First 48 Hours in Bogotá

Arriving at the Aeropuerto Internacional El Dorado in Bogotá on an Avianca Airlines flight from Los Angeles, I felt excited but also relaxed. My 7.5-hour flight was surprisingly tranquil, especially since I surprisingly ran into a fellow English Teaching Assistant (ETA), Max Counter of Montana and Colgate University, who I was pleased to learn was seated right behind me. During the flight and while waiting for our Fulbright-Commission-provided van transport, Max and I discussed how neither of us felt we fully understood what to expect from this new experience. We agreed that we much less felt prepared to serve as professional English teachers abroad. “Oh well,” we chuckled. At least both of us had confidence in our abilities to act as savvy and good-humored cultural representatives of the world’s wealthiest democracy…

The entire customs process took one-and-a-half hours, the longest and most hectic wait I’ve seen since São Paulo’s Guarulhos airport. After surviving the hustle, Max and I gathered outside the arrivals section with half a dozen or so of our other fellow ETAs, folks arriving on assorted flights from cities as diverse as Los Angeles to Atlanta to New York. Several of us crammed into the Fulbright van, along with a heap of overweight luggage. Sitting in shotgun of the van as we progressed into the mountainous expanse of the Colombian capital, brisk wind whipped my face as I felt much anticipated rain droplets strike my outstretched hand. Immediately I sunk into a phase of bewilderment as I tried to comprehend the idea of a high-altitude Latin American city with a remarkably European feel that actually has a winter. As my body temperature started to fall a bit, I was increasingly perplexed at the apparent need to wear a serious jacket here, so close to the Equator I know and love. Something new, indeed.

We checked into our Commission-arranged accommodations, the GHL Comfort Hotel Los Heroes, located in the capital’s central-eastern Los Lagos, or “the Lakes,” neighborhood… (Don’t be fooled, though, for there is no lake here… Believe me, I even asked the concierge…) The amenities here are modern, giving off a feel slightly reminiscent of Panama City. With many of us Fulbrighters feeling famished but with many stores closed at this late-night Sunday hour, I requested that the concierge phone up some typical Colombian grub, for delivery. Forty five minutes later, Tim Hermann, Max Counter and I wolfed a double cheeseburger and two platters of pollo a la plancha, grilled chicken, served with French fries and salad. We laughed at a peculiar but nonetheless delightful Colombian mayonnaise sauce included in the order. I went to sleep chilly, wrapped in a comforter (something I again, don’t often associate with Latin America), and dreaming of waking up to two cups of the most full-bodied, aromatic coffee of my life.

In the morning at the hotel breakfast service, I didn’t discover the coffee I had fantasized about during several hours of drooling in my deep slumber. Rather disappointed, I asked my companions what must have happened to the “good stuff.” My fellow ETA Iris Clement explained that most of the very best Colombian coffee is apparently exported, leaving the country with not much but the instant grinds on everyday tables. This is news to me! Still, I am undeterred, and promise I will find some of those delicious fabled ground beans one day soon… What I did find at the table, however, were delicious arepas (fried corn cakes), scrambled eggs, seasoned rice, melon, and plenty of tropical fruit juices, including my very favorite, PAPAYA. BOOM baby! Right back at home.

Soon, my fellow ETAs and I were out sightseeing. Though I had been worried the previous night about the cold, I was pleased to encounter a comfortable 80 degree or so day with a refreshing breeze. Better yet, I was PUMPED to find the air not hot and muggy like that of Rio or San José or Havana or even Mexico city, but clean and CRISPY! Meanwhile, the mountains lining Bogotá to the east, covered in vegetation as green and dense as the Amazon, give the city a unique backdrop vista that is downright stellar. It was time for some errands. We took our official visa photos and all settled on activating cell phones with COMCEL, which offers the most comprehensive 3G coverage in the nation. With satisfaction, we realized that this way, we could all talk with one another from our respective outposts spread about the country less expensively. But here's the best part: the price! Using my unlocked LG I had brought from the States, all I needed was a COMCEL SIM card and some prepaid airtime. I would up paying 12,000 pesos, or roughly US$6.75 for the SIM card, 20 minutes of airtime, and 60 text messages, all valid until the end of the month. Better still, anybody anywhere can call my number and I pay not a dime of my own airtime. YIPPPEEEE! Why, I ask, is the US’ cell phone industry still so archaic and backward? “DEALS DEALS DEALS, I love deals,” says Sol the Economist. And Colombia has them.

