Bogota Blogger

In Bogota, and in most of Colombia, litter is everywhere.

Monserrate Full of Plastic Bags

On my first or second weekend in the city, some friends took me up Monserrate, one of the major tourist things to do in the city. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday day, and there are hundreds of vendors of all types at the base of the mountain where the train station is and where the trail starts. Then, there are another or so hundred vendors on the trail.

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There are two airports in Bogota–El Dorado, which is for international flights and for domestic airlines other then Avianca, and Puente Aereo, which is for Avianca domestic flights only (Avianca has a near monopoly on domestic flights).  They are situated right next to each other.  

First I’ll talk about El Dorado.  Supposedly there is a plan to build a new terminal sometime (when???!?!??).  The airport is kind of dated and drab, and some of their systems are not quite up-to-the-minute.  I have read more than once that the entire city is being held back from becoming more of an international player because of the lack of a really good international airport with systems in place that international business travellers insist on.  But for me, a simple worker/tourist, it works okay, though it’s definitely a nothing-special airport.

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I have a lot of theories about Bogota, and Colombia. One is that in many ways Bogota is about 40 years behind the US, ways both good and bad.  Of course, all the aspects of modern life, like technology, etc., are here, but the attitudes and ways of doing things seem to be from quite a while back.

Who knows why??  My personal view is that since the culture is so family-oriented, then people maybe do things the way their parents did, and for this it takes a while for changes to come.  Whereas in the US children might rebel against their parents’ ways, or at least be more influenced by things like friends, media, popular culture, and where most people leave home somewhere between that ages of 18 and 25 (even to live with friends), and where leaving the city where you grew up isn’t given a second thought, in Colombia there is a lot more sticking around, and having the immediate and extended families be an important part of your life forever.  So, maybe doing things the way your grandmother did isn’t so unusual if you see your grandmother every day, or even live in her house.

So, from time to time I’m going to explore those topics that relate to how this is basically the US in 1967.