@radiobrendan «Be careful lads, it’s not safe to walk around here on your own at night.» «Yea, yea, we hear you. Don’t worry, though, we’re well used to perceived ‘dodgy’ areas, we’ll be fine.» After over five years living in Colombia...
@radiobrendan We’ve a slightly different approach to things with this post. Below is the script of a report we did for Ireland’s state broadcaster RTÉ on the recent return of bullfighting to Bogotá. So for English-language learners, you can listen to the report on...
@radiobrendan Over the last while we’ve had a number of people ask about the process of obtaining an independent visa in Colombia, a TP-7 as it’s called. Another sign, perhaps, of the country’s global appeal right now. Whatever the case, while the official...
@radiobrendan It’s fair to say that it’s largely down to the Irish Americans, those in the US to be clear, that St Patrick’s Day is as big and wide-reaching a celebration that it is these days. They glamorised, as only they can, what had been back in its origin...
@radiobrendan For a small country without a history of conquest, the Irish do certainly get around. Of course the chief reason most left and still leave the island was and is for economic reasons. Ireland has only ever been able to sustain a certain number; whether it could or...
@radiobrendan Wanted: Enthusiastic people to take anything from six to 24 hours out of their day (with the ‘promise’ of more days to come), be ordered around like dogs when needed, virtually walked over when not. Food may or may not be included, it depends on how the...
@radiobrendan Back in late 2007, during my first full-time radio job, the general manager of the station in question, a recently-appointed Portuguese man, took to me one side and said, ‘Brendan, you’ve lost your joie de vivre.’ While he mightn’t have been...
@radiobrendan As we looked at in our last post, Colombia is, from a tourism perspective anyway, ‘the country of the moment’. In the coming months and years it may be about to see unprecedented numbers visiting its shores as word has finally got out of the many natural beauties the place has to offer. What’s […]
@radiobrendan In our last post we saw how the security concerns some may have about visiting the departments of Caquetá and Putumayo may be a bit off the mark. In a way, you could say both places are microcosms of what Colombia as a whole was for the international community just a decade or so […]
@radiobrendan There’s a school of thought that suggests that travellers who seek out ‘non-tourist’ areas are generally doing themselves a disservice. Basically, the reason why some places aren’t holiday hotspots is that there’s just nothing of...
