A night at the circus.

So here I am, in Bogota, on a Friday night. What do I do?

I started off looking for a place to have dinner. I walked around the commercial area and couldn't find anything and so I headed over to the bull fight arena where I was sure there would be some restaurants. I found myself walking down a dark street and suddenly no one was around. I knew it was time to get out of there so I headed to where I heard some loud music. It was a bar, so I figured it sounded friendly enough and walked in.

A man greeted me at the door and offered me a beer which I gladly accepted. I walked into the bar to find that there was no one in it. The man who offered me the beer remained outside and it was a little weird. It was the kind of place I would expect to see a Colombian mobster hang out. This was way worse than the dark street so I drank my beer as fast as comfortable and left.

Learning from my mistake, I quickly headed to where I heard the most noise. I found myself on a crowded street which was closed to traffic. The first thing I came across was a volleyball/soccer match. Someone had put a tennis net across the street and people were playing volleyball without using their hands. It looked like anyone could join but I stayed on the sidelines as they were insanely competitive.

I found a pizza place on this street and had a beer and pizza while watching the festivities. The next stop I came to had some really good jugglers. These guys (and girl) had a ton of makeup on and were completely in the clown costume. They juggled knives while on unicycles and balancing glowing orbs on their heads. I was mesmerized by these guys for about 20 minutes. Now I know where Cirq du Solei originated from.

A few feet later I met a mime. This is the first person I have met in Colombia who actually speaks my language. He gave me a sticker and so I gave him a couple of coins.

The next thing I came across was a jump-rope competition. There was a rope for adults and a rope for kids. Anyone could jump in whenever a round started, then whoever messed up had to leave the rope and the rest remained. Some of these guys were really good!

I eventually started heading back and on my way back I met a guy with a leather jacket and a really cool mohawk. He said something in Spanish which I think had the word 'coca' in it. I said "no hable espanole" and he replied "wanna smoke something?". I said no thanks and walked on. I guess I should expect to be propositioned for stuff like that while in Colombia.

My last stop was when a guy with dreadlocks in a ponytail, a handlebar mustache, and oversized clownboots grabbed my arm and wanted to teach me how to ride a unicycle. I politely refused as I have no idea what he is saying.

It was a fun and cheap few hours. It would be great if I found more streets like that in Canada. Man, I'd be there everynight!

Malta

In my continuous desire to try new things when I go to new places, I found a soft drink that I had never heard of. It is called Pony Malta and was easily the worst drink I have ever bought. It had this sweet molasses taste and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. When I made a terrible face after my 3rd or 4th sip (I can't believe I made it that far), someone commented: "That's beer!". It sure didn't taste like beer. Upon further consideration, we realized that it was wort, the first step in making beer.

Now it made sense. I like to home-brew and usually taste the wort before I pitch the yeast and this was a similar taste (although I think mine is better). I can't believe they would make a drink like that! It must have been a mistake that someone decided to market.

After a little more research I found out that there are around 100 brands of Malta. I don't get it!

Anyways, enough on this subject...

Another Crazy Night

So we had another one of our infamous nights last night.

The night started off at the hotel bar. We started off as 6. I was the new guy on the turf and the others had been working here for about 6 weeks. They are all the blue collared types and are all huge, rough looking guys, so they are definitely the type of people I'd want when walking around at 3am in Bogota. The 6 of us all met up and then found some other English businessmen and had a drink with them. One of them was named Ziggy and apparently they drink a few beers in the taxi on their way home from work every day. Anyways they gave us a good laugh and kept us entertained for a little while.

So we started getting bored of the hotel bar and wanted to find something fun to do. We asked the bar manager, who was happy to make some suggestions and asked if he could come with us. Having a local is always a good idea and this guy seemed like fun so we said yes! Next one of our friends had found himself a girlfriend in his 3 weeks here so he called her up and two more of her friends. So.... 6 Canadian dudes and 4 Colombians.
(sorry about the pink, I think my camera has almost had it).

We found a neat restaurant downtown. It was 9:00 at this point, so it is a good thing that we had that bar guy with us because he was able to talk his way into getting a table for 10 without reservations. I had no idea what to order so I asked him to get me something Columbian. He ended up ordering some sort of bite-sized fish fillets covered in a spicy vinaigrette kind of thing for appetizer and then some sort of pulled meat, with really good potatoes, fried banana and avocado for dinner.

