let's see:
- great coffee
- great women
- nice beaches
- a lot of biodiversity
- violence, terrorism, kidnapping
- cocaine, marijuana
- Juanes, Shakira, Sofia Vergara, Juan P. Montoya
so... pretty much like every other country: good things, bad things.
Hey, you know of Juan Pablo?! :thumbsup:
I've never been to Colombia, but from watching documentaries, reading news bits and talking to people who have been there (including my ex-fiance), it's a beautiful country... if not for the crime and narco-terrorism. FARC, much like the Shining Path slime in my ex's native country of Peru, is still a real problem.
From what I just looked up, the per capita murder rate has gone down, but Colombia is still in the top 10 in the world (slightly lower than South Africa, slightly higher than Somalia and Liberia... much higher than Mexico), and about 600% higher than the U.S.'s murder rate. And the rate of kidnappings is down somewhat too. But the rate still places Colombia pretty high on the per capita world ranking.
Speaking of Juan Pablo, I got to meet him when he first started driving for Target Chip Ganassi (before he became a hot-shoe, big shot). He wasn't married at that time, but he was concerned about his family getting kidnapped, and returning to Colombia, as he became increasingly famous in the U.S., became more of an issue for him. This was in the mid/late 90's. Once he won the CART championship, the Indy 500 and moved to Formula One, I'm not sure what he did to keep his and Connie's families safe. But he does run the Formula Smiles Foundation located in Cartagena. And I know he's taken some NASCAR people down there. So there are Colombians trying to make a positive difference.
Hopefully things start to improve down there. But just looking at the data shows it to be a pretty dangerous place overall. Although if I was seriously looking for a wife, that's probably one place I'd look.
