Bus Anxiety – La Candelaria – Couchsurfing Events

Posted on by April 22, 2010

If I ever finish the redesign of my website, one focus will be to encourage Americans to travel.   I think a stumbling block is the perception of bus travel, and as one example, the anxiety of dealing with bus stations.   Bus stations in big city America are unequivocally horrendous, seedy, crime-filled places, and I imagine the thought is that they must be exponentially worse in developing countries, but it’s largely the opposite.
This picture of San Gil’s station below with the four sleeping dogs is typical.   Sure, San Gil is a small town with a somnabulant station, but Bogota’s terminal could also be good for a nap.   It’s very orderly and chaos-free.   My only beef is with the maniacal bus drivers.   The buses themselves are fine–and more expensive than they need to be, given local wages.

Den of Vice

Bogota’s historic quarter is called La Candelaria.   I had been there twice before, but this time for some reason either I saw it with new eyes or I simply forgot about it, so it was a revelation to be there this time.   It has some very pretty side streets with some curious names:

"Dogface Street"

It was near  there that I stumbled on to an amazing little restaurant called Triptiko. What you see here is a potato/yucca-based soup called sancochito with Florentine rice, passion fruit steak, a fried banana, terranova salad, the world’s smallest dessert and next to it, a glass of curuba juice.   (Viviana insists Colombia has more fruits than Brazil.)   This is 5500 pesos, just under US$3.00.

Tonight I went to a Couchsurfing get-together for people who wanted to practice their English. I was surprised to see a good 40 people there, with only 3 or 4 gringos.   This is an underrated aspect of Couchsurfing, another thing I will expand on in the website redesign.   Couchsurfing is a great place to do activities together, to rent a room, to buy and sell stuff, and to meet new people.   It isn’t just about staying with someone in their homes. There are groups and in big cities where it is well-organized, lots of sub-groups for cycling, practicing English, weekend excursions or whatever.

I love flea markets

Posted on by April 22, 2010

I love flea markets.   I love airports and embassies and Trader Joe’s tomatillo salsa, too, but those are subjects for another time. San Alejo is the most well-known in Bogota, but it isn’t a favorite of mine.   The sellers are more or less the same every week; I recognized some from a year ago and you can just tell from the same rusty junk they sell. Viviana says her mom knows of many other flea markets, but it’s a shame I only discovered this now.   Actually, I’m just happy it wasn’t raining cats and dogs as it had been for the last solid week.
Viviana is my CouchSurfing host.   She’s been telling me about the miracles of bee venom.   I’m dying to get a dose, but she’s more preoccupied with getting Colombian regulatory approval.

Just look at this photo of the girl in the chair, blocking anyone from looking at the books. What am I supposed to do, climb over her? That’s pure contempt.

Usaquen is where all the beautiful people go.   I lasted 10 minutes before I was thrown out, a personal record.   No, I went to the artisan markets and hung out with Sam’s sister for a while.   She met me to give a heavy brown envelope that I am to deliver to someone in USA.   Hmmm…..

Bogota bus drivers are ferocious on the roads.   I feel bad for old people who have to hang on for dear life, but change be a-comin’!   This year Bogota is rumored to get a real bus system and not a patchwork of private buses causing havoc on the roads.

Goodbye San Gil, Hello Bogota

Posted on by April 20, 2010

Goodbye San Gil, I’m going to miss you....sob...sniff...

One month on the road as of now, but it hasn’t been much road.   On the one hand I am a little embarrassed that I have stayed in San Gil so long.   It goes against the norm for me, and I feel like I haven’t accomplished much.

On the other hand, being in one place for a while gives me some depth of the place, whether real or imagined is hard to say.   I wish I had met more Colombians, but the ones I spent the most time with, Sam and Eliana, were fountains of information and they patiently answered all my stupid questions.

I did hone my poker skills.   I came in 2nd place in the last tournament. (I lost it on the river. Someone hand me a guitar.   I got a blues song in me that needs to come out.)

