me of Mexican quesadillas and were just as tasty

A friend had arepa with pork crackling (front) and black sausage (back)

The other friend had Bandeja Paisa…A kind of Colombian version of the British breakfast fry-up

Lazy Sunday

There’s nothing I enjoy more than Usaquen on a Sunday. Especially a sunny Sunday. Today was such a day.

Every Sunday, the old colonial ‘village’ in the North of the city, opens up with the flea market. Think a Colombian version of Spitalfields market, where you can find lots of vendors selling arts and crafts…some traditional, some quite bizarre.

To make the most of the quiet city, me and my companion walked along the ciclovia on the septima (a main road, usually jammed with traffic and honking horns). This is quite possibly the best time to enjoy a usually bustling city. It’s similar to The City of London or Canary Wharf at the weekend i.e. emptied of the usual office workers and the stress they bring. Until 2pm, all classes of Bogotanos make the most of the liberty by cycling, running, skating or walking along the massive stretch of road.

After a delicious lunch in Amarti, we strolled the markets and finished with a cup of the best Colombian coffee in Juan Valdez. I definitely recommend spending the day here as it suits all budgets. A previous time, I simply ate empanadas sold in someone’s house for $2mil pesos each, and ate them in the sunshine whilst watching the people go by.

For me, a Sunday in Usaquen is simply perfection; food, sun, shopping, culture and beauty.

Colombia, te quiero.

Ciclovia along the septima. A hub of activity for the Bogotanos.

Beautiful Usaquen square with the standard statue of Simon Bolivar.

The beautiful colonial buildings of Usaquen can be seen in background. Now are trendy (and delicious) restaurants.

Enjoying lunch at Amarti. Part of the restaurant is in a old colonial house, with a surprisingly large and airy end, with open air and a green wall. Kind of like eating in a museum. A place to see and be seen.

Enjoying coffee in Juan Valdez, Santa Barbara.

Locals open up their houses on a Sunday and sell homemade empanadas and arepas. The cheaper and equally delicious way to enjoy lunch. Arepa con huevo (arepa with egg) is seen here.

Vendors selling arts and crafts line the streets of Usaquen.

Farm Fresh

The other night, I was sitting on the third floor of WOK in the Zona Rosa, watching a film in their cinema room and meeting the part-owner of the company.

Yes…Food, film, wine, and inspiring company.

If you are follower of my Instagram photos, you will have realised that I LOVE WOK. It’s one of my favourite places to eat as I think the quality, range and price of the food are all outstanding and incomparable to anywhere in the UK….(Although, if push came to shove, I’d compare it to Wagamama…Well, for a start, they both sell Asian cuisine and use red stars in their logos). So meeting the owner was a dream come true.

They’ve just opened the third floor and expanded the restaurant to serve Japanese style cuisine on the top floor (with the lower two floors selling their usual wide menu). Whilst drinking Saki, my friend and I watched a documentary about the future of food. Yes, I was surrounded by foodies and glimpsed a peek into their restaurateur world, which I admire but could never do myself.

These folk are the pioneers of the Colombian restaurateur industry. They’re deeply involved in and proactively protect the quality, freshness and sustainable farming around Colombia, going to great lengths in their communications to tell you where the ingredients have come from in the country. For example, some of the fish they use come from the Pacific coast and is in the restaurant and on your plate in 24 hours.

After watching an unsettling documentary on GM farming, I am slightly concerned about what I eat now.

Hmmmmm…if you had known me a few years ago, you would never have thought I’d care about the environment. I was more concerned about having the perfect hair, newest handbag and latest fashion from Reiss. Now, I’m no hippie, but I’m learning to think twice about the environment and value of life.

This got me thinking. Colombia has loads of food at its fingertips. When I wrote my story on the farm in Fusa, a reader wrote in and advised me to go to the local market in the town. Turns out this is where my cousin buys his food for the household. So, one boiling hot Sunday, we piled into the car (all three generations) and disembarked in the crowded, bustling market town of Fusa.

My experiences with markets are this. I’ve been to Borough, I’ve worked near Portobello Market, I’ve seen local fruit vendors in Brixton, Wood Green and Chapel Market, Islington. But forget selling apple and pears, here you can find apples, pears, mango, papaya, fresh garlic, unrecognisable potatoes, and basically so many fruit and vegetables that I can only show you rather than reveal their names. To be honest, I was slightly bewildered and lost with the names of the food… I can recognise a lot but am no expert, so think it’s best if I just show you what I saw, so you can see for yourself:

There were fruit, vegetables, meat, herbs, plants and even pets if you wanted all your shopping needs under one, very large, aircraft type carrier roof.

