I write from a patch of floor across from gate E-12 in the George Bush airport in Houston. I have been sipping an over-sized, over-priced Starbucks hot chocolate while I wait for time to go by.
I reckon I'm 2/3 of the way there (Vancouver Island being my final destination this Christmas), and it's been a relatively smooth ride so far. My departure from Manizales was, almost predictably, hampered by the weather. The Manizales airport is a delicate, delicate creature...it is only opened between dawn and dusk, and the generally accepted wisdom for determining whether or not your flight will leave is to look at the Morro Sancancio (a rather large hill and landmark in the city) and if you can see the top clearly, you're good to go. If Sancancio is obscured by clouds, you're screwed. I estimate that during the rainy season, you are screwed approximately 50% of the time.
With that in mind, it was no real surprise when my flight was cancelled and re-routed through the nearby city of Pereira. "Nearby" meaning a 1hour and 40 minute drive through the mountains, but all the waiting and bus-riding is worth it, because though the flight to Bogota is only 40 minutes from Manizales (less than 300km), it would have been a minimum of eight hours in a bus, and during "Landslide Season", as a friend calls it, it would most likely take much, much longer.
After losing my boarding pass and having to have it re-printed we boarded the bus for Pereira, where I was grateful that they did not play Christmas music, as would be expected this time of year, and as they do every morning on the bus to school. (Christmas music in the Coffee Region actually has nothing to do with Christmas as far as I can tell, but instead is a particularly irritating variety of music that I think of as their version of "country", and is more often than not dripping with sexual innuendo.) Instead we got to listen to the radio airing of the local soccer team's game. The commentary sounded like a cross between an auction and an orgasm. Blah blah blah blah blah (incomprehensible screaming) Electrodomesticos! (Home-electric appliances! - what does this have to do with soccer?) And then in the final minutes of the game, a crescendo of the game is going to end, The Game is Going to End, THE GAME IS GOING TO END!!!!! And then, when victory was confirmed, incessant screaming, followed by many thank-yous, particularly to god.
The poor taxi guy struggled for a good long while to find my hotel in Bogota, though he is hardly to be blamed. I have generally found that it is easier to find destinations in Colombia by using landmarks rather than exact addresses. The hotel, for example, was supposed to be located "across from the American Embassy", or at Calle 22B, #44C-09, according to the previous address system. (What the new system is, I have no idea, but I hope it is better than this one). So this is supposed to mean that on street 22B, approximately 9 doors down from the its intersection with Carerra #44C, the hotel would be waiting for me. But of course we could not find anything resembling this address, and instead drove around in circles in what we guessed to be the correct area, until we saw the sign. It was across from a park.
I should have known when I saw the outside of the place that it was going to be an interesting stay. I rang the bell and waited for the oversized, windowless metal door to be opened in a notably hesitant manner. My room was more expensive and more disgusting than I had expected. One of those places where you don't want to touch anything, you know? There were hairs everywhere. The desk chair looked as though it had been hand-constructed out of plywood with some fabric haphazardly stapled on. The really fantastic part was when I looked in the bathroom though. Where did this come from? Attached to my no-frills manky room was a retro bathroom almost the same size, done out in faux-marble,with a massive shower unit (with stairs in it!), complete with faded lime-green towels with cartoon ducks on them, and a wardrobe big enough to store most of my belongings. The ceiling tiles were falling down and the doors were falling off their hinges. What it did not have was hot water.
The lack of hot water was not really a problem though, as I neglected to set an alarm and slept in, leaving no time to shower anyway. Ugh. At the airport I "raced" through the check-in line, the tax-exemption line, the give-you-back-some-money-though-I'm-not-entirely-sure-why line, the security line, the leaving-the-country-stamp-your-passport line, and the second security get-into-the-gate-waiting-room line.
Upon landing here in Houston, I sought out a location for my first meal since yesterday morning. I ended up, if you can believe it, in the Fox Sky Box Sports Bar. (It was either that, a 50s diner, or a seafood house, and this place happened to be closest to the ATM.) The Fox Sky Box Sports Bar has no less than 27 televisions for me to watch sports on! And you know how much I love sports!
I have managed to occupy myself for almost five hours so far, and have only three more to go! My Kindle ran out of juice, so I'm off to find a book that does not require electricity.
Merry Almost-Christmas!!
