Sunday Shopping

My arms feel tight today with Saturday’s sun. Bogotá is 8,000 some odd feet above sea level, and surprisingly, to me anyway, that makes a real difference. I’ll be paying for that afternoon in the park all week.

This morning was sunny again, unusually so, they tell me. I read about bus rapid transit in Latin America and swung in the living room hammock (I love this apartment!) all morning. In the afternoon, I took a taxi to Usaquen, a market on the north side of town, with a Norwegian friend of my sister and her Colombian boyfriend. Silje insisted I call a taxi rather than simply hailing one outside the apartment. Apparently all of her foreign co-workers have been victims of taxi robberies. Naturally, it was the scariest ride I’ve had here yet, even though I knew for the first time that I was in no danger of being separated from my wallet and backpack. I prayed the whole way, appropriately enough for a Sunday, but landed at the Hacienda Santa Barbara (a real hacienda from years ago) entrance with my heart in my mouth. The combination of extreme recklessness and a Geo Metros did not inspire much confidence.

In Bogotá, the north end is ritzy and green, while the south is where most of the displaced population of Colombia lives, in shacks on hillsides. I haven’t been south of the city center yet, although I live further south than most Americans do. Much of the security briefing we sat through at the American Embassy involved admonitions not to live or visit places between this number street and that. Anything above 100th street is crazy rich, or so I think from my slot on 24th street. But I really liked Usaquen – it was an open-air market, what Liz and I were expecting to find yesterday at San Andresito (we got a strip mall with a million tennis shoes instead). There were lots of household goods made from bamboo and wool, most of them fairly artistic, great paella cooked in enormous cast-iron pots and served with sharp vinegary tomatoes and tender pork loins. Yum.

Silje remarked on something I found interesting, given that I’ve definitely been nervous here once or twice – that most people who had only been here a week still had that jumpy green look to them, whereas I seemed fairly relaxed. That was nice to hear – my goal has been to be careful and stay safe without panicking or being overly cautious – wouldn’t want to miss anything worth experiencing out of fear. I’m not sure about the whole taxi thing – today’s nerve-shattering experience is not one I hope to repeat, but it was reassuring to have the code and know that at least someone knew exactly where I was.

Afterwards we waited for a Germania bus together. Today was Sunday, so Ciclovia was in full swing – several of the main roads are closed for cyclists, which tended to be mostly families with small children where we were. Because of this, I was initially charmed by what I thought was normal youthful exuberance – kids doing cartwheels in front of cars stopped at a red light. It was chastening and disheartening to hear that these children were putting on a show for coins. Silje thought the two nearest us were probably not street kids by their clothing – a small boy juggled a single one ball, and a girl, his sister perhaps, danced with abandon until the light turned green and the cars drove off. The bus came, and we clambered aboard, the kids getting smaller in the distance as the bus lurched away.