Are you familiar with the word ‘schvach’? Its yiddish. Its pronounced ‘shvu’- then a ‘ch’ in the most guttural you can manage. Like all yiddish words still in common usage, its fabulously expressive and can mean 200 different things. All of which, in this instance, relate to ‘weak’ or ‘feeble’ or inadequate in some way. You can moan that a cup of white-ish tea is ‘schvach’, or a dress that’s dull and lacking colour could be so described too. And it can also be used in the first person. And for 2 days I am that first person. Schvach.

I’ve had a bit of a cold. No biggy. Just a bit of a cough, bunged up, usual stuff requiring just a little ‘man-heroism’, which we’re good at. Then Friday night I boarded a plane. And by the time I arrived in Bogota, 12 hours later, felt so stiff and tired and horrible, that I just put this down to it then being 4 am local time. So we went to bed and woke up at 9 feeling a bit better. Or were we?

By the time I’d even realised where I was and what time differences were involved, Spurs were already 3-0 down at Man City. And that is NEVER the best way to start a vacation.

Mel was shattered all day as we cruised round our bit of Columbia’s capital. Which is so not what you’d expect. Its quite beautiful, very up-market and we hardly saw anyone get shot nor were offered sacks of cocaine to smuggle out of the country when we left, in condoms. Its nice here. Civilised. If a little unspectacular in the normal way of former Spanish colonial cities.

This morning after a ridiculously early night, I felt ok, still a bit coldy, and Mel was much better. 14 hours sleep will do that. So we went with our guide on a ‘city tour’. Which was fine. But as it progressed my increasing levels of ‘schvach’ reduced my energy to nothing. I felt like shit. Left Mel to finish an art gallery as I sat on a bench in the shade and dozed. Then came back to the hotel and slept for two hours in drug-assisted bliss. Just ibuprofen, don’t get excited.

So is this just the cold? Jet lag? And the fact that Bogota, at 2.5kms above sea level doesn’t have much in the way of oxygen as us sea-level dwellers know it?

Tomorrow morning we’re flying off to ‘coffee country’. Where coffee comes from. We’d always thought it comes from Starbucks or Waitrose but it doesn’t. The world’s best coffee comes from a place called Pereira in Columbia.

Happy Sunday, except for Rachie in Australia, in which case, happy Monday

A xxxx