Bogotá, Friday

Thu 2348 Seeing the bits at the start of the blog entry I just posted feels a bit odd. Getting up early in London "this morning" and getting the train to Gatwick and having a pint at the airport feels like an eternity ago.

FWIW left HTC on "extreme battery saver" mode all day and in aeroplane mode as soon as got on flight in London and it's only gone down to 80%, which feeds into my recent perception the battery is a bit shit but not terrible.

Fri 1933 Back at hotel, been here since maybe 1715 and not planning on going out. Feels a bit Billy No Mates but I can't be out every night, I am not here long enough for it to be "worth" trying to crack the "getting around safely at night" issue and it's fine. Closest I've come to seeing any really mildly tempting bar is Los Angeles Cafe Bar Rock maybe 5 mins walk away, which I saw in today's peregrinations, but I'm not really up for "risking" it tonight (nor tomorrow, especially as I fly the following morning). I think I need to start feeling more comfortable with people and the language and getting a more realistic feeling of how safe things are before I start going out for beers in potentially noisy places in the evening.

Going to start bashing out today's write-up but may take breaks here and there.

Woke up with no alarm maybe 8amish, mouth felt a bit dry and I had a tiny bit of water and checked alarms and went back to sleep, drifting in and out and finally semi-forcing myself to get up approximately 9:45 and went out and owner was there and she cooked me some breakfast (croissant, scrambled eggs with tomato and onion, hot chocolate) and we chatted a little bit. I then came back to room and shaved and faffed with stuff some more. Oh, as I was going out to breakfast I realised the room door doesn't always lock properly. Owner was there and she knows and may do something about it but she said not to worry as I'm the only guest at the moment, though an Israeli woman is turning up and she might ask me for help with her - I didn't quite get the gist of her remarks correct, but I am thinking Israeli guest speaks English but no Spanish and hotel owner doesn't speak English. I will probably use my Howsarlock tonight (there's no way to test if the door *has* locked successfully from inside) and now I've realised it does lock *sometimes* I just need to keep trying until it does when I go out.

Felt a bit nervy about going out but everything was fine. Weather has been overcast but warmish all day, was wearing just long-sleeved thin T-shirt and felt comfortable enough, though as it came on to 5pmish there was a bit of a chill in the air - nothing unbearable, but it would have been better to have fleece on at that point.

I found a Claro shop on Google Maps and set off to walk over there. I was determined to avoid getting phone out in street to check maps (partly to avoid tempting thieves/looking like a tourist more than necessary, partly as I think it's a good idea to develop my sense of direction instead of just looking at phone all the time) but I managed to find it, maybe 10-15 mins walk away but mostly down a single main-ish street.

I never actually got into the Claro shop. There was a Movistar one on same side of road I was already on and I *thought* I would go into both and get some prices and then buy from whichever I preferred. But - and I would stress everyone involves was perfectly pleasant, not in general super friendly but perfectly pleasant - the process was pretty long-winded. I initially lurked round the heavily staffed shop and someone spoke to me after a couple of minutes. They wanted to see some ID, they then handed me over to someone else who put me onto a sort of electronic queuing system and sent me up to a waiting room on the floor above where after about five minutes my name showed on on the screen and I went into a little booth and talkled to the staff member in that. He too wanted my ID, and he made various phone calls, and another staff member came in a couple of times just to bring us a brochure with some plans in.

Anyway, of the PAYG plans on offer there was a 25k for a month one with 1.1GB data, "unlimited" WhatsApp (no idea if this includes voice calls but even just text is worth having) (Facebook/Twitter also included IIRC but I don't use those) and a mostly-useless-but-maybe-not 20 mins of international calls. Given I had a vague idea of the Claro plans from a web search other day (though Movistar had similar weekly plans, so quite possibly Claro would have had something monthly at a similar or better price than this Movistar offer) and this seemed a half decent deal *and I'd been in there for what felt like ages and the guy had typed all sorts of data into his computer* I decided I'd "allow" myself to just go with this and not do a comparison shop; I don't know if this is their intention, but it may simply be how business is done here. (To be scrupulously fair, the deal I took *was* in the catalogue and I had actually seen it while loitering round on first entering the shop, *but* it had some kind of "Christmas offers" thing on the facing page so I assumed the information was no longer valid, and/or I wasn't clear that it was PAYG. Had I seen that "properly" , I'd probably have walked out with a copy of that catalogue and gone over to see what Claro were offering.)