During dinner, the music was a little louder than it would normally be at a restaurant and I noticed that it was run by a DJ on a balcony. They were playing 80s music and after a few drinks these tough Canadian guys started singing along with the songs and moving to the beat. I have to admit, I may have joined.

Before I knew it, the music was so loud that we couldn't speak, no one was sitting down anymore, and the place had turned into a night club. I have to admit, the music in South America is so much better than it is in North America, it is a lot more fun! So after a few more drinks and a few hundred thousand pesos we closed up the bar (yes, we were the last to leave). The one guy said goodbye to his short-term girlfriend with lots of tears (as he left the next day) and half an hour later we found ourselves in the cab on the way home. We arrived back at around 3:30am.


Now the next morning was a bit of a panic for me. I woke up 10 minutes before our shuttle left for work and had to run. I made it on time according to my watch, but couldn't find anyone. I called the guy that missed out on the night before and he informed me that I had arrived about 70 minutes early. Somehow during the night I must have set my watch 70 minutes fast (possibly in an attempt to make it in the same time zone as my wife). Anyways, that is another mystery.

Arrival in Bogota

Hi All,

I'm back and in Bogota, Colombia. I've been here for about 12 hours now (including sleep) and I haven't been mugged once! Arriving at the airport was pretty standard except that the line for immigration was about the length of the terminal. Fortunatley those guys were fast and I was out in 10 minutes.

I was a little nervous getting into the taxi as there were two drivers. The taxi had my hotel's name on it and they were both wearing suits so it seemed legit. I was expecting them to turn around and mug me once we got to a sketchy area. I think one of them was there for security.

Security here is funny, About 25% of the people you see on the street are dressed like soldiers and are carrying M16s. One of the guys I am with said that if I don't see a soldier nearby, I should not go to the ATM. Fair enough. The other funny thing I saw was an add for tourism in Columbia. The slogan was "The only risk is wanting to stay". Oh man...

On the drive we went to the complete opposite side of the 9 million person city, but only went through about 2 or 3 traffic lights and made it in less than 1/2 an hour. I love how places like this seem to manage their traffic without lights better than we can with lights. I noticed a few other funny things about driving here while we were on the road. For example, all drivers and passengers on motorcycles wear this bight yellow vest which has the licence plate on it. Also, all commercial vehicles have their licenceplates on the back, painted on the sides, and painted on the roof, but not on the front. Strange?

The city itself is quite nice, It's surrounded by mountains and is way up at around 8500 feet. I want to do some more exploring, but I probably shouldn't leave the city. There is a funicular somewhere around here that would be fun to take up one of the mountains.

As I continue the trip, I'll keep you posted!

Malaria

There is a blood drive at work today, I tried to give but they wouldn't let me! Apparently I have Malaria. Everyone who has been to China in the past 364 days has Malaria. I don't feel like I have Malaria. But if I have stepped outside of Hong Kong in the past 364 days then I have Malaria. I tried.

I have a potential trip to Columbia, if I step out of Bogota, I will also have Malaria for a year. I'd better not go!

Dallas

Hi All,
I'm just finishing a project in Texas and I've been incredibly busy to the point where I haven't updated this site recently.

I've had a few interesting weekends here but as a whole, Dallas really isn't that exciting. I went to the Fort Worth stock yards with my uncle Bill a couple of weekends ago which was interesting. We saw a few texas long horns which you don't see in my home province of Alberta. We also went to a bar for a tequilla shot. This bar had these cool saddles instead of barstools.

A few nights ago was our qualification. We went to a Brazilian restaurant where we had a massive all-you-can-eat meat night where the waiters would come to your plate with skewers of meat. Later in the evening we had a few beers around the pool and I brought out my guitar. We sang until about 3am.

Last night we went to see Star Trek in the theater. I was disappointed that there were not many costumes there, but I was not disappointed with the movie. I'm spending my weekend watching all of the first ten movies now.

My trip is coming to an end, but I'll keep posting next time I get somewhere interesting.

Playing with photo stitching

Okay, I am not anywhere exciting yet, but here are some panoramic photos from 2006 that I finally stitched together tonight: Click the images to see them bigger.

Spencer took this photo. If you really zoom in, you can see where we parked on the highway.

This one is on the island of Capri in Italy.

This is from a snowshoe trip.

The last one here is a work in progress. For some reason I can't get my right arm to show up. I swear I am actually there.


I head to Dallas in a couple of weeks, I'll keep writing then!