CITY AT REST... SORT OF

Monday was a national holiday in Colombia and that meant the whole city rested… sort of.

I began my day with a great run along the usual route north up Avenue Caracas and then east the length of Parque Virrey. There are half a dozen streets that I cross which don't have stop lights and in days past I've sometimes waited several minutes for a break in traffic before I could cross. This morning, due to the national holiday, I didn't have to wait to cross any of the streets!

Don't get me wrong, it's still a bustling city. As we took the bus to have lunch with Elizabeth (who was in Custer with Pr. Jairo a few months ago) and her family, the bus was still standing room only due to the fact that fewer buses run on a national holiday. And if each of the vehicles on the streets and avenues of Bogotá was a Harley Davidson, the traffic on this quiet national holiday would still rival the Black Hills during the Sturgis motorcycle rally.

As a bit of an aside, I had dinner with Pr. Natanael & Pr. Barbara on Saturday evening and they were saying that when the free trade agreement went into effect on May 15 of this year, the very first U.S. product to come to Colombia was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and they have been selling like hot cakes ever since. Click here for an article about this free trade agreement if you're interested in learning more.

At any rate, Pr. Jairo and I joined Elizabeth and her family including her husband Jose Agustin and her son Jeisson Daniel for a very nice lunch at a restaurant that specializes in fish. I had a 'Bagare Asado' which Google translate tells me was grilled catfish. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I know it was delicious (see photo album by clicking here). Thanks Chuck & Kaona for 'taking us out' all the way from Custer!

From the restaurant we took a taxi ride (all five of us in one taxi!) up to a south-southeast corner of Bogotá to see Elizabeth's house. She lives in a very nice three-story house with her husband and son, which her husband built himself (he works in construction). Their neighborhood (called 'Libertadores') is high up in the hills, next to an appropriately named reserve or park called 'Parque Entre Nubes' (which means "Park among the clouds"). We also visited Elizabeth's parents home just 'down the block' and had dessert and 'tinto' (Colombian for black coffee). A picture of the whole family accompanies this blog entry and the location for this blog entry is roughly in their neighborhood.

Then, Pr. Jairo and I hopped on a bus that would take us across town to one more home visit. This ended up being the longest bus ride I've taken without leaving the city limits of Bogotá. A bit more than one and a half hours was spent on a small bus (called a 'buseta') with less leg room than any airplane I've ever been in. But at least we had seats!

We arrived at the home of the Zabaleta-Gámez family and they were so very generous in their hospitality and generosity, not to mention patience with my fractured Spanish! We spent a lot of the time talking about their daughter's upcoming trip, which will last almost a month and will take her all over Europe. She was as excited as you might imagine a teenage girl might be! She goes to a very good school in the northern part of Bogotá, but it takes her about an hour and a half each way by bus.

We were treated to another nice dinner of pasta and chicken (as if I was hungry!) and they also sent me home with several red-blue-yellow bracelets (Colombia's colors) for my family. They even drove Pr. Jairo and I home at the end of the night, which was especially nice since it would've taken over an hour by bus, but instead the car ride took about 20 minutes. We were home by about 8:30pm, which gave me a couple of hours to enjoy the remainder of this "restful" national holiday. It's a good thing tomorrow (Tuesday) is a "free" day...