Back to Colombia after 3 years abroad

What it feels like to be back after living abroad

One of my closest friends has been living in Canada for a while now, and after 3 years he is back to visit friends, family and travel around. Here I would like to share with you what are the main changes, for good and bad that he noticed after being away for a few years.

It is not a surprise that the major issue he notices is how expensive everything is. He says that gas, food, and everyday expenses are out of control. Just consider that when he left, one gallon of gas was $9.000 and now is around $16.000, which in a term of 3 years is a significant increase. I understand his surprise, almost doubling in gas prices is scandalous I guess while we live here everyday, we complain but nothing much that can be done. Petro’s government has been a disaster and has been unable to control how expensive the gas is.

In the same way, food prices are too high. He’s been getting surprised by how much more a regular meal is at any restaurant. Same in the grocery stores, trying to do a simple grocery haul for a week you cant get nothing much for $100.000, an amount he was used to spend before. Not only in grocery shopping. Going out for lunch is been a bigger surprise. Any simple restaurant you cant get anything for less than $30.000, taking as an example, a meal for two for hamburgers, fries and soda costed $70.000, in his experience was too expensive.

On the bright side, he noticed at least in Bogota, tons of roads being fixed and built. And is true, a lot of improvements had been made in Bogota, just to mention the Metro is finally being build, but also Transmilenio is expanding which can help the traffic in Bogota. Obviously traffic has always been chaotic and probably is worse than ever with all the road closures, but at least the city is getting improved.

When he left, the Venezuelans migration crisis was at the worst moment and where he used to live (close to the Terminal de Transportes) the situation was out of control, migrants were scattered all over the place and security started to decline. But as he noticed, his neighbourhood is better now in that regard, he didn’t encounter the same situation as before.

Also some small details he can notice after being aways for some time, cars tend to be old and pollution is noticeable. Weather is wormer than usual (but is probably biased as he lives in Canada and winters are too cold). Lots of new buildings have been made. Sense of security is the same, lots of people mention how much more insecure is but it always depends on the area where you are.

Overall, changes that have been happening can be materialized in rising prices, inflation and insecurity (but mostly in specific areas of the country). Rising prices in food and gas are out of control and everything that the government does looks like they didn’t care about it. We are getting used to pay for expensive food and gas, but lifestyle is not really improving, salaries are not growing at the same rate, unemployment is rising and companies are being dissuaded to leave the country.

I fully understand the surprise of my friend. We are use to it now but we always have to remind to ourselves how incompetent are the politicians on charge of the country. The main alternative for me, and what I can recommend to you, is always try to make dollars and spend in pesos, even if everything is getting expensive, living with USD$5k monthly you can live like a king, even in Bogota, one of the most expensive cities.