Is it safe? Bogota 08-12-2011.

Do you remember Dustin Hoffman in 'Marathon Man' movie?

Probably not, it's an old movie. Every time I go to the dentist (and I have an appointment on Monday) the images from that movie flash back. I can't help it. This morning, just like Dustin Hoffman, I again dragged my sleepy butt downstairs, made some instant coffee and dressed for a run in the park (Parque Ciudad Montes). You could ask "why instant coffee, aren't you in Colombia"? They indeed produce some of the best beans in the world, most of them organic, if you care, but roasting them and brewing coffee is another matter. What they drink commonly here is 'tinto', which is a beverage you end up with if you boil water with panela (rock sugar), cinamon stick and some ground coffee. You always drink it black. Having limited time in the morning, I prefer instant coffee.

So is it safe...? Not the coffee of course, but the city in general...?

When I first landed in this city, 5 min into the taxi ride from the airport home with my mind busy fighting the unfamiliar surroundings and the all pervading smell of diesel fuel, we were suddenly stopped by a uniformed group of men and asked to get out of the car, put our hands on the roof while two of them searched our bags and the remaining ones, with their fingers on M-16 machine gun triggers, made sure we didn'd do anything stupid. They happened to be good guys, the police, making it difficult to transport guns or drugs in that part of the city. Mabe our car looked suspicious? Who knows.

To date I've been to Bogota quite a few times. It is not a safe city. There are areas you don't even want to drive the car through. Most people are poor, in some areas you have a strong chance of beeing mugged, you could get hit by a car while crossing the street, they wouldn't stop for you, even at the crossing. You could hypothetically get kidnapped if you appeared on the radar of some organised gangs, but the chance of this for an average person is very slim. Or you could just trip and twist your ankle on rough pavement here - much stronger possibility. But on the positive side, all people I had a chance to deal with, were very friendly, polite and helpful.

Anyway, off I go for a run.

The park is just around the corner and it's much easier to run around its perimetre since you are in a fenced environment, relatively clean and 'safe'. Interesting thing: you always see many uniformed people working in the park to keep it clean and well maintained. They would be cutting grass, picking rubbish, working on the little pond and fountain, few security officers would be just patrolling, others would clean toilets etc. I have been to many parks, much larger than this one in other countries and have never seen so many people employed to maintain them. Anyway, here you are among quite a few similarly minded people trotting along, huffing and puffing since the air is noticably thinner at 8000 feet above sea level. Most run at similar pace than mine, however, this morning one guy was consistently doing 4 min/km loops and managed at least 5k at that pace - what a shape! 10k is what I did this morning, will do more next time, or definately on the weekend. Quick stretch and I headed back home. Shower, breakfast, another instant coffee and we're getting ready for a trip to the shopping centre to buy few things, mostly food (and some beer and wine as well...).

The taxi arrived...

It was a car one or two sizes smaller than Hyundai Getz (or I-20 as you may know it), which means a really small hatchback. We would pack 3 adults and a kid on the back seat, myself in front with a stroller on my lap and a driver of course. On the way back it would be the same plus many bags of goceries filling the space behind the back seat and the hatch. We were lucky, this taxi wasn't running on liquid gas which would mean a big gas bottle where the shopping bags were packed. But it had a big set of speakes there with a sub instead...

Latin music playing, we're driving to the store.

I got used to the traffic here now, but initially I would brace myself in the seat as the car would go through stop signs without stopping, change lanes forcing others to move, not even slow down for pedestrians on crossings and skilfully avoid all the potholes on these streets, some of them filled with garbage (I wonder who would actually do this good samaritan act...?).

The store...

The taxi stops and you are greeted by a kind of homeless guy who behaves as if he owned the place and will direct you to the door, tell the taxi driver to go, intimidate others to allow him to carry their bags etc. All for a small fee of course. Get used to it, this kind of 'service' is common here. Once inside the store things are practically the same as in other similar stores around the world. And so are the prices. How these folks manage to afford all those things, god only knows... Car tires, groceries, flat screen TVs, motorcycles - you name it, they have it all there. And people are buying. So did we. My mother in-law had to make sure we wouldn't go hungry or thirsty and so the trolley was filled with variety of things. God bless her. She is a saint indeed.

The rest of the day was spent watching TV, or rather female TV announcers with the longest legs and shortest mini skirts I have seen, trying to sit modestly on bar stools in front of the camera. We also went to the park again, this time with The Little One and later looked for a cat on the roof. When it got dark we went for a walk around the neighbourhood to see the Christmas lights and candles lit traditionally in front of most houses. There were some fireworks, accordion music playing and lots of people on the street. It was the first day of Christmas. It felt safe, but it looked kind of scary.