"Columbia: The only risk is not wanting to leave!"
We arrived in Bogota, the humidity back to not saturation levels, but at the altitude high enough to remind us not to run up any stairwells. While it's a nice city and sucks the doors off Lima, the attractions we found ourselves visiting were not nearly as exciting as the places we found to eat our meals and get loaded on Pure freebase Columbian coffee. The whole centre of Bogota is fully old-town style whitewashed Spanish buildings, complete with wrought iron window guards and large ornate wooden doorways. There is a sky-lift which takes you up to a hilltop church, but all that really achieves is to take you away to squinting distance from both architecture and coffee.
We took a day trip out to what is advertised as the nation's number 1 tourist attraction, a cathedral carved out of salt, 180 meters underground. It's there alright, complete with stations of the cross, etc. I hate to be a negative nelly, but I found this place about as boring as the huge boring machine which would have been needed to bore it out. (Actually that machine would be freaking huge and have a huge drill and be loud that thing would rock my pants) If it was a doomsday laboratory or opera theatre, that might have thrilled us a bit more but I guess our 'things made from salt' standards have been forever lifted by our magical time in salty salty Bolivia.
CRIME!
We were out looking for a restaurant on night back in Bogota, when one of the city's many street-dwellers approached me. This guy was of african-latin descent, with short, black faux-dreadlocks things for hair, which looked like his head is filled with vegemite, and he has been squeezed until thick jet worms of the stuff have sprouted from his perforated cranium. He opens with the usual pleading in Spanish for some money/food, to which I say my equally usual 'sorry, no.' After a few exchanges of this nature, him asking me in several different ways for money, he lifts up his hand to display the unmistakable form of a filthy metal shiv. (Hi parents! A shiv is a kind of improvised knife.) The Item was held underhand, so I could get a very close and meaningful look at it while everyone nearby could see nothing but hand. Time slowed down a little, and now he had my complete attention. 'Money, please' he said again. I slowed to a halt, imagining how easily that awful blade could be slipped into my abdomen. I was waiting for him to point it at me, hovering it just off my stomach in the way I've seen in cartoons, but that moment never came. I realised that while he was brandishing a weapon, he was unwilling to let anyone see him. I figured this self-consciousness would also make him aware of the deep shit shivving (is that indeed a verb?) a gringo would land him in. I very slowly and politely repeated 'Sorry, no.' For a few awful, awkward seconds we were locked in a stalemate, him displaying his shiv and asking for my money, my apologetically refusing. He said a few other things in Spanish which I didn't know, that much later I realised was him threatening to hurt me. Not in the phrasebook.
After this time we both realised that his implied threat wasn't enough to relieve me of my wallets treasures, so he decided to just try and physically grab for my pockets. I pushed him off with a strong shoulder, forceful enough to regain my personal space but admittedly in what I hoped was a "please don't shiv me for this" manner. After this third failed strategy, he muttered unknown cursewords at me and crossed the street, to where Hannah had crossed in front of me. Because she was a little ahead (I like to keep an eye on her while we walk, for just this reason) he obviously assumed we weren't together. I watched from the wrong side as he gained on her from behind in overlong racing steps, presumably to try the same thing on her. I called to her to cross the road back again to me, which was a fourth and final time he had failed to gain our money. After I realised he was all talk and no shiv, we simply ignored him and he soon gave up the chase.
I confess throughout the whole thing I was confused, I kept waiting for him to really put the awful street-dagger right up to me, business end first, at which point (literally) I probably would have bought his threat and folded like a hospital nurse making beds. As it was he didn't really have the cahonies to take it to that level, so I kept both my cool and my Pesos.
We camped a few nights in a town to the north named Villa de Leyva, meeting some most excellent hippies. Today we went further north again, stopping at San Gil, where we think we will sacrifice some of our Venezuelan time in order to stay for a while. As soon as you have less than a month left days become so precious, we are actually debating about where to do and if we'll have time, as we have about 3 countries left to see, 2 countries worth of money and 1 countries worth of time.
Addendum: 10 Dutch people just got held hostage at a town we were at about a month ago, Uyuni. You know what the captors wanted? A paved road.
We took a day trip out to what is advertised as the nation's number 1 tourist attraction, a cathedral carved out of salt, 180 meters underground. It's there alright, complete with stations of the cross, etc. I hate to be a negative nelly, but I found this place about as boring as the huge boring machine which would have been needed to bore it out. (Actually that machine would be freaking huge and have a huge drill and be loud that thing would rock my pants) If it was a doomsday laboratory or opera theatre, that might have thrilled us a bit more but I guess our 'things made from salt' standards have been forever lifted by our magical time in salty salty Bolivia.
CRIME!
We were out looking for a restaurant on night back in Bogota, when one of the city's many street-dwellers approached me. This guy was of african-latin descent, with short, black faux-dreadlocks things for hair, which looked like his head is filled with vegemite, and he has been squeezed until thick jet worms of the stuff have sprouted from his perforated cranium. He opens with the usual pleading in Spanish for some money/food, to which I say my equally usual 'sorry, no.' After a few exchanges of this nature, him asking me in several different ways for money, he lifts up his hand to display the unmistakable form of a filthy metal shiv. (Hi parents! A shiv is a kind of improvised knife.) The Item was held underhand, so I could get a very close and meaningful look at it while everyone nearby could see nothing but hand. Time slowed down a little, and now he had my complete attention. 'Money, please' he said again. I slowed to a halt, imagining how easily that awful blade could be slipped into my abdomen. I was waiting for him to point it at me, hovering it just off my stomach in the way I've seen in cartoons, but that moment never came. I realised that while he was brandishing a weapon, he was unwilling to let anyone see him. I figured this self-consciousness would also make him aware of the deep shit shivving (is that indeed a verb?) a gringo would land him in. I very slowly and politely repeated 'Sorry, no.' For a few awful, awkward seconds we were locked in a stalemate, him displaying his shiv and asking for my money, my apologetically refusing. He said a few other things in Spanish which I didn't know, that much later I realised was him threatening to hurt me. Not in the phrasebook.
After this time we both realised that his implied threat wasn't enough to relieve me of my wallets treasures, so he decided to just try and physically grab for my pockets. I pushed him off with a strong shoulder, forceful enough to regain my personal space but admittedly in what I hoped was a "please don't shiv me for this" manner. After this third failed strategy, he muttered unknown cursewords at me and crossed the street, to where Hannah had crossed in front of me. Because she was a little ahead (I like to keep an eye on her while we walk, for just this reason) he obviously assumed we weren't together. I watched from the wrong side as he gained on her from behind in overlong racing steps, presumably to try the same thing on her. I called to her to cross the road back again to me, which was a fourth and final time he had failed to gain our money. After I realised he was all talk and no shiv, we simply ignored him and he soon gave up the chase.
I confess throughout the whole thing I was confused, I kept waiting for him to really put the awful street-dagger right up to me, business end first, at which point (literally) I probably would have bought his threat and folded like a hospital nurse making beds. As it was he didn't really have the cahonies to take it to that level, so I kept both my cool and my Pesos.
We camped a few nights in a town to the north named Villa de Leyva, meeting some most excellent hippies. Today we went further north again, stopping at San Gil, where we think we will sacrifice some of our Venezuelan time in order to stay for a while. As soon as you have less than a month left days become so precious, we are actually debating about where to do and if we'll have time, as we have about 3 countries left to see, 2 countries worth of money and 1 countries worth of time.
Addendum: 10 Dutch people just got held hostage at a town we were at about a month ago, Uyuni. You know what the captors wanted? A paved road.