Latest / New Worlder / Episode #124: Claire McQue

Transcript

Episode #124: Claire McQue · New Worlder

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Nicholas Gill, and this is the New Worlder podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: There is a lot going on in Colombia right now, for those that are paying attention.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: There was a major earthquake that just devastated the Eje Cafetero,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Colombia's coffee zone, and a new right-wing president was just elected as well.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Then there are all the issues related to the formation of the modern country after
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: the 2016 peace agreement that are still being sorted out.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like the protection of natural resources,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: the growing of coca, the cultivos de paz, indigenous sovereignty, and tourism.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Bogota-based journalist Claire McKay has been on the ground,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: often traveling to some of the most remote areas of the country to report on all
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: of these issues.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Born in the UK,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Claire covers politics,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: music, art, architecture, film, food, forest, indigenous rights, and social media.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Her work is often found in The Economist.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: As well as publications like The Observer,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: National Geographic Traveler, Wanderlust Magazine, and many others.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: She's also the author of a new DK travel guidebook to Colombia
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: that will be published later this year.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: In the interview,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: we speak of places she has traveled to recently,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: such as Guaynea in Colombia's eastern Amazon,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: about Cali and Quibdo,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: some of the areas most affected by the earthquake,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: the Pacific Coast,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: home to the sugarcane distillate Viche,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: For video episodes, check us out at youtube.com slash newworlder.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And please subscribe, like us, and share us.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds redundant to say this all the time, but it really makes a difference.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Please enjoy the show.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Claire.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where are you right now?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't look like Bogota.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I can see the trees in the background, and that's not very Bogota.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Bogota does have some amazing mountains,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: but no, I'm a couple of hours south of Bogota in the mountains, and it's tropical.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love Bogota, but I definitely have to escape Quite often.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's an amazing city with loads going on,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: but it's, as you probably know, I'm sure you've both been, it can be quite hectic.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I do my best to get into tropical landscapes as much as I can.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a city that is easy to describe, I'll say.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a short description for it?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I always struggle being from there.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're from Bogota.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a city that reveals itself to you over time.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So when I first got there, I was rebelling massively.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, it's so much concrete and there's traffic all the time.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm like, this is a very cool city where everyone's always going out.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's new clubs that are opening, amazing new restaurants, a really cool cultural scene.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Last year they had the first kind of public art biennale and that's happening again soon.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's an art fair.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot going on and there's lots of energy.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And more people coming back from...
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Colombians have been living abroad and have come back and they're starting
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: a business in Bogota.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like there's a really good, positive, dynamic energy in the city at the moment.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much more international too, though, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Than Medellin or Cali or anywhere.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just has this...
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, it's a very eclectic vibe to it, that you can kind of find anything.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it definitely is.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's international in a different way to Medellin.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I think Medellin is very international,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: but in a short-term way, where you have people that are working there.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very specific type of person that goes to Medellin, whereas I feel...
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Bogota because it is a bit rainier, it's a bit more hectic.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's more, I think, people that are probably living there for a longer period of time.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you would agree with that, Juliana.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love to hear that because I agree.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the music scene, it's a party city, so you can always do that.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very nocturnal city, I would say, in comparison with it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Although Colombia is so nocturnal.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I was about to say.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere in Colombia,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's just like...
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: California was just cancelled, by the way, which is really sad.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was supposed to be going, yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: But then, you know, given that Colombia is so nocturnal, people still madrugar next day, 6am.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: How do you just have this boundless energy?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm yet to crack that part of the cultural mystery, I think.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can't do it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's so refreshing to talk with someone that understands our craziness.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then starting everything at 4 a.m.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's like,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: so I've been here for almost two and a half years and I feel now I'm just starting
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: to manage to unpick everything.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Things are starting to come into focus and make sense.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, wow, I still have so much to learn and always will have what to learn.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that drives you as a writer and a journalist to understand these things.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've been reporting on the region for 20-something years now, and it's just like there's...
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so much weirdness and things that like just pique your interest.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, this is not like how I grew up or whatever.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it just like keeps revealing itself.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And especially the more you travel around the country
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: and you see how distinct every region and landscape is.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And how did you end there, Claire, by the way?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why Colombia after all the other places you lived in?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to be completely honest, I...
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I studied French and literature at university.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: So when I was working at The Economist,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: editing the online culture section,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was always very interested in what was happening with the West African art scene.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've always loved the music from that region.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually thought that was where I would end up,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: like Senegal, that region of the world.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Actually decided that that wasn't quite, that that beat wouldn't work for me.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I then chose, well,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: I spoke to the Latin America editor and was like,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: look, where do you not have correspondence?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like where makes the most sense strategically?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a kind of bunch of countries in Latin America.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I, I'd never been to Columbia, but I'd had friends that traveled through.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought there was lots of themes that were really relevant to what I'm interested in.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: So just politically,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Petro had recently come into power,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: so a huge kind of shift in the country's politics.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Then the Amazon always been something that's fascinated me,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: like conservation,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: environmental reporting,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: and all of the music,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: like all of Colombia's diverse rhythms from the Caribbean to the Pacific,
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: that connection via kind of the history of slavery with West Africa.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously loads of travel, like travel kind of being a booming sector in Colombia.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that that diversity of stories would complete and also complement my interests.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I ended up in Colombia without speaking Spanish,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: which did make things quite complicated at the beginning.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I found my feet.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot happening.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right now in Colombia,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: like if I were to choose a time to come to move to Colombia and report on it,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: like you couldn't have picked a better time.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just the amount of news coming out of Colombia all the time, it seems, is like, it's crazy.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: if we should talk a little bit about the earthquake, you just went to Kiddu, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the worst affected areas.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: What did you see there?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so...
