You Look Like You Slept Well

The other morning I trundled into the hostel kitchen, my hair wildly pillowified, in my pajamas.  Abe, who arrived here a few days ago, tends to wake up with the sun.  I hold out for a bit to see if it is really coming up or just pretending to.  So it was about eight in the morning when I wandered in.  Abe was typing away at his laptop, and a fellow long-term hosteler Alejandra was typing away at hers.  She is here doing research on indigenous people and heads out most days to sort through some sort of archives located nearby.  "Good morning," I said.  "Good morning," they answered, with Alejandra further volunteering "You look like you slept well."  I am fairly certain this was a compliment, though I have been going back and forth on it for some time.

I realize that I have not finished the jungle tale, and here I am almost a week into my stay in Bogota, Colombia.  This is not, I'm afraid to say, because I have spent my days poring through museums and climbing up mountains.  Instead, I spent two days searching for a FedEx office, and another visiting immigration offices that either could not help me or were closed.  I did visit the Matt Maher recommended Cafe Don Pedro which has the finest cup of coffee I have had in some time.  Today I had the pleasure of enjoying an iced coffee -- a first for my time in Latin America.  I've always thought that a world-leading region for coffee production sitting largely in the tropics should be practically swimming in iced coffee, but have found, until that moment, nothing but the hot variety.

Iced coffee is not the only progressive aspect of Bogota.  Restaurants prohibit smoking inside.  The city has miles and miles of bike lanes and bike paths.  Public parks are clean and good looking.  The public transportation system makes a great deal of sense and runs well.  The people at the tourist information booths are overwhelmingly nice.  Five or ten years ago, you could not have paid me to visit Bogota.  Stories of violence, kidnappings, and crime were about all that filtered into the US press.  From all I have read and what I have seen so far, life here has changed very much for the better.

Tonight Abe wanted to try his hand, so to speak, at poker, so we headed to the Zona Rosa where one finds upscale restaurants, bars, and casinos.  We started the evening with dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  I ordered quesadillas and a Peroni and Abe ordered some sauteed meat dish and a Negra Modelo.  I was somewhat surprised when a plastic bottle of orange soda was placed in front of me.  Before the waiter had a chance to pour me a cup of "Premio" our original waiter corrected him and a minor crisis was averted.  Our second waiter returned with a Peroni, then promptly walked directly into a glass door, causing an extraordinary thudding sound.  It was not his night.

The casino was called "The Rockerfeller" and had a small entrance on a busy street filled with young folks walking in between the local bars.  We were patted down by security upon entering and passed through a white cement hallway and up a flight of stairs to a small gaming room with three empty blackjack tables.  Confused, we spoke to a staff member who directed us up another flight of stairs.  Here we found a single poker table with about eight people seated around it.  For you poker fans, this was no-limit Texas Hold'em with one / two dollar blinds and a hundred dollar maximum buy-in.  Abe got a little coaching on how the game was conducted by a staff member and took a seat.  I was given a beer and offered a seat where I could divide my attention between the game and the Dallas - Philadelphia playoff game on the TV (sorry Philadelphia fans, that was a complete train wreck).

Everyone playing the game was on the young side, and about half were either outrageously drunk or doing their best to get there.  The mood was jovial, though two of the Colombians with multiple sheets to the wind kept up a steady stream of racist comments directed at the only Asian player at the table who was relatively staid about the whole situation, most likely because he was pounding down beers at an extraordinary rate and, somehow, winning his share of hands.  In the midst of this, Abe was playing extremely tightly -- in fact in the several hours we were there, I only watched him play two hands, though he apparently played a third when I slipped off to the restroom.  Since he was not doing a lot of playing, he struck up a conversation with the man on his right, an American named Dan, now a five-year resident of Bogota.  Surprisingly, Dan, at age thirty, was the owner of the casino, and perhaps more surprisingly given the sort of preconceptions one might have about a casino owner, seemed a legitimately nice guy.  I chatted with him myself a bit between hands, and he was very encouraging of my spending time in Bogota volunteering.  He said he lived nearby and it was safe, but a bit boring.  While I did not say this at the time, I made a mental note to check out places nearby.  Safe and boring sounds OK to me -- adjusting to life in another country should be adventure enough.

By the end of the evening Abe had won enough money to at least get us back to our hostel and was kicking himself about a round that would have led to all kinds of riches should he have stayed in.  He really enjoyed himself and I had a good time watching the game.

Tomorrow we are heading back to the Zona Rosa to watch the Patriots in their first playoff game.  Beyond that, not much is on the docket, and we expect most stores and museums to be closed tomorrow and Monday, a holiday.  On Tuesday I head back to the closed government ministry which should then be open, then start a week of intensive Spanish classes.  On Wednesday I hope to meet with the volunteer organization and with any luck I will be able to collect the necessary materials and have a visa in the beginning of February.  Here's hoping for some smooth sailing through some Latin American bureaucracy.  In the meantime, I hope to write up more of my experiences, but for now it is late and time for me to go to bed.