We caught a taxi to the airport, this time a Toyota Tercel of early 1990s vintage. The airport is much prettier than I remembered, the departure area which is open to the world (no windows) somehow seems appropriate for San Andres. There were just a few people waiting and they all were bunched together leaving most of the departure area to us, I soon found out why, they were clustered under one of the few operational ceiling fans. We soon joined the huddled masses. The check in procedure is very efficient and the plane departed just a few minutes late. We touched down in Bogotá on time but the taxi ride to the hotel took about an hour, the traffic was horrendous. 

Once at the hotel we retrieved our large suitcase from the front desk picked up our room key and went up to the room. This time our room is a bit smaller but nice & sunny and facing the rear of the hotel, this is a much quieter room but with no view. 

The weather outside was beginning to look ominous but we're on holiday so no time to sit around just because the weather looks bad. So we donned our cooler weather clothes and walked to Hacienda Santa Barbara to buy a bronze figure of a Botero work that we had seen on a previous visit. On the way we stopped at Empanadas Tipicas for a couple of empanadas, they were pretty good.

We finally located the shop where I had noticed the Botero figure, it was the last one; a gordita in a two piece bikini! We had a nice chat with the two ladies who own the shop, one of them has a condo in Miami and the other has a son who lives in Atlanta. They were asking us about the hurricanes, one of which is due to arrive in Orlando any moment. Maria's mother is staying at our home and her father installed the plywood for us, so we should be OK, we'll find out next week. 

I managed to keep the empanadas inside me for a few hours so thinking that my stomach was back to normal we stopped once again at Empanadas Typicas for a couple of chorizos and some empanadas de queso to take back to the hotel for supper. The lady fries up the food while you wait so it is nice and hot, just the job on a cold rainy Bogotá day. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Carulla for a bottle of jugo de mora, yogurt & some postre de natas to round out our empanada and chorizo feast.

We decided to stay in tonight and watch a bit of TV. Watched a car program that was testing which small car was the best to make love in, a VW Golf won, I would have thought a French or Italian car would have won not a cold Teutonic model. I believe the show hails from Argentina, at least all the hosts had long hair.

***No new photos today***

All content copyright © 2004 Jim Thompson

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