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this was, so this happened two Mondays ago.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: The earthquake was 7.4 magnitude.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in Bogota at the time.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it was,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: it's one of these weird situations where Bogota,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: the capital, you know, we barely felt it, like quoted Medellin.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then sort of slowly throughout like that morning,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: because it struck at like 7.30, yeah,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: in the morning,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: there was just all these reports coming in,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: coming in of like how bad things were getting progressively worse.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the epicenter was in San Jose del Palmar,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: which is a really rural, tiny, tiny little town in Choco.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd previously done some reporting with this medical brigade who fly.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're called La Petruya Aérea Colombia.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing organization.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they fly in volunteer pilots with medics,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: with psychologists, whatever they need all around the country.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: And they were doing a medical brigade with psychologists on the Tuesday to Quipto.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, please let me come with you.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And they very kindly got me in their planes and we went.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I was the first person there from the journalist side of things.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: The president had arrived the day before and they'd airlifted some patients out.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just one of these really sad situations where people, I think, were...
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't even angry.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: They were just resigned.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I got into the town, which is the departmental capital, and...
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: The damage wasn't immediately evident.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: So then we like drove down the street and then there was just huge school,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: like a school that had been collapsed around the corner,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: another building that had completely crumbled and fallen on top
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: of someone else's house.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this woman was like, oh, are you a journalist?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let me tell you what's happened because no one's come here.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: No one's spoken to me.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: No one's asked me what's happened to my house.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that was like the same story that I just heard again and again and again.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And all in different parts of the cities, there was...
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like at the top of Kypdo,
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: there were some women who were just sat on a street corner kind of staring
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: at what was the ruins of their house.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really dramatic, like an entire corner just collapsed.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And all these men sitting around the corner just sort of chatting.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's incredibly hot.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of the hottest places I've ever reported from.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they were just there and they'd gone back into the houses to grab kind of pots
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: and pans and the bits that they could.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they sort of set up this community kitchen.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And their kids are there also in the heat playing because all their schools,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: they can't go to school anymore.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: And they just said the same thing.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like no one, not even from the local government has come to look after us, to ask us how we are.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that was day two, right?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I think by day three or four, there was some aid that people had come.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just this kind of, yeah, it's a place that's long been abandoned.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like the hospital that I visited is...
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: The only hospital in that entire region,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: which is home to just under 600,000 people,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: that has the license to perform not even complex surgeries,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: but kind of basic surgeries.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So all of these crises coming together,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: like this health crisis in Colombia,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: the lack of access that these people have to internet, to...
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the state.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then on top of it,
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: because there's no state presence,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: like everywhere in Qibdaw you see these graffiti,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: which is the armed group claiming their territory.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: So they're also extorted by these armed groups who capitalise on the fact
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: that there's just no state there.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Forgive my ignorance, but which armed group is trying to control Qibdaw?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's the ELN.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Which is now the oldest Marxist-Leninist group in Colombia.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the Clan de Golfo who have their origins in paramilitaries.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they are, I think there's more than 9,000 people in that group now.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's massive.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it began on the Caribbean coast.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they are really expanding across Colombia.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So like down, down across into Choco on that Pacific coast.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Over the border up and into La Guajira there's lots of violence I think there.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Even pushing down towards the border with Venezuela,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: that's a very powerful armed group that the outgoing left-wing government
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: of Gustavo Petro was trying to negotiate with them,
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think fairly unsuccessfully because he'd have to give them political status.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a big threat to Colombian security and that's a big part of
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: the new government's security strategy is clamping down these armed groups.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: But just to go back to your original question about the earthquake,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: the other affected regions are Cali,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: which is the city where the Petronio Álvarez Festival was cancelled,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: and then the coffee region.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of these towns in the coffee region are heritage towns.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: They're like the beautiful,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: protected little white houses with colourful doors,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: colourful windows and balconies are completely collapsed.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: So Colombia has a huge job of reconstruction and rebuilding ahead of that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Have coffee farms been affected?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't been to coffee regions since the earthquake struck,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: but I understand that thousands of coffee pickers have been affected,
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: and also the port,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: so the route by which a lot of coffee is exported, so out through the Pacific Coast.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right, to Buenaventura, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's like more than half of Colombia's coffee leaves from there.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, how you export it, yeah, so...
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: But that particular story of Buenaventura is another example of the kind
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: of inequality of Colombia, right?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Where it's a port city,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: there should be wealth generated from the port,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: and yet the scenes of destruction there are really, really terrible.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And not just in the city,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: but the kind of veredas at the rural hamlets that you have to get there on a boat,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: totally devastated.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: sort of five,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: six days after the earthquake,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Activists,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: people from the community from Cali were arriving there and kind of filming
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: the whole thing and being like people using the collapsed ruins of their homes
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: to rebuild paths in the town.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's how resourceful they are, you know.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, I mean,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: obviously it has been this week now less and all media,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: main newspapers around the world as it was Venezuela and other earthquakes,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: recent earthquakes.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: How to reconcile or put together or have a sense for people
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: that are not actually there of all the different voices you hear,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: which is always a challenge, right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like one thing is what critical reporters say,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: one thing is what the government says,
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: then what the international press picks up,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: it's a mix of views and perceptions And it's always hard to know where the truth is.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: it's not that truth is in one specific place
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: because there are many different people involved with different experience of it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you make sense of all that in your case?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: How to, you know,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: like try to get a sense of what's happening and what are the main things at
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: the stake and what these tell us about the country.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have talked about two Colombians, two Colombians going on because of the situation.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: It shows obviously the class differences and the political situation.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: But how have you thought about it?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I guess when you are describing the situation, How to be accurate and just thorough.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: How do you handle that?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's hard.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the first thing is basically don't believe what you read.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of how I run until I fact checked it.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of have my filters,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: like a kind of select group of people who represent different backgrounds,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: different political perspectives.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: But it's got to be facts based.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the thing with Colombia is like there is just so much news all the time.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much like I find the tone is quite angry of the news.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of there's a lot going on and it's sort of figuring out like which
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: of this is structural and has a real forward looking impact and which
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: of this is kind of like a scandal that's going to blow over in a day.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think specifically with the earthquake,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: the response was so politicized for a couple of reasons.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: The first one being that on the Monday,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: the new foreign ministry decided to focus on foreign policy as opposed
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: to looking inwards and kind of getting humanitarian aid.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the kind of continued focus on regional alliances.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: So only really working with countries that were ideologically aligned with
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: the new Roman government,
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: which really angered people,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: particularly in Cali,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: which is a very kind of typically left-wing city in Colombia that was also really on
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: the front line of dealing with the earthquake.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: the kind of key agency in charge of dealing with any sort of natural disaster,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: whether it's the forest fires that we're seeing now and including that earthquake,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Had a huge corruption scandal over the last two years and
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: the new government hadn't appointed a new leader of that agency.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: So there was kind of like lots of different things intersecting and
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: then there was some fake news that came out.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like working back,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think working back to the actual facts of who's in charge and what's happened.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: And often I,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: I have to ring someone that used to work in the government or used to work in
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: a ministry to understand like what's the patchwork of Bodies and organizations
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: and legal things that need to work in Columbia in order for something to happen.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it just requires more, more work and more reporting, I think.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always quite conscious on what,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: what does a global reader want to understand from this as well,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: rather than just kind of reporting on like,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: what am I seeing and feeling, which is valid.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: What are people seeing and feeling?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: But also, what's the analysis and how can we make this more forwards looking?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: It has to be informative.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: But it is very polarized.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And have I ever written something that, you know, endless criticism from either side?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And like with the earthquake,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: what I noticed was it's just become very binary,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: like you You make a fair criticism of whichever government's in charge and
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: then immediately you're branded as being on the political opposite.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: So all of a sudden I was kind of like a crazy leftist writing critical things
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: that you write in government.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like everything is taken out of context and it's very reductive.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I think my kind of plea always is like fighting for nuance and making space
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: for nuance in reporting, which is just really hard at the moment.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you from?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: You said you're from Bogota, Juliana, right?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, I grew up in Bogota.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have lived in the States for 12 years now, in and out.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, it's...