Another benefit of staying a while in the hostel is you get to know people who are experts in their field. There was the Dutch professional writer, The British computer genius, the American who hiked the entire John Muir Trail and the Norwegian guitar hero.
My expertise?   Finding the cheapest fruit.

I wouldn’t have stayed so long if the hostel wasn’t great, tempermental hot water, creaking doors and Sam’s stubborn refusal to sell BBQ teriyaki tofu aside, though even in the best of times sleeping in dorm rooms is a challenge.   Sam gave me a poker chip key fob from the hostel and his unflappably serene brother, Javier, gave me a goodbye candy bar.

Sam booked me for only 25,000 pesos on the “best bus” to Bogota, he said, which to me is code for “coldest bus”.   Luxury=hypothermia in tropical countries.   I dug out the jacket and was still a human popsicle in the rolling walk-in freezer.

My toiletry bag is a mess after this ascension to 2600 meters, which reminds me, not many people know this, but the word “Bogota” is an ancient Indian word meaning “High Land of Exploding Shampoo Bottles”.
No one else laughed either.

I have a friend working for a Turkish welding company–I know, who doesn’t?–and he thinks he can get me an Iranian visa.   If he can pull it off, I’m going, even if it is in the middle of the Middle Eastern summer.

Lunch in the market

Posted on by April 22, 2010

The staff here in this stall in the market prepare me this killer lunch below

This costs 4500 pesos, which is US$--I don’t know exactly, my head is spinning from the calculation in my head, and I know it has to be precise for all the people on the fence about coming to Colombia. 1925 pesos=US$1.00

Sam charges 10,000 pesos (about US$5.25) to do a load of laundry.   There are virtually no lavanderias in this town, oddly, so I do it through him.   Lots of people just go without.   Apparently there’s no shame in wearing the same clothes day after day.   I can fall in easily with the crowd, but I try not to.   I change my shirt every two hours so it never gets really dirty.   HA!

I am still amazed at how many people travel with laptops or netbooks.   Just about every hostel in the country has wi-fi, my colleagues tell me, and I suppose you have to offer it to get people to stay at your place these days.

A box of big ass ants for sale in San Gil, Colombia

Posted on by April 16, 2010

These are the hands of a guy selling big ass ants on the street corner.   Yes, these ants have wings.   He explained why they don’t fly away, but I couldn’t grasp what he was saying.   It was hard to concentrate as I soaked this in.

I bought yet another international plane ticket today.   I go from Washington DC to Zurich about 2 weeks from now.   $351 one way on USAirways.   Not thrilled about it, but the miles will mean something.   My friends in Zurich live within walking distance of the airport, and yet they don’t hear all the traffic, which for me may be the coolest thing ever.

I would love to bring ants as gifts, but I don’t see how I can get them past US Customs.

Is my blog becoming too ant-centric?

Speaking Spanish

Posted on by April 15, 2010

Powerful ants on the royal road

For Barichara, this passes for a busy street

If you don’t speak a word of Spanish and you heard me speak, you would think to yourself, “Wow, that guy is fluent!”
If you speak a little bit of Spanish and you heard me speak, you would think to yourself, “Wow, that guy sounds almost fluent!”
If you spoke a lot of Spanish and you heard me speak, you would think to yourself, “Wow, why does that guy speak so fast when he gets the grammar wrong so often?”
I know what I know and I speak it quickly and confidently, but not necessarily correctly.   My Spanish barely improves.   Unfortunately, it is the same for me with nearly every language.

I always like to tell Spanish speakers about crazy street and town names in California.   My college town had Sabado Tarde (Saturday Afternoon) and Del Playa (Of the Beach, but it should be De La Playa) streets and everyone always gets a kick out of the Central California farm town of Manteca (Lard).
“Hey, where ya from?”
“Lard.”
“Oh.”

