Thursday, 18 November 2021

On this day, 2011: Plan Colombia begins

@wwaycorrigan

On this day, 2011: Plan Colombia begins. (Are you coming or going? Wrong Way Corrigan's entry and exit stamps into Colombia.)
Are you coming or going?
Nefarious nostalgia, eh?! The above photo shows my 18 November 2011 entrance stamp into Colombia — the tenth anniversary of a somewhat significant personal event.

As you can see, I did a lot of entering and exiting the country that year — one clearly wasn't as concerned about one's carbon footprint compared to today.

Give Colombia a lash!

I flew into Bogotá in June for a couple of weeks en route to take a voluntary journalist position in Santiago de Chile, then came back in September for another brief visit as part of my journey back to Ireland for a family wedding.
'Right now, I'm unsure where I'll be in ten days, never mind 10 years, as my current visa expires on 27 November.'

Yet the decision to come back to Colombia on this day in 2011 to, as I put it at the time, give living a lash here, was a game-changer.

It perhaps wasn't as groundbreaking a moment as that when a very verdant version of myself landed in Rio de Janeiro almost exactly three years earlier, 25 November 2008 (see 'Wrong Way' begins for more on that), but it was an important milestone nonetheless.

In effect, it was the start of this current Plan Colombia. I couldn't really hazard a guess as to where I will and want to be ten years hence, if I'm still lucky enough to be alive and kicking.

Indeed, as I write, I'm unsure where I'll be in ten days' time, with my current visa expiring on 27 November. Siempre hay algo, there's always something (to be done), as they say in these parts.
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