This chap in the booth came closest to being chatty, he recommended I check out (and wrote on a bit of paper for me) Ziruma within Santa Marta (great views over the bay, IIRC - does sound interesting), also Bahia Concha and Parque Tairona. He is not from Santa Marta but from somewhere near-ish.

Anyway, he then got my signature and right index (the one next to the thumb, if I have the name wrong) fingerprint (! - I flirted briefly with being precious about this but decided not to) and handed me over to the bloke who'd been bringing us catalogues. I asked if we could test the SIM worked in my phone before we paid, so the booth bloke asked the catalogue bloke to take care of that. So I said goodbye to the booth bloke and catalogue bloke took me downstairs to the technical service booth, where a woman tested one of their SIMs in my phone. She then waved me over to someone else (I actually got the wrong person at first) who took my payment (on credit card; worked fine) and then told me to go to yet *another* booth where they kept the stock and the bloke there gave me my SIM. I put it in phone before leaving shop and quickly tested accessing web and it worked.

As I say, everyone was perfectly pleasant and I'm moderately proud that with one or two minor glitches my Spanish was up to the strain. But all the same, I can't help feeling this was a major performance and does it *really* need six different people to complete the process of selling me a SIM? I looked at my watch when I left and if I didn't get confused it was about an hour after I'd left the hotel, so I'd say I was in the shop for maybe 30-40 minutes.

(The SIM itself cost 3k on top of the 25k for the month. That's about £6.50 for approximately 0.5 person-hours of work, even assuming it costs Movistar *nothing* to provide the SIM and the actual service and pay for the pretty big shop itself. I don't know, and obviously Movistar is a successful company, it just feels very inefficient - and as a tourist, at *best* they're going to get another £13 or so out of me for an additional two months' service, whereas a local might at least keep paying month after month. In retrospect I'm a bit surprised they didn't just refuse to take my money because there was no way they could make a profit on it, but I'm glad they did, and I have to assume they *probably* will make a profit out of me.)

That reminds me, there are posters on the street advertising some public works programme, things like building new schools and hospitals, with a slogan something like "things that will make Bogota happier". What strikes me as odd is there's a kind of secondary slogan with a tick logo which says "impopulares pero efficientes". I quite like the idea - though of course it could be used as spin for projects which are anything *but* efficient - of a government openly acknowledging they're doing something in an efficient but unpopular way - but it seems highly surprising that building a new hospital or school would be unpopular in the first place. Maybe there's some kind of context I'm missing here, either in the local politics or the language. It's just that this secondary slogan would seem to me to fit better with eg some short-term disruptive roadworks or the like.

Intermittent pretty loud aircraft noises here at hotel, by the way. Not very often and they don't really bother me. And that reminds me that about three times today as I was walking up and down Carrera 100, aircraft came in to land (perhaps only for a certain direction or runway, as they weren't *that* frequent) and were so low and so close they looked absolutely fucking enormous. I wish I could have snapped a photo, but I was (still am, really) super reluctant to attract attention to myself by standing around taking photos and unless you heard the noise beforehand and got the phone/camera ready (a distinct possibility) it would be quite hard to do. I might see if I can get a shot of this, it's perhaps not that unusual, but it certainly is to me. Quite a cool thing to see in a way.

Let's have a little bit of a break from typing this.

