The flight to Miami is only a short 30 minute hop & fortunately our gate for the Bogotá leg of the journey was only a short walk. I don't like Miami airport, but I must say they have done some nice renovations. I am a big admirer of modern design & the seats are top notch in this regard, stylish and comfortable.

Bogotá is built high on a vast Andean plain, la Sabana de Bogotá. As one approaches, weather permitting, you are afforded some splendid views of this fertile farmland. You will also notice thousands of huge greenhouses growing all sorts of flowers for world consumption, Colombia is the second largest exporter of flowers in the world.  

El Dorado airport in Bogotá is a very easy airport to navigate through even if one does not speak much Spanish, not too big to be overwhelming. We stopped at the taxi booth outside and received a ticket with the estimated fare, this was implemented to help prevent taxis from overcharging. You present this to the taxi driver upon entering the cab.

The taxi was a crappy Renault 9, the trunk contained a large cylindrical tank that took up most of the room, so our resourceful driver squeezed our carry-on cases in the trunk and our one full-size case was placed in the front passenger seat. We set off at a terrific pace, weaving in and out of the traffic, Bogotá cabbies make New York  cabbies look positively pedestrian. Each time he swerved, our case would lurch across & knock the shifter out of gear. Another thing I quickly learned about Bogotá, "stop" signs which are labeled "pare" don't mean a thing, & if the road has three lanes, then Bogotanos  will squeeze in four lanes of traffic. It was all great fun, better than any thrill ride in Central Florida and worthy of a tip. (tipping is not normal in cabs) I now know where Juan Pablo Montoya picked up his passing skills.

Checked into Hotel Dann Norte, very nice hotel in a good area of Bogotá. Once we quickly settled in we went for a walk to Usaquen Station to purchase our tickets for the Turistren. The neighbourhood that we walked through is called Santa Bárbara, it is a beautiful area, I could see myself living here. The homes and modern apartments are well-kept with beautiful flowers everywhere. There is a lot of civic pride in Bogotá that did not exist in years past thanks to two progressive, civic minded mayors, Antanas Mockus & Enrique Penalosa .  Of course as one would expect security is tight, on many corners there are booths with armed guards, and the police (they look like soldiers) were milling around on patrol. At first this is a little unnerving for an outsider not used to seeing machine guns being toted around, but soon you are actually oblivious to it almost.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Carulla on Av Pepe Sierra & purchased a couple of bottles of jugo de lulo, a bag of manimotos, a couple of postre de natas & some chocolate Kinder. Upstairs there is a little cafe but they had stopped serving everything except some really nasty Hawaiian pizza, but we ate it anyway.

We are getting an early night, I hope the weather tomorrow is as nice as it was today, if so we are planning to visit la Candelaria.

All content copyright © 2004 Jim Thompson

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