We are all suffering due to the Corona virus pandemic which has swept the world and some more than others, and here at the Colombia Calling podcast, we have the opportunity to talk to a small business owner in San Gil, Santander to see how he is faring.

Shaun Clohesy is a long-time australian transplant to Colombia and is responsible for opening up one of the original hostels in this country, the Macondo in San Gil.

Clohesy effectively put Colombia's adventure sports capital on the map for the international travel community. And how the Macondo hostel has grown and how Clohesy has changed from a dreadlocked backpacker to a respectable family man in San Gil! We discuss it all.

Needeless to say, the Corona Virus swept in and decimated the travel and tourism business and Clohesy shares insights about what is happening in both San Gil and Colombia and how he is hoping to survive.

Check out the Macondo Hostel, recommend it to friends and perhaps buy a voucher for a future stay. http://www.macondohostel.com

With upwards of 900,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, "Un Colombiano Mas," and with entries routinely drawing more than a million views, Zach Morris is undisputedly a one man positive public relations campaign for all things to do with Colombia!

Hailing from South Carolina, Morris is a psychology major and speaks to the Colombia Calling podcast about how he fell into becoming an influencer and youtuber and how, over time, this led him to receiving his Colombian citizenship. it's an incredible tale of upbeat experiences and unbridled love for his new homeland.

With uploads in both English and Spanish - and one Maluma style foray into the music industry with his reggaeton song, "Mi Latina, - Zach Morris has found his niche in Colombia and is widely recognized as the gringo who truly loves this country.

Tune in to hear the story of Zach Morris in Colombia, how a guy from South Carolina became a household name in Colombia.

Check out his youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/williamzachmorris

In fifteen years covering Colombia, this is the best book I’ve ever read about the cocaine trade. If you want to understand why the drugs are produced here, then how they get to the U.S., there’s no better guide." (Matthew Bristow, former Colombia bureau chief, Bloomberg News)

Toby Muse, author of "Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels―from the Jungles to the Streets" has been receiving high praise from all quarters for his recently released book. And rightly so, this is the culmination of Muse's decades of knowledge of Colombia and the cocaine trade.

Reading more like a work of non-fiction, Muse invites us into the otherworldly experience of meeting the actors in the chain from coca leaf picker to narco sub driver and the result makes for an incredible read but at the same time the author never permits you to forget the violence, aggression and desperation involved in the drugs trade.

So, it's an incredible honour to have Muse back on the Colombia Calling podcast and sharing his anecdotes with us. Buy the book and tune in to the podcast.

How is your relationship faring under the Covid19/ Corona Virus lockdown, how are you keeping sane, have you stuck to a routine, are you all alone and now talking to your pet(s)? It's a time of tragedy for sure, but in order to share a different perspective of life in a quarantine in Bogotá, Peter Dale, a founding member of the Bogotá Writers, shares with us some extracts from his "Covidiary," now entitled: "The Quarantine Chroncles."

We hear and discuss four different entries from Dale's diary. We begin with Day 1 and the innocence towards the pandemic which we may still have possessed her in Colombia and finish on Day 10 and things get darker in Dale's prose as this innocence is now certainly behind us.

Peter Dale's diary has been picked up by Miguel Vila, a Colombia TV producer and can now, a version of the diary can be enjoyed on Instagram TV. Check the link on the Colombia Calling facebook and twitter pages.