I’m used to being taken for a tourist, especially now, because the shock of the heat keeps me from following local etiquette. I greeted the immigration agent in English; she greeted me back and I went to collect my luggage. The conveyor belt was broken and so was the police scanner. I followed the airport corridor out to the taxi queue, where two men fought to take me. I asked for the price, stressing that I was a local; they’d better not even think of charging me tourist rates. The extraordinarily tall, thin native driver laughed and flashed his gold tooth, lifting my two suitcases to perch precariously on his shoulders: ‘Di price is di seim: fifteen tousend pesos, miss!’

It’s still the same town, though the traffic lights are a novelty. The main road from the airport doesn’t have any lanes yet, and the Chevrolet Caprice with its pimped suspension, rocking me all the way home, had to dodge the same potholes as it did two decades prior. The first entrance into my neighbourhood, home to several former governors, is a long street that runs parallel to the runway. Farther along, it runs into a shantytown and reaches the eastern end of the island. Sarie Bay is supposedly an affluent neighbourhood inhabited by notable island personalities – public officials, business owners – but this route is as subdued as ever, hemmed in by the raw brick of the airport wall. Some ashen kids were playing barefoot among puddles that looked like they’d been there for days. A few older boys had left their rusty bicycles on the side of the road to peer through a chink in the wall, hoping to catch a glimpse of the next Airbus as it took off. Across the street, I was amazed to see signs announcing rented rooms or posadas for tourists. A group of four guys, probably paisas, walked along the street that leads to my place, sporting the braids that Cartagena women weave on the beach, heading for the pedestrian road in the town centre. Within a couple of hours they’d be passed-out drunk on cheap vodka, I thought.