My First Fairly Scary Expierence

Today i left my work an hour early, i was in the classroom and i think the class got cancelled because no one informed me, or maybe they where somewhere else, i am not sure. So, i left around noon, decided to try to beat the rain and get a little extra volunteering done. When i left i heard all these comotion and didnt know where it was coming from, until i got to the street. Upon arrival i saw a large march walking south bound on 7A, towards Candelaria, mostly young people, waving Colombian flags, and i thought to myself how cool, its like a presidental march, so i walked across the one lane of traffic and joined the march, naturally. People where shouting up to people on balconies that where showing support, ¨come join us, come join us¨and people where running from apartments down in to the street to join, how cool, my first Colombian presidental rally, i heard them many times from the window when i heard people yelling DOWN WITH URIBE. It was all fun and games, and than it started to get a little more serious. About 10% of the population where young men, with cloaks, bandanas, and masks over their faces. And i saw one of them run up to the Citi bank, which i was planning on using, and start spraying some jargon on the front window, the crowd started whistling and the boys packed up their pant and ran because cops where approaching. I man that actually needed to use the services just walked by the young men spraying the paint as if they where just pigeons nodding their heads while saunteering around the sidewalk for crumbs. So than the same boys, directly in front of me, and carrying gigantic sticks like baseballs mind you, started yelling at two lonely police in the median, the police advanced the young men proved overpowering the police actually backed down! I walked by another building, this one most have been more important, because the entire stairway was protected by police, standing shoulder to shoulder across the entire building. About 40 cops in all, and dressed head to toe in this black bullet proof material, they looked like robocop, you could have shot these dudes in the belly with a desert eagle and it would not have made them even move their feet. Than after 38 police at the end their was two cops that most have been short on the SWAT budget, because they where dressed in these old army green pull over vests, that had been used before, the evidence was in the holes where former police had been shot. Needles to say, the last two cops, looked the most frightend. Wow, this is what i was thinking, wow. Then we got to a skywalk, so people could cross the road, because 7A is a busy street, the young man in front of the rally ran to the top and started waving his Colombian flag, everybody went crazy, and naturally so did I. After that he was followed up by two other young men, who than unrolled a homemade American Flag, hug it off the crosswalk, let it on fire, and watched it burn. The crowd scream even later. At this moment it accured to me, this isn´t a Anti-Uribe Rally, this is an anti U.S.A. rally, my immediate reaction, looking around me and being in the center of this mob, was, SHIT. My next thought was dont open your mouth, dont open your mouth, dont open your mouth, and my third thought was, cross the street and watch with a buffer of three lanes of heavy traffic. I did just that, running to the other side, when i got to the other side i saw the police move in on the boys that i had mentioned, the ones with the grafitti and sticks, and the boys started waving their sticks and one pulled out a homemade nailbomb in a Pony pop bottle, the cops backed down. Again i thought to myself holy moly, i need to work on my spanish a little more so next time i join the right rally. Peace from Bogotà.

