I had a business trip to Medellín, Columbia. It could be my #61 DXCC country worked from. Unfortunately Columbia is not in an IARP agreement that allows for no extra licence operation in many countries in South America.
I emailed Nelson HK4Y asking for advice on the application. 
He pointed to instructions for an application and gave a contact to a local translator. After translation of the US licence ($10) and an application fee ($10), the license was ready in 3 weeks.
I tried to operate from an observation tower in the mountains over Medellin: Weak signals and no QSO.
Then I visited the HK4LRM station managed by Nelson, a station that was once a CW contest winner in Colombia . They had a tribander TH5 on top of a multistory building. Since the beam showed high SWR and their rig did not have a tuner, I connected my KX2 and made 3 QSO as HK4/NO9E.
Later I tried making contacts from a park in Bogota as HK3/NO9E. Many weak signals from the CWT competition but no QSO.
Before, anywhere in the world, I could nearly always find a station to work on CW. Now the number of stations active in CW is decreasing rapidly and too often my operations end up empty-handed. FT8 may be the only option.
Colombia has reputation of a very dangerous place. Things have changed tremendously, as the country seems vibrant and full of honest hard working people. Below are old slums of Medellin turned into a tourist attraction.
A special attraction 2 hrs from Medellin is a lakeland region of Guatape with a 220m high outcrop that can be accessed in 720 steps.
