Colombia is more than the place where I was born. It is the pulse that travels with me wherever I go, the oldest memory held in my body, the embrace that exists even at a distance. I grew up among green mountains and air filled with the scent of coffee. My first steps were surrounded by laughter, street dogs, neighbors speaking loudly, music on every corner, and that very Colombian chaos that somehow always ends up feeling like home.
Childhood in Colombia has its own rhythm. The sound of cicadas at sunset, hot chocolate with cheese, soft rain falling like a caress, and mountains that gently draw the horizon, giving you the feeling that anything is possible.
Colombia is a country of two oceans and a thousand worlds. The Caribbean and the Pacific, endless mountain ranges, snowcapped peaks, jungles, caves, deserts, and rivers, all in the same time, thanks to our geographical location. It is the country with the greatest bird diversity in the world, with more than 1,900 recorded species, and also a global leader in orchid diversity, a flower that seems to have learned how to bloom in every landscape. A territory that breathes life in every corner and beats strongly from its deepest roots.
That diversity also lives through its ancestral peoples. Colombia recognizes more than 100 Indigenous communities, and more than 65 living Indigenous languages are spoken across the country. I was fortunate to experience closely communities that carry a deep and quiet wisdom. The Kogui and the Arhuaco live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the highest coastal mountain range in the world, where snow faces the Caribbean Sea. For them, this land is the heart of the world. They maintain limited and selective contact with Western society, by their own choice, preserving a spiritual worldview that understands nature as a living, sacred being. From Tayrona National Park, it is possible to walk to Pueblito, an ancestral settlement that still holds the living memory of those who have inhabited this land since before time.
I also spent time with the Wayuu people, guardians of the desert in La Guajira. Strong, resilient, filled with stories woven patiently into colorful mochilas, where every thread carries identity, lineage, and territory. And with the Emberá, in the Valle del Cauca, where spirituality is not explained but lived. They teach through silence, through gazes, through slow steps on sacred ground. In the southern regions of the country, communities such as the Inga and the Kamëntsá maintain spiritual traditions deeply connected to nature. In their territories, it is possible to take part in spiritual retreats and traditional ceremonies, including yagé, understood within their worldview as paths of learning, healing, and connection to life.
And then there are the people from the interior. So warm, so joyful, so beautiful inside and out. Colombians who greet you with a smile, who offer you coffee without expecting anything in return, who dance as if life depended on it. And then there’s Bogotá, haha. I’m from Bogotá, the capital. A city of more than ten million people, a city of everyone and of no one, cold and chaotic, yet full of art, a unique culture, and mountains everywhere. Bogotá, city of fury, how I love you. Cartagena, with its colonial magic, the scent of the sea and mango biche in the air, its sun-golden walls. What a delight a piña colada on the terrace of the San Felipe castle, watching the sunset and listening to good house music. Santa Marta is, without a doubt, one of my favorites. There, the Sierra Nevada meets the Caribbean. And Medellín, a city of transformation, innovation, and nights filled with light. The Flower Festival is a celebration you simply cannot miss.
Colombia is color, flavor, rhythm, scars, resilience, and natural and human beauty. It is a country that touches your soul, that changes you without asking permission, that teaches you to look at life with more intensity, more courage, and more heart. If you are Colombian, I truly believe there is nothing that feels too big for you. The greatest school of all. And even though I have traveled through many places in the world and learned to see life through different eyes, memory always returns to its land. Because Colombia is exactly that. Root. Origin. Embrace.