The old with the new…Swanky new CCTV camera can just been seen above man’s head.

A rainbow of colour and varieties.

A root vegetable (insert name here).

Red potatoes.

A type of bean (in background). Spinach in foreground (I think).

I know this one! Yucca in the background, with corn in the foreground.

Very delicious and strong garlic.

For all your household needs…

Different shades of mango.

Herbs.

Apparently Fusa is a main market town whose economy was historically based on agricultural marketing. In the market, you can buy produce by the handful i.e. a handful of beans etc. or $2 mil pesos of bananas.

This makes the pounds to kilogram conversion easy then.

The bustling town of Fusa.

A typical Colombian tienda in Fusa selling meat and eggs.

Man making sugar cane drink. The juice of a sugar cane, mixed with honey and lemon.

The juice is strained three times before it can be drunk.

There is something quite satisfying about buying food straight from people who grow or sell directly from the farmers. It puts large supermarkets in the long forgotten memory. My chief friend said to me at the end of the documentary that every organic / non GM food purchase in a supermarket is a vote.

The following day, I bought my first organic pasta and tomato sauce.

Colombia has so many natural resources, I want to show you and enjoy them all.

La finca

I am writing to you from a haze of sleep, tinto, sunshine, Aguardiente, sancocho, chocolate, siesta, cheese, and fresh bread. You see, for the bank holiday weekend, I am in the farm with my aunt and uncle. We escaped the city to get some R&R, which is what many Bogotanos do as the city swallows you up in traffic, crowds, stress and pollution, with everyone living on top of one another in apartments with little or no outdoor space. So what do you do? You find a farm and escape to the countryside.

In fact I am writing to you now from a hammock. This is the life.

Hello from the hammock

Enjoying the hammock, with a tinto

So where am I? I am in the countryside in Fusa; a rather big, rather unattractive large town about two hours away (less if you’re fast, more if you’re slow) from Bogota. We drove here Saturday afternoon and almost half of the drive was just getting out of the city. We live in the North, and Fusa is in the South West of the city, which means we drive all the way through Bogota and out the other side in the South….along with everyone else doing the same standard bank holiday escape, so traffic is bad. But once you descend the mountain, the climate is immediately warmer. In fact, I reckon the temperate in Fusa is perfect. It’s that lovely summer’s day we are used to in Britain….the kind where you’re not roasting hot, but out in shorts and t-shirts strolling along the beach front. Except here I don’t hear seagulls begging for food, I hear crickets and parrots in symphony surround-sounding me.

View of the house

View from the house

The finca isn’t really its English translation of ‘farm’, but more country cottage. But there are differences to the British country cottage we hunger after. Here people tend to build their own houses once they’ve bought a plot of land. My aunt and uncle bought the land thirty years ago when it had nothing on it and the access road was an unpaved, just about wide enough for two vehicles, little lane. The house is pre-fab and was constructed in a day. Then it took longer to pave the floors, build the walls etc. This is by far the more economical way of buying property. It also means you can build your ideal home. Perfect. And it has character too. Plenty of it. It would be hard to be in Colombia without character. Since they bought the land, and built the house, they also added and grew all the plants and trees, which thrive in the climate. There is an abundance of fruit and vegetables here…some are familiar, some are really rather strange…

The familiar

Bananas

Corn

Courgette

Mangoes (no photo)

Mandarin

The strange

Guava

Guanabana

Here you can find out more about Guavas and Guanabanas.

Another big difference between a British holiday home and the Colombian equivalent is that the finca is attended to by housekeepers who also live on the property. They live in separate accommodation adjacent to the main house and help maintain the land and house. This sounds fantastical compared to Britain, but here in Colombia the gap in wages and ‘stratas’ mean that lower class incomes can be covered by upper classes. They are given jobs, a home and also health insurance by their employers, and become the life and soul of the property.

Today, the farm is looked after by Marco. I’d say he’s in his 80’s, although by looking at his face it’s hard to tell. He is a widow and has lived in Fusa all his life. He is adorable. He is super sweet and is delighted when the family show up as it means he has company. He literally waits on my aunt hand and foot.

