Colombia Calling - The English Voice in Colombia

In what is a three-part series on the Colombia Calling podcast, we'll be exploring the realities - warts and all - of crossing the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama. Canadian journalist Nadja Drost made the crossing in 2019 and her excellent piece came out in the California Sunday Magazine in April 2020. It makes for a terrifying and harrowing read, but is arguably one of the best articles I have read so far this year

Both a successful Judge and a Barrister in the UK, Sarah Lucy Cooper's life could have taken an extremely different course were foreigners permitted to practice law in Colombia. However, as we learn in Episode 323 of the Colombia Calling podcast, her 1990 introduction to Colombia defined the course she took in her life back home

We are all suffering due to the Corona virus pandemic which has swept the world and some more than others, and here at the Colombia Calling podcast, we have the opportunity to talk to a small business owner in San Gil, Santander to see how he is faring. Shaun Clohesy is a long-time australian transplant to Colombia and is responsible for opening up one of the original hostels in this country, the Macondo in San Gil

With upwards of 900,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, "Un Colombiano Mas," and with entries routinely drawing more than a million views, Zach Morris is undisputedly a one man positive public relations campaign for all things to do with Colombia!

In fifteen years covering Colombia, this is the best book I’ve ever read about the cocaine trade. If you want to understand why the drugs are produced here, then how they get to the U.S., there’s no better guide." (Matthew Bristow, former Colombia bureau chief, Bloomberg News)

How is your relationship faring under the Covid19/ Corona Virus lockdown, how are you keeping sane, have you stuck to a routine, are you all alone and now talking to your pet(s)? It's a time of tragedy for sure, but in order to share a different perspective of life in a quarantine in Bogotá, Peter Dale, a founding member of the Bogotá Writers, shares with us some extracts from his "Covidiary," now entitled: "The Quarantine Chroncles."

Women for Conservation, founded in 2004 by Sara Ines Lara, is an NGO directly benefitting and empowering over 1,000 women by providing conservation education, environmentally sustainable economic opportunities, and access to health clinics and family planning

Before the Corona virus reached Colombia, President Duque and his political patron, former president Alvaro Uribe, were in danger of drowning in the scandal engulfing them. To keep it brief, and Adriaan Alsema of Colombia Reports will explain this further in the podcast, there is the very real possibility that Duque won the presidential contest in 2018 with a campaign of vote-buying in various parts of the Colombia

Elizabeth Dickinson has been Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia since 2019. Her work centers around armed conflict dynamics in the country and the implementation of the 2016 peace accord between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas. Previously a journalist, Elizabeth first reported from Colombia in 2011, covering topics including criminal and armed group violence, illegal mining, migration, and national politics

"You write the books that you want to read," Matt Rendell tells me in our conversation on Episode 315 of the Colombia Calling podcast. Well, I wish I could have written his latest book entitled: "Colombia es Pasión! The Generation of Racing cyclists who Changed their Nation and the Tour de France," out in all good bookstores in the UK in March...as I most certainly want to read it

Colombia finds herself at a crossroads at the moment as to where directives in the country should focus their efforts in order to best evolve industries here and become a main player on the world stage. The production of medicinal cannabis could well represent a major boom for growers in Colombia and the people at the company BreedCo (www.breedco.com.co) have positioned themselves to become leaders in the market

In this week's show, we welcome back Eric Tabone who first joined us back in the early days of the Colombia Calling podcast speaking about his business: Beyond Business English (www.bbelanguages.com)

In Ep312 of the Colombia Calling podcast, location independent professional Jeff Brown revisits us to reflect on his extended travel in the country. In an open discussion, we hear about some advice on where to go, where to avoid and personal insights about poorly managed and favourably managed tourist destination

In our first political episode for 2020, Colombia Calling is joined by the unnamed creator of www.mikolombia.com a website designed to highlight the stories left uncovered in the mainstream international press. Neither leftwing nor rightwing, Mikolombia is nothing if not controversial, but the idea is, at the very least, to open a debate

Fresh from their December trip to Colombia's Caribbean coast and the Sierra Nevada mountains, women birders, Eliana Ardila (Colombia) and Bryony Angell (USA) join the Colombia Calling podcast to share some of their experiences and feedback and anecdotes about this country's embarrassment of riches when it comes to birdwatching