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I have my own experience of these being, you know, from afar, which is frustrating.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, obviously, you feel safer.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a great part of my family is not in Colombia.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some are.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: My dad texted me right away from Bogota, like, obviously scared as you were, I guess.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a bunch of colleagues in Cali and friends and all around Armenia and Chaco.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: it's all mixed,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: the immigrant experience and the migrant experience and how
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: all these,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: it just makes you, I don't know, I feel that we all Colombians are so traumatized.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: That it's hard to keep,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: to separate one thing from the other,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe that's the rage you feel because you were going to say something.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: just saying,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: you're so traumatized,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: but like things just keep piling up on top of each other all the time,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: it seems like.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know, but that's why I'm saying it's hard to.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it has to happen to us now.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, if you try to be objective, well, yes, but no, right?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because it always happens in different places.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I tried to keep that calmness somehow,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: but since with my own work,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go to the armed conflict and how victims just through food,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: which is always a silver lining and cooking.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still, it's always in our mind, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because that process is going on,
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: the peace process.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: it's piling up,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: it's not working, it's working, it's going to be better, it's going to be worse.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: These numbers of people are...
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Criminal movements or movements outside the law are growing.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, I don't know what to say.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a country that needs a lot of patience and healing.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, we...
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are resilient, and I think it's true.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I see this in every Colombian around the world, how resilient we are, how happy.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was comparing with other countries in South America that I am not going to name
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: because I love that country, but how, like, no matter what, we are happy.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what happens, we are happy.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And these other people, no matter what happens, they are kind of melancholic and not happy.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we have that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's out of the harshness and the hassle, but that helps us somehow.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I saw right away after the airwake,
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: someone was showing me a picture of a family in Armenia, like,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: we are here, we are fine, we are even smiling in the middle, which is not cynical.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a survival mechanism.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I see both.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that Colombians, no matter what, will get through.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, as you say, Nick, it's like, when is this going to end?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: When the drug stigma is going to leave us?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when we are going to make this beautiful attempt for peace work that has been
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: so inspiring for all of us and around the world.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned the drug stigma.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should talk about Coca and,
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know, what's kind of happening right now in the Amazon.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, Claire,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: you go there quite often and you see that,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: you wrote something in The Economist about,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: the war on Cocaine and how it's just,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: it's still a failure,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: after all of these years,
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: it's just like, you know, it just keeps hitting wall after wall.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's almost pointless at this point to like be,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: you said, I think you compared it to like whack-a-mole, right?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's just like, yeah,
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: it's just like a drug,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: factory pops up and they blow it up and then it just moves,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know, five kilometers down the road or whatever.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is there any progress going on whatsoever?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it just, you know, hopeless at this point?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: The question on it,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: is there any progress
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: on... And how do you define progress is the big question.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it's to do with, it's an economic problem, isn't it?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like these women that I met,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: so to kind of just for context,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: I flew to Putamaya,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: which is one of the Larger,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: not the largest,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: but one of the larger coca growing areas on the border with Ecuador.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: And this was during the Petro administration.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea was not to target the coca fields,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: but kind of shifting a policy to capturing more shipments of cocaine at the point
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: where they're reaching the port.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then another part of the strategy was to kind of knock out the supply chain.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the part that I was doing.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I went with the The narcotics police,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: and they were kind of blowing up these,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: the word is laboratory, but it's honestly, it's a shack.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's super rudimentary.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've been to one before.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: it's like a tent in the mountainside where just a guy with a fucking pot,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and some gasoline, you know, boiling things.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: And they were, you know, these women were super desperate.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, please don't blow up our shed because this is the only income we've got.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: We've got no help from the state.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you could see the military guys were empathetic.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's not a nice situation for them to be in, but they have to do it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's an economic thing.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: unless these people have an alternative economy,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Which, you know, could be provided through cacao or anything like that.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're just going to be forced into doing this.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Then there's the pressure from armed groups.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't really think there's going to be,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's going to be kind of progress on clamping down
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: on cocaine production until there's progress in sustainable development
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: and providing alternative livelihoods in these really remote parts of Colombia
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: where,
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: All people want is to kind of send their kids to school and to have a peaceful,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: safe life.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if there's no roads to take their papayas or their cacao to a market,
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: if that cacao is not being sold on the international marketplace in a way
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: that shows kind of the premium forestry growing techniques,
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: it's just none of it's going to work.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, it's like that's one of the contradictions of sustainable development is
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: that Everyone wants to support local agriculture and things,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: but then there's not really a local market for a lot of that agriculture.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be shipped off to Bogota or abroad to get the price that demands that work.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I think coffee is the most advanced example of this, where...
