Backpacking In Colombia

Nursing a broken heart, a solo traveller falls in love with Colombia’s breathtaking nature, friendly locals, and promising resurgence from a tragic past.

- Divya Punjabi

IT EARS ROLLED DOWN my face as I sipped on wine in an Emirates flight. I was flying from Dubai to Rio de Janeiro—the 15-hour flight being one of the longest I had ever taken. But that wasn’t why I was crying. I had just had my heartbroken and left it behind. Why was I drinking wine? Because I was celebrating the act of embarking on my life’s most awaited adventure: travelling to an unknown land all by myself.

Colombia wasn’t always my dream destination. In fact, I knew very little about it. That’s exactly why it fit my description of a ‘somewhere unknown’ in a ‘land far, far away’. Just the place for an adventure at 27 years of age. My career was going nowhere exceptional and my love life had just gone down the drain. I decided it was time to reboot my life. So, I headed to Bogotá for a six-month-long ‘Teach English’ programme piloted by the government of Colombia.

When I landed at Bogotá, the airport flummoxed me and I couldn’t find my luggage or guide. I knew not a single word of Spanish. So, I mimed my queries to the airport crew. My bilingual guide, eventually found, held my hand as she took me around the La Candelaria neighbourhood in broken English.

BOGOTÁ