Colombia 2020 Before the Chaos - Part 1

I flew to Colombia on New Year’s Eve. I celebrated in an eleven-hour flight, watching five episodes in a row of the TV series Chernobyl. I was seated next to a group of English guys with a cockney accent who were flying to Colombia “for the culture”. How exciting does that sound?

I reached Bogota early in the morning on the 1st of January 2020. I had read in a few blogs, and would later have it confirmed by Colombian friends, that taking random yellow taxis on my own was not the safest, especially at night. On the other hand, if you fly to a country like Colombia which in my honest opinion is full of great people, and you spend your time doubting everyone, then you’d better go back home. Anyway it’s not like I had a lot of choice, so I let the guy who seemed to be in charge of managing the taxi queue bring me to a taxi standing there, whispering something in the taxi driver’s ears which made me slightly paranoid, and here I was: in a yellow taxi, in the dark streets of Bogota, in the middle of the night, praying that I would be driven directly to my hotel. You saw it coming: the taxi driver was a typical Colombian: welcoming, joyful, friendly, not speaking any English. This was good for me. He took me directly to my hotel and there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to doubt him. I actually took the opportunity to chat with him and practice my Spanish, which was still to improve after having already spent a month in Argentina. By the way I had updated a note on my phone with a translation for words that I found generally useful when communicating in Spanish during my one month stay in Argentina. Here are the first lines for example:

Beautiful= linda, hermosa, bonita

I am not a thief don’t worry = no soy un ladron no te preoccupes

Curly hair = pelo rizado

You break my heart= me rompes el corazon

Excuse me = disculpe

Feminine = feminina

I like your big smile = me gusta tu gran sonrisa

It’s your chance = es tu oportunidad

I am not scared = no tengo miedo

To bring the check = traer la cuenta

The first thing I did when waking up in the morning was to find a good breakfast: there was a Four Seasons just five minutes away from my hotel. I could treat myself with a buffet breakfast for six seven times less the price it would be in London. I spent the day chilling, sent some happy new year greetings and called it a day. No daygame. On this first day of January, the city was dead.

The next day I met two girlfriends of a Colombian student I had dated two years earlier in London. She was one of the reasons why I chose to discover Colombia: of course girls are a criteria, I chose to do my sabbatical in Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. I knew those three South American countries through girls I had previously met in Paris and London and who left me great memories. I remember when I kissed this Colombian student at our first date, I felt so much passion, it was one of the best kisses I ever experienced and it was ten times better than having sex with a frigid girl from… ok let’s not mention any country. Let’s say some countries have more sensual people than others. Back to the friends, that is an example which show how Colombians are welcoming: my Colombian student was doing an Erasmus exchange in Europe and would not be there to welcome me in Bogota. So, here is what she did: she made sure two of their friends would dedicate time to take me around as soon as arrive in the city. I spent the next day visiting the city with two students, who by the way were attractive. I was already loving Colombia. That is the first thing that strikes in Colombia, it’s a bit cliché to say but people are very warm and friendly. I mean genuinely friendly, not the fake American way: they expect nothing from being friendly, no networking, no deal, no close, they don’t follow any self-development book guideline advising you to be sociable to feel better for your own interest. Colombians don’t spend ages thinking about why and how to be friendly, they just are.

Just to give a few examples, which look simple but are important for me in the day-to-day life:

• Before arriving in Colombia, in addition to my Colombian girl asking friends to welcome me, I had other contacts who genuinely offered to help:

• I told a colleague in London that I was going to Colombia, she told it to a friend native from Medellin, who wrote a long email with tips on Colombia for me.

• My sister told a client I was going to Colombia. Her client asked straight away, “Wait wait wait, does he need contacts there? I can have someone welcome him if he needs.”

• My mum told a Spanish colleague I was going to Colombia. This colleague gave the number of one of her friends in Medellin. I did not know him at all. After three days in Medellin I was invited at his place to spend Saturday night with his family. That became a friend. We spent time together, he invited me to his house in the countryside. Just someone with a good heart which means what he says. There is no meaningless “you should definitely come visit us” invitation blowing in the air with the word “definitely” meaning “never ever, don’t even think about putting one foot on my grass”. Everything is said with the heart, not out of politeness.

