Kidnappings, car bombs, cocaine, paramilitaries, bullfights, the Amazon and madness. Welcome to Colombia, where life is cheap and so are the drugs.
In 2006, Matt Thompson travelled to Colombia in search of the life he might have led. Born to American parents, Matt's father was offered a post which would have taken the family to Bogota, but he turned it down because it was too high risk. Instead they came to Australia - low-risk, even paradisaic - and the land that nearly drove Matt to a slow death from boredom.
One day he quits his job, picks up his bag and decides to go experience life in the country that's not only the most dangerous in South America, but possibly the world. This is the story of what happened next.
Part Heart of Darkness, part Marching Powder, My Colombian Death is a wild ride to the edge and beyond.
Matthew Thompson is a writer and adventurer with a University Medal in English and a broken nose. Areas of his reportage include pool hustling, nudist colonies, mixed-sex boxing and war zones. Matt's writing has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and other major newspapers, Inside Sport, Dazed & Confused, Australian Style, and Australia's leading literary journal, HEAT. Matt has also written and recorded radio documentaries broadcast in the United States by National Public Radio, and in Australia by the ABC's Radio National. He lives in rural NSW.
