suicide showers and taxi cabs

5/18/2008
5/19/2008 07:07 AM (notes made for yesterday)
Suicide showers! But definitely safer than those in Costa Rica. These ones have the lead wires to the heater on the shower head taped over which gives one a much more secure feeling when your hand is dangling in the air above the electrical water heater built into the shower head, while washing under your arms. Costa Rica often had bare wires feeding the leads to the shower head heater!
Remember the saying, “I can’t remember what happened yesterday, let alone last week”? Well, here goes.
Jim and I walked about 400 yards down our dead end street (we presume that our neighborhood is somewhere middle class) as there is a kiosk with a security guard at the beginning of the street and most of the cars are locked away behind metal garages with decorative grates on them, (this is going to be what my teacher of decades ago said was a running sentence) to meet the women at their bed and breakfast. The street is just wide enough for two cars to pass and the sidewalks are quite rough with uneven concrete and the occasional pothole that you wouldn’t want to step into. As today is Domingo (Sunday) the bed and breakfast doesn’t serve breakfast but there are three small shops including a bakery within 50’ of their front door. We tried the bakery for some fresh baked goods and got a mix of fresh and what must have been yesterdays as well. I was one of the lucky ones and my bun with some fruit in it was quite good. It was about 08:30 and after breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee, while still sitting at the table I commented on how nice it was (no rain forecast for today) and that it already was quite warm. I think it was Jenn who commented that was likely because we were sitting beside the bake oven and it was producing more of today’s fare! The eating area and work area of this store are somewhat combined. After a few moments of thought I figured that I’d best keep my observations to myself from now on!
The taxi cabs here are for the most part tiny little Atol’s (I think that’s the way you spell it) which are some form of Hyundai (sp again). They seat four comfortably including the driver and they go like stink. We ordered two of them and I thought that I got a first hand experience of what it must be like to be beside the driver in the Grand Pris. Very few of the roads have painted lines of them and there are quite a number of serious potholes to consider and most of the roads are at least two lanes wide – I should say that they’re wide enough to hold two cars side by side traveling at 100 km with three inches between the side mirrors. Seat belts are only provided for the front seat passengers and the cabbie insists that you wear it. Back seat passengers don’t count as the buckle is buried beneath the bench seat somewhere – in every cab we were in. Most of these cars are fairly modern and I will say that from what I saw the taxi fleet is in quite good condition – perhaps better than at home. The one comforting thing is that the drivers are very capable. It’s amazing how they dodge in and out of traffic without signaling a lot of the time, beep their horns to avoid a pending disaster and just carry on – often with one hand on the wheel. The first couple of rides I stepped out of the car onto the sidewalk and almost kissed the broken concrete. After awhile one just becomes “aware” of what’s going on and is able to carry on with limited conversations.
About 10:00 we headed down the street for about a five minute walk to a very modern shopping plaza called Hayeleous. Most of the stores were closed and there were very few people in the mall at that time. We decided to head downtown to Commercial Centro and to the Plaza de Bolivar which has some historic buildings surrounding it. This was our first introduction to beggars and there are a number of them but if you simply say no about three times they leave you alone. There were gazillions of pigeons sharing the plaza with the people but they are trained somehow as there was very little evidence of bird poop. They all seemed to be pecking at something on the ground but even when looking closely I couldn’t see what they might be eating.
We wandered into an enormous church adjacent to the plaza and it was truly enormous inside and truly beautiful. There were a number of people sitting inside praying and then a number of others just milling about like we were. I’m sorry, I couldn’t find a name for this church so will have to look it up later. No literature anywhere.
