A Colombian man recently became the laughing stock of the internet after allegedly agreeing to be paraded naked on the roof of a car as punishment for cheating on his wife.

A video of a naked man lying on top of a white car and being paraded around the Colombian city of Barranquilla has been doing the rounds on Colombian social media for the last two weeks, and recently went viral worldwide. The bizarre scene reportedly occurred on May 15, when the man’s wife caught him in bed with another woman at a local motel. He begged for forgiveness, but the scorned wife told him that the only way to save their marriage was for him to accept a humiliating punishment. He was to agree to lie naked on top of their car as she drove home, with nothing but a towel to conceal his face with.

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A Colombian woman who allegedly wanted to check if her neighbor was home ended up getting her head stuck in the front door metal grate for five hours.

Photos of an unnamed woman from the town of La Virginia, in Colombia, recently went viral on social media after it was reported that she had to be rescued after spending five hours with her head stuck in a neighbor’s front door metal grate. It’s not clear if the woman intended to spy on her neighbor, or if she merely stuck her head through the grate to see if there was anyone home, but one thing’s for sure – when she tried to pull her head back through the grate, she realized she wasn’t going anywhere.

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The mayor of Parajito, a town in northern Colombia, recently announced a curfew forbidding the transit and gathering of minors under the age of 17 in public places between 7 in the evening and 5 in the morning, to protect them from evil spirits that have allegedly been spreading through the popular messaging app WhatsApp.

Since the beginning of this week, authorities in the Catholic town of Parajito have reported at least 14 cases of teenagers exhibiting strange behavior, including threats of jumping off bridges, self lacerations, convulsions, fainting and unexplained changes in their voices. Like most youths these days, all of the victims were reportedly using the popular messaging app WhatsApp, and rumors started going around that evil spirits spreading through the app were responsible for the unusual behavior. To protect the children from themselves, mayor Inocencio Perez decided to enforce a curfew that allows youths under 17 to leave their homes only under the supervision of their parents or custodians.

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A 37-year-old woman from Colombia recently shocked her entire country after managing to fake her pregnancy for nine months and then coming up with film-worthy story to explain the absence of a baby on her due date. And she did it all to keep her partner from leaving her.

Antonela Santiago Padilla and her partner Victor had known each other since they were 14 year old teenagers growing up in northern Barranquilla. Life split them apart for a long time, but many years later, Victor called to commemorate the memory of her brother, who had passed away. She started writing to him in September of last year, and soon their relationship became stronger and closer. However, Antonela knew that he was involved in a romantic relationship with another woman and didn’t want to break them up. Victor kept telling her that he and his partner weren’t getting along and that they were going to break up, so they started their own romantic relationship in December 2017. But Antonela wasn’t convinced that Victor had forgotten about his former girlfriend and it was this insecurity that made her create this elaborate farce that left everyone flabbergasted.

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Kalaca Skull, a 22-year-old tattoo artist from Colombia, has been making headlines all over South America for undergoing extreme surgical procedures to make his face look like a skull.

Born Eric Yeiner Hincapié Ramírez, the young tattoo artist claims he had been fascinated by skulls ever since he was a child, but only started turning his face into one after his mother’s death, two years ago, because she didn’t approve of the idea. First, he had the lower half of his nose removed, because, well, skulls don’t have noses. They don’t have ears either so he had most of his ear lobes cut off as well. But his transformation didn’t stop there. After splitting his tongue and tattooing it to an unnatural blue-grey color, he had large black eye-sockets tattooed around his eyes, as well as large teeth and even the hollow space between the mandible and maxilla tattooed around his mouth.

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Sombra, a drug-detection dog with the Colombian National Police has been causing such problems for drug cartels that they’ve recently started putting bounties on her head, forcing authorities to move her to a safer airport and have more officers accompanying her on her rounds.

