In memory of Gabo
Natalia is on the board of the Premio Gabo, Latin America’s most important award in journalism. Named after Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the award is held every year in early October, when they organise a festival in Medellin and award the continent’s best journalists. This year, I didn’t want to miss Natalia’s birthday, so I tagged along to bask in the shadow of greatness.
We were put up at the Intercontinental, where the clerk told us we had the room with the best view… overlooking the pool.
The festival is in the center of the city, at the Botanical Gardens, and free to all. But, our hotel is in a fancy part of town, up in the hills, surrounded by other fancy hotels, classy malls and few sidewalks. Not deterred, I walked to a nearby, huge, mall, to get to my gym, to find, inside the mall, a reasonably sized fun park. And, on the top floor, instead of some video games next to a cinema, a bunch of large playground areas, including an indoor surfing pool and one of those team sports where everyone fits themselves inside large blowup balls to run into each other.
Natalia, tasked with hosting two sessions at the festival, was at times the tok of the town. But, my basking did not go completely unnoticed as, somehow, students from some university publication decided it made sense to interview me on my thoughts on how to monetise mobile apps.