On our return to Bogota, Sandra’s mum took us to play Rana (which means ‘frog’), one of her favourite games. The object is to throw discs or, in the case of this new version, steel balls at various holes in the top of a stand from about three metres away. Each hole is worth a different number of points, with the hardest requiring the ball to roll up a ramp between a frog’s legs with just the right force to jump over the second hardest hole, before dropping into another hole behind it. Sandra’s mother and her friend both achieved this regularly during our six games, while Sandra and I struggled to get half our balls into holes at all. Though we did improve.

I’ve started to get used to seeing pictures of half naked women everywhere in Colombia, usually advertising lingerie or sex shops, but seeing one on the backboard of a game like this was a shock. None of the women noticed until I pointed it out, and then thought it was funny that it bothered me.