BOGATA
I arrived at 2:30 in the morning Asheville time. Susie met me with a taxi driver and we were asleep in our 14th floor Airbnb by 3:30.
The Airbnb has a marvelous view of the city. There is a doorman who lets us into the building and quick elevators up. Our airbnb has a well equipped kitchen with a clothes washing machine. There is a large living space with two couches and a balcony. Each of us has a bedroom with a private bathroom.
We were up late, grateful for the absence of jet lag. We went out to eat breakfast out and explore but on leaving our building were immediately immersed in streets closed off to cars with the streets full of pedestrians and street vendors selling all kinds of thing lining both sides the street with a bicycle lane down the middle. We wandered up the street and finally found a restaurant recommended by Anthony Bourdain which had enormous tamales, not wrapped in corn husks but some other wide green leaves. The place was tiny but great fun. Then we walked home and that was it for the day. Restaurants are very inexpensive here. We are totally confused by the currency exchange, 3,700 pesos to the dollar, so are dealing with huge amounts of pesos adding up to very few dollars. I’m guessing that our meal for two with orange juice as a drink was about $12.
After our meal we walked home slowly taking photographs as we went. We had been told never to show our cell phones or someone would snatch them. But everyone has a cell phone here that they look at often and ours are strapped to our wrists so they would be hard to snatch. But we didn’t see any suspicious snatchers. Because we each had our cell phones lifted in Paris, Susie grabbed hers back and I caught my thief by his collar until he dropped mine, we could also tell people to never take out there cell phone in Paris. We have no idea what the real danger is and are being careful.
But Bogata is a wonderful city to photograph. Because there is no winter or summer here, just cool weather year around, everything is open to the street. Shops are all open to the street and there are colorful murals everywhere and the street vendors all have wildly colorful booths. A great number of booths have recordings blaring in Spanish advertising their wares. There is a cacophany of sounds and only a casual observance of traffic patterns. Everyone is out having a good time. It turns out that Bogata is a wonderful city to visit and we have already decided that we are coming back.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 