The Blog has been suspended for present due to the sudden, unexpected and untimely death of my oldest and only son Jason. Son, if you are reading this: I LOVE YOU.

Well 2006 is upon us and the last Christmas lights are blinking tiredly and the street decorations wind-whipped and sun-bleached from their passage through a scorching December. There have been many, many parties over the holiday season starting with "The Festival of the Immaculate Virgin". This proved something of a misnomer, the ladies were dancing and prancing around in a manner that would make a blind man blush. Christmas was a more subdued affair than I had expected in a predominantly catholic country. That's true of Sundays too which seem to have become the same secular affairs as their European counterparts. All the shops were open and many people were working as normal on Christmas day. It was explained to me that this was due to the level of poverty here, people need to work and as such it is expected of them. It certainly is true that if you are lucky enough to have a job here then you work all the days and hours that your employer expects of you. Refusal would cost you your job. A job is hard to come by here, even for the skilled workforce and, with no social security, the slope between economic survival and abject poverty is a slippery one indeed.
January brings the same hangover here as is does anywhere else. The Colombians probably don't have the same jaw-dropping credit card repayments to face as the gorged consumers of the first world, but Christmas makes everyone overreach themselves somewhat. It was very encouraring however to see that the supermarkets make up special priced food hampers for the poor which you can buy and deliver to the Cathedral for distribution or, as we did, take directly to the poorer barrios and give directly.
Christmas being over the people can find some solace in the fact that Easter is on the way. With the Easter period comes the legendary carnaval of Barranquilla, second only to the carnaval in Rio and allegedly gaining ground. The various associations are already practicing. This is something I don't want to miss. Whether I make it this year or not remains to be seen.

I gather however that Europe is undergoing some record breaking artic conditions. Well what a drag. The worst is probably saving itself for my return. In Atlantico it has been predictably hot. Scorchio. It's virtually unchanging at the moment. We might have a few wisps of clouds when the sun comes up but they blow away and every day turns into the same furnace as the day before. The best time is from just after it get's light until about ten in the morning as the earth slowly warms. The temperature is ideal and with just enough of a breath of wind to make everything cool and fresh. Yesterday I went on my first trip out of Atlantico, a two hour trip to Cartagena de Indias in the department of Bolivar. It was my first trip with a long distance coach here. I say long distance because they to not ply the same route every day back and forward but just head off on a long stint during which they are away from home for weeks on end. They might start with Cartagena to Barranquilla, which is two hours, then set off for Bogota which is a further ten hours. Then on to Bucaramanga which is a further day or so, then Medellin then Cali etc. They send money back to their family along the way. We were at the bus station at six for the first bus. I got my beer goggles on for the trip, expecting the worst for a five dollar ticket but was soon to be amazed. The seating is as luxurious as the royal class on an airliner with bags of leg room. T.V. air-conditioning, toilets. At regular check points they shout out for food and a nimble chap jumps on board while the bus is still moving, with a few buckets full of fresh, hot empanadas,arrepas, cold drinks and beers, to alight again when his buckets are empty. This is certainly the way to travel around the country. Despite the fact there have been reports of problems and robberies on the buses, this is largely a question of which bus company you choose. We travelled Brasilia on the way there and Copetran on the way back.The colombians seem to have a quick scope of the bus park before buying their tickets to check out the make and condition of bus that the companies are running to their desination before buying a ticket. They balance up the comfort and the price.   There might be five or six running the same route and the better ones have stringent security checks, with the police present while the passagengers are boarding, checking bags and doing body searches for weapons. The buses only stop at registered stopping points along the way to pay toll or at police check points. They do not take on passengers between departure and destination.
Cartagena is amazing place but that's for the next post.
Footnote: (In Cartagena I saw some really nice buses that are running on an over-nighter to Venezuela. Definitely one to file away for future reference. If anyone has any experiences of this route I'd be glad to hear about them.)