• After two weeks in Colombia I already had two people inviting me for lunch/dinner at their home. That really reminded me of my days in Italy. When Colombian or Italian people tell you “my home is your home”, they really mean it (of course that does not mean I would arrive with my luggage and ask to stay there a month). For comparison, it took me eight years in London to have one English friend inviting me at his place to meet his family.

• When people come sit next to you at the restaurant, or come in the lift with you, they give proper eye contact, smile and say hello. When they leave, they say hasta luego. The standard process in Colombia, like in Italy, and France to a lesser extent (not in Paris) is: eye contact, smile, say hello. In London, I am never sure about what to do. Sometimes I would be introduced to a colleague at the pub, we would chat over a beer, the next day I passed by this person, look at him/her preparing to smile and say hi, and guess what: that person blanks me. The next day, same situation, the person vaguely looks at me and says hi. I never know what to do. Sometimes I decide to go all in and say hi with a big smile and I still get blanked, it is a bit humiliating. By default, I was raised to apply the sequence eye contact-smile-hello but after having been blanked many times in London I just lost the habit to do it. In Colombia, it became natural again.

• By being sociable and speaking a bit of Spanish, it takes only a few visits in the same restaurant or coffee shop to have employees remembering your name, guys shaking your hands or doing a check when you come in, girls to even come and give you a kiss on the cheek. I also love how you can see employees having fun behind the counter, taking each other in their arms, kissing each other on the cheek all the time, etc. They are very warm. Again, to an extent it reminded me of Italy. In London coffee shops, unless employees are from warmer countries or even from Poland or Lithuania, with whom I get along for some reason, they ask how you are doing while already walking away to do something else. They don’t even look at you. What is the point? Of course I know you don’t give a damn how I feel, but if you have to ask me a polite question, at least wait one second and give me some warmth, come on! Once an English lady told me she was going to a wedding in Italy. I told her the food would be delicious, she would be taken in everyone’s arms and treated like she was part of the family. I could not believe what she answered: “Yes I am bit worried about that, Italians don’t give you any space, I am not sure I can take it.” There is no right or wrong here. We are just from two really different cultures. I generally like the English, as they are a bit unique and special to me for other reasons and some English friends are like family to me. However, this day I thought I would never understand them on these particular criteria.

3rd of January

I still had not done any approach. I gave a quick compliment to a girl in a shopping mall and went to eat something.

Later I saw a sexy girl walking past and decided to approach her. When I say sexy, she was just a Colombian girl in her early twenties. Sexy is the norm in this case. I was rusty, my Spanish was so-so as I lost the momentum I had started to build in Argentina after one week in France celebrating Christmas with family. But you don’t have to be perfect to seduce a girl: she liked the approach and accepted to go for an instant date. It was actually her birthday. Her family was waiting for her for the birthday meal. I teased her on the fact she was lucky to have me as a birthday gift. We had a lovely time flirting over coffee and agreed to meet the next day. She did not flake, which is a very good start in Colombia, anyone who spent time dating Latinas know it. Let’s make it short regarding the date: after thirty minutes we were making out heavily being seated just next to a family celebrating a birthday. Honestly, if it was me, I would hate being on a family dinner next to two people making out like we did. One detail though: just as I kissed her for the time, magically, a song was playing in the restaurant: Manu Chao, the most famous French singer in South America. I liked him when I was a teenager. Hearing him as I was having my first romance after three days in Colombia was magical.

We went to my hotel and you don’t want to know all the details. What a great start. Trust me, this is not representative of what would happen after in Colombia, it would not be that smooth.

The next day, I texted her with some callback humour and she did not seem to see my message on Whatsapp: she had blocked me. Alright, let’s face it: being blocked by a girl after sex is slightly humiliating. Well, take this in the chin, that can happen, that is the usual up and down we need to face. Actually, she texted me two days later, just after I arrived in Medellin. She had her phone stolen but fortunately did not suffer any physical violence.

I kept in touch after with this girl. First dating experience of my sabbatical in Colombia, nice way to start the year.

By the way, on these first days in Bogota, every time I was mentioning I was about to go to Medellin, people would react with “Oh you will love the women”. Even a cute girl at the reception of a restaurant reacted this way. I was about to realise not long after that they were goddamn right...

To be continued in part 2