The lovely Marco

Marco stands on guard, ready to help

For lunch on Sunday, he cooked ‘sancocho’ on the open fire. Sancocho is a broth with vegetables and chicken, and is delicious. We ate it outside on the patio under the tree. Honestly, I am in heaven.

Marco cooking on the open fire

Aunt and Marco prepare the sancocho

Protecting the sancocho from the watchful (and hungry) cat

Et viola! Made with yuca, potatoes, sweet potato, chicken, corn and avocado

To keep the house safe from intrusion, having dogs on the farm is mandatory. They will snarl, bark and run up and down the front gate at any passer by guarding the property lines. But on the right side of the fence, and they are adorable and make the farm experience complete.

Overly friendly and excited

Begging to be let inside

I really don’t think this lifestyle is affordable in the UK unless you are really wealthy with a title like ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’ and have stately homes. I guess this is why I’m writing the blog, to show how good life can be in Colombia past all the stereotypes in a developing world.

Off for the long weekend

This weekend, I’m going to the family finca. Finca means ‘farm’, so you may think I’ll be at somewhere like this:

But actually are more like country houses which are located in the, erm, country.

So, I’ll be in a little house in the country which will look something like this:

Bogotanos have fincas to escape the city (traffic, stress, lack of garden). I’m going with my aunt. It’ll be just the two of us. There’ll be no wifi.

Wish me luck, and feliz fin de semana.

La Xarcuteria.

Meet Mike. I did. He was lovely. He sells sausages. A lot of them. (OK, if you’ve read my post about Frankfrt airport, you may think that I am obsessed with sausages….I am not. I think).

Mike is from California and about three months ago he opened up La Xarcuteria (charcuterie – branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, primarily pork).

It might sound strange, maybe even slightly gross, but believe me, it’s amazing. It’s part of a new wave of restaurants from other cultures making Bogota more cosmopolitan. You see, Mike’s half Colombian and moved to Colombia to live when his Colombian father retired here. His shop oozes the Californian laid-back chilled vibe on the hectic, crammed busy streets of Carrera 15 (pronounced ‘quinze’). This is a street previously known for its low-end cheap eats, and I’m not sure I want to tell you the story Mike told me about what he found in the shop when he took it over from a deep fried chicken restaurant….Whatever it was, it took him three lorry loads to clear away *insert imagination here*.

Needless to say, the restaurant is now completely gutted out and revamped, and is something you’d expect to find in Soho (London or New York). The benches are raw wood and cool, the walls have that exposed brick look and he casually has three types of wine he’s happy to sell you. Everything is kind of, you know, just cool. And believe me, when you open the glass door, it’s surprising when once again the Carrera quinze smacks you in the face with its old world ways.

I find this story a really interesting one, not only because he’s one of many ‘returning Colombians’ I’ve stumbled across, but he’s also done really well so far without mega bucks marketing and has been written up has the ‘best’ hamburger in town. (Yes he does venture away from pork…). This is shocking for me because El Corrall holds my heart as the best, and believe me, meat here in Colombia is amazing and second to none compared to the UK. It’s just a shame my companion is a vegetarian.

Menu side 1

Menu side 2

You can see more here on his Facebook page.

If you’re in the area, do pop in. He’s also just opened for Sunday brunch. He’s promised me he’ll start selling French press coffee too.

So that’s my Sunday sausage and coffee hangover fuel sorted then; Colombian style.

Bureaucracy kills.

Disclosure: The below is narrative of my story spanning five / six weeks. Hopefully it’s a unique case and is not the general norm.

Do you recognise this building? No? Lucky you. I’ve just returned from my fifth visit to the Registraduria Nacional del Estado Civil. A.K.A. The place where order dies and bureaucracy is alive and well.

I’ve paid the $10mil taxi fare so often that I might has well have unpacked my bags right here on the plastic floor and made myself at home on the red cushion plastic chairs, that are neatly lined up in rows of four like a patient army.

Why do I do this to myself? I am cursing the fact that I am over 18yrs old. Other than for obvious reasons, all this would be non-existent if I was a child. I am Colombian. I have my passport which says so. I have a Colombian birth certificate. Yet, nothing works in Colombia unless you have the cedula (national I.D. card). I will have my cedula. But as I’m over 18, it will take a year to arrive. Yes, that’s right; ONE YEAR.

Why? Where is this time spent? Who has heard such a thing? I don’t know.