The 6-year-old German shepherd has been a thorn in drug traffickers’ side for quite a while now. Over the past few years, her strong sense of smell has helped Colombian police make over 200 arrests and seize around nine tons of illegal drugs. Sombra, which translates as ‘shadow’ has become somewhat of a hero of the fight against drug cartels, but for the criminals losing money because of her radar-like nose, she is a threat that needs to be eliminated. To that end, the Urabeños, also known as the Gulf Clan, have reportedly put a prize on Sombra’s head, with reports on the reward for killing her varying between 20 and 200 million Colombian pesos ($7,000 and $70,000).

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A motel in Bucaramanga, Colombia, has come under fire for helping an unfaithful husband hide from his wife who was waiting outside for him, and later using the story to promote itself on social media.

Motel Palmeiras has been facing a lot of criticism online for encouraging adultery by going out of its way to help a client who had spent the night there with a mistress hide from his wife, who was waiting outside to confront him. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, the motel later put together a promotional video detailing how they worked with the unfaithful man to figure out the best way to get him out of trouble.

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They say money doesn’t grow on trees, but there’s a dog in Colombia that would certainly argue with that. The clever pooch started paying for biscuits with tree leaves after seeing students pass banknotes to a food stall attendant in exchange for the tasty treats. He decided to try it for himself one day, and after getting the result he wanted, he’s been doing it ever since.

Negro recently became a social media sensation after a teacher at the Diversified Technical Education Institute of Monterrey Casanare, in Colombia, shared some photos and a video of the clever dog paying for treats with tree leaves. Students had apparently been buying the pooch biscuits from an on-campus food stall for a while, and after observing humans handing out money in exchange for the tasty treats, he decided to try it out for himself. Only instead of actual money, he used a much more accessible currency – fallen tree leaves.

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Edificio Santalaia, a plant-covered building in the middle of Bogota, Colombia, is considered one of the most amazing urban gardens ever created. With over 33,000 Sq. feet of plants covering the building’s 11 stories (9 above ground and 2 underground), this is the world’s largest vertical garden.

The result of a collaboration between Spanish green designers Paisajismo Urbano and Colombian company Groncol, this stunning vertical garden was completed in December 2015, after eight months of planning, and another eight months of hard work. Today, it is often referred to as “the green heart of Bogota”, and acts both as an icon of sustainability, as well as a reminder of the important role that plants play in our daily lives.

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A 28-year-old woman recently ended up in the emergency room at University Hospital of Santander (HUS) in Bucaramanga, Colombia, after swallowing over $9,000 in $100 bills to make sure that her ex didn’t get half of it.

The bizarre incident took place on April 22, when Sandra Milena Almeida showed up at the hospital complaining of severe stomach pain. Doctors quickly realized that the 28-year-old woman had a gastric obstruction so she was rushed into the operating room for emergency surgery. When they opened her up, doctors were shocked to find that Almeida’s stomach was full of rolled up $100 bills. They managed to extract most of the money from the small intestine, with the rest making its way through the colon to be evacuated naturally.

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A reinterpreted article in Colombia’s Labor Code was recently approved by the country’s Constitutional Court, thus allowing people to show up for work drunk or under the influence of narcotics as long as their productivity is not affected.

As in most countries around the world, going to work under the influence of alcohol or narcotics was prohibited in Colombia, but the modified article now protects workers from contract termination or disciplinary action, as long as these substances don’t affect their performance on the job. The recent ruling on the Constitutional Court puts alcohol consumption and narcotic addiction at the same level as occupational illness and argues that “these substances don’t always hinder how one performs at work”.

It all started last year, when two students at the University of Uniciencia in Bucaramanga challenged the country’s labor law at the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was in violation of two articles of the constitution: one which states that “all people are equal before the law and asserts that the state has an obligation to provide special protections for people who, owing to their economic circumstances or physical or mental condition, find themselves in a manifestly weak position,” and another that guarantees “equality of opportunity for all workers”.

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La Modelo prison in Botogá, Colombia, is notorious for the free reign that its 11,000 odd inmates enjoy. The prisoners completely run the show, with easy access to guns and grenades, while the prison guards do not carry any weapons inside the premises.

