Blogs :: a day in Bogota

a day in Bogota

Today's goal was rather epic: Be Productive. Or in other words, actually get some stuff done, as opposed to...whatever we've been doing (though to our credit, we did find a nice apartment, for cheap, which is no small feat).

First on the list, cell phone hunting. After a couple marathon walks around La Candelaria and up throughout Centro, a major shopping district, in an attempt to find a cheap cell phone without any luck, we moved on uptown in the search. And thus we entered the holy land of tech, the mecca of computers: A three story building with, and only with, computer stores, their numbers too high for any mere mortal to count them all. Store after store after store of laptops, netbooks, iPods, and any other little box of electronic goodness. Alas, cell phones were mostly of the high-end, smart phone style. But after breaking out of the hypnosis, we found exactly the kind of cell phone we were looking for: used and cheap.

Cell Phone - Check

Task two, try to repair the not-so-waterproof, waterproof camera at a repair center (hooray for warranties). Olympus USA says just take it in, no documentation needed. Olympus repair center in Colombia begs to differ. We shall return, but for now...

Repair Camera - Failed

Next, ride the TransMilenio, Bogota's much heralded and very popular public transportation system, an above ground bus on steroids slash wanna be subway since it runs in traffic-free dedicated lanes (more like steroids, crack, and any other drug used in these kind of analogies combined). It's actually pretty cool:

Pay your flat rate fare, get a plastic card, use the card to go through the turnstile (something I would not have achieved without the help of kind stranger).
Like any good public transportation system should, it has a very confusing route/map/grid system. Figure that out, then squeeze yourself onto an overcrowded bus.
Pray the bus you picked stops at your station (this part is key).
Squeeze yourself off the bus when it stops at your station during the few second window of opportunity before the doors close again.
Congratulations! You have just survived the TransMilenio. With any luck, you made it where you wanted to go. Woo.

Ours was just a "trial run" of the TransMilenio, only trying to go a few stops from our starting point. But it worked.

Public Transportation - Check

Lastly, buy food to stock our new apartment. So it's off to the supermarket. Interesting items of note:

"The Grab Bag of Groceries" - Don't know what you need? Then just grab one of these babies, which has everything from rice and pasta, to toilet paper and powdered juice, all for $11.

"Receipt Checker Guy" - a la Sam's Club, a guy at the exit verifies all receipts on the way out.

"Super Bagger Man" - Yes, he bags your stuff, but he does so much more! He pushes your cart outside to the curb! He hails you a taxi! He loads all your stuff into the taxi!

Grocery Shopping - Check + Tip for Super Bagger

More to come on grocery shopping when I return with a camera...

taxis, Bogota, shopping, public transportation, food, Colombia