So, I have been back and forth to this lovely place on the autopista with nowhere to sort out my papers. Here are the steps I’ve gone through….I must warn you; this is an unusual case so don’t be alarmed. But if you are an adult, receiving a cedula takes 12 months and it will be easier to rob the bank than open an account without one…

VISIT 1:
Go to the registraduria as my contrasena the Colombian Embassy gave me in London has worn out, so my I.D. number is illegible.

I am given a ‘transmite’ paper which means that I am entitled to the cedula, but it is going through the bureaucratic process so this green piece of paper will do instead.

We leave the registraduria happy.

Then…

VISIT 2:
We get a phone call. I have been registered twice as Colombian; once in the 90’s and now in 2011. Why they didn’t tell me in 2011 when I was at the same place? I have no idea. We need to go back and delete the first I.D. number. I have spent a lot of money on my Colombian passport with my new I.D. number that I am not surrendering the most recent one.

We go back. We are shown on a computer screen the original birth registration. The man proudly points out my mum’s signature on it as proof he’s not mad… we are. I haven’t seen it before. I was 14yrs old. I don’t even remember what boy I was into at that age. Can we get a copy of that paper he asks? Hell no. It’s in London. My mum won’t have it. Heck, if she had, she would’ve told me in the first place.

OK, no worries. We can go to a certain bank and deposit $5 mil pesos (£2 / approx.) to get them to retrieve a copy of the paper.

We leave with the bank details.

VISIT 3:
We come back with the receipt. The same guy accepts the payment and tells us it’ll take 3-5 days for the original form to arrive.

We leave.

VISIT 4:
Now the people know us. And we know them. Hi Nora if you’re reading.

We duly take our ticket and sit waiting on the red cushion chairs on plastic legs neatly lined up in rows of four. Eventually our name is called and we are served at the same counter by a different guy. This time, he is much friendlier, but perhaps we have been beaten down by the process and are so submissive, that if asked, my aunt and I would roll over on our stomach for a pat.

Waiting for the master to call our number.

We are given the long-lost form. We now need to explain everything to someone somewhere else and request that they erase the original I.D. number. We are not coming back again, so my aunt writes the letter by hand there and then and we beg people to photocopy bits for us.

Aunt writes letter

We hand in the paper to another desk in another part of the building and are told that we won’t hear back for another two months. We sigh, happy in the knowledge that this is the last time we need to be here.

VISIT 5:
We’re back. This time, to get my little green piece of paper authorised by an official. Apparently my worn out contrasena, transmite paper, Colombian passport or Colombian birth certificate isn’t enough to grant me a bank account. The bank wants my transmit paper ‘authorised’. Fine, we’ll do that…

…The registraduria no longer authorise the transmite paper as the law has changed. And no, I can’t get my cedula earlier than October…yes, it does take a year to arrive.

We head back and visit other banks. Without my plastic cedula, I am looked at with bemusement.

Right, so I’ll stick to keeping my cash in my sock then.

Who said globalisation had taken over the world?

UPDATE

Visit 6:
I am minding my own business when I receive a letter. It is from the Registraduria. They want me back in and I have four days to do so.

We return and are ushered into a separate part of the building on the second floor. My letter is reviewed, processed, stamped and I am given another piece of paper and we’re directed back to Norma.

Norma flicks through my case, and scurries off to do things. We are told that my first (original) registration will be deleted and we will be able to keep my latest number. We leave again.

Visit 7:
We’re back to see Norma.

Ok, at this point, I give up and have no interest in trying to find out what / why they need to see us again. By this point, we know everyone and they know us. I study the ‘#8 ventilita’ handmade sign, wonkily sellotaped onto the glass. I know that around 3pm, it’s a quiet time for the staff and an opportunity for them to chat amongst themselves, show off their new jean purchases and gossip over gum and tinto.

TWO HOURS later, and Norma has done some more paperwork and I am told that now my first registration has been erased and I will now receive my cedula in one month. It will also come to Bogota, and not to London. Great, I think. But, we need to come back in order to get a new ‘tramite’ card as my current one is now outdated. Right, okay….Is there a nearer one we can go to? Yes! We’re told, and turns out there’s a little one quite near the house. By this point, it’s 4pm and they’re closing up.

We decide to wait until the next day before gracing the new Registraduria’s door.

Visit 8:
Next day and we’re back, but this time in Usaquen.