This week has been something of a theme week. I've been to Cartagena de Indias which was very much a part of the Spanish main and the site of much swashbuckling and derring do. It is still home to the Colombian Navy, Armada de la Republica de Colombia,which has its largest base here; the A.R.C. Bolivar. But they weren't around when Francis Drake sacked the place in 1586 and Admiral Vernon was sent out to pull some Spanish pants down in 1739 after complaints by English merchantmen about the behavior of the Spanish Costa Gardas. The aforesaid dagos were pissing in the soup by seizing ships and property in customary dago fashion. Vernon came down here and gave them a good hiding. He left the place unpillaged and undamaged apart from the fortifications. He took the Spanish wage money and gave it to his own men, took his pick of the ordinance, fitted this to his ships, destroyed the rest and breezed off along the coast toward Jamaica amusing himself by terrorizing any Spanish settlements or ships he found on the way. He took the place with six ships even though he had a far greater number of ships at his disposal. He was a member of Parliament and had said in Parliament he only needed six ships to do it. He was as good as his word. Pleased with his own efforts he wrote home:
"...it has pleased Almighty God to preserve me in good health, to go through all these glorious fatigues, and in a full disposition to push this beginning with all possible vigour, to humble the proud Spaniards, and bring them to repentance for all the injuries and long-practised depredations on us." Amen to that.
The place is amazing. The only fly in the ointment is that the deep water harbour here allows upwards of three cruise liners to dock side by side and the town is occaisionally overrun with gringos. This has driven up prices a little bit. The old city is almost intact. (There are too many photos to post here but I will link this post with an album for those who are interested). I climbed the battlements of Castillo San Felipe de Barajas and it is very difficult to believe that those salty English dogs got up it in two hours against cannon and musket fire.

To be fair to the Spaniards they did rebuild the place and put it under the command of a certain truculent Basque called Blas de Lezo.(See statue.) This was a horse of a different colour for poor old Vernon. This prickly bastard was 39 years at sea and had managed to lose an eye, an arm and a leg in his various battles,not what you might call a shrinking violet. (And NO to my knowledge they did NOT call him 'lucky' de Lezo). Vernon wrote de Lezo a letter challenging him, thinking that de Lezo might bottle it. Big mistake. De Lezo answered Vernon's letter in Cartagena: "If I had been in Portobello, you would not have assaulted the fortress of my master, the King, with impunity because I could have supplied the valor the defenders of Portobello lacked and checked their cowardice..." He challenged Vernon to have another go. Vernon never made it and not for the want of trying. He tried once by land and, this failing, tried and failed once again, this time by sea from Panama. The unfortunate Admiral took his frustration with him to a hero's grave in Westminster abbey. Blas de Lezo joined his lost limbs and eyeball in the ocean and sleeps with the fishes somewhere off the coast of Cartagena. Such is the way of the world and the sorry conclusion of all human endeavor.End of History Lesson. 

I've strayed down to the sprawling, heaving mass of El Centro a couple of times now. The guide books will steer you to Del Prado as the more likely tourist spot in Barranquilla but if you like it down and dirty and the gringos thin on the ground then, this is the place to do your shopping. The Colombians love it and in a strange sort of way so do I. The family are drawn to the street stalls and the clothing stalls around the Plaza Simon Bolivar. I like the Mercado on the other side, which is a little like a shanty town of old timbers and corrugated tin sheets, which constitutes a meat, veg, fish, fruit market. At the back my football-friend Carlos runs a small ironmongers shop and it's a welcome chance to sit in the shade and enjoy a cold beer while the frenetic pace of life continues unabated in the sticky heat of Central Barranquilla. I always get to an annoying stand off with the family here. They hate me taking photos, which I insist on doing. This place is, according to them, notoriously unsafe and something of a magnet for thieves and robbers. While I do not doubt this for a minute I have become quite quick on the draw with my little Canon camera and it sees the light of day only briefly. I would hate to have to sacrifice the kodak moments for the sake of losing a two hundred euro camera. I don't seem to get it across to to them that if someone pokes a pistol or a knife in my ribs that I will NOT struggle with every ounce of my being to protect my property, but give it away good naturedly. Let's face it, it is the nature of things to change hands occaisionally. I'm suprised that as Colombians they do not appreciate that but maybe they cannot grasp the idea of gambling with precious possessions, or the concept of insurance. All my explanations fall on stony ground, I continue to get a chilly time of it for an hour after my snaps are taken, this is the price of casting good advice to the wind. A couple of beers and a few nudges and smiles later and everything is just fine. I get a few pitying looks like "Aiiiee...he is but a sheep waiting to be shorn." So be it.
We were in El Centro before Christmas while they were holding the customary Christmas 'feria'. I can say without a shadow of a doubt I have never seen so much brightly coloured plastic rubbish for sale in my life. It made the cheapy aisle in Toys 'r Us look like the crown jewels in comparison. Even the Barbie copies looked like they were slumming it in this company. Everyone seems loaded up with as much of it as they could carry. The children were ecstatic. Strangely enough it all seems to have disappeared now. Probably stolen or broken. Plastic might be indestructible as a material but the wheels fall off in a week.
The area is also home to a lot of cheap clothing stalls, Genuine Mendellin copies of anything you could wish for, the same goes for watches, sunglasses. The indoor market has all of the sequined tops and jeans that seem to be the Colombian ladies' weapons and uniforms of choice. They certainly like it tight and shiny these lasses. It's like 80% of the female population here has been forced at gunpoint into clothing at least one size to small and they are all mincing around trying to stretch it a bit from the inside out. It's a fascinating place alright, and there, right in the middle of the seething, iniquitous heart of it, Barranquilla's oldest church, San Nicolas, rises sweet and clean as a Christmas cake out of a sea of rusting corrugated metal.

