Narcos

"This is an incredible view," I gushed. "And the landscape is so lush! It's a jungle city!"

"I know!" Zac beamed. He was always raving about how fertile the soil was in South America. He wanted to buy a little finca hobby farm outside the city, where he'd probably grow all manner of weird things. He already had a collection of plant babies on his balcony that he and Mery, his cook, took great care of.

I'd arrived in Medellin an hour ago, just a few weeks before my twenty-seventh birthday. It was a thirty-hour flight from Sydney, arriving in the middle of the night. I hadn't seen Zac in years. When my driver dropped me off at Zac's place, he came bounding down the stairs and bowled me over with a hug.

It was so good to see him. We used to spend so much time together when we were younger. He drove me nuts and did stupid shit all the time, but at the end of the day, he had a heart of gold. I considered him my brother.

Zac showed me around the penthouse he'd bought a few years earlier. It was a huge five-bedroom place with four spacious balconies, a little library, and a workshop full of tools, 3D printing apparatus, and creative supplies.

He pointed out some safety precautions, namely the huge open windows that stood only a foot off the ground and were large enough for a full-sized adult to cleanly fall out of. I eyed them incredulously, and Zac laughed. "Colombian building regulations are quite lax," he said. "Just try not to slip and die."

During the tour, I met his assistant, Carolina, who was mixing a large vat of liquid. Zac made me sample some of the cold brew coffee they were about to put into production. He also showed me prototypes for various stupid products he had designed. His home was a creative palace.

We went up to the terrace with some wine, and Zac pointed out the reinforced security grates that were designed to close over the glass doors on the balcony. "This place was built back in the Escobar days, so the security is quite intense," he said. "I've been meaning to get these grates removed, though. If a thief can actually scale my building and break in through the balcony a la Tom Cruise, I feel like he deserves sixty seconds on the clock to take whatever he can carry."

We sat on the outdoor lounge under the starry night sky and spoke for hours. He told me about selling his previous business and buying this place, then starting a few ventures in between that rose and fell like the cyclic moon. It was a crazy little life he'd built for himself, but he seemed to be in his element over there — a small town Aussie kid running rampant in Colombia.

I settled in over the next week or two, joining a co-working space and finding the best place for my morning coffee. It was quite strange to walk downstairs in the morning to Mery saying, "Nikita! El desayuno esta listo!" Breakfast is ready. I felt like I was living in a resort.

Mery was young — about my age. She'd cook in the kitchen five days a week while watching Colombian telenovelas on a tablet. Occasionally I'd catch her singing Shakira songs while stirring a pot of lentil soup. It was obvious who the boss of the house was ("What Mery says, goes," Zac told me. "Mery does what Mery wants.") She'd potter around the place, rearranging furniture and buying new plants for the balcony. Every time I complimented her food, she beamed with pride.

Within a few days of arriving, I spontaneously met a man in a coffee shop with blue eyes and caramel skin. He was a Brazilian-American in Medellin for a two-day business trip. We ended up driving around the city that night with three of his clients — one man and two women. We hopped from salsa club to salsa club, drinking and laughing together. The clients spoke no English, so I had to communicate as best I could without a common language. One of the clients, Andreas, was an incredible dancer. He spent several hours teaching me salsa using only gestures and broken English.

They were such beautiful, lovely people and we had such fun together. The night ended with us all dancing in a random nightclub on the side of the road as the sun rose. Those were the spontaneous nights I loved — just new people and new cultures and serendipity.

When I told my Brisbane friends that I was moving to Medellin for six months, I voluntarily put myself on the receiving end of every joke about cocaine, kidnapping, and drug lords. Everyone had watched the Netflix series, Narcos, except me. I didn't make my mother any less nervous during my first phone call home after I'd arrived. "Oh, don't worry, Mom," I said. "As long as I stay away from the prostitutes and drugs, I should be okay. Speaking of which, they just found a man chopped up in a suitcase and dumped in a park down the road. But from what I heard, he was a gringo who had a penchant for cocaine and underage girls. I'll stay out of trouble."

I'd also make silly little stories on Snapchat and send them to my Australian friend. I liked playing into all the stereotypes. From his perspective, my life looked very adventurous. From my perspective, I was living in an upmarket neighborhood in a jungle paradise.