2038 So after I got out of Movistar I wandered down street to Parque Central de Fontibón (I sort of knew this was there as it was shown on a sign inside the Movistar shop as the evacuation meeting point), nice enough if (to my fresh off the boat mind) just feeling a tiny bit gritty, and went in the Catedral de Santiago Apóstol on the south side and had a bit of a look in there (I did take a few photos on phone in there) and then carried on back rougly the way I'd come but on Carrera 99. I saw a coffee shop (Tostao) and I went in and got a 12oz American for 4k. As I was going in a young teen-ish kid asked me for money but I said no and although I was a bit disoriented (the counter guy had just spoken to me and I was moving over to him as kid came into view) this was fine of course.

Did look at phone a bit as sat inside drinking coffee, it was smallish and other people sat near me at times and it felt both rude plus perhaps (this is a bit paranoid) inviting them to maybe talk to me and perhaps cause me problems by staring "past" them out of the window.

I then managed to get lost trying to find my way back to the hotel (I didn't really need or want to go in, but I wanted to be sure I could locate it) but after considerable walking and feeling *mildly* nervous (though in reality I knew where *I* was, I just didn't know where the hotel was, and I could have gone into a coffee shop or similar to have a look at my phone in relative security had it been actually necessary) and getting a bit jittery after a motorcyclist came riding up behind me on the pavement (not that I realised; he was beeping his horn to tell me to get out of the way but I assumed it was coming from the road) I did eventually find it. Small lesson learned there is I should have paid more attention to the buildings at the junctions on my way out.

Anyway, I then (without going into the hotel) thought I'd walk over to the airport. In small part to evaluate the possibility of walking over to get flight to Cartagena, and mainly for something to do/exercise.

I didn't really feel unsafe (just the general background nerves, which I think are diminishing) on the walk, but it felt like quite a long way (I walked right up to the far end of the "loop" inside the airport area covered by the shuttle bus, which is where I'd emerged last night to be collected) and my feet (and left leg - I wonder if it's a bit weak for some reason, and/or this is a legacy of it hurting on flight) were killing me before I'd finished it. It isn't *that* far really and I think it wouldn't be insane to walk it with my bag on Sunday morning, but probably (given my policy of "be ultra paranoid about safety when I have my bag with me") I will talk to hotel about them arranging a taxi or transfer even if I maybe end up paying 25k (which feels a bit more of a rip off to be dropped off at airport, when no one has to be hangin around to meet me and there's probably no need to pay for parking).

I had planned to eat and I was starting to feel hungry during this walk. Absolutely loads of cheap restaurants seen all day. I went in one quite near airport end of Carrera 100; it looked a bit pricey and I nearly walked past, but then I thought "there are quite a lot of people eating in there, so the food is probably safe/good" and I doubled back and went in. Moderate language issues with the waitress, but I got a half pollo broaster (fried chicken, I think, unless there's a subtle difference) with a handful of french fries and a 600ml bottle of sparkling water (I asked if they had any soft drinks without sugar and to be fair waitress understood and went off to check but they just had the water) for 15k. I think it should maybe have been 14.5k but it's such a tiny sum I don't blame them for rounding. I went to cashier to pay (99% sure that was correct) and there was no tip on the bill so I shoved a 2k note on the counter as I left; I suspect I didn't actually need to tip (my brief web reading other day suggests a 10% tip is usually put on the bill altho it is technically voluntary to pay it, but there was no tip on this bill in first place) but fuck it, it's not a lot and that's not a terrible tip on a 15k bill and it's probably better than accidentally stiffing them by not tipping.

Chicken was a generous portion (four "bits" of different types), TBH I thought it was a bit dry though *maybe* it's meant to be like that, but it was very welcome anyway. I didn't get the name of the place but that's not a huge loss.

I don't know if I'm going to write this level of mildly tedious (but probably interesting to Future Steve) details every day but we'll see.

