This is my 250th blog post. Quite the milestone. So I thought I'd push the boat out a bit.
It's the first time I've been outside Europe or North America since 2015. I had a meander around South America back in 2012, but that started south of here (in Ecuador) and then progressed further south. This was always unfinished business. Perhaps the crucial change since 2012 is that I've learned to speak Spanish and so things are going to be a bit easier for me this time round. Indeed two of my UK-based Spanish tutors, Alejandro and Leonor, are colombiano and colombiana respectively. Hi guys.
I'm going to be subjecting myself to total Spanish-language immersion during the whole of this trip: everything, absolutely everything, that I say or hear or read or watch will be in Spanish. If people try practising their English on me then I'm going to pretend to be Hungarian and feign incomprehension. Even my diary is going to be in Spanish until I get home. The exception is of course this blog, which will continue in English, and I hope you all appreciate the sacrifice I'm making.
I've been surprised at how few other foreigners I've encountered. Inevitably you see tourists at the top of the cable car and in the main city centre plazas, but I've generally been the only foreigner on the buses or on the streets, even in the posher and richer barrios. As such I've also often been, and this is a novelty for me, the tallest person in sight.
Which brings us to the thorny topic of personal security. Here there are many barrios into which one does not go at night, and some barrios into which one does not go at all. Lots of drug cartels and paramilitary groups and so on. Sometimes there are armed police and indeed armed soldiers on every street corner, and it's an interesting question as to whether that's reassuring or not. I tend to think it is, if only because those police and soldiers are never going to see ginger gringos ("gingos"?) like me as a threat.
And it's easy to overstate the dangers. The dark days of the 80s and 90s are long gone. There are at least half a dozen US cities with a higher murder rate than Bogotá, and I've spent time in all but one of them. The exception being Cleveland, Ohio. (I'll get there eventually.)
All joking aside, I love Bogotá and I love Colombia and I wish I'd come here sooner. More to follow.
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| Cable car view, coming down from the Montserrate mountain to the east of the city |
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| Panorama photo looking east from the top of the mountain |
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| View to the north |
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| Sunshine after the rain, just round the corner from my apartment |
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| Bogotá cathedral overlooking the Plaza de Bolivar on election day |
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| Looking west towards the mountains in La Candeleria |
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| Hurrah for affordable countries... ...where you can stumble off a long-haul flight and straight into an airport hotel like this, for not much money at all. |
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| Edd vs Food #130 Rice, meat, beans. It doesn't really matter what it's called or where it's served. And all meals are improved by putting a fried egg on top. This has been proved. By science. |
