La vida corriente y moliente I

It is a bit exaggerated to talk about the “daily grind” after only two weeks living here, but there happen to be some remarkable attributes to Bogota that I have already experienced on a daily basis. Now, I know it’s going to sound like I want to small talk to you, but I’d like to tell you some bits about the weather and the traffic here ;)

On some days I think, that Bogota seems to be St.Peter’s fun park as you never really know how the day is going to turn out weather-wise, whether it starts with a stunning blue sky and sunny, grey in grey or raining. The same applies to the temperature, which can easily swing between 10 and 25 degrees Celsius each and every day. As you can guess the weather-forecast here is rubbish (isn’t it everywhere in the world?), and therefore you are basically forced to take half a camping-equipment with you, if you want to be prepared for the Bogota weather-circus. I actually should know better, as I’ve been here before and my parents even told me about the whims of weather, before I came, but somehow I didn’t think about it at all in the first few days and “preferred” to learn it the hard way. I probably thought that with Colombian blood in my veins, I’d be prepared genetically for any meteorological circumstance here... Anyways, the first incident was on my second day when I was on my way to my aunt Margarita’s, which is a 20’-walk from the closest “transmilenio”-station (that’s the public mass transportation service: buses on an extra-lane on some main-streets, really useful and fast, but packed with commuters like sardines in a can at peak times).

When I got on the bus the sun was still shining and the clouds were only a small apparition on the horizon. But as at Bogota’s eastern frontier the “Cerros orientales de Bogota” build a rather high natural wall, things can go quite fast with the accumulating air there and so when I got off the bus it actually started raining. It wasn’t hard at the beginning and although the other people were already waiting under a roof for the rain to stop again, I thought if I’d walk quickly I wouldn’t get too wet and beat St.Peter. Wrong… the minute I left the bridge leading to the bus-station, the downpour began. It was like standing in the shower. The only protection I had was just a sweater and far away from a raincoat or an umbrella, and all it helped was that I had an additional piece of clothes to dry later. The worst thing is that the streets fill with water instantly and the cars driving by splashing get the best part of your still dry parts! At least I managed to get to a slightly protected spot under a small roof and there I was able to take some pictures for you… I was lucky that my little cousin Sean has grown that much over the past few years, so I could gratefully borrow something dry from him.

The second weather incident was on Sunday, when I went for a walk on the “Ciclovia”. The Ciclovia is one of the things I liked most about Bogota so far. Every Sunday the “Carrera 7”, one of the biggest streets in Bogota (6 lanes and leading all the way from south to north), gets closed for all motor-vehicles from 7 AM to 2 PM and becomes probably the largest fitness-event in the world. People walking, jogging, skating and biking flood the street and enjoy the absence of the usual traffic. The participating number must go into the hundred thousands and many side events as well as merchants make it an impressive and worthwhile spectacle.

It also needs a lot of helpers and they have to get up really early to get the streets empty… And this is taking place every single Sunday! At all events, what happened was that I went out of the house without any sun blocker, because it was cloudy and of course during my two-hour walk the brightest sun ever appeared out of nowhere and left me with a nice red tourist-sunburn. The worst part here was that, in spite of all my efforts to come across as Colombian, now some people even started to talk to me in English… not the expected step ahead in my project “Get rid of that Gringo-air of yours” ;).
tbc...