We wandered down a commercial street and by this time the streets were full of people all enjoying their Sunday outing. I didn’t see one other person who I could identify as a tourist and that was for the whole day yesterday. I was keenly aware of the glances that I got from many looking at our group as we easily stood out from the locals. Jim fit in the best I think as he was wearing khaki shorts and sandals with a somewhat local type shirt which wasn’t tucked in and a sombrero type hat that looked newer but somehow fit in. Apparently we were targeted by a pair of thieves who had said something about they were going to take something from us. Two young school aged girls who spoke English very well overheard them saying this in Spanish and they immediately told Diane and Jody.
One of them saw Diane talking to me and I made eye contact with him. He was about ten paces away from me and we were walking towards him. He immediately turned and headed in the same direction and came to a corner and turned right. We arrived at the corner about five or six seconds later and he had simply disappeared. We had also turned right but he was nowhere to be seen. I guess he figured that we were on to him, but where he went so quickly, we’ll never know. I wasn’t too concerned as there were police and army personnel nearby but who knows what they had in mind.
We carried on up an Avenue heading to the Monserrate, which is a church high up on the mountainside overlooking the city. We caught the aerial cable car up to the top which was about another 1000’ in elevation and I think we were at that point well over 10,000’ in altitude. The area up there was absolutely beautiful with nice hillside gardens, another beautiful church which was not much smaller than the one that we’d been too earlier, and absolutely stunning views over the city of Bogota. This outlook gave us a good perspective of the city and its surrounding area. One might expect that the city, being at an elevation of 8,700’, would be on a hillside or mountain side but not so. Most of the city is in a large valley that’s slightly bowl shaped but is for the most part level. The commercial center has many high rise buildings and is quite modern. We went into the church and the situation was similar to the other church in that there was a service going on but many others who weren’t participating were wandering about. It was huge and one wonders what effort was made to build such a large building and surrounding complex at this altitude above the city. This church really was near the top of the mountain. There were a number of outbuildings surrounding it including offices, medical stations and police and military stations along with a long corridor of merchants that seemed to be ordered by having the most expensive ones first and at the very end – about a city block long – the very low end shops and food outlets.
We spent an hour or so up there and I was disappointed again not to find any literature in any of the shops or the church itself about where we were and some history.
Our trip down on the rail cable car was uneventful and there was less opportunity for seeing the view as we were really jammed into the car – standing areas only and I’m sure there were at least 50 of us in this small car. The system worked well and the only hint that there might have been some tension is when the car finally stopped at the bottom and quite a few people applauded – I presume for having arrived safely.
Once grounded we decided to head back tour rooms to freshen up and we hailed two cabs and you know the story here, but we arrived safely again.
The elevation here is high and I thought that I was getting a bit tired with all of the walking that we were doing and when I lay my head down for a nap for 20 or so minutes I realized how tired I was. It was nice to feel that flood of relaxation spread over my body as I dropped off for my snooze.
We decided that we were going to go out for dinner to Zona Rosa. This is a high end area of the city and when we arrived there it was clear that it was upscale by all the shops and their expensive displays. The restaurants were for the most part high end as well. We’d planned on having Italian cuisine but couldn’t find the restaurant even after getting directions from at least four or five policemen and doormen to restaurants and pubs. In the end we learned that it had closed or gone out of business! We ended up having a beer at the Bogota Beer Company and I had one of the best glasses of beer ever – it was a mix of Bogota light and dark, somewhat similar to Herman’s dark but much better. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant for dinner and I think we all enjoyed the food. It was all a bit different tasting from the usual Mexican fare that I’d been used to but was good.
I’m having a bit of trouble writing this note as there are a couple of love birds sitting in front of me and one of them keeps adjusting her seat in jerky sort of motions which makes it hard to find the right keys on the keyboard. I get most done when they have their heads together and are relaxing. It would be easier if they just settled down!
As a final note to the day we had our usual cab ride home and I was in bed by about 10:30 and I was very tired. There is no heat whatsoever in our apartment – apparently the climate stays relatively the same year round and it’s quite moderate. Despite that I was cold in the night a couple of times the night before so folded the blankets on my double bed into single bed size and dozed off into oblivion.