Bogotá, Part Four

Sunday Afternoon (Day One)


As I’m writing this, I, of course, did survive my ride in the death cab for cutie (now I know where the band may have gotten its name).  But it shook me up pretty bad.  We went back to the room to recompose and figure out what to do.  In the end we decided to walk up to the Zona Rosa, which is an upscale shopping area with restaurants and cafés.




Half of the Street In Front of the Hotel Open Only to Cyclists, Walkers, and Joggers:

Random Buildings Along the Way:

Photo of Some Random Guy, Dancing In Traffic:

The walk from our hotel to Zona Rosa was along a mix of busy, chaotic roads and quiet, residential side streets.  We walked at a relaxed pace and managed to arrive in about twenty minutes.

There are a couple of shopping malls and some street-level retail.  The area is pretty indistinguishable from similar offerings all over the world.  I’ve seen similar malls in Warsaw, Buenos Aires, Beijing, San Francisco, and on and on.  But, it’s what we’d expected from what we read in the guidebooks and online.

We eventually found a spot to have a little lunch.  The waiter was friendly and spoke English well enough for us to get by, though he started off saying “I speak English.  But not friendly.”  After a couple of minutes of speaking, though, we realized he meant “fluently,” and not “friendly.”  I thought it was odd, though, that someone would warn me upfront that he was going to speak to me in English but he wasn’t going to like it!  Funny.




At the Restaurant We Ate At Was Having a "Festival of Hamburgers:"

After our late lunch we strolled around a little more before heading back to the hotel room.




Scenes From Around Zona Rosa:

In One of the Shopping Malls at Zona Rosa; Gas Is Bad, But Groggy Gas May Be Worse:

Philip Poses With a Horse:

On the Way Back to the Hotel, We Saw These; They Were Everywhere Around Town:

Back in the room, we freshened up and got ready for dinner, then headed to the lounge for a pre-dinner glass of wine.  It was about then that I started to really notice the altitude, though I didn’t yet know what it was I was dealing with.

Finding a place for dinner was no easy task:  we went to several near the hotel and they were all closed.  We traipsed up steep hillsides, and then ended up back at the hotel for suggestions.  Seems it was a national holiday the next day and that meant that many restaurants were closed.  (Interestingly, we asked several people and nobody could name the holiday!)

By the time we found a place to eat, my reactions to the altitude had become much more severe.  I’d pretty much lost my appetite, I was having issues breathing, and I wasn’t feeling very well.  It was all a shame, because the restaurant we ended up at seemed quite nice.

After dinner we went back to the room, unwound a little, and then went to bed.  Sadly, the altitude also affects the sleep pattern, as neither of us slept very well, not on that night nor on the others.  Actually, on that night, I even woke up at some point, unable to get enough air.   It’s pretty panic-inducing to awake in the middle of the night, heart racing, unable to get enough air.  I wished I'd heeded the warnings about altitude and had stayed better hydrated and taken other steps to combat its affects!


Next Up:  Monday

Bogotá, Part Three

Day One, Sunday Morning:  Market and the Death Cab

Sunday morning we awoke to our first daytime sighting of Bogotá.  Our view from the room was sweeping, looking northward over the vastness of the city’s northern suburbs.  To the right, we saw the mountains climbing quickly, just a few short blocks east of the hotel.  The city was vast and our view gave us our first signal of just how big a metropolis is Bogotá.

The views from our room:

For breakfast, we went downstairs to the Executive Lounge for something to eat.  The spread was cold-cuts and cheeses, fresh fruit, cereal, and scrambled eggs.  There was coffee and fresh-squeezed juice.  The spread wasn’t comprehensive or big, but it was enough to be filling and to make a nice start to the day.

Our agenda for Sunday included a local craft market, though they called it a “flea market.”  After the market, we planned to go down to the old quarter and explore there.

To get to the market, we coordinated with the hotel front desk for one of their taxis, for about six dollars.  They’d drop us off and we’d get a local taxi to the center city.  The ride to the market was smooth and without incident.

This was our first exposure to a city that is still a bit notorious, so we were a little on guard.  And, the altitude was a little noticeable and left us winded if we walked too fast.  It was a bit of a foreshadowing event I paid little attention to.

The market was just okay.  I did find one gift that was quite nice and I saw a few possibilities, but it wasn’t as exciting as some of the other markets I’d seen in other cities.

The Market:

The street near the market:

After the market we were looking for a café to relax a little.  It was a little difficult to divine out which places were cafés and which were restaurants.  We saw a couple of folks on the patio at one establishment, so we went there and had a coffee.

Philip's Artistic Take on Our Coffee Break:

After the café we scouted around a little more at the market and then embarked upon a terrifying taxi ride.  Our intent was to go to the old city, which was about as far south of our hotel as the market was north.  We hailed a taxi and quickly realized that disabled seatbelts are de rigueur in Bogotá.  You see, there were seatbelts but they had been tucked behind the seats and were irretrievable.  The buckle was also disabled and pushed down into the seat so that it was not reachable.  The taxi drivers seem keen to make sure you do not have this safety option.

The taxi ride was just about one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, as we darted through traffic and pedestrians at great speed, nearly hitting a couple of cars and a bus and then, the final straw, we nearly rear-ended a car about twice as big as the taxi we were in.  I’ve had crazy taxi rides before and usually am able to just suck it up, but, without seatbelts and in such a small car, it was too much for me.  The thin air wasn’t allowing me to get in full breaths, and that didn’t help.  Finally I’d had enough and we directed the driver to our hotel and decided we’d do the old quarter later that day or another day.  I was never so glad to get out of a car in my life.

Next posting:  Sunday Afternoon