It’s a small, little house in the back streets. We enter and are told to queue up. Great. No seats this time. I stand whilst my aunt reads her book. I am told that no, I cannot sit down, and yes I do need to stand to the right of the 50cm space. I contemplate complaining of a fake preganancy or playing up my cold which is ravishing my body. But decide to play good and stand. And stand. And stand.

Finally, the guy asks to see my papers. “Oh no” he says, “your case is very complicated”. I need to wait while he deals with the easier cases. I sit and wait. And wait. Finally, he has mentally prepared himself to look at my documents. “Oh no” he says, “your photos aren’t acceptable”. I need to get some new ones done, which have the appropriate amount of space around my face. Fine. No problem. We cross the street and get some new ones done.

We return, and they’re shutting. But luckily we’re seen again by the man. I have all my fingerprints taken, just stopping short of my toes. I have my photo applied to the piece of paper, and I sign three times. Finally I am given the document. It’s a contrasena. It’s EXACTLY the same as what I started with. So I’ve basically gone through all of this to get a new contrasena. They’ve taken away my tramite I.D. and now I’m told my cedula will take two months to arrive. We also need to go to the government website to make sure we re-direct to Bogota not London.

So after all of this, I have been a Registraduria eight times; erased my first registration, was given a tramite, surrendered my tramite and was given a contrasena which is EXACTLY THE SAME as the original. This time, it’s not faded though. My aunt buys me a case for it. I will now protect it like gold.

My journey as been extraordinary, fantastical and basically bizarre. I question what they are actually doing and why this all can’t be done electronically like in Britain. It seems to be a lot of people employed to run around and do pretend jobs. Only in Colombia. I haven’t (cue sharp intake of breathe) read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but his ‘magic realism’ is very much alive and well in the Registraduria.

Mini Tejo.

It’s 6.30am on a Thursday morning in Bogota and I can’t sleep. I am too excited. I am too excited because I have so much to tell you, and I can’t wait. Where have I been you ask? Everywhere…Since my last post on Friday, I had my art class, ate at my friend’s restaurant 80 Sillas (pronounced ‘ochenta’), went partying in a faraway part of Bogota called La Galleria on Saturday, chilled at the finca (country house) on Sunday, ate my favourite dish at Wok and drank in Harry’s Bar on Monday, explored the Candelaria and met an artist friend on Tuesday.

Wow, so you see, I’ve been out there ‘researching’ stories. Please forgive me for my absence?

The story I’m going to tell you about today is what I did on Sunday night after the finca; I played Mini Tejo. I want to tell you about it because it is literally the craziest game I have ever come across, and would be banned from the UK due to safety regulations. So what is Mini Tejo? Mini Tejo is a traditional Colombian game where you have heavy metal weights, which you throw at the target that sits at the end of a long alley. The target is gunpowder wrapped up in paper and nestled against a clay board. There are four opportunities to hit the gunpowder and when you do, there’s a loud explosion and a lot of smoke. Yes, exactly.

Mini Tejo is ‘mini’ because the normal version ‘Tejo’ is the same, but the distance is a lot longer.

So imagine discus that you played at school, crossed over with bowls with added gunpowder and you’ve got it.

At the end of the lane is the gunpowder.

Locals playing the game. You can imagine the smokey atmosphere after the explosions.

It was a lot of fun. Eventually. I say ‘eventually’ because Mini Tejo isn’t exactly the kind of game you’d find in my comfort zone of European style bars. Mini Tejo is a local / underground sport found in bars far, far away. My cousin drove us there. It was far. Far down the autopista and down some back streets where kids in groups hung out, and stood around. I was being stared at. A boy was literally standing on the street and staring at us. I started to shift uncomfortably in my Zara jacket and immediately cursed bringing much more on me that $20 mil pesos. I was relieved to have my cousin with me and I wouldn’t go of him. I clung to him as he tried to reassured me that the boy staring could be undercover police. I was not convinvced. He looked about 15. He looked like he wanted to kill me.

Eventually, the rest of the group turned up and we went in. I was with new friends that included a tall, blonde Swiss guy. This what not helping me to feel ‘settled’ in. I was uneasy, the explosions where making me jump even more, and I suddenly just wanted a cup of tea and my sofa.

The alleys were fully booked so we settled for some beers instead. This was also mental. You are served beer at plastic garden tables at prices not much more than at the supermarket. At the end of the night, the owner totals your bill my counting up the beer caps he popped for your group. Think an abicus on an alcoholic scale.