My Colombian cell can be reached from the United States by dialing 011-(57)-312-551-4650. 011 is the US exit code and (57) is the country code to enter Colombia. The rest is my Bogotá-based cell number.

And now, for a funny story about Colombia’s honor code. While out sightseeing with Max, I stopped at a street vendor’s stand to satisfy my number one addiction—to Trident. When I handed over a 5,000 peso note, the vendor claimed he didn’t have correct change. In a flash, he darted over to a few of his fellow vendors, rapidly motioning me to stay watching his goodies. He left me for about three minutes, and I was a bit stuck in my pose, not knowing how to react. I realized that this was easily enough time for a man less honest than I to dash away with a full cart of sugary merchandise. But before I knew it, the man was back, handing me my proper change, and I was on my way. This incident reminded me of stories I’ve heard about Colombians slamming their mochilas, or backpacks, in the laps of strangers while standing in over-crowded buses. It just goes to show the extreme irony that even in a country marked for two centuries by violent rebel movements, Colombians, at least at first glance, seem to employ a system of trust toward one’s fellow citizens that exceeds the ordinary. I am impressed.

Later in the day, we decided to visit La Candelaria, the central district, actually located in a sliver of the southeastern corner of Bogotá, which contains the capital’s most vigorous commerce, telling cultural artifacts, historical monuments, and government edifices. Feeling adventurous and ready for something brand new, we decided to take Bogotá’s infamous Transmilenio—the high-speed, single-track bus system introduced only a few years ago as a stopgap response to the city’s urgent lack of a legitimate underground railway. I found the Transmilenio clean, secure, and quick. And, of course, cheap: a one-way ticket on for our 20-minute ride from Los Lagos to La Candelaria, like all one-way fares throughout the city, cost just 1,600 pesos, or less than one dollar at the current C$1,800:US$1 exchange rate. My oh my, what a terrific model of Latin American efficiency and sound urban planning! Other large cities too rushed to invest in metro systems should take note. Again, I am impressed by the relative orderliness of this still rather congested megalopolis.

In La Candelaria, we visited Plaza Simón Bolívar, named after the hypothetical Bolivarian Republic and Gran Colombia’s independence hero. The plaza is surrounded by the national legislature, the national judicial center, the oldest cathedral in Colombia, and, further in the distance to the south, the executive palace. Our group of ETAs was approached by one of many talkative and friendly tourist policemen nearby (these guys are everywhere in the tourist hotspots nowadays, keeping their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary). Alex, I think his name was, informed us that this particular Cathedral, Santa Fe, was built in 1807 (imagine, when the US was still a baby!) and that a rebel group had firebombed the national judicial center, necessitating total reconstruction, in the late 1980s. But the main attraction, of course, is a solemn statue of the Liberator, Bolívar, himself, standing dead in the center of the Plaza. I leaned on the monument and hung out with Simón, a man I have read about for so long in scores of classes on Latin American history and politics, and felt overwhelmed by the sheer history of this place. Sitting in the very seat of so many impassioned Latin American supranational integration and independent movements, I was awed and humbled.

Later in the night, the Fulbrighter group and I enjoyed a salmon dinner at the hotel and met some of the agents from the Bogotá Fulbright Commission. In a short meeting, we were briefed on our schedule for the week, which includes teaching strategy lessons, lectures on US-Colombian security protocol, presentations and receptions with US diplomats serving in Colombia, and the completion of other logistics, like the issuance of our extended-stay visas. I was pleased to wrap up the night discussing racial politics with a the six other Fulbrighters in the Colombia crew of African descent. We swapped stories about prejudices in different Latin American societies, and about romantic encounters charged by romanticized ideals of race and class. We challenged Latin America’s myths of “racial democracy” and wondered aloud how we would fare in this environment—a country whose national consciousness is clouded by neglect for African heritage and denial of deeply rooted systematic racism. While this topics are upsetting at times and invigorating at others, what an amazing joy it is to deliberate with my fellow grantees—driven, curious, and dynamically interested young scholars whose company keeps my heart feeling whole and my mind feeling massaged. Time will tell the results of our learning endeavors and social experiments…

One thing is certain: in very little time in this already fascinating country, I can confidently say that this will be one of the most rewarding and downright fun periods of my life… I look forward to the challenges it will inevitably bring—as well as to the salsa lessons! And for now, I must sleep, as tomorrow morning at 7:30 am begins another day of orientation activities…