SEPTEMBER 9, MONDAY

LEAVING BOGATA

Susie likes to explore and it is much more fun exploring with someone else. So on Monday we left on a four day field trip to visit two towns which are protected as beautiful heritage towns with the original architecture preserved. This was also going to let us see what the Colombian landscape looked like.

It took 4 hours to drive to the first town of Ville de Leyva, most of the way on wide four lane highways which took us up and over a very high ridge of the Andes and down into a wide flat valley where Ville de Leyva was at the center.

The North Terminal bus station in Bogata is a very modern bus station where sleek and modern and very comfortable buses of a number of different private bus lines come in and out going all over northern Colombia. Our Mercedes bus, as we had been told to expect, left forty minutes late and got to Ville de Leyva an hour late. The seats were extremely comfortable and the clean wide windows gave us a great view. There was a clean, functional toilet at the rear of the bus. In the middle of the four hour ride a man came through the bus selling sandwiches and potato chips and drinks. It was a very pleasant ride.

The preserved part of Ville de Leyva is absolutely beautiful with the original buildings now housing all kinds of clothing and textile shops with hand made objects, almost an artists colony. We ate a late lunch at the Casa Blanca restaurant where the food was delicious and a late dinner in the highly recommended garden of the Mercado Municipal Restaurant.

We know this is a weekend retreat for wealthy people living in Bogata and that on the weekends the town must be crowded with rich visitors although on Monday the streets were not crowded at all. We know that this is an upscale and in some ways artificial town and not a place that the street people I photographed yesterday could come. So our $45 boutique hotel room with a beautiful roof terrace and tasteful decorations is high end and not typical in Colombia. But it also shows a side of Colombian life that is in extreme contrast to the negative stereotypes of South American life that have infected me all of my life. It turns my stereotypes upside down.

In the evening I happened on You Tube on a Trump speech about the hordes of illegal immigrants pouring across our borders and threatening us with murder, rape and other mayhem. But when I contrast this dark fantasy with the beauty of, and good taste and exuberant life of Colombia, all this ranting sounds like looney tunes. If people who swallow this hatefilled speech could see South American life for themselves, as I am finally doing, they would realize that almost all Colombians would prefer to live in Colombia with all of its attractions than in the United States. They would realize that most of the people who come illegally are desperate and are leaving places where life has become unbearable either because of political violence or poverty which is not the person’s fault.

Why is it that it is so difficult for people from anywhere in the world to get visas to visit the United States when all we have to do as Americans to enter Colombia with all of its beauty and liveliness is to show our American passport? Why should we be privileged.

Something is out of kilter and hate speech only makes it worse. We should be welcoming immigrants and the rich cultures they bring, instead. There isn’t a Colombian restaurant in Asheville that I know of or a Colombian grocery store. We are missing out.

I took Spanish in college but saw no point. Now, at 87, I do. If I am going to have a really good time in South America I need to learn at least enough Spanish to make my way and not feel like a ignorant outsider.