We drank, we waited, the group spoke Spanish. I tried. They had the idea to play ‘Rana’ (frog). It’s a game more similar to the fairs in Britain where you throw discs to get them onto bottle necks to win a cuddly toy. Here you throw small pretzel-shaped metal discs to get them into holes or in the mouth of either two frogs to win points. I was partnered up with the Swiss guy. I think the Colombians had little faith in us ‘foreigners’ playing their game. Well, my youth spent trying to win the cuddly toy paid off because on my penultimate try, I got the disc into the ‘rana’. I was the only one to do it. Yep. Don’t underestimate us Europeans!!

After an endless supply of beer, I was relaxed. My shoes were getting a little grubby and I didn’t mind. I was so relaxed that used the toilet (if you saw it, this would say a lot) and spoke to someone outside the group. His name was Wilson and he was playing Mini Tejo. He invited me to play. I said yes. My two male friends were also invited. They leaped at the chance.

Mini Tejo is hard. I haven’t played discus since I was about fourteen, and lifting shopping doesn’t really count as training. It’s a massive skill of hand and eye co-ordination mixed in with precision and patience. After about four beers, I lacked both. Although the men patiently tried to show me how to throw, I gave up and ‘practised’ on the side by detonating the explosives by standing over the target. This is seriously any boy’s best game ever.

Standing by the gunpowder.

After I started to get a little too loud and a little too drunk, my friends decided it’s best to leave. We departed the group like pop stars and my friends were promised the ‘best’ and ‘safest’ taxi fares in town and were eagerly thrown contacts and business cards.

In case you're in the area and want to give it a try...

Mini Tejo is great. It’s very Colombian. It doesn’t even have a ‘Wikipedia’ entry. It’s usually played in back streets so I wouldn’t recommend going unless you’re in a group with locals. But I recommend giving it a try. After all, where else can you explode gunpowder whilst being encouraged to drink beer? Literally, you can’t play a game unless you’re drinking beer. And the walls are covered with beer sponsorship. So gunpowder and alcohol. Yes, this definitely would be banned in the UK.

The total bill for seven of us was £15. Yes, the TOTAL bill. We paid up after the little man had counted the beer tops and headed back south to Parque 93, where a suited and booted waiter gladly charged us that amount for each drink.

It was a great night. I got scared, I got excited, I got drunk and I got enlightened. And I wanted to tell you about it so you can see through my beer goggle eyes too.

Festivals and Ferias.

Here in Colombia, there are lots of fairs and festivals to celebrate things… flowers, lights, kites, honey, European cinema, the green moon, tango and mango. You name it. (For a full calendar list, click here). Last week, I went to the Feria Del Libros (a fair just for books) in Bogota.

Before you think this is the wellie wearing, beer swigging, wet camping type of festival or bunting blowing in a summer’s day fair, then think again. Here they’re events exploding in light, colour, energy and always surrounded by food:

Eating empanadas (deep fried corn pasties with a meaty centre)

I haven’t been to many festivals in Colombia yet, but there are no tents in sight. It’s a day to night fiesta with obligatory Aguadiente and rumba. The Feria Del Libros was a slightly more sober affair, although if the sugar hit wasn’t enough to keep you going as you browsed the book stands, you could opt for the bar service instead to help wash down your bag of crisps:

A full service offered a la carte

The site for the Feria Del Libros was in the convention centre in Bogota. Think Earl’s Court filled with books. Yes, they take books seriously here….and anything else that has been honoured with a ‘festival’ or ‘fair’ occasion. So instead of book stalls, imagine aircraft carrier sized buildings crammed with books (in Spanish) from around the world.

Feria Del Libros, Bogota

Super sized book stalls

Books are another item lumbered with high costs and taxes. They are a luxury here, so the feria offers the public books at reasonable prices for locals who end up filling their bookshelves in one quick supermarket sweep…like an excited office worker in the pub on a Friday night:

Stocking up

Colombian school kids filling up on books

Again, the culture of Amazon, BOGOHP and second hand book shops is a far away memory here. And yes, before you reply on mass, this is a good case for a Kindle, which I have so far resisted.

I didn’t buy anything as I had already filled one 23kg suitcase full of books, but I did get to go to Brasil for 10 minutes:

Brasil at my fingertips

Selling the Brasilian dream

Overall my experience of the feria didn’t disappoint. It finished last Monday. If I had written this post earlier, perhaps you could have gone too. Oh well, there’s plenty more festivals and ferias in the sea.