“The Mick” is an Irishman named Christopher who got started in crime early in Dublin, Ireland. A case could be made that sexual abuse by Catholic priests or his IRA family connections contributed to his path. But he’d admit it all came down to rebellion and love of drugs and alcohol. How did he end up in Colombia and why is he still here? We talk to writer Colin Post (http://www.expat-chronicles.com/) of St Louis, Missouri to find out more about “the Mick”, his story and of course hopefully give Post a boost on his crowdfunding campaign to get the novel about Christopher, “This Mick’s Life” published. The resulting Colombia Calling show is a rollercoaster ride through Bogota’s underworld and its characters. Not to be missed!

Briton Carl Meek met his Colombian wife in London some years ago. They decided to move back to Colombia set up businesses and start a family, tune in to find out why, after several years, they ended up moving back to the UK. With two incredibly successful Colombia-inspired ventures, Meek talks to Colombia Calling about his coffee importation company and independent coffee shop in Milton Keynes (http://bogotacoffee.co.uk) and his project with the Gladney Center in the US bringing adopted children from all over the world now resident in the US down to Colombia to interact and spend time giving back at an orphanage here in Bogota (http://adoptionsbygladney.com). Tune in to what is both an informative and inspiring interview.

Have you ever imagined yourself kayaking along Colombia’s most iconic river? With the dynamic team from Awake Adventures (www.awakeadventures.com) this is now a reality.

In August Awake Adventures have an amazing opportunity to take you kayaking from Tamalameque to El Banco – to coincide with the Cumbia Festival here – then on to the town of Guamal and then my stomping ground of Mompos. They are looking for bloggers, journalists and so on who want to sign up and come along with them to record this fantastic adventure. Hear about their other plans in Colombia, Cano Cristales, Mavecure, the Pacific Coast and so on. Awake Adventures are strong believers in geotourism and are young Colombians keen on making a difference.

Websites come and go and blogs are a dime a dozen and can be an infuriating medium to research but, due to Colombia’s total divorce from international tourism for almost 30 years, some enlightened souls have seen fit to create informed, clean and up to date websites to provide the traveller with the information needed, one of these is Josian Chevallier’swww.off2colombia.com . We speak to Frenchman Chevallier about the inspiration behind his website, charity work in Colombia and his latest and perhaps most exciting project, a web portal for the region to rival the traditional sites calledwww.viajala.co . So, if you are researching a trip to South America and need an alternative and are looking for something new, check out this page.