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously now Colombia is drinking its own specialty coffee
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: and there's specialty coffee shops everywhere.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: But something like cacao, I mean,
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: I went to this massive supermarket chain the other day in the east of Colombia
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: and there was one brand there that wasn't like a huge multinational
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: or it wasn't like a Colombian that was kind of a specialty small batch cacao brand.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's, there's still, you know, it's too expensive or There's those barriers still.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I think there's a lot that needs to be done on selling Colombian produce.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think with the new deforestation regulation happening,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: coming into effect in Europe,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think Colombia is actually in a really good position to market its products.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: If they do implement their traceability law,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: then they can show that they've got premium products that they can sell
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: the European market.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: But there's just...
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's still a lot of alignment that needs to be done and a lot of coordination
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: between different ministries who typically are not very good at talking
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: to each other.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And just on the kind of how the conflict is affecting supply chains.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: One of the first chefs I really met when I got to Colombia is Catalina Velez,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: who's got an amazing restaurant called Domingo in Cali.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you know it.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And she was explaining to me how she has to be super flexible with all
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: of her ingredients on her menu because She was really wanting to work
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: with women producers, I think generally in the South and West of Colombia.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: sometimes they just don't reply because they've had to move or they've had
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: to be displaced.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then I don't know where my white cacao is going to come from, for example.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so it's like the logistical headache for the chefs.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like restaurants are already problematic economically.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: So having an unreliable supply chain is...
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to do it.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big risk for restaurants,
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: even though I know there's a lot in Colombia that are taking this risk.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's a major challenge.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think part of the complexity of all this is like in a fast paced,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: globalized world,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: it's impossible to separate it from the problem of the north and south divide.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Still, the countries on the north controlling what's happening.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's still the case.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: We move from one terminology to the other.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: They are not now,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: like second world countries or third world countries,
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: but the divide keeps happening.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so why things pile up?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because that interaction, that power dynamic hasn't changed for the most part.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why it takes for that to be changed?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea, but,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: leaders that are determined to make a change in the part of the countries of
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: the South and same on the North, right?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still some sort of colonization.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: the big picture is if we see similar things,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: maybe not necessarily with cocaine are happening in other countries that are below
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: the equator, right?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: In Africa and to some extent in Southeast Asia.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing is that global-local interaction in the context of food.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned something, Claire,
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: in what we were preparing for this conversation,
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: which is what does slow food mean in Colombia, right?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were saying these Chefs,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: their purveyors are in the Amazon or in the Pacific Coast or in the flatlands or
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: in La Guajira.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what, I guess it's like what local means in Colombia, right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: What is to, what does it mean to buy local?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was curious about that because you mentioned that one of
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: the points we should talk about, and I think it has to do with this, this aspect of
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think in terms of like, what does local mean?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's not even just in food, but it could be a music and art.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for so long,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: the reference point for good quality products has been imported from the US, right?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: That kind of colonized mindset.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's now changing.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: And chefs are definitely part of that leading that charge.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: the idea of like the European idea of slow food that you should,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how many kilometers away your farm should be from your restaurant,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: But it should be super close.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: And actually it's the opposite here.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: if you want to support communities in really far flung places,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: then you know, you have to kind of bend over backwards to sort out a supply chain.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think It's like a blessing and a curse,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: like Columbia's geography is, I mean,
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: it's one of the most fascinating places to travel in because of that,
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: because you have deserts, jungles, mountains, Caribbean, everything.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that means that there's amazing diversity of ingredients,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: but it's like how to get that all back to the capital or to Medina
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: or wherever you're coming from.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Back to the mountains.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And like obviously around Bogota,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: there's some incredible thinkers and people like growing tomatoes and food and all
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: of the development that's happening in La Sabana.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you can see that when you fly,
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: like there's just greenhouses, blueberries and whatever in them.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: what you said earlier about,
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: the market power still being in the global north,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: US, Europe, that sets up that dynamic.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I do feel that the new government is...
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: Not just in Colombia, but in lots of right-wing countries in Latin America.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's just opening the doors for,
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: the US to get their hands on more of Colombia
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: and other countries' natural resources.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that dynamic is here to stay.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's going anywhere soon.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for some reason,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Latin America and South America specifically is now becoming a cool continent more
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: and more.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the continent where people want to What to trade or visit or leave.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's always a double-edged sword, right?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Same for Africa, I think.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Double-edged sword in terms of, okay, why?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that the case?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: There is more pride because it's motivating, it's inspiring.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think it motivates people to believe,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: oh, to reflect about self-worth and to revisit How we see ourselves, right?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a great opportunity.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in part,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: what all these chefs are doing is taking that opportunity and just evolve
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: and flourish and shine.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we are very creative people.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, why is that happening?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Why are now the cool content?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's always worrying.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or something to be
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's, I mean,
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: someone very cynically said to me the other day that like these boom areas tend
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: to happen like five years after a civil war or some sort of conflict,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: it's like the,
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: not for the people in that country,
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: but for foreigners, because everything's kind of often like a renaissance.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a starting from scratch.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: You have this feeling of discovering something.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you're coming from a global North currency, things are cheaper.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a very cynical reason.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think that Colombia has,
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: for better or worse,
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: in the eyes of the world,
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: this sort of like dark glamour to it,
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: you know, because of its history of narco trafficking, all of the Netflix series.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: And people don't understand, they do not understand what that actually means, you know.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: So they may still live in Medellin for three years and still not understand what it means.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's why people are drawn to like Colombia more so than other parts of