The 'mercado', or 'market' is my favourite place of the lot. I want to hold a barbeque for all the family, to thank them for their kindness and hospitality before I leave. They do not own a grill and the 'cheap', tin, imported jobbies at the home and garden center start at about one hundred US dollars for anything near a suitable size. Armed with a rough drawing I went down to the Mercado to see if they can knock something up for me, I'd seen them burning off oil drums on the other side of the filthy little river that sub-divides the market, and sure enough I got one made to measure for about 20 dollars, plus the taxi fare for Carlos when he dropped it off for me later that same day. That's about 20 euros for an oil-drum sized barbeque grill with a lid, delivered to the house. I call that a bargain. It did cost me a further sack of charcoal and a day's supervision to burn the thing off. It took about 8 hours to stop smoking but barring anything radioactive,(dammit I knew I should have packed a geiger-counter), the thing burns hot and clean and I'm as pleased as punch with it.
The variety of herbs, fruit and veg alone were well worth the trip. Add to that the variety of fish, many species of which I have yet to identify, and any amount of croaked and butchered exotic fauna. (To my delight I learned that they spit-roast guinea pigs here, which must surely be of equal delight to anyone who has raised daughters beyond teenage, and has had to put up with this skittish little stinkers as pets for any length of time).  Without gloating I would say however that they are delicious and make much better meals than housemates.
Anyway. Digression. I managed to purchase a couple of carrier-bags full of HOT chillies which are conspicuous by their abscence in the supermarkets. The hot sauce they sell over the counter as "muy pikante" isn't even as challenging as Listerine. So determined to make a concoction of my own I spent the night frying them up with about ten big onions, a lump of ginger as plump as Quasimodo's fist, and more garlic than I can remember. When they were fried blackish red in the oil I pureed the whole issue in a food processor; leaving me a chili paste that compares very, very favourably with a Sambal Badjak. You can say goodbye to any unpleasant build-up of viscous bodily slime layers that this stuff touches. It will strip your tubes from tongue to anus allowing the new, purged you, a warm glowing space in which to be reborn. I have a few culinary scores to settle. This should do the trick. For better or worse I hope to be long remembered in Colombia.
While acquiring my peppers have also got my hands on some strange looking local fruit that I have yet to try: Curubas, Granadilla and Tomate de arboles. Watch this space.
After celebrating my purchases in the shade of Carlos's Ironmongers I was privileged enough to be allowed to photograph the Owl,or Lechuza, which perches outside the shop,and is something of a local wonder. Amazingly it just sits there all day, flying off to hunt at night and returning faithfully each day to the buzzing market and it's perch in the low branches, easily within reach of humans. Carlos and the neighbour were enterprising enough to make a calender and are trying to give the owl some cult-like status that will hopefully bring devotees flocking to the shrine from far and near. They were a little concerned that I might use a flash and scare away their little golden-egg laying protégée. It wasn't fazed by me in the least. After our photo session, and the lads extracting from me the promise I would put the photo on the Internet, I wobbled off homeward leaving them as pleased with their owl as I was with my newly acquired barbeque grill.
Life can be a bountiful business.
(P.S. If you are in Barranquirra visit Ferretaria Carlos Diaz on the market and enjoy the opportunity to see Lechuza Rafita. Promise fulfilled. Salud Carlos.)

