Taliana Vargas, Colombia's runner up to the Venezuelan candidate in the Miss Universe competition 2008, stepped up onto the stage. Her sequins gave as good as they got from the flash bulbs of the waiting press blinding us in this auditorium just outside the walls of the old city in Cartagena. The 4 runners up for Miss Colombia were being announced and Taliana was preparing to hand over the crown to this year's beauty. 

On Monday night I had the interesting opportunity to attend the Senorita Colombia pageant in Cartagena. In fact I was given accreditation for the whole shebang...an opulent mixture of events ranging from the downright banal to the glitzy and decidedly gaudy that began way back on November 1. Imagine that, 18 days of events before a winner was picked. I have to quickly jump in and admit that this is not my first pageant. As a rookie reporter doing time with Central America Weekly in Costa Rica back in 2000 I got to cover their finals there. The whole process occupied one night only and almost saw me being fired on this gig after being caught on live TV laughing raucously at some episode. I believe it was the interview part. 

 Back to Colombia 

I rocked up on the 14th having decided that the first fourteen days were going to be inconsequential. I still maintain I was right to do so but the press officers for the event clearly resented my lack of unbridled adulation for this a Colombian institution. I attended catwalk shows, shoe events, press briefings, events that took place in boats, the Miss Punctuality event (which started late!), Traje Artesenal, the swimsuit competition and then at long last, after what seemed an interminable 4 days, the grand final. 

Surgically enhanced characters of both sexes flooded the auditorium in long gowns and white suits. It was a cornucopia of silicon and collagen on show. We in the press section stood out as the badly dress unkempt lot as so often is the case. Chatting with the editor from the travel section of Italian Vanity Fair we were predicting the 5 finalists. I had to mention that my father in law - a gentleman who never calls me - had called to give me his predictions as well. Apparently he had never missed a televised pageant. Cundinamarca, Santander, Sucre, Bogota and Cauca were his picks. 

A few curveballs were thrown out. Sucre, who appeared a strong bet was ousted even though she had won the Traje Artesenal competition with quite a number. Antioquia made it through....why, we all wanted to know? 

Then the chattering started and continued as it had been all week. People dismissed some of the girls since their legs were skinny, Cordoba was deemed to be overweight, an attitude that I found distressing since she looked fine to me. Miss Guajira won Miss Congeniality and we all knew this was as far as she would get, born and raised in Miami to Colombian parents did not lend too much in her favour to the partisan crowd. The only natural blond Miss Caldas was suspected to have worked as a high end Escort and her sister, an actress, had been photographed recently with a known narco and so her chances were scuppered by gossip. 

Apparently only Miss Amazonas had not undergone surgery. Where were the entrants from the outlying departments of Guaviare, Vichada, Putumayo, Vaupes, Arauca.....departments whose GDP fluctuates only with the global price of cocaine? I asked the correspondent from Colombian daily broadsheet El Tiempo. "They rarely send entries," she replied. "You have to have money or a major backer to get into this competition, or at the very least donate to the Governor's reelection campaign." So, that's how it worked, I guess I was naive to believe that it could actually be judged on beauty and intelligence alone. Why would it Paola Calderon Hutt's victory in Costa Rica in 200 was clearly a rigged event. 

Finally we had it, the Questions round. Senorita Choco replied well albeit not to the question put to her. Bogota was sharp, Cundinamarca did admirably, Cauca was spritely and Antioquia fluffed hers completely. I should add, my father in law did pretty well, picking three of the final five, he certainly had been doing his homework!

So, Cauca was elected Senorita Colombia. Of the final five I had to agree with the decision. 

But, it is not the competition that has been drawing all the headlines lately in Colombia, some of you may have caught the news talking of the imminent collapse of various pyramid schemes here. 

The company DRFE went under just the other week....you have to ask yourself who would invest in a company that has letters standing for (Dinero Rapido Facil Efectivo) pretty much Fast And Easy Cash? It is a sad situation since the people investing are usually more humble and of a lower economic bracket and stand to lose everything. Now, we have DMG (David Murcia Guzman) being taken over by the Government. Yesterday the Government took over the National Stadium, El Campin, in Bogota to use as a centre where they could process all the investors in DMG and try to give back some of their money. 

But, I digress. We are in a country where the powers in charge know how to manage the news and bury stories beneath others. It seems so convenient that - perhaps I am a rampant conspiracy theorist - that when the Government hits rock bottom in human rights abuses or something or another, then another hostage is released. We are becoming accustomed to this... 

Senorita Cauca won the pageant and for a moment all eyes were on her. Where does she come from, yes the state of Cauca, but her home town (despite being a student at Concordia University in Montreal) is Popayan, ground zero for violent protests and the sacking of the DRFE offices last week and close to the scenes of violent indigenous protests the week before. The moment she won, the demonstrations against DRFE abated somewhat and in true latin stye the population got into their cars and drove through the streets honking their horns in celebration. Calm once again.  

With the extradition of the owner of DMG from Panama yesterday and the melees of irritable and cheated individuals about El Campin Stadium, one can only feel that if the Senorita Colombia pageant were a set up to bury the bad news, whoever was in charge elected Miss Cauca too rapidly despite her good looks and qualifications.

In short on the basis of current events, Senorita Bogota should probably have won. The demonstrations here have only just started and will get worse. Today the Indigenous protestors reached Bogota after marching for days...yesterday there were reports that the police used tear gas on people trying to claim back their savings from DMG at the El Campin stadium. It seems that the spin section in the Palacio de Narino overlooked the pyramid crisis or could it be that Senorita Cauca won on her own merits?