Stepping out of the chronological narrative for a second, I noticed this morning my HTC was not charging and it turned out that it seemed sensitive to the precise positioning of the charging cable. Potential bummer. I had been testing it back in London and had not noticed this problem and it hadn't suffered any abuse which might have damaged the charging socket. It isn't, now I know, *too* sensitive and I can probably live with this. I also just now tried it with the other (short) charging cable I brought with me and it's rock solid with that, so I suspect this is due to some small difference in size/tolerance on the USB plug in the socket. I had tested briefly back home with the USB cable I actually brought with me, but I hadn't noticed this problem, although I assume it exists. I'm glad the socket on the HTC seems solid anyway, as suggested by its working perfectly with this other cable, so if things do get worse all I should need to do is buy another cable and hope that's better. I had a similar issue with Priv while visiting parents, a perfectly decent and branded USB cable gave a really intermittent connection and I feared Priv socket was coming loose, but it was solid with another cable. So I guess this is just one of those things, and perhaps one of the reasons newer phones don't use micro USB.

(The fact I have two phones and shouldn't normally need to charge the HTC while I am using it makes this mild sensitivity to cable positioning less annoying than it otherwise would be.)

2131 Done laundry. Bit tedious but probably less so than going out to a laundrette, and probably get easier with practice. Sink a bit small but just about big enough, also a bit loose on wall (though not massively so) so I supported it with my knee to help avoid damaging it further.

After meal I got lost *again* going back to hotel, though less so than last time. Before I went in I popped round the corner and bought some bananas (3.5k for seven) and dropped them back in at hotel before coming mostly straight back out - it was about 4pm at this point, I'd checked and sunset was 6pm so figured I could just pop out for a couple of coffees to kill a bit of time before I "had" to camp out back in my room for the night.

Found quite a nice little coffee shop on Carrera 100 (though don't know name), I think I made a bit of a balls up of the ordering protocol - I went to counter instead of sitting at a table for a waitress, then I handed the waitress money when she brought coffee instead of asking for a bill at the end, then I had a second coffee to further complicate things - but never mind. They had all sorts of cakes and pastries and bread type stuff, a bit like La Vienesa in Xela but more so, but I resisted temptation given I'd eaten that big portion of chicken. (I got the bananas not because I was or feared I be hungry, but out of a broad idea that I should try to eat some fruit/veg when I can. I know the fucking "rules" of five-a-day don't allow you to eat (say) five bananas, but I figure five bananas today and maybe five apples tomorrow or whatever is still better - if only for my comfort and convenience when going to the toilet :-) - than nothing.) I might well go back there tomorrow and try to get the protocol right and have some kind of bread or cake. The first coffee seemed to cost 1800 but the second only 1100, I have no idea - maybe I miscounted the change - but it seems cheap enough there I could splurge on some snacky items.

Not really sure what I will do tomorrow. Probably just more wandering and trying to burn off some of the lingering background fear of being out on the street. While I'm sure I do look touristy, I don't think my clothing is terribly conspicuous - I see other people wearing similar dark colours, and I've been wearing my baseball cap and I see quite a few locals wearing them too.

I actually feel a little bit sad to be leaving here - despite having felt a little bit "fuck, what do I do with the rest of the day?" at times today - so soon, but that's probably no bad thing really.

Wifi seems to be playing up a bit, or at least to have very very poor speed.

2219 My attempts since about 6pm to get the Movistar app on my phone to allow me to sign in continue to fail. I have no idea why, the SIM does seem to work, I am receiving the confirmation texts, but the app just inscrutably tells me "an error occurred, try later" . This is when I sign up using the "by text" option; if I try to create an account and give my e-mail address etc it insists the phone number is not a Movistar product, when it blatantly is and I know I'm giving it correctly because I get confirmation texts using the other option.

This isn't critical, I had been hoping to be able to see my data use and experiment to see if a WhatsApp voice call counted against it, but I can do without that. I had hoped to use the app to top up again in a month's time but I guess I can always go into a Movistar shop. In my limited experience mobile phone company apps are pretty likely to be shitty, although Sturgeon's Law does spring to mind here.

I was yawning a bit this afternoon. I am not really tired now but it probably wouldn't hurt to go to bed soon-ish.

2306 Bed. Only thing I can think I didn't mention was a slightly weird silent beggar coming up to me as I was trapped at a busy road crossing on walk back from airport. He didn't actually threaten me of course but I was and probably looked a bit on edge.