The Rio Magadalena is a large, swift running and altogether impressive body of water let's make no mistake. If it hadn't been for the fact that I knew from the start, that my visit to it would be more of a token than a pilgrimage, then I'm sure I would have had a grand old time of it.  The fact is though that both time and money are running out and my preferred journey to Letitia on the Amazon, the place where Colombia elbows its way down between Peru and Brazil for a view of that mighty river, is not going to happen. The aforementioned constraints having put the kibosh on that little jaunt. I feel sadly cheated, as if Fitzcarraldo had missed the alarm and spent the rest of the epic wedged between an Ocelot and Claudia Cardinale's backside. Leaving the burden of dreams in a kitbag under the bed. I'll try not to get too maudlin.
The dry facts are, (besides being wet in this case), as follows: The Rio Magdalena is one of the major rivers of Colombia, linking the interior highlands with the coast. It rises at the point where the Andes split like a forked stick into the Central and Oriental "Cordilleras' (that's 'sub-ranges' to most of you wags) Passing through: Girardot (Cundinamarca), Honda (Tolima),La Dorada (Caldas)
Puerto Boyacá (Boyacá),Puerto Triunfo (Antioquia) until it reaches the sea just beyond Barranquilla (Atlántico).  On it's 950 odd mile journey to the sea it receives San Jorge, César, and Cauca rivers which all add significant sediment to the shit-load it is already carrying. The sedimentary plume you can see on the 'helpful' satellite picture flows well out into the Carribean Sea. The delta has to be dredged regularly to accommodate commercial shipping.
We visited the river at the inappropriately nicknamed "Puerto Amor", within sight and smelling distance of the Cement Works, Shipyard and chemical factories of  Puerto Barranquilla. Vying as they do in romantic evocation as might a dead rat and an inner tube. In all fairness we had a nice fish dinner and despite getting gypped on the river crossing, getting mocked by a boat full of people dressed up as clowns and thinking Kinski wouldn't have put up with this lot, a grand time was had by all.
Harrumph! End of geography lesson!

O.K. A few of my vegetarian friends have been logging on so as promised here are a few pin-ups to set your mouths watering. They will need to since all these are dried pulses, displayed to great effect in large barrels in most of the stores and part of an the impressive range of staples that Colombia can boast. It's strange considering the range of these little dried chaps that I haven't seen a peashooter since I've been here. Hmmmmmm. Maybe that's a gap in the market right there, or maybe a channel for all the inherent violence in the culture. We'll have to look into this.
Meanwhile to keep this post at least as interesting as your average vegetarian meal, here we see: Alverjas, Frijoles, Guandul and Zaragosas. Guess which is which and win, errr, well.....A peashooter.
Fruit coming soon.

O.K. It's time for a little bit of a detox. The beer and Veg and two meat diet is starting to take it's toll. There has been a certain shift in attitudes among those around me, my new nicknames of "El Gordo" and "Sancho Panza", which have been gaining ground over the last week or so, leads me to beleive I might have gained the odd pound or two over the duration. ( Panza being the word for "gut" or "belly" in these parts). So in the interest of research, pride and my blood pressure I went down to the market today for a few bags of the first fruit that caught my eye but that I could not readily identify. I think it's going to take a few trips over the next few days to munch through the lot. I better get a shift on or I wont have time for the post on strong liquors.
My initial grab bag included the fruit shown here, with exception of the bananas which I bought just in case the surfeit of the other more alien stuff 'loosened' me up too much. The articles of principal interest today: Tomate de arbol, Zapote and Borojo. And Interesting mix. The ladies of the household are helping me with my little review and were kind enough to give me some help with the preparation. A lot of fruits here are juiced: the tomate del arbol aka tree tomato, aka tamarillo is a nice juicy start. It tastes great in a pitcher full of ice and I can best describe the red juice as a cross between water melon and strawberries, the Zapote on the other hand, which little Zhary is kindly demonstrating in it's open form, has the texture of an Avacado and a taste not unlike a fleshy cantaloupe or Galia Melon. Like the Tomate de arbol it is apparently more often juiced and drunk than eaten from the hand. Perhaps the most interesting of the three is the Borojo, I'm not sure of the initial form of this little monster but the shape it assumes now is due purely to the fact that it has been wrapped in cling-film and suspended in a little plastic net. The fruit inside, as you see in the photo looks like a liquidised christmas pudding and smells fairly pungent and fruity. These gelid little beasts are between two and three years old at the time of their consumption. I asked the ladies what they tasted like; laughs all around. Apparently this is purely a man's domain and, as far as I can determine, seems to be some natural form of Viagra. The girls wouldn't touch a Borojo with a bargepole except to prepare it, something they were happy to do for me (accompanied by much giggling and snapping of each other's bra straps and sideways comments which I can only guess, call me paranoid if you will, are off colour remarks about the gringo manhood). Well they'll laugh on the other side of their 'caras' when confronted with the cerveza-crazed, borojo-fuelled, overfed monster that they have created. I hope for their sakes they know where to lay their hands on a couple of cattle prods at short notice or by god, there'll be pork on the menu breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Musing aside; they whisked up about a quarter of the borojo with a little egg about the size of a quails egg, a cup of milk, some sugar and a few nondescript ingredients I have yet to identify. Like a trusting fledgling I drank the resultant greeny brown, sweet, floury sludge, reminscent in texture to the Limpopo river, without any feelings of revulsion. Apparently you have to drink it for three or four days to feel the benefit.
Up till now I haven't noticed anything, apart from nervous, or maybe expectant sideways glances from the girls. I never was much good at deciphering those signals. Actually maybe I do have the first stirrings. My guts are rumbling and I am producing industrial quantities of methane. Carrrrr-amba!!!
 