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: the region.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also like I think it's also a there's like a prejudice that you have
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: that you that you arrive and it disappears.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's I know loads of people who are like,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: if you just get people to come to Colombia,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: they fall in love with it and they will want to come multiple times.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Getting them through the door,
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: getting over this idea that what you kind of said a little while ago,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: Juliana, that there's like so many crises kind of all overlapping each other.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's an earthquake.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's the new version of the armed conflict.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: There's deforestation.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like that is not the daily reality for many people in Colombia,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: you know, like there's super developed parts.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's obviously linked to inequality, but it's You know, you can live really well.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: You have this feeling of discovering.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's also kind of like a warmth that comes from this being
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: in more collective society.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think it is more collective and whether that goes back to the role of family or religion.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think I saw this survey a couple of years ago that Colombians feel like Amongst
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: the countries that say they are the most loved, they feel the most loved.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Colombia is one of those countries, right?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that you compare that to the loneliness that people feel in England,
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: in the US,
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: that people being estranged from their families,
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: that is just not the situation here.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: People are trusting.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: As a journalist,
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always kind of humbled by how willing people are to open their Doors
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: and share their lives with you,
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: you know, because I think there is still that warmth and sense of trust.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then the fact that people still dance in the streets,
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: like the fact that there is music and there's alegría and there's all this stuff
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: behind it.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it's a way of avoiding the past and all the present, but it still happens.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's the best salsa festival in the world in Cali every Christmas
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: and Petrónio Alvarez is You know,
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: one of the most incredible parties I've ever been to in my life.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: All the Afro-Pacific music, people opening their houses.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much like humanity.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that's, I think, yeah, that's really attractive.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: So interesting you mentioned that because I have an endless discussion
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: with someone here in California about why Colombians or South Americans,
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: but people like that,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he keeps saying that
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: it's because of Catholicism.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I resist to think that.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, part of it is, yeah, you say religion, but it has to be something else.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my case, that's clearly not.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that believe other things or,
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know, grew up in other ways and we still share that.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, There is something,
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: it's the land,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: why our coffee tends to be delicate,
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know, sometimes too acid for my taste, but sweet, balanced, delicate, subtle.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: These things have to be connected with our character, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the sweetness people mention,
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: I keep hearing this of everyone that goes there like,
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know why I stayed or you know why I would consider stayed because people are
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: so nice.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still a mystery for me.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about this every day pretty much.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not, I just want to jump in.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like regional either.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's everywhere.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're in the Amazon or the mountains or the Caribbean,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: it's like, it has nothing to do with the weather or the landscape.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: something in...
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Colombian DNA.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder, how can this be?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of amazing.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and again, something to be proud of.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it's a really powerful tool we have.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was having a discussion with a long time ago,
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: dreaming about having a hospitality service because we are so nice
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: that our service can be the best in the world.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if we train people and, you know, these all be potentialized and capitalized.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting you are perceiving that because I don't know the answer, but I think it's true.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And yesterday I was...
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Telling Nick,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I went to a concert,
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Gustavo D'Amel is a Venezuelan musician,
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: and he's about to be the former LA Philharmonic director.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's moving to New York.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was his last concert in Los Angeles,
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: and it was a fundraising concert for the Airwake in Venezuela.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I think they were at least very thoughtful of mentioning Colombian because of what happened.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of artists from the U.S.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: and obviously Venezuela and Colombia went and it was very nice, very felt and very.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing I noticed is it was people were very engaged,
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: mostly Venezuelans, but also people from all over.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then Carol Beaver started to sing and everyone just like this started dancing.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wow, we really have that.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just magical.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: Including me, of course.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: What an amazing concert to go to.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: I actually wrote a little chunk in The Economist on Sunday about Colombia's musical solidarity.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then I saw the Dudamar concert.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing that you went to that.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I just saw the clips.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't watch the whole thing.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was, and I'm still in that.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of nice we are having this conversation today because I'm so connected
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: from my gut to what's happening there in Colombia just because of that concept.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Venezuela, the flatlands are pretty much the same culture.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually what I was going to mention when you were talking about...
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: The conductor.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: I went to see this concert.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was about violins and strings.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it was music from Los Llanos.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it was a Venezuelan guy, absolutely incredible, playing with musicians from Colombia.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think Los Llanos, for me,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: is an absolutely fascinating part of Colombia that I've just recently started to get
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: to know a bit more.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: And when you were talking about kind of Why Colombians are such a good host
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: and like hospitality.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: I've never been, I'd love to go to Venezuela.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I hear that it's quite similar over there.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: But this experience I had two weeks ago that like really stays with me was in,
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: near Los Llanos,
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: kind of the transition zone between like the Amazon and Los Llanos,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: which are the plains.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I went up the Orinoco River and was staying with this small Pieroa community
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: of indigenous people called San Luis de Zama.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they were so peaceful.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: And just like opened their, you know, doors to let me stay there for four days.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it was, you know, very, very culturally different, but they were curious.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: They were respectful.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: They took, I mean,
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've probably, I probably asked them the same question, like over and over again.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: And every time they were so patient with explaining their worldview to me.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I,
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: I just think those are experiences that like you don't often have where people Want
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: to tell you about their culture because they're really,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: really proud of it and they want to share that and they want that to go,
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: people to know about them.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of the magic for me of being in Colombia is moments like that,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: where you feel like you really get inside someone else's culture,
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: even if it's just for a few days.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's magical.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: What stuck out about their worldview?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's all about balance.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: I asked them, you know, what does like, what does love mean to you?
