One of the rarest things on the blogosphere is a non-Sandalista, non-foreigner-financed, non-foreigner opinioned, non-angry-Latin-intelligentsia Colombia blog that’s by a Colombian about marvelous Colombia. I have had yet to find one – until now.

Unfortunately, you bring up Colombia – even to a Latino audience in the states – and the first thought they have about Colombia is about drugs. It happened to me during a Spanish presentation I was giving. I discussed the strong Colombian banking system and was horrified when the first question from the audience was ‘is it full of drug money?’ And these people weren’t only Mexicans! They were from several Latin American countries! The perception is widespread even among people who might be expected to know more. How terrible!

I made a post earlier about how if you strip out all the FARC narconews about Colombia on a google search, you will be amazed at how good the news is from that country.

In the absence of a good Colombia blog, nobody realizes why President Uribe’s popularity ratings are at 80%. And why Colombia’s peso is strengthening. And why Colombia’s debt is being paid down early. And why people have this beautiful pull-together spirit in times of disaster, as Harry Hutton has noted. I spotted this Logtar blog a little while earlier, and wanted to come back but with a hat tip to Global Voices, they’ve found an ideal post about why this new Colombian blogger has begun his a blog on his own country, Colombia. It’s here and here.