The last week has gone thundering by and it is only a matter of days now until I board that jet that will take me back to Europe's icy shores. I'm spending a day in Miami with Hannah and Halland and despite this delightful interlude there is no holding back the clock. Colder climes beckon and I must answer the call.
We've planned the Barbeque for Sunday afternoon and evening so today was as good a time as any to get some shopping done. The supermarkets are the convenient option but if you take the trouble to get down to the market then the rewards in price and quality are significant. The choice of fruit and vegetables is bewilderingly wide and the prices generally low. I'm going to whip up some rice with mixed veg and some of the local potatoes as staples. I'll par boil the spuds with some mint and let them cool off, brush them with olive oil and seasoning and grill them off on the Barbeque. I might do a few parcels of young carrots in orange juice and sugar. Let's push the boat out a bit.  I'm going to need to do a lot of prepping for this occaision so I'm hoping that the ladies can break off the fertility rites with the Borojo they are holding in the kitchen of late and get some chopping, peeling and scraping done.  I've settled on some pork for the meat lovers, I spotted them butchering a few pigs at the end of the street this morning and that seemed a good opportunity to get it while it's fresh. Apparently Grandma won't even turn up unless there's meat on the menu. I'll get some baby back ribs and a couple of little haunches and cook them slowly with the lid on for a few hours before the event, hack em up and crisp them off with a little honey and make a pan of apple sauce with Aguardiente to sweeten things up a little.
I managed to get my crooked claws on a beautiful Sierra Dorada; that's either a Dorado, Mahi-Mahi or Dolphin fish to you, depending on which part of the world you are from. The kids are seen modelled it for me below. (They've never seen a fish this big and were a little nervous in approaching it.) It amazes me that the locals here rarely if ever eat them, they must be one of the nicest eating fishes on the planet. Barranquilla is only fifteen miles from the ocean but the bountiful supply of river fish is so great that I suppose they never have to look farther afield.  They do love the prawns and oysters but apart from champing down on the odd snapper they seem to lean toward the coarse fish. The local favourite, The Bocachico is delicious but has more bones than a box of Manx browns. Too much work for yours truly.
I can hardly believe that I got a Bull Dorado of this size for twelve dollars. Staggering. Unfortunately it's too big to fit even on my oversized grill and I've had to cut it into three to get it into the fridge. No sweat. I'm going to cook the three component parts in different ways, I'll stuff the middle piece with rough cut limes, grated fresh coconut and handfuls of fresh coriander, the tail I'll make good sweet and salty with some sort of homemade Terriyaki sauce and a stick of lemon grass up its jaksi. As for the head and shoulders I'm going to blush them with some of that homemade chilli and ginger paste of mine. I'll reassemble the whole creature on the table as a central display. Maybe I could put some trotters on it and create a Doctor Moreau theme. Who knows? Fancy dress perhaps, imaginary creatures. Mind you if I whip up some more of that Medellin Sangria they should be seeing more imaginary creatures than Frodo and Harry Potter put together. I shall and will leave my mark.
The shopping is behind me thank god, that leaves a comfy day or so to think about fine tuning. 
I bought the whole list of ingredients for about 30 dollars which seems a snip to me. Plenty of good animal protein and not a 'flu dusted feather in sight. I'll ask them to bring their own drinks. A refreshingly English twist. Shame I have neither Pimms or meths. No matter.
I'll let you know how it goes. Chin chin.
End of housekeeping and cookery lesson.

