Medellin, with a population of 2.5 million, sits in a narrow valley surrounded by mountains. Clay coloured high rise apartments and office buildings dominate the valley floor and climb up the hills toward the mountain peaks. When I first heard about Pablo Escobar getting shot on a rooftop while trying to escape his captors in Medellin, I'd envisioned him running across single storey colonial buildings, maybe tripping here and there along dilapidated broken ...

 It started to rain five days before we arrived in Capurgana and continued for the two days we spent there. I had wanted to dive but the seas were too rough. Ellen wanted to soak up the sun, but it was hidden by dark clouds.Capurgana is a fishing village long known as a stopover for northbound drug runners. It was considered a dangerous area to visit until the leftist kidnapping rebel group FARC was cleared out by the Colombian military. One afternoon while Elle...

 The cruise ships have landed. Older folks all, a few in their 70's, but most, probably in their 80's. They tramp through the humid streets of Cartagena's old city, where minutes into any walk your clothing becomes soaked with sweat. I'm sitting in Parque de Bolivar watching locals feed corn kernels to pigeons, while Ellen walks the streets, looking for that perfect restaurant for tonight's dinner. The cruise ship people, one group after anot...

They're not juicy like you'd expect, wings gone to the roasting pan. All you're left with is the head, thorax and abdomen. Flying ants, a centimetre long, smothered in gravy, sitting atop filet mignon and chicken. I gave them a look, choked back a gag, then dove in. Ellen never really got past the concept and left half of her's. For me they were like crunchy little nuts, an aftertaste like coffee grounds. Restaurante Color de Hormiga specializes i...

In 1983, Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar was ranked 7th on Forbes magazine's richest men in the world list. It was estimated that his personal worth was over US20 billion. In the early '90s a U.S. funded 1,500 man special unit spent 499 days tracking Escobar down. In 1993 he was found and shot dead while trying to escape on a Medellin rooftop. Today, things have supposedly changed much for the better in Colombia under the government of right-winger, Al...