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