Bogota

It’s been nearly a month of strange limbo between visitor and business traveler in Bogota, maybe unusual enough that I’m only now sitting down to write what seemed like an obvious thing to blog about from the outset.

Bogota feels like the Andean sister to my adopted Caribbean hometown. The cleaned-up and orderly place where service is impeccable, streets are clean, poverty is well-hidden, history is visible and present. I’ve grown to love how it always feels like something between a warm fall day and a cool fall day, how the air feels fresh from constant rain, how bogotanos walk through a heavy drizzle without batting an eyelid or reaching for an umbrella, as if they were born waterproof.

It’s a place I have some fleeting familiarity with. I spent about three months here in college, back when Colombia was a different place that seemed headed down a disastrous path. I came here again a couple times to do stories about seven years ago.

I find myself stumbling through places that trigger vague recollections. The house in Teusaquillo where I visited a youth development program that my exchange program buddy Jeff Iftekaruddin was somehow linked to. The National Cemetery where I chatted with some street kids who were kind enough not to rob me despite making jokes that they could quite easily do so. The street corner where I got my shoes shined while shivering in an inappropriately tropical guayabera, waiting for an interview with the attorney general. The drama of the skyline as the clouds morph from ominous grey under a ubiquitous drizzle to a brilliant backlit white when the sun makes unexpected appearances.

A month into my seven week-stint in a place I sort of know makes for an unusual but somewhat pleasant limbo; An amalgam of experiences that are hard to sum up, which is what I strive for with Off the Wire rather than simply tapping out journal-style descriptions of the day’s events.

Having a routine is one of the best ways to really learn about a place. My 20-minute walk each morning up Carrera 11, a four-lane thoroughfare running parallel to the Monserrate mountain that borders the east end of the city, is a trip through a paragon of wealth. The city’s main party district, it’s most upscale shopping malls, an Audi dealership, are punctuated by guys grilling cheese-filled arepas, horse-drawn carts carrying recyclable cardboard or construction material, a patchwork of beggars mumbling quietly from sidewalks. When I pay attention, I see something new every day.

This sort of thing takes away the pressure of shutterbug tourism that leaves a traveler trying to see everything before zipping off the next destination. This has always been more my style of relating to a place. Go there and park it for a while until you start to understand it. I went to Venezuela to teach English for six months, and ended up parking it for eight years. Two and a half years in Rio gave me a chance to really watch and learn about the city and the country.

The flip side is that working unfortunately leaves less time for tourism. Combine the obligations of the job with the inertia of routine and you can find yourself living like a homebody. Not having my wife or my dog in town probably makes a difference. Fortunately the former will be here soon.

I’ve made several visits to the Plaza Bolivar, which to this day remains one of my favorite public spaces. It’s imposing presence, with the Roman columns of the Congress, the angular modernism of the Palace of Justice rebuilt after it was burned down in a 1980s guerilla attack, the broad open space flanked by the mountains, make Caracas’ main square feel like the plaza of an overgrown fishing village. The brilliantly maintained colonial charm of La Candelaria just up the hill still feels original despite the evident creep of gentrification. I managed to jump onto a bike tour run by my old friend Mike Ceasar, who I knew from my early days in Caracas who’s now set up a shop here, and then chatted Venezuelan politics with him over a glass of corn chicha.

It’s an unusual balance between routine and discovery. I hope I can maintain it when I go back to the places overrun by routine.