Seeing is believing

I was walking through Zona T the other night, and thought a photo would be appropriate to show just a little bit of how festive and intense the Holiday spirit is here in Bogota. Since it doesn't snow here, the light arrangements around Zona T (a couple of streets making a "T" intersection that have been closed to traffic making a pedestrian mall lined with bars and restaurants, and surