With that taken care of we decide to check my E-mails in the hotel's internet cafe. We went to the front desk and told them we wanted Internet access for 1 hour, you can use this as you like a minute or two here and there until you reach your pre-paid limit. Trust me you are going to need that hour just to get online, unless things have changed. The first PC we attempted to use could not access the Internet at all, the second one would not accept the user name & password we were provided with. The hotel sent over the IT guy (I think he works behind the front desk as well), he typed a few things, looked perplexed and left to try to change a setting at the main PC, he came back and tried again, nothing, nada. So then he tries to sort out the other PC, voila it works, he seems relieved. I try to open my business site Belerion Books, a page I know loads fast, except on this PC. The IT apologizes profusely and explains the cable connection is new and has some bugs. Yikes, I thought it was slow for dialup, I never would have guessed it was a cable connection. I limit my PC time to just checking to see if I have received any book or CD orders. I know I said we have a free day today, but who wants to spend it in the hotel basement. There are plenty of Internet cafes in the area, so next time Hotel Dann won't be my choice.

We decided to take a leisurely stroll to Hacienda Santa Bárbara for a bit of shopping. To reach Hacienda Santa Bárbara we head up Diagonal 110 which is right in front of our hotel. It runs through some very nice residential areas and has a cicloruta running along it. Hacienda Santa Bárbara is a wonderful juxtaposition of styles, part of the mall is built into a colonial style house built in 1847. This was one of many homes that belonged to José María Sierra, the legendary "Pepe Sierra". The remainder of the mall is in the modern style but somehow this works well. There is considerable attention to making the architecture both complimentary and pleasant with lots of park-like common areas, many of the old details such as fountains and courtyards are incorporated into the design. 

Our quest today was to find and purchase some small presents for my mother, mother-in-law & sister-in-law. We were after something that represented Colombia but that could be used and most of all not a tacky tourist souvenir.  We ended up in Galeria Cano and purchased some nice replicas of pre-Columbian gold artifacts, of course Maria had to have a few pieces for herself. By the time we came out of the mall the weather had changed, gone was the sunny day, it was now overcast and cooler. The weather in Bogotá is very changeable throughout any given day.

I had been craving some sancocho since we arrived in Colombia but I was finding out it was not that popular in the restaurants near the hotel. Several people had mention we go to Sopas de Mama y Postres de Abuela, so off we went. It is a nice place but to be honest the sopa was not very good, the yuca was not cooked enough neither were the platanos and it wasn't gallina it was carne, tough carne at that. My teeth sure got a workout with that bowl of soup, I was exhausted by the time I had gnawed my way through the contents of my bowl. Maria had better luck with her sopa de mariscos (seafood soup).

We like to go for a walk after eating a big meal so we walked around a bit, took a photo of Maria sitting on a bench next to Ronald McDonald, well ... OK a statue of him. Not knowing where we were going we wandered around a bit behind the hotel and ended up on Dia109, it is very trendy with a lot of the stores we wish we had in Orlando. Maria & I really enjoy modern design of the sort found in magazines such as Dwell or Axxis and this area was chock full of modern design stores. We went in all of them and Maria had the poor salesmen working overtime for our business, I suppose they assumed we were local and were outfitting an apartment, of course Maria played the part. We found a store called "Bed, Bath & Barrel", I suppose a cross between "Crate & Barrel" and "Bed Bath & Beyond", at least in name. Actually it was a very nice store and we ended up buying 4 modern plates, they are melamine so easy to pack. It seems that Bogotá has a penchant for good design, I was quite surprised by the sheer range of modern furniture and fittings available, as well as the modern architecture of the city. Of course it is the home of the famous Torres del Parque designed by Rogelio Salmona, so I shouldn't be surprised. Another notable architect in the modernist vein is Luis Restrepo.

Later in the evening we went to a little cafeteria near the hotel for some empanadas and almojabanas neither was very good.

Off to Cartagena tomorrow. 

 All content copyright © 2004 Jim Thompson

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