Blog posts tagged "Colombia"

February 4, 2009 11:16 am No Comments

Curiously, my brief sojourn in Colombia has fuelled me up, for Cartagena is straight out of Greene. Black-hatted priests bent against the wind, striding two abreast beneath the sharp shadows of the un-sunny side of the street. Large tolling bells. A white stucco church, pantiled houses beyond with assorted ochres, yellows, and reds. Somewhere beneath [...]

February 2, 2009 9:16 pm No Comments

I am looking down on the Pacific waters at the mouth of the Panama canal. Below, evening sun splashes silver across the sea, silhouetting the shipping waiting to enter. I count 50 vessels: container ships, bulk carriers, cruise liners, each momentarily detailed as our plane descends to land at the airfield nearby. I haven’t been [...]

4:47 pm No Comments

Once in a while the gods deal you an unexpected hand. I am attempting the apparently Latin-American impossible: Colombia to London inside 24 hrs. The signs are not good. An hour and a half to go to take-off, and no-one is at check-in either side of the desk. Then I see why. The previous flight [...]

February 1, 2009 6:33 pm No Comments

A great cloud of dust, a whoosh of excitable policemen, and a motorcade comes to a gravel-scattering halt outside my hotel here in Cartagena, in Colombia. The most awaited guest is arrived. Salman Rushdie ain’t pleased. The one condition on which he had come here was: no security, no motorcades. He was fuming as he [...]

January 30, 2009 4:30 pm No Comments

I am in the south looking north, in Latin America, in Colombia. The disconnect is acute. The biggest event of the day? The appearance of the Mexican and Colombian presidents at Davos. No, don’t think Davos rocks here in the Andean foothills, on the rolling desert along the coast. But Latino presidents on the world [...]

10:28 am No Comments

It’s hot, humid and yet a sea breeze blows down the narrow streets to flutter the table cloths of the pavement cafes. Cartagena is on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Yellow, pink, white, blue houses compete for a ringside seat in this packed town. It’s a natural enough place to have a book festival. There [...]

January 29, 2009 9:12 am 5 Comments

It’s rare for me these days to visit a completely new country. I’m beginning to run out of mainstream options. I think I’ve visited around 104, though I have never been to China (other than Hong Kong) or Brazil. Today I’m next door, in Colombia – a country twice the size of France with a [...]