Nature and Geography
Colombia exports millions of tonnes of this fruit every year, and you've almost certainly got one going brown on your kitchen counter.
Bananas! 🍌
The Madrigal family drinks it every morning, argues over it, and offers it to every guest. It's also the drink that fuels every Colombian household from sunrise. What is it?
Black Coffee ☕
She performed at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2006, and her hips — famously — don't lie.
Shakira 💃🏼
A young woman from a poor background gets her braces off, has a makeover, and becomes irresistibly beautiful — transforming her entire life. It inspired a real international TV hit and was remade over 30 times worldwide. Novela or real life?
Novela — Yo soy Betty, la fea (1999). It holds the Guinness World Record for most remade telenovela in history, aired in 180 countries, and inspired the US show Ugly Betty starring America Ferrera. 👓
Colombia is the only country in South America with coastline on TWO different oceans. Which two? 🌊
The Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic).
In Encanto, Mirabel's mum Julieta has a magical gift, everything she cooks heals people instantly. What is her signature dish?
Arepa 🫓
This actress from Barranquilla played the same character for 11 seasons of a hit US sitcom.
Sofía Vergara 🏠
A Colombian drug lord becomes so powerful he runs for Congress, builds a zoo with hippos imported from Africa for his private estate, and at his peak earns $420 million a week. Novela or real life?
Real life - Pablo Escobar 🦛
Colombia is the world's second-largest exporter of this flower. Chances are the bouquet you bought last Valentine's Day was Colombian
Roses 🌹🌹🌹
All the songs in Encanto were written by the same man who created Hamilton and In the Heights. What's his name?
Lin-Manuel Miranda 🎤
This Colombian from a tiny village became the youngest rider ever to win the Tour de France in 2019, at just 22 years old.
Egan Bernal 🚴🏽
A Colombian soap opera runs for so long — 8 years, 2,000 episodes — that the child actors who started the show grow up, finish school, go to university, and come back to play the adult versions of their own characters.
Fiction but only just. Several Colombian telenovelas have run for 5+ years and recast child roles with adult actors. This specific version hasn't happened. Yet.
Colombia is split by three separate mountain ranges also shared with Venezuela, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. What are they collectively called?
The Andes ⛰️
Yellow butterflies appear throughout Encanto as a tribute to a Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author. Who is he and what is his most famous book?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude 🌼
He played Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge, appeared in Die Hard 2, and he's also the voice of Sid the Sloth. Who is he?
John Leguizamo 👨🏻
A pop star releases a song in which she accuses her ex of cheating and tax evasion simultaneously, name-drops a Twingo and a Casio watch as insults, and breaks every streaming record in the country. Novela or real life?
Real life — Shakira's BZRP Music Session #53, aimed at footballer Gerard Piqué 🚗
Colombia has more species of this animal than any other country on Earth — over 1,900 of them. What animal could this be?
Birds 🪺
Encanto is rooted in a literary tradition born in Latin America, where magical things happen in an otherwise completely realistic world, and nobody treats it as unusual. What is this genre called?
Magical Realism ✨
This young actor made his acting debut playing his own uncle in a 2026 biopic. His mum is Colombian, his dad is one of the the Jackson brothers. Who is he?
Jafaar Jackson 🪩
Woman goes on a first date with a man she met online. Halfway through dinner she realises he is her own cousin — because his mum and her mum are sisters who lost touch after moving to different cities 30 years ago. Novela or a real story that went viral on Colombian Twitter in 2022?
Novela! this exact plot twist appears in at least four different Colombian novelas. 📜