Today I took a bus to the hamlet of Guane and hiked back up the old El Camino Real (The Royal Road) to Barichara.   It is a wide path flanked on both sides with meter-high stone walls.   So much effort went into making those walls for such a long distance, and now it is used more by foreign tourists than Colombians.

Is Colombia dangerous?

Posted on by April 13, 2010

Colombians are more afraid of vulture droppings on their motorbikes than terrorists.

For travelers already in the country, this conversation makes everyone’s eyes roll with impatience, simply because if you were too scared to come, you wouldn’t be here.

Travelers are sometimes surprised at how normal everything is in Colombia, how straightforward it is to get around and do things, the kindness of the people, etc.   Why isn’t Colombia more popular?   It has a horrible reputation, for one. Less than a week before I bought my ticket, the US State Dept put out a new travel warning for Colombia saying that there is an increase in crime and kidnappings of Americans, murders are up, and so on and to “warn American citizens of the dangers of travel to Colombia”.

So why come here if that is so? The most dangerous places are where there’s guerrilla and drug activity–often two sides of the same coin–and which are pretty much delineated. Plus, they are generally places where tourists don’t go.

The only notable exceptions are on some overnight bus routes and sometimes the most popular hostels get robbed. The former you can avoid by taking day buses, but the latter can just be dumb luck. Asking both locals and travelers for the latest, freshest news can mitigate your risk.

Easy! Problem solved! So glad I am here to help!

The One and Only Thing I Hate About Colombia…

Posted on by April 13, 2010

…is travelling by bus. It makes me crazy. Young hotshot drivers on a testosterone overdose careen dangerously around curves and pass slow trucks on blind stretches, making it hard to enjoy the spectacular mountain scenery. I am the only one complaining about this, though, so take it with a grain of salt. I have endured a lifetime of bad bus driving, so I am fed up with it.

Bus travel is quite expensive, too. An overnight bus to the coast is about US$30 from here, about double what you would pay in Peru, as I recall. And you always need to try and bargain even if you think you have no leverage.

I bought four plane tickets today, including two that will confound future scholars at the Kent Foster Presidential Library: a round trip from Muenster/Osnabrueck to Istanbul next month. Who flies from Muenster/Osnabrueck—and on midnight flights in both directions?
That part of Germany is my least favorite to hitchhike as it is more difficult and the police have stopped me on occasion. I might need to come up with a gimmick this time.

I go to Washington DC next week via Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am taking the exact same $15 flight I took to Bogota. Including American taxes, the total to come here was $83, but Colombian taxes are so prohibitive, to return is more than twice the price–$175!

The Things I Love About Colombia

Posted on by April 10, 2010

This foot isn’t one of them.   It belongs to British Eric, who is also at Sam’s VIP Hostel as he conducts his website business selling shishas: shishahookah.co.uk. Give it a click just to demonstrate what kind of clicking power kentfoster.com’s followers have.

But see the compelling contrast between the title and the photo? I’m telling you, this blogging stuff shouldn’t be left to amateurs.

These things I love aren’t uniquely Colombian, except maybe for the first one:

-The entire country, save for parts of Cartagena, has a genius street numbering system. Carreras are north-south streets while Calles run east-west. So, “Cra 34, 53-66”, means not only that it is near Carrera 34 and Calle 53, but that the building is precisely 66 meters from the corner of Calle 53!

-To sell something and make it sound especially cheap, people will say that something costs, for example, “1000 pesitos”—not pesos, but literally, “little pesos”. I want to sell stuff on the street at home just so I can quote prices in “little dollars”, but see? That doesn’t have the same ring to it.

-Ubiquitous are people wearing vests that say “Minutos”. They have an array of cell phones, at least one for each cell phone provider, where you can make calls on the street for cheaper than a pay phone. Typically a call is 150 pesos–150 pesitos!–per minute. How great would that be in USA? It would be a boon for poor people. (1900 pesos = US$1)

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