Free Candy Trade

At a party last night, we were munching on snack size chocolate bars (Snickers, Milkyway, 3 Musketeers…) and I was thinking about when I was a kid. Foreign candy was difficult to find in Colombia. OK, not difficult, but you certainly didn’t find it at the grocery store. There was no such flow of imported products back then, so we had to visit a place called “San Andresito.” The name comes from the island of San Andrés, where people went on vacation and bought imported things at lower prices because the island used to be a free port. That’s business talk, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, while eating the chocolate I was thinking of how ironic it is that now that you can find american candy all over the place in Colombia, people actually appreciate local products more. When I was a kid, it was considered cool if your dad went on a business trip and came back carrying goods from other countries. Now it’s all about “Oh, chocolatinas Jet are the best!” or “There’s nothing like Bon Bon Bum.” Then there are the ex-pats, like me, who see a bag of Coffee Delight at a store in North America and go coo-coo about them.

Now excuse me, I’ll go in a desperate search for imported Arequipe Alpina. Which, BTW, is not properly described, as it isn’t a caramel spread, but a milk custard. It tastes NOTHING like caramel… It’s much better!

“El Bon Bon Bum da cáncer. Atentamente, Pirulito.” :D