‘Hey, what’s that? Those people there,’ I ask, puzzled, as we turn towards Avenida Newball.

‘Oh, they’re protesting because they put the barracuda there again. The Adventists and Baptists think it’s a symbol of the devil or something’ – sarcasm. ‘The community wanted to put a statue of some native symbol there instead, and the government said yes, but a few weeks later they put the barracuda back. It’s supposed to represent Simón González, páñamán, yo hear!’

A few years ago, some drunk tourists climbed the barracuda after yanking out its remaining teeth and the whole thing collapsed. So they wanted to take advantage of the void and replace that statue – which depicted the vision of the islands held by the former intendant and former governor Simón González, an Antioquia-born poet of the Nadaista movement – with a native emblem. I picture some historical figure like Livingston, or Francis Newball, father of what was referred to as National Intendancy in 1912. Antioquian entrepreneurs joined the campaign and collected money for the new statue, and although they’d promised not to restore it, that was apparently the first thing they did when ‘the Turk’ came to power. Coincidentally, that’s what people call his group of friends – the barracuda group – after their voracious appetite for public contracting, according to Nard.

‘I thought people liked Simón González, buai.’

‘That’s a loooong story. Hey, how things?’ he greets a young woman with short braids who honks at him from the next motorcycle over. ‘Lots of people remember that witchcraft conference he held in Providencia, though, which is why church groups are going around trying to undo spells and whatnot.’

Now we pass the new police station, which hasn’t been able to curb the recent crime wave. It was just finished, this abhorrent white mass of rooms and offices, plunked down on one of the lots with the best ocean views, completely shattering the harmony of the avenue. Nard and I fume over it; almost everything that happens here can be fumed over. More and more police, mainland-style. By the stoplight in front of the Coral Palace, the government headquarters, a cartoon figure catches my attention.

‘What the hell is that?’ It’s a bronze statue outside the OCCRE building: a strangely proportioned man flashes an affable smile under thick glasses and gives passers-by the thumbs up as if to say ‘all good!’ They must have installed it just this week; I’ve never seen it before. Nard grimaces and clicks his teeth.