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of prompted like moments of reflection.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're all like in hammocks sat around a kind
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: of braided mat inside this absolutely incredible maloca that they'd built,
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: like a huge kind of honeycomb shaped central meeting place.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: And they thought about it for a moment.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then they said, like,
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: it means kind of living in harmony,
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: like being in balance and in harmony with your Why for your husband?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then I also asked them, what do you think of loneliness?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: What's the word for loneliness in your language?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or solitude?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that, we really had to work on a translation for that.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: That took like 10,
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: 15 minutes to come up with the translation because the kind of concept of solitude,
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: of being alone emotionally and physically doesn't really exist in
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: a society that's super collective.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that was one thing that stood out.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the other one was Their openness to kind of pivoting away from their traditions
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: in order to conserve their traditions.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: So thinking about food sovereignty and like food security is kind of fundamental
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: to their daily lives, but also their like cultural survival.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: So because this is a region that has like lots of flooding and
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: the flooding's getting heavier, they,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: and they're also aware that,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: you know, maybe young people may not want to stay in the community anymore.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: They might leave.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they're,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: Experimenting with their orchard and every community,
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: every family has their own orchard,
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: but they also have built what they call like an experimental Konuko.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really,
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: really close to the main village and they're experimenting
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: with like different agroforestry techniques.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: So they've got like each little plot has a cacao tree.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: A couple of zoo trees,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: a pineapple plant, limoncillo, like different plants that grow at different rates.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it would shade the other one.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they're just seeing if the fact that it's closer to where they all live means
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: that younger people,
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: it makes their lives easier to go and harvest if it's actually a more kind
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: of climate resilient way of producing food.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that was done with, I think, some people from Europe that came over.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this kind of interchange of culture that was absolutely fascinating.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, that was a really beautiful experience.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Was there anything interesting you ate there with them?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yuko Bravo.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: I knew there would be.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, firstly,
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: it was fish,
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: like amazing fish that, yeah, they,
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: artisanal,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even remember all the different names, but it was just absolutely delicious.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: But the Yuko Bravo really stuck with me.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I had underestimated how hard that whole process is.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's incredible, yeah.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: Incredible.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the woman that was doing it with me was this kind of abuela in her 70s
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: and she's going off into the Cornuco and she's harvesting,
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: like cutting down all the trees,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: getting the yucca roots and then making the cassava pancake,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: which I tried to do and completely broke the whole thing and everyone laughed at me.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't realize that it's kind of a technique that you graduate from.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: So you start doing the simple bit of like the flower at the beginning.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're allowed to make small ones.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're like the maestra,
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and then you can make the big cassava pancakes that last for weeks.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: Were they soaking the yuca or were they grating it?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was both.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it was at the beginning,
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: it was coming with the name of the contraption,
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: but kind of like to get rid of the venom or whatever.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like tapiti or what's the other name?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's another, matafrio?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: In Colombia usually?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: To get rid of that.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think it was grated.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually trying to think of the method because I came into the part
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: where we were sieving it, you know, to make the fine flour.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then that was put onto the big fire.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm trying to think about, I think it was grated.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there's different techniques.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you soak it and grate it.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you just soak it for a really long time and put it directly in the mate frio.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's different ways.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was just curious because it's so regional.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Every little step in that process.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a cassava you prefer from all the ones you have tried made?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I prefer the Yuca Brava.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think the reward is much bigger,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: even though the process is much harder in using it.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: But like all the different varieties of yucca,
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: like there's so many and like, I couldn't tell you.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to,
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's like so many,
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: you go to a village somewhere and there's like,
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: they don't always know what they have.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, these are the seven varieties we've planted for each different things.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: And there's really no way of me knowing if that's the thing I had at, you know, two hours away.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: there's never been like scientific studies on these things unless you're into like
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: a more of a semi-urban rural part of Brazil where,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: there's universities around and, you know, it's actually been studied what it has.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it's, yeah, it's
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: like there's so many nuances with yuca.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: I also, this,
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: what you just mentioned about not knowing kind of which type it is
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: because it hasn't been a scientific study.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is something I really noticed when I was there.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, you know, everyone, you always want to measure, like, how high is it?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: How tall is it?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: What specific species is it?
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like, well,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: we don't know because that information isn't, we don't need to categorize that.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: We just know how it behaves, how it behaves in different climates.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it really makes you aware of your own kind of very Western perspective
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: when you're trying to quantify things and put it in context all the time.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: A different way of relating with nature too, right?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I also met this fisherman who studies this particular fish for years
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: because that's his kind of workplace.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the world's leading expert in this type of fish that's
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: an ornamental fish that's really desirable in aquariums around the world
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: because he's just studied it all the time.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: And his way of kind of measuring and tracking this is like this beautiful book
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: that he draws in, he sketches, he takes notes.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then he presented at a scientific conference and it was,
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: you know, this new information about this way this fish reproduces.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: And he just said he was met with silence,
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: complete silence,
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: because his way of understanding the river and the fish in front of him was just
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: so different from the language that they had worked in.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: But he had presented new information about fish that is globally in demand
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: and is one of the most trafficked fish species.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: I just thought that was a fascinating testimony from him.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: storytelling is something that one of those terms that by now I think people take
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: for granted.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know there are people that take storytelling seriously and are professional
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: about it as you are, as Nick are.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And how would you define storytelling and also how to have a good judgment of what
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: a successful story is in terms of the values that storytelling should honor?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we live in a world full of information.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I'm curious about that.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, firstly, I think, Nick, you're an amazing storyteller.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I love your
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: storytelling reports.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you have lots of thoughts on this as well, Nick.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it kind of runs on two levels for me.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that the storytelling has become very...
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Ubiquitous exposition on social media is maybe a story that is visually appealing,
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: but it lacks the structural analysis of like, what's the deeper problem here?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: storytelling,
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: it needs to be,
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: I always think of it as kind of,
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: because my style of reporting is like,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: I have to go,
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: I have to really go to that place and be there and be with the people and kind
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: of do like a deep dive.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly what you do, yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's bringing faraway places closer to people at home.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that could be the angle that you choose that finds the thing that's relevant to them.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also like, what's the emotional feeling that you leave your reader with?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: Who are the characters?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm very sparing with quotes.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: I will only really use a quote if I feel that it captures a particular turn
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: of phrase or there's something...
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's something very memorable about that.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would always want to point to a deeper problem or a deeper point or connect it to
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: a global And I think particularly with conservation,
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: rainforests,
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: indigenous communities,
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: it's so easy to just kind of romanticize bits or just actually get a bit of
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: the problem and then realize that you've completely neglected to talk
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: about their economic livelihoods or something like that.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I think...
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm basically very skeptical of most things now.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, it's,
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: it's like even simpler because I am so much more skeptical,
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: especially in the last five,
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: 10 years of everything that's, you know, online or where it's coming from.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, it's just a successful story is just, but was it success?
