When Karin Roth goes to Bogotá as an exchange student she quickly falls in love with the country and its people. Lively, attractive and opinionated, she soon has a wide circle of Colombian friends, and is studying and partying in equal measure. A trip to stay in a friend's finca farm, however, awakens her to the beauty and grandeur of the Colombian landscape while an encounter with the strange, fair-headed El Mono—a 'mountain man' with a profound, near-mystical connection to the Andean people and wildlife—conjures deep, troubling emotions. Offered a summer internship in a top-flight multinational in Bogotá, Karen finds her loyalties are divided. Caught between the dazzling, cosmopolitan world of big business and the exhilarating freedom of the mountains and the pueblos, Karin must undergo a painful journey towards self-knowledge and redemption.

Originally from London, Tony Cleaver has been a journalist, hippy, teacher, road sweeper, mountain guide, university lecturer and writer. He has lived and worked in Colombia, Chile, Singapore and the Netherlands and is the author of two economics textbooks published by Routledge. After many years teaching economics at the University of Durham, he has recently moved back to Colombia, where he lectures part-time, writes and plays cricket.