The Hidden Dangers of Bogotá ~ Part Two

Scaremongering

What to do?

I'd just received my salary in cash and I was armed with rolls of pesos. Now, how was I to get over to the other side of Bogotá, at night, safely?

Preparing to leave the Avianca building with my class, I presented this question to them.  In the red corner they were shouting, 'take a taxi, take a taxi', 'take a taxi', however, in the blue corner they were screaming 'noooooo, don't take a taxi, they'll kidnap you and drive you to a cash machine and rob you blind then eat you'.  I felt a bit like the mouse from 'The Gruffalo', save for the fact that this mouse had nearly 1000 pesos divided between his two socks, a secret compartment in his bag and, ehem, some notes comfortably nestling beneath the perineum region. 

So, taxis are dangerous, as are the buses, walking for over an hour through shady neighbourhoods in the rain was clearly out of the question, see The Hidden Dangers of Bogotá ~ Part One, and I don't think I'd ever seen a bicycle in use in Colombia's capital.  In the words of Johnny Cash 'what could I do, what COULD I do?'

It was hear I realised I was falling victim to Bogotá's second hidden danger, subscribing to the notion that danger lurked around every corner. Now, suspend your disbelief when I say Bogotá isn't a city of impending doom, unless you're the wicked witch of the west, in which case the rain would have dissolved you way before payday.  With this in mind, I jumped on the bus and made it all the way home without so much as a dirty look being thrown my way.

I'm melting, I'm melting... but rather that than take a taxi!

In a word association game, say Colombia and people will retort 'drugs', 'kidnapping' and 'Carlos Valderrama'.  In the three months I was teaching in Bogotá I wasn't offered drugs, I wasn't kidnapped nor did I see Carlos Valderrama.  I wasn't even mugged, in fact, it got to the point when I asked myself, 'why haven't I been mugged?'. 'what's wrong with me?'

The scaremongering came from all quarters, I usually place unwavering trust in local opinion so the seeds of paranoia were being planted in fertile ground.  Ways to lose your money ranged from an honest mugging to being 'cleaned out' whilst being cleaned up by a group of unsuspecting girls who had tactically spilled a drink over you.

That's not to say petty crime doesn't occur, I met a few travellers who'd been invited to share their cash at knife point, a crime not exclusive to Bogotá, that could just as easily happen in London, Madrid or Rome.  In short, there was nothing to fear except fear itself.  As with all large cities, you just need to apply some common sense.

A local once asked if I ever got tired of everyone staring at me due to the fact I was obviously a foreigner.  That wasn't the case at all, the people of Bogotá, Rollos, as they're more commonly known, are much like Londoners, they work long hours, commute in organised chaos and pretty much keep themselves to themselves, generally polite and helpful without outward displays of friendliness.

The real danger, the everyday tangible threat of Bogotá, was the Transmileno, a network of buses operating in much the same way as a metro system.  Locals amusingly renamed it the 'Transmilleno', lleno meaning 'full'.
The Transmileno should come with a health warning, stay well away if you suffer from panic attacks or if you're claustrophobic or more importantly if you're patience deficient.  The following scene could ensue: -

At the airport, on leaving the country, I was selected by authorities at random, taken to a room and encouraged, to a certain extent, to disrobe. Fear in its purist form, the thought of a surly man in uniform putting something in your bottom... but fear soon turned to embarrassment, I'd remembered to take my money out of my socks but...

Bogotá - A set on Flickr 

The Hidden Dangers of Bogotá ~ Part One

The Rain

'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life' ~ Samuel Johnson 1777

'When a man is tired of Bogotá, it's because he has no dry clothes to put on' ~ Me 2010

It was around two in the afternoon, early December 2010, I'd been up to the north of Bogotá, Calle 126 or something like that, to revisit a bookshop which was selling off old editions of National Geographic circa 1980 for around a euro each.  I was taking one of the infamous Transmileno buses back south when, without warning, it started to rain, not rain as we know it but rain so hard it penetrated every weakness of the bus to the point where commuters were forced to put up there umbrellas INSIDE the bus.


There were two ways in which to deal with the rain in Bogotá.  Option one was to use two umbrellas, the first to counter the obvious threat from above, the second held at a downwards angle to shield yourself from the rain bullets rebounding off the pavement and soaking you from below, once achieved, dart in and out of shop doorways with your back to the wall, in a manner employed by the police raiding a downtown crack den, until you reach your destination.
Option two was to have an awareness of where you were in relation to home, what commitments you had that day and whether you could factor in the time to get back to HQ and change.  In the event that this was possible then option two could be invoked, surrender to the rain, let it drench you, don't waste time defending yourself.  Change clothes, a quick Hail Mary and get back out there.

An 'Option 2' kind of guy...

Now, applying my formula, I decided to go with option two, I was on my way home, I had a few hours in the bank before I needed to set off for work and I was without umbrella.  I took my soaking like a man knowing the National Geographics were double wrapped in plastic and neatly slotted into a leather satchel.


I got home, I changed, and thought about lunch.


A perk of living where I did, the Chapinero district, was, well, the chances of being mugged were low because most robberies occurred 'away from home' in the tourist area of La Candelaria, the muggers simply returned to Chapinero upon filling their boots.  No, the true benefit was a cheap wholesome lunch in the shape of a 'corrientazo', quite literally a 'running lunch' or 'lunch on the run'.  Soup for starters, a large helping of chicken, rice, potatoes and salad, served with fruit juice and an unidentifiable desert.  All for the price of a greasy McDonald's cheeseburger.

Chapinero ~ 'They don't hurt their own'

It'd stopped raining, I nipped out and was tackling some chicken when it started to rain once again, hard.  I watched in horror from my table, at one point you could see it was raining in the same place from two different directions.  The curbs are built high in Bogotá and a fast flowing river quickly formed.  I'd read a great quotation in one of the National Geographics, it was from a resident of Palermo, Sicily, she simply said 'we get angry when it rains, it's an insult and we take it personally'.  She spoke with winged words.


I went for option 2 again, I was a three minute walk from home, I had time to change, again I'd neglected to take an umbrella, which in all reality would have been like taking a knife to a gun fight anyway.  I didn't walk home, I waded home.


By the time I reached the flat I was as wet as I'd ever been in my life, I climbed the stairs and watched out of the window in disbelief.  I was soaked up to knees and down to the waist.  My American flatmate burst through the door, 'fuck, have you seen it out there, I'm soaked up to my knees and down to the waist, I've never seen anything like it!'... I was angry, it was an insult and I took it personally.


I headed to the bedroom, peeled off the offending clothes and looked around, two piles of sopping clothes and the third set hanging from the curtain rail, they'd been hanging for days and still weren't dry.  Our washing machine was in league with both the devil and the microclimate, it liked things wet and achieved this by refusing to enter the spin-circle, even when beaten with a stick.

Hung out to dry, for days and days...

I had no dry clothes to put on.  I was due to teach at Avianca, the Colombian Airline but swim shorts and flip flops were my only option.  Ironic considering the weather but I wasn't in possession of a rubber ring so I did the only thing left open to me.  I cancelled the lesson.  Don't concern yourself with kidnapping, muggings, FARC, drug dealers and the like, the true unmentioned danger is water, the uncontrollable fall of rain.


I didn't phone in sick, my clothes did.

Bogotá ~ A set on Flickr