QueenPuya

Yesterday I was restored to full health, thanks to a lot of sleep and healthy dose of papaya and I was fully able to enjoy the city.  I spent the morning watching MariaAlejandra in her first photoshoot for Huggies Colombia.  She and three other babies were dressed up in ponchos and little hats in traditional Caribbean Colombian style.  Good thing she wasn't a boy, because they had to have eye-liner drawn mustaches, which were hilarious.  She was one of the best behaved babies and was invited back for additional photoshoots.  And a star is born!  In the afternoon Juan Felipe and I headed to the historic downtown, La Candelaria.  It took forever to find a cab and we had to take a bus to an area not so crowded to find a cab, which was a bit absurd and perhaps is just the first in a long series of wrestling with Bogota traffic.  It really is bad.   La Candelaria was beautifully restored and the 400 year old buildings with spanish tile roofs and wooden balconies were painted a riot of colors.  We got to see some people on stilts doing a dance- Juan says this is a very bohemian area.  I've been to historic downtowns like this in every major Latin American city I've visited, but I think I might like Bogota the most.  It was very clean and well maintained and easy to navigate.  We saw the place where the city was supposedly founded (founded by Spaniards looking for the gold of El Dorado dumped in a nearby lake, supposedly) and also saw all the major government buildings, including the presidential palace and congress.  I was told that the Colombian president is the most heavily guarded politician in the world, but you wouldn't really know it walking around.  The military presence is at a minimum and I don't see an uncomfortably large number of guns.  I've had my bag searched many times, upon entering the mall or passing the government buildings, but nothing ridiculous.  I feel perfectly safe here, and judging by the hordes of Christmas shoppers they do as well.  Bogota is Christmased to the max, above and beyond most places I've seen in the US.  We walked for miles, sometimes in the rain, looking at the lights last night.  The streets were packed with people and periodically a big crowd would stop to see street performers.  Well over half the street performers were wearing the full eagle plumed costumes of North American plains Indians and were dancing and playing pipes!  I would be very interested to know if those were actual North American Indians or local Indians playing at something more "exotic".    We ended at  a major park where everyone was lighting candles and putting them in circles around the bases of trees.  We were treated to a lovely firework display, set to the tune of a million car alarms  Afterwards we ended up at a British-style pub with some of Juan's friends.  I got to practice my Spanish some, which I haven't gotten to do much as Juan, Gustavo and Adriana (his wife) all are fluent in English.  I have it pretty good, I know.