When you think of Colombia, most people think about five things: Pablo Escobar, Shakira, beautiful women, coffee and maybe, some kind of tropical paradise.

Maybe they're right about the beautiful women and about the coffee but that's just about it, Colombia is much more than that.

So, yeah... for starters: not every Colombian is a drug dealer, in fact, most Colombians don't do drugs. Which is something very bothersome to explain: we all are not Pablo Escobar, who was the cause of Colombia's most violent time, we don't think of him as someone to admire, neither as a hero or something of the sorts, is a man that is despised by most of the people for all the damage he caused.

Colombia is not only drugs: we have people that are talented, you most likely have heard of Shakira, Sofia Vergara, Gabriel García Márquez and John Leguizamo, but that's not all of us. There's ton of other people, like Jorge Isaacs, Fernando Botero, Yuri Alver Orejuela (three times World Champion of her Judo division), Caterine Ibargüen (a black women, who has several Olympic medals) and Nairo Quintana (he won Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España!)

We all do not know how to dance and if we do, we don't all dance salsa. For example, if you're from the oriental plains, you most likely learn how to dance joropo, and if you live, let's say, Barranquilla, you will learn how to dance el mapale. Salsa is part of the vallunos culture, not everyone knows how to dance it.

Even though we are party people, we do not party all the time. In fact, Colombia is a place where people is very hard-working, "no nos quedamos varados" as a famous saying goes (we do not keep still). That said, Colombia is the country in the world with more festive days, 20 per year, that are most likely used to party.

Colombia is a mixture. White, Black, Romani, Arabic and Native people merged into one at certain time. Colombia is a multi-ethnic country.

Mestizo and white people is 86% of the people, then it goes black and mulattos, 10.6%, Amerindian are 3.4% and Roma are a 0.01%.

Mestizo Colombians are descendants of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry. Mulatto is the child of one white parent and one black parent (or child of mulattos).

Colombia has a very rich gastronomy.

But we do have to mention Empanadas. We basically eat empanadas all the time and there are tons of memes declaring our undying love for them. As a fun fact: there are monuments in the honor of empanadas in Caicedonia and Manizales!

Arepas is the other one (there's this fight about where the arepas are really from: Venezuela or Colombia it's most likely both, since before Colombia and Venezuela used to be one giant country alongside Panamá and Ecuador). They were used for indigenous over all the region of Colombia, Panama and Venezuela and are different in each region, we all love some good arepas.

Bandeja paisa is the common food of the paisas. It contains red beans, pork belly, white rice, ground meat, chicharon, fried egg, plantain, chorizo, arepa, hogao sauce, black pudding, avocado and lemon.

Ajiaco it's a soup made of chicken, potatoes and flavored with guasca, an herb. It's the Bogota dish for excellence.

Coconut rice is a common dish in the coastal cities.

In the Llanos (yay!) we have "ternera a la llanera" and river fishes like "Amarillo", Amarillo a la monseñor is a really good dish.

Most people have middle names and use both last names (first the father's, then mother's). For example: Maria Julian Perez Sarmiento.

There's no such a thing as "Colombian accent", we all sound different, in fact, someone from the Orinoco, most likely won't understand a single word of a costeño (person who lives in the coast). There's not only a variety of accents but also a lot of indigenous languages (such as uitoto, Chibcha, guajivo, Arawakan or Inga) Even English is considered an official language in San Andres. There's a few videos in YouTube explaining Colombian accents, you will realize that the Colombian accent everyone talks about, is used only by paisas (that Pablo Escobar was).

We also use this word: vaina, it means absolute everything, so you can hear this in a normal conversation: Do you remember the vaina we saw the other day? What a good vaina! Hey... can you pass me the vaina that's in the table — which vaina? — The Little vaina, that one, the one that's in the table. (¿Se acuerda de la vaina que vimos el otro día? ¡Que vaina tan buena! Oiga... ¿Me puede pasar la vaina que está en la mesa? — ¿Cuál vaina? — La vainitia, esa, la que está en la mesa.)

You also have words like parce and ñero (parce comes from parcero, that comes from compañero, that means buddy. Ñero comes from compañero, too.) Marica (that means queer, and it can be used as an insult in certain situations) has also a meaning of buddy or dude, it's mostly used by women.

As much as it is nice to think of Colombia as a giant tropical paradise, the truth is that it is not. Colombia's region are very diverse and different from each other.

First, there's the Andean Region, it is formed by the Andes Mountains, and it has the majority of Colombia's urban centers. Before colonization, there used to be significant indigenous settlement. These places are usually called "tierra fría" in Colombia (meaning cold land).

Then we have the Caribbean Region: tropical paradise it is. This one is a region full of rivers heading to the sea. It's a pretty humid place but there you can find the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Guajira Desert, both of them a few kilometers away from the sea.

Pacific Region is distinguished by its high humidity. It rains a lot in there, among the highest precipitation ranges in the world. Here is where the majority of Afro-Colombian live.

Orinoco Region, called Llanos Orientales (meaning Oriental Plains), is rich in oil, we have a different life style in here, and you can find places as Caño Cristales (look it up, it is also called The River of the Seven Colors).

Amazon Region it's on the south, over the Amazon Basin. A lot of indigenous settlement still live in the place.

Lastly, Insular Region: it covers San Andrés y Providencia in the Caribbean Sea and the islands of Malpelo and Gorgona (used to be a jail!) in the Pacific Ocean.

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I also wanted to talk about Policarpa Salavarrieta, "La Pola", a mestiza women, who was a spy for the revolutionary forces during the Spanish Reconquista. She was executed for high treason, but now she is considered a heroine of the independence of Colombia (We have her in a bill!).

Her speech before her execution is very famous in Colombia, here I left you a few quotes:

"Indolent people! How different you luck would be today if you knew the price of freedom!"

"See, that even though I'm a women and I'm young, I have the courage to suffer this death and a thousand more, and do not forget this example!"