Colombia Calling - The English Voice in Colombia

Author: Richard McColl

Colombia Calling is your first stop for everything you ever wanted to know about Colombia. Colombia Calling is hosted by Anglo Canadian transplant to Colombia, Richard McColl and the Colombia Briefing is reported by journalist Emily Hart. Tune in for politics, news, reviews, travel and culture stories, all related to Colombia.
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Genres: News, News Commentary, Places & Travel, Society & Culture

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607: Small Earthquakes and what we never learnt in school about South America
Episode 607
Tuesday, 24 March, 2026

Blending travel writing, history and reportage, our guest on this week's Colombia Calling podcast is award-winning journalist and author Shafik Meghji who tells a tale of footballers and pirates, nitrate kings and wool barons, polar explorers and cowboys, missionaries and radical MPs. From a ghost town in one of the world's driest deserts to a far-flung ranch in the sub-polar tundra; rusting whaling stations in the South Atlantic to an isolated railway built by convicts. '[An] appealing fusion of travelogue and history, excavating the roots and remnants of British influence in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.' - The Observer 'This is travel writing as much as history. Meghji has the true travel writer's eye for the comic, pathetic and tragic, and for the places where they collide. . . This is writing full of rust, wind and sadness. It captures splendidly the air of South America and the long, withdrawing roar of an empire whose influence once reached far beyond its political borders.' — The Times So tune in to hear our conversation with Shafik. https://www.shafikmeghji.com/ And, the Colombia Briefing is reported by Grace Brennan.