The inmates frequently resort to violence in order to settle disputes between the left-wing rebels and the right-wing government supporters and paramilitaries that inhabit the north and south wings of the prison, respectively. The rivalry between the two sections has lead to several killings, all of which were carried out in the central area in between the two wings. Members of the guerrilla movement FARC who are imprisoned in the north wing actually carry out their military drills within their section of the establishment. Ammunition is smuggled into the prison and sold at about $1,000 per gun, thanks to the cooperation of corrupt officials.

Guns aren’t the only perks that the inmates enjoy. They use cell phones freely and have access to satellite communication, which allows them to carry on with their criminal activities in the outside world, like drug dealing, kidnapping, and extortion. They even have restaurants inside the prison, one of which is sponsored by FARC and provides free food to left-wing rebels. Other restaurants are run by individual inmates, who pay taxes to the gangs every month. But the most baffling of perks enjoyed by La Modelo inmates is ‘Ciambiazo’ or ‘big change’, in which a prisoner can change places with a visitor from the outside for only 2,000 to 2,500 dollars.

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The Yipao is a unique annual tradition in Colombia’s Coffee Triangle dedicated to the Willys Jeeps, the iconic American car the locals have been relying on since the 1940s.

For the people of Quindío district, Jeeps have been a source of livelihood and a significant part of daily life since the 1940s. The unpaved roads of the coffee mountains are filled with Jeeps that transport people and their belongings – including piles of coffee bags, livestock, harvested produce, and more. When families have to relocate, they often pile all their belongings onto one Jeep and move in a single trip.

Jeeps are such an integral part of life that they’re fondly known in Spanish as ‘mulitas mécanicas (mechanical mules). The country’s farmers use them to get to places that were previously accessible only by riding pack animals. Given how deeply Jeeps have impacted the life of locals, it’s only befitting that they pay homage to the vehicle during the annual Yipao parade.

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A Colombian woman recently changed her name to include all 26 letters in alphabetical order. So her first name is Abcdefg Hijklmn and her last name is Opqrst Uvwxyz. We’re not sure what she’s having people call her, but it’s probably something short, like Abc.

Before she turned to the alphabet, the 36-year-old Bogota resident used to go by ‘Ladyzunga Cyborg’, also a name that she fashioned for herself. In fact, the woman is known to have habitually changed her name several times in the past, but the alphabet name is probably her weirdest one yet.

Miss Abc revealed the reason behind her bizarre new name in a recent interview with a Colombian TV station. “I started looking for a name that nobody had in Colombia, or the world, so I thought ABCDEFG HIJKLMN OPQRST UVWXYZ,” she said. “I’ve changed my name so people wouldn’t know it’s me. It’s not because I was disturbed by it, but because I always wanted to bring an element of surprise.”

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At the outset, the mountainous region of Antioquia in northwestern Colombia comes across as a breathtaking natural paradise. But its picturesque valleys and winding green hills hide a chilling secret –  an unusually large number of young people here suffer from a hereditary form of Alzheimer’s. Several of Antioquia’s residents are at various stages of the disease – right from early signs of memory loss to total dementia.

Early-onset Alzheimer’s is quite similar to the typical form of the disease – it is caused by toxic proteins that destroy brain cells, leading to memory loss and eventually, death. But there is one major difference – the symptoms begin to occur at a frightfully young age, sometimes even before the victim turns 40. It begins with forgetfulness and slowly progresses to disorientation and delusional ideas.

Afflicted with this form of Alzheimer’s, the people of Antioquia often reach the final stage of the disease in their mid-forties. And there’s only one explanation for the bizarre condition – it’s all in the genes. Generations of inbreeding has resulted in the spread of the defective gene in the region for the past 300 years – throughout a widely branched family that now has over 5,000 members. This makes Antioquia home to the world’s largest population of Alzheimer’s sufferers. They are all believed to have inherited the ‘paisa’ mutation, which is a simple genetic defect on Chromosome 14. The mutation is named after the people living in the area, who are known in Colombia as Paisas.

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