A few parting words about this country, a farewell.
I am leaving Colombia with a 100% different picture than the one I had in my head. What a wonderful country with great people! What a funny dancing folk!
Colombia, it’s the nice people with an endless good day greeting: How are you? How was it? How was your day? I always wonder whether you have to answer every question or whether a simple “good” is enough.
Colombia is “Please” and “Thank you”. “With pleasure.” “Yes ma’am.”
Colombia is the culture of suffering. They like to suffer. At least in their songs.
Colombia is music, salsa, rumba always and everywhere. It doesn’t matter what time of day, what motif or how many people there are, whether it is dark or light, there is always dancing and singing. For no apparent reason, there is always a good reason to move your hips. Even if it’s just that the woman in front of me at the checkout in the supermarket has loud music with her and the man behind the checkout is naturally swaying his hips. It’s a fun effect, but unfortunately it also leads to loud music blasting from everywhere. This is often a painful experience for us.
Colombia is make-up, perfect hair, flawless nails. I often ask myself how they reconcile this perfectionism in appearance with the humid heat.
If you try to achieve something in Colombia with a request and a smile, it will work. Then they are always ready to help and create solutions.
Farewell to the food
Colombia is the land of flours and carbohydrates and God help you with the kilos. Papa, yuca, empanadas, cheese sticks, Patacones, papas rellenas, buñuelos – the main thing is deep-fried!
And it’s also a land of cafes. Important to know: If you order a tinto in Colombia, you don’t get a red wine, but an espresso. On the other hand, if you only ask for a coffee, you might get a coffee with milk without asking. The Tinto you get all over the city and next to the streets as well as in every hostel or hotel, until, let’s say, 11 o’clock. It is cheap and the first boost in the morning.
Colombia is the world of bananas, ripe bananas, green bananas, thick and thin bananas and all kinds of processing. No meal is complete without a banana.
Farewell to “Please” and “Thank you”
Colombia is the country that has taught me again to say please and thank you.
Es con mucho gusto (With pleasure)
Si señora (Yes, Ma’am)
Porfavor (Please) they like to put at the beginning of a sentence
And don’t forget to mention your own name „mi nombre es“.
We have always heardt: „a la orden“ (at your service) when we said thank you.
In reviews of accommodation, restaurants and even petrol stations, the word most frequently used by Colombians is “attentiveness of the staff”. Whether the food was good, the room clean or the gas station expensive came second at the earliest.
We are simply having a terribly good time in this country
Even if all this friendliness is not necessarily meant seriously, it makes everyone happier than a “Hey dude, need anything else?”.
And even if our translator translates the directions as “turn straight off somewhere”, we are still happy about the unsolicited help.
I can’t get used to the help with packing the goods in the supermarket, the unsolicited accompaniment to a place we perhaps didn’t want to go. But our guide certainly knows where we want to go. And I can’t get used to the fact that when we say we don’t speak Spanish, they carry on chattering away anyway.
I will never get used to the suffering of many dogs in certain areas, but of course I also see the helplessness of the inhabitants, far from any help.
And so we leave Colombia with a colorful picture in our memories. A picture without any drugs, or at least only those that are healthy. The multitude of incredibly delicious fruits in our fruit juices.
We have to say farewell to this as well.
And finally, a few words on drug policy in Colombia
As the world’s leading cocaine producer, Colombia could be at the forefront of global drug policy reform. The country’s new approach, which focuses more on rural development rather than punishment, is an important step forward. To achieve this, however, the government must fulfill its promises – especially when it comes to reforming the cannabis and coca leaf markets. And, of course, support from abroad is needed. This is where the estimated 22 million consumers are mainly to be found. Global support could perhaps solve this worldwide problem. In addition to the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking, they also need to combat arms trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering and environmental crime. Would be nice to say “farewell” to all this.
And because these are all such big issues, we forget that Colombia has other wonderful sides to it. We saw them and it was perhaps even the best cycling time in South America.
Well, I would still like to show some pictures that depict the reality of people in this country through the eyes of street art. It’s up to you whether you want to engage with them or not.