Whereas my affair with the fine Aguila beer already has the feel of a lasting, dare I say life-long, relationship about it. My shallow trysts with the national hards drinks of Colombia will remain as just that, flirtations trysts and dalliances. So far there have  been a few laughs, true, but then just as many embarrassments.
First a little background, the two principal hard liquors both fall under the generic name "Ron". I started off with the wrong end of the stick on that one, much to the amusement of my new 'rummy' friends here. When I asked them if the guy "Ron Mendellin" every really existed they very nearly spilt their drinks laughing. Much like the crisply striding Johnny Walker or his jolly incestuous backwoods cousin Jack Daniels, I had started to see the Character of Ron Medellin as a jolly guacho or traditionally dressed Colombian chap much like the one in the photo below. I do admit that Ron is probably a more likely name for a Brew XI drinker than a vachero but I reasoned to myself that 'Ron'was probably a shortened endearment for Ronaldo or some name of a similar nature. Well no. Ron is the Colombian or Spanish word for Rum and the little black spider on the label of the Medellin variety, and the word añejo, which means aged, should have warned me that nothing enduringly good was in store for me. In the textbooks is is described as follows; "Anejo Rum is a golden blend of rich, aged rums with a mellow taste and rich aroma." But believe me, the Colombians do NOT sit around sipping and sniffing at this stuff marvelling at its maturity. It's one shot, off and the next is on the way. Much like the Poles with vodka. Three quarters of the way through the second bottle found me thumbing through my Oxford English-Spanish dictionary trying to phrase a polite refusal, which would have consisted of something like " Thankyou, but no, one more of those and I will likely soil myself..." The Oxford does helpfully cover this eventuality with the following and I quote:
"...v refl to shit oneself (involuntarily) cagarse* "
While trying to formulate 'cagarse' into a jolly spanish phrase the subclause 'involuntarily' suddenly grabbed me an sent me into a tailspin. Was there actually a word out there that described voluntary self-soiling but was so utterly vile and reprehensible, even for those dry dons at the Oxford, that it may not be read or spoken? There must be. Otherwise why the universal subdivision implied in 'involuntarily'. While musing on this new sub truth I'd necked two more 'Rons' and was well on the way to finding out for myself. Although I awoke the next day with relatively clean undergarments I did not actually reach my bed without some assistance. My legs having refused service of any kind.
Anecdotal follies aside here are some of the facts:
Aguardiente is by far the favourite of the national drinks. This stuff is real firewater. They make it from molasses which is flavoured with anise and then distilled till a strength of about 60 proof is achieved. Then it is sweetened with sugar.This is definitely a patriotic tipple, much as whisky is to the Scots and has led to many tearful ramblings by misty-eyed bards;
"Give me an aguardiente, made of the sugarcane of my valleys and the anise of my mountains. Don't serve me a drink from abroad which is expensive and doesn't taste as good."
and
"What am I without aguardiente? I'm a nation without people, a tree without roots,"
A boot without a sole etc. You get the drift. Not Rabbie Burnses ode to a mouse I'll grant you, and probably losing a little in translation,  but with a bottle of this under your belt you'll be weeping into a plastic beaker or a crystal glass with the best of 'em. Aguardiente is nothing if not a great social 'leveller'.
The Spanish tried to ban the stuff in 1693, much as the Frenchies did with Absinthe, but all to no avail the Colombians fought any restriction on Aguardiente, tooth and nail, right up until they gained independance in 1810. Then the drinking began in earnest. Nowadays it's more fashion that threatens it's continued existence, low taxes on imported drinks and high taxes on the domestic product are taking their toll. The industry is fighting back however with a new 'light' version. One calorie a glass they boast. The imaginative catch phrase being "No Sugar, No Regrets." Colombians all over the country must be crawling out of rubbish skips every morning with soiled 'pantalones' and muttering this to themselves. May it long bring them solace.