Clint in the 57 1

57 1: that is the country and city code for Bogotá. I guess I can't say 212 anymore because I am not in New York until August 14. Yeah, that's right, I am in Colombia!

A few months ago I landed an internship through my school in Sao Paulo, Brazil. That led to a study abroad class in Rio and then an internship after that in Rio. So with some stuff to do in Brazil, I figured I would fulfil as much of a dream (seeing all of South America in one shot) as I could. I got a $300 voucher from American Airlines for bumping me off of a flight in December. They are the worst airline ever. It makes no sense why anyone would want a voucher with them as compensation for poor service. It just makes me use them again. Good for them, but since when is the customer not always right.

So with some searching, I looked at flights to Lima, Bogota, Caracas, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, and others. I figured that Caracas would be too dangerous. I'd rather not get drugged to sleep and wake up in a bathtub somewhere without my kidneys. But its funny because I decided to go with Colombia instead. Colombia is on the State Department's Travel Warning List, and Venezuela is not. But I think that it has more to do with the rural areas: drugs, paramilitary groups, etc. Anyway, it cost me $65 with the voucher. Not bad. And I knew I would avoid the drug areas, the FARC areas, and so forth. Just Bogotá, where there aren´t really any kidnappings anymore, and its actually safer than a lot of cities in the world these days (at least statistically). Then my plan was to fly to the south of Colombia, over the drug area and FARC area (FARC = paramilitary group, they kidnap people). Leticia is the city and its right on the Amazon. I planned on boating down the Amazon into Brazil and then working my way down south to São Paulo.

I had to get a visa in order to come to Brazil, which was kind of a hassle with finals and all, but it went smoothly. In order to get it, I had to get a yellow fever shot because that is required of anyone who visits Colombia and other countries before they come into Brazil. I got some malaria pills too for being in the Amazon region. I got a prescription from my school and they didn't tell me which pill it was and what the side effect was. I knew there were two main side effects, one in each pill: crazy dreams and sun sensitivity. I didn't want the crazy dreams. So when I got to the pharmacy, I asked the lady what the side effects were. She said "sleep disturbances," and I was like....you mean crazy dreams, right? She can't put that one past me. Who is she trying to fool? Tell it like it is, lady! These side effects aren't like you wake up once or twice in the middle of the night. These sleep disturbances are wild dreams! I started taking them and haven't had any problems with weird dreams. I mean, my dreams are weird, but they haven't been any different.

I got to Bogotá without any problems. Once I got into the airport, I saw everyone wearing these swine flu masks. Sometimes seeing a lot of people protecting themselves, or seeing a lot of police for example is a good thing, but sometimes it makes me feel less secure. Seeing all the masks was kind of freaky because it makes you feel like swine flu is in the air. But I think I didn't get it. My roommate came on a later flight, so I waited for him and we went to the temple with a mission friend of his. It is late at night now, but we had arranged to stay in the housing next to the temple for the first night. The guy we met was kind of a Barney Fife, real official type guy who takes his job seriously. It was pretty funny how he explained everything to us as if we were having some kind of security clearance or something. After he gave us a lot of information, he spatted off like 10 phone numbers, none of which we remembered. But I kind of wished I had remembered the one for his desk and then called an hour later saying "Yeah, can I get a double cheeseburger without onions?" just to get him to take it easy or something.

We went to the temple the next morning, which was very cool. We met a family there, the woman is Colombian and the man is American. It was really funny because the woman and her kids would tell us things to do in Spanish, and then her husband who didn't speak Spanish would tell us the same thing in English. A nice guy there at the temple took us to the bus stop so we could get to our next lodging for the next few days. He told us we should push anyone who gets close to us, and that "the delinquent is always fearful." I love that quote. But I was afraid of taking it too far and pushing someone on the bus or something that accidentally bumped me. It all turned out fine. We did get off the bus at a place that seemed a little chaotic and not so safe, but we got a taxi and left.

The place we stayed at was amazing: 400 years old, made completely out of wood it seemed. Every so often I would see some sawdust appear when I had not seen it before, and I think that there were a few termites there. We were in the colonial district of Bogotá, which was amazing. Narrow streets, high slopes on the roads leading up to the mountains, lots of different colored houses. It was great.

We went out the two days we were there and saw some great stuff. Monserrate is this church on the top of a mountain, and you take a cable car to get up there. The views up there were unreal. I really enjoyed it. And it was so quiet that it felt very peaceful compared to the city. Once I can get some pictures off of my phone, I will put them up. We also walked around the colonial district there. We saw the Gold Museum, with lots of ancient gold, and saw one of the houses of Simón Bolívar, which was awesome because he is someone I love to learn and read about. After my roommate left, I went to the Botero museum, which is interesting because all the people in his paintings are round. I learned about his paintings in college, so it was cool to see them in real life.

My roommate and I went to church with his friend. That was very cool. It was fun on the way getting into a bus that had an entire family in the front, taking the money for the fare and driving, and also being in a bus which had a roof that was about 4 inches shorter than me! The one on the way back was even worse. It was like a VW bus, literally, and the door didn't close really at all. That was kind of funny because I felt like we could get bounced out at any moment. But we moved to the back. Something else I loved here is that people sell cell phone minutes on the street and in stores. I mean, you say you want a cell phone, the dude reaches into a fanny pack, and pulls out one of five or six cell phones hooked to himself with a chain. So you stand there, use the phone, and then pay him when you are done. It is like a human phone booth! It was pretty great.

I really liked Bogotá. It is a shame that it has a bad reputation, because there is a lot of amazing things to see. The area where we were, La Candelaria, is really beautiful. There are police everywhere, which I found to be a very good thing. Whenever we saw one, we felt safe. Even down in Leticia in the south, there were police all over, which made that town safer than the bordering Brazilian town of Tabatinga. I really am glad I got to see a little bit of Bogotá.

I am in São Paulo right now, which means that I am really behind on my blog. But now that I am done with Bogotá, I will move to Leticia on the next post. There are some good stories from Leticia. I hope you check that out later.