Travel and culture
Almost a year ago I was in the department of Choco on Colombia's Pacific Coast, which feels like a different country altogether - here, latinos are almost as foreign as white folk. The locals are a mix of indigenous and afro Colombians, who escaped slavery at the hands of the Spaniards and fled to the… Continue reading El Choco, Colombia
I was sitting in an airport in Orlando, not long after publishing a post predicting how hard it was going to be to leave the unforgettable people and the crazy times I'd known and had in Bogota. I was sweating in jeans, a remnant of Bogota's pre-dawn chill unsuited to Florida in summer, let alone… Continue reading Nu Yawk, Nu Yawk
As I ambled out the front gate of Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport and picked out the cab driver with the nicest looking face it suddenly struck me that I was, after all, in Peru. End of semester parties, endless goodbyes to fellow exchange students on their way back to Europe or Mexico and a… Continue reading The Dol Siblings go to Peru
"Camila! Quinten! What are you drinking?" asks Señor Salazar. "Something with rum?" I reply, and before his daughter can order he's off the beach, over the road and into the resort he and his wife have been terrorising for a couple of days now. Having an absolute ball, it seems. At the slightly quieter posada… Continue reading Not Exploring San Andres
Since air travel has become a thing, travellers can find all kinds of weird and wonderful ways to culture shock themselves. A flight between the Middle Eastern hubs of Istanbul and Tel Aviv once took me via the icy Latvian capital of Riga. A few hours on a plane can take you someplace where things… Continue reading On Leaving
This article and photos was first published in the December 2012 issue of Phoebella Magazine as 'Life as an Exchange Student". We’ve just noticed them building Colombia’s biggest Christmas tree in Plaza Simon Bolivar when my housemate grabs my shoulder – “Firewood!” We’re walking home through the obnoxious, polluted rush that is central Bogota in the… Continue reading ‘Studying’ in Bogota
"Yeah, I want to go to El Cocuy" "Oh cool! I've never been, but you have to take a guide, it's very dangerous!" "Na, it'll be right" "No you really have to! Last year a group of tourists went without a guide and got lost. They weren't seen for a month, and one of them… Continue reading A Lesson in Humility in El Cocuy
The exchange departments of both the Queensland University of Technology and Universidad del Rosario would probably like me to write that the last couple of weeks of my first semester on exchange were full of bitter-sweet goodbyes, the receiving of good grades and pensive reflection. There was definitely a few goodbyes to fellow exchange students… Continue reading No Coffee in the Coffee Region
I had a subject this semester called Fotografía Documental ("Documentary Photography"), where the entire semester was dedicated to putting together, well, a photographic documentary. Plans to follow a troop of graffiti artists around fell through (fear not, I'm still working on it) so instead I spent a couple of days with Agripina, a lovely woman… Continue reading Agripina!
A month or two back I was asked to participate in the creation of an audiovisual presentation by Universidad del Rosario's news website, Plaza Capital. The idea was to explore the abandoned buildings in Bogota's Chapinero neighbourhood, a sort of bridging area between the ancient streets of La Candelaria and the soulless, colourless north of… Continue reading Abandoned Buildings in Chapinero