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: The question you had, is it successful?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is the story honest?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just honest?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is it your honest thoughts about something?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: Are you trying to give the reader an honest idea of what's happening in this place?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like, it's so hard to find now.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's just so much shit everywhere.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just shit all over the walls of everything all the time.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like being pumped into our brains all the time and our ears.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which compromise trust, right?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't trust anything.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Claire was saying the same thing.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's skeptical of everything.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: So am I.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's hard.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it takes a lot of time to kind of build that trust with the reader.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not something that you can do in one story.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: So in a way storytelling should make you to believe again.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a nice sentiment.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think you need to inspire people.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: I do think, obviously it depends on the type of reporting.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you're doing a political piece, probably not.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, yeah.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: But you do need to,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think at the end of the day,
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: people read to escape,
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_02: they read to be entertained, they read to discover, they read to...
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: like you do have to have that storytelling in the sense of like you can get lost
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_02: in this place or this person or this history and it's not dry
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: and you're not telling someone what's going on.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's showing someone.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of the journey for me has been learning to trust my perspective on something.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: Not worrying that what I feel or think could be wrong or someone else might see it differently.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a long process, you know.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to trust yourself.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: And especially when,
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: you have editors pushing back on certain things all the time and,
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know, expect a story in a certain way.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard to kind of just build that confidence in yourself.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's both for the reader or the audience and yourself.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking if Part of it is to make you be inspired and to believe
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: because there is trust and there is trust that is being rebuilt.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, you know, like the happy story or the positive story.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter anymore how happy or positive it is because when it's genuine,
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: people should be okay with the complexity of it.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is part of the problem with fake news and polarized recounts.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not just fake news, just like this influencer-driven dribble that's just like promotional shit.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like the visual side of it, without a point, without the structural analysis of it.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the inspiration has to be for people to be okay with complexity and
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: with complicated realities, right?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that is not something that works with the pace of the news cycle.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: I write sometimes news,
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: but I'm generally a little bit out of the news cycle,
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: which I consider a huge privilege to have that position.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: But if you are a news journalist,
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: you don't have time now with the pace to do all of the reporting.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: Your sources are people's posts on X.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that's,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: and I have like huge sympathy for colleagues that are doing that
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: because it's just really hard.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then the kind of paradox that people trust faces more than they trust an institution.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well,
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: an institution provides fact checking and it provides,
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: lots of eyes on a story that stops there being factual errors,
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: like those sorts of things.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's, yeah, kind of keeping that all in balance, which is just really hard.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: Columbia has such a rich history of,
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: Storytelling though,
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: you know, like,
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: and just finding truth and,
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: like Garcia Marquez and all this like magical realism,
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: just so relevant today,
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: just all the absurdities in the world right now and just the way they were able
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: to kind of capture the kind of truth and emotion of those,
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: those time periods through writing that was, was very different.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it wasn't just, you know, a list of facts.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was very emotional, very feeling driven, very Colombian, you know, just this happiness.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even in TV series and script writers,
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think Colombia has a tradition of TV shows that are better quality
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: than other countries.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is called telenovelas,
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: which are really not telenovelas in Colombia,
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: they capture the reality, the complexity of it in such a good way.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to a friend yesterday,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: Colombian,
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: about the Victorinos,
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: which is maybe a story you are not familiar as with,
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: because it's from the,
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: with all that period, the worst period of the drug trafficking in Pablo Escobar.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in that.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: We were teenagers at the time.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even those shows that are partially magical and fiction,
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: but they capture this complexity and the different sides and the class struggle and
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: the political side of it.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even those.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's part of the tradition, I think.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know if you've seen the new,
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: the 100 Years of Solitude, the second season that came on to Netflix.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't watched it.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's good or what?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's really, really, really well done.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_02: All the themes that are in it,
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: the contrast between modernity and traditions and development and preservation and
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_02: the United Fruit Company and the banana massacre that happened at the plantation
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: and should you let a foreign power have land and have lots of industry.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: This guy wrote in the 60s and it's so relevant today.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like I was just like,
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: if he's written this 10 years ago, that's the kind of feeling I had.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit the same when I was watching the House of Spirits,
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: the adaptation of the Isabella Allende.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: Same feeling.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's like these themes are back from a long time ago and like the lasting power
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: of those stories, which I just found really amazing.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to hear what you think,
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: especially as a Colombian who probably grew up with Marques's novels, you know?
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I saw it announced and I was watching Delirio, which is based on the...
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: Novel of Laura Restrepo,
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: Delirium,
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: and it's kind of a similar situation that with 10 Años de Soledad,
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: and it's relevant again.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's based on, you know, the 80s, so that's why I have that period so present now to end.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, these are, at the end of the day, partially fiction, semi-fiction, I don't know.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: There is a term for that, I forgot.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is a technical term for those, like in between shows.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: But it's amazing,
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: in part because of the original writers are so brilliant,
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: like Laura Restrepo, Garcia Marquez.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: it's part of the political,
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: Complexity of these countries and how people approach that,
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: which again, good storytelling.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about that, right?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Good storytelling.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: Delirio had such a good soundtrack, I thought.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: I actually did a piece, a couple.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's original, you know?
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking the same.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think at least part of it is original.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: Original musicians
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: composing for the show.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed that.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I did a story a couple of years ago when the first season of C&A,
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_02: unless they're solid, that came out.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it was all about the kind of new, you know, how Netflix is and other streamers, like new...
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: Strategy for these regions was like local first and then global.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it was how this kind of new crop of production companies from Mexico
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: and Colombia were having their own freedom to write and produce their own content
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_02: on their own terms,
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: like unlike Narcos,
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: which is ultimately a kind of US view of what was happening in Colombia,
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: even though there was some other involvement.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then some of these TV shows from Like District Frontier was one that I thought,
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: sorry,
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_02: Wild District was what I thought was amazing,
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: which has this like corruption scandal thriller feel to it.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also a very honest look about reintegration of ex guerrillas into life
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: in Bogota after the armed conflict, you know, but it didn't lead with that.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: But that was one of the kind of underlying strands.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or another one that was El Robo del Siglo,
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: which is a kind of comedy about a really An awful bank heist in the Caribbean coast,
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: but it's really funny.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, that's like the emotional power of the storytelling, isn't it?