Festival Iberomericano de Teatro de Bogota

The Bogota festival of Theatre is officially in full swing. What it is is a bi-yearly three week festival celebrating theatre all over the city, in all different shapes and forms, from all different countries all over the world. For example at the university where i work there is theatre performance for free in the auditorium, with acts from Portugal, France and Colombia just next week. The first night it was going on i went down to la Candelaria, the oldest neighborhood in Bogota, where the city actually started. Within the neighborhood you can find Calle 1 con Carrera 1 (the equivalent of 1st Street with 1st Avenue) the corner of the city, it literally sits up against the mountains like they where a gate. I came down primarily to shoot 8ball and eat pizza, but there was no shortage of street theatre. Most of the acts i didn't fully understand, i just clapped when other people clapped, and laughed when other people laughed... but i did understand some jokes! of which i laughed probably a little awkwardly loud because i felt like i deserved a bellowing laugh with the break through accomplishments in my Spanish. There was sooo many people out! The bus ride from the University where i study to La Candelaria was also kind of a trip. We went through the guts of what locals describe as "la mierda." There was hand craft stores, and other independently owned small business trying to make a dollar, restaurants, but every two blocks or so there was big time bordellos. The bordellos are on the second floor and when the hookers don't have a client they come down the stairs and stand in the hallways. I have seen hookers in other cities around the world, and in the US, but i have always seen them working a beat or a corner, this looked like a strip club but it even had the neon lights that said 24 hour service. After the bus ride past la mierda i arrived to the nicer part of the neighborhood, shot some pool, drank some Costeña, and than watched some street art. Than it was time to head to TransMilenio, i know you all know the bus by now. To get there i had to walk through Churo (sp?) i don't know if it is another neighborhood, or just a park in Candelaria, but the vibe there was totally different. They had the classic narrow old streets, with sidewalks chest high on the sides, and they were packed! Primarily with two different types of sub-cultures. The rock/metal culture and the reggae culture. Sprinkled in where Fubu gangsters and Punk Rockers, walked by a Reggae club that sounded awesome, but the area has a reputation for pick pockets and being dangerous when its time to leave the club, you got the vibe a lot of the kids where homeless. After the narrow streets you emerged in to this small little plaza where everybody was sitting on the ground with there legs crossed, passing Rum, Whiskey, Aguardiente and Joints. The smell of cheap crappy pot hung in the sky like a rain cloud that followed you. They where smoking weed like it was legal, and you had to walk like it was the part at the end of the third Indiana Jones where the ground was gonna break because their was so many people that just would not get out of the way. Right when i got out of the park this three kids where smoking a huge joint and one young girl hit it to hard and turned to her six o clock (where i happened to be standing) coughed and let out a mountain of weed smoke that consumed my face as it rolled by. Smoking weed is ILLEGAL in Colombia, but for two blocks it sure didn't feel like it. Finally through the young kids getting wasted and to Transmilenio to head north to the Zona Te and back down to Caracas for bar hopping. On the Transmilenio ride too there was a guy breaking down the art of street vending and talking about his different Colognes, very educational.

Know Your Cities Streets

Today i was hanging out with my friend Pedro as he packed and got ready to go to Peru for a week of work. The time came for us to say our good byes as he was headed to the airport and he took me to my Transmilenio stop, Mundo Advenutra, up through Caracas all the way to the 146 stop. That is past 32 stops... but its was B5, so thank the lord we didn't stop at all 32, that is just for perspective to see about how long the trip was. I did not take Pedros advice and switch lines, so i could take an alternate route to the north which was thirty minutes fast, why? Because i thought i had the system down. Of the two lines that travel to the north, one takes the innercity express way that has zero lights, and the other goes right through the city streets, sigh... Oh well, i really, literally, got to see ALL of Bogota today, all of it.
Also worth note, another interesting discovery about my favroite mode of Transportation. As you can see from the photo, the middle of the bus is like a slinky, this is because the bus is required, when taking more urbanized routes to perform sharp U-Turns and 45 degree turns at normal city intersections, well you can also stand in the middle part of these buses during your travels (it happens to be quite a roomy area of the bus). Well, this whole area pivots, as you can guess, to make these turns, and when you stand on the pivoting area you move as well. I discovered this today, with one foot on the pivoting area and one off. We made a 45 degree turn, at break neck speeds, of course (you could feel the bus tipping) and half of my body was twisted violently a full 45 degrees, while the other foot kept half my body planted. This had my almost falling down to my knees in front of the entire bus, what a wonderful system.
And on a completely different note, i thought i broke my big toe for half a second. The wind was ripping down 7A, and a kiosk with a large umbrella, i think for Tigo, was on the street. When the wind ripped by it caught the umbrella and the umbrella actually blew the entire kiosk over. Yours truly happen to by walking by at that exact time, and i had enough reaction time to jump out of the way and remove most of my body from harms way, while wearing a back pack full of books, however i didn't jump far enough because my foot was crushed, specifically my toes. I let out a howl that woke the dead, and made everybody on 7A, lunch time traffic, look and stare. But its okay because i only had another 10 or so blocks left on my walk... you can imagine the afternoon bus ride, too.