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: It stays in your mind because you've got these images of like guys drunk
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: in their trucks because they're failed thieves,
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: but it's the underlying story is coming something really serious.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the, yeah,
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: like what visual scenes and what emotions are you left with after watching
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: or reading or listening to something?
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, a local,
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: it makes you feel the difference between something that is written or told for
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: which audience, right?
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have a similar experience of Narcos and I didn't want to watch it in part
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: because I know it's well produced,
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know all the quality of it,
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: but it gave me a different feeling that these other shows and I think it has to do
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: with that, which...
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is the purpose of it in the end?
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's partially informative.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: Does honor that code of truth and honesty?
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's partly fictional, it doesn't matter.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: And since these shows are a way of...
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the end, it's what the majority of people watch, right?
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or know about the country or consume about a place.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we cannot undermine that or take or not take that seriously.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's, you know, you'd have to be maybe pragmatic and realistic about it.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like if that is what gets people through the door and that's they turn up
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_02: in Medellin with these ideas, then it's like, right, how does...
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_02: the way tourism is set up,
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: the types of tours that are on offer,
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_02: the way people in hostels and whatever, that they talk about this history.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_02: How can you reframe what people know?
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you can necessarily blame people for not knowing these things,
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_02: especially when history,
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_02: as we know, is generally just so badly taught across the world.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there are some amazing,
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: at least in Medellin,
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: amazing tour companies doing the history of Medellin
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: in Colombia Besides Pablo Escobar.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that really stays with people when they do engage with that side of things.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_02: I actually wanted to ask you guys,
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: since you're based in the US, has Viche made it to the United States yet?
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you brought that up because we're running out of time and I wanted to talk
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: about Viche.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, there is, as far as I know, There's no pipeline of Viche.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, I mean, it's like in my bar, there's a couple of bottles, maybe in Juliana's.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: But no, there's no, like, there's no, is it even legal to come to the U.S. at this point?
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're still working on the local, you know, legal framework of it.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think internationally it still has a route.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: it took a long time with rum,
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: and I think they're still working on that bridge for local rum, Colombian.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think, not that I know.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Same, Nick.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen it.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I assume that there's something going on with what happened with Cachaza,
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: like in Lake They couldn't call it cachaça.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: There was some weird legal loopholes that kept going on for like years.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but the beauty I haven't seen.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I know, at least.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless it is,
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_00: chef that they are like,
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: they are so excited about these things that they find a way,
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: but not like, you know, systematized or just formalized.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if the producers can get their...
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sanitary license in Vima.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_02: They do have the right to export, but it's just about, yeah.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the kind of new change.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's a really amazing piece of legislation, actually.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of protects both the heritage,
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_02: but also the ethnicity of the producer,
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_02: which is like a DOP, but it's linked to your ethnicity.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: You can't produce feature unless you're from Basically,
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_02: your grandparents made it or you're from that part of Colombia,
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: which I think is quite...
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: But aren't there a lot of more modern Viche distillers now?
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Are they collaborating with somebody else or how does that work?
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's definitely grey areas, I think, in this.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: But the people that I've met that are producing Viche,
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: even if they're doing it in Cali, for example, which...
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Traditionally, it would be made in the Pacific rather than in the cities.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_02: They still have that heritage.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think they still have that connection.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Their mom or their grandparents are from Choco or from Calco or wherever.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, there's also kind of a capitalist element to it, right?
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's people in Bogota who are marketing the VJ that they buy from producers in the Pacific.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think their argument would be, We're opening the doors to the market, to the world.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_02: So like, you know, people in New York hear about this and they want to buy it.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's a big debate in there about whether that's right or not.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: But no,
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: it's just I met a couple of bartenders from London who were like really into Vichy
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_02: and they wanted to bring it back to London, to their bar.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I just wondered if that's happened anywhere cool.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure at some point it'll go the way of Mezcal,
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know, once all the legal things get sorted out.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not as big as Mezcal.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's...
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And for what you were saying, Claire,
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_00: that legal fight that was happening,
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think, a year or so ago, it's being cleared out, apparently.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's in a better place now.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah,
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's been passed and regularized.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Regulated, sorry.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so restaurants and bars are allowed to sell Vice now.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's honestly everywhere in Colombia, I think.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But wasn't there an issue in Bogota a year or two ago where restaurants
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: and bars were being confiscated because they weren't allowed to sell it
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: or something?
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was illegal to sell Viche outside.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Pacific Coast, basically.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: With the exception of events like Petronio Alvarez,
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: but then people would have their goods sometimes seized from them traveling from
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_02: the Pacific to Cali.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_02: But now it's legal.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_02: You can sell it.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And there's Viche bars in Bogota popping up more.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Viche Negroni is a regular feature of my diet.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean,
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I could see, like,
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I bet eventually somebody will open a Viché bar in New York or London or something,
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know, with just all these small producers of Viché like they did with Mezcal.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it'll happen, I think.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it's slow.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: These things are slow to kind of get outside.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Clara, we could talk to you for like hours, I think.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_01: talk a little bit.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So really, thank you for taking the time to chat with us.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll have to do this again eventually.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to say it's an honor for me and very fulfilling for people that are not
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: from Colombia.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that somehow know and get more of the place we are from in South America than we are.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for spending so much time figuring those places out.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I don't know, just enjoy that.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, it's like...
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think honour is the word.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: I always think of it as an honour to be able to report in a country like Colombia
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_02: and to tell people's stories that I'm...
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always so...
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Bit of reality hitting that.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Just always so conscious of not telling the stories that people expect
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_02: and telling other stories about the country.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously you do have to cover...
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Occasionally, the war on drugs and cocaine, but there's so much here.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, a real pleasure to speak to you both.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for having me.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you everyone for listening.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_01: That was Claire McKay.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Check out her work in The Economist and other publications.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, please subscribe to the newsletter, newworlder.com or newworlder on Substack.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like us, follow us, share these episodes.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Every little bit helps.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: A big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard, as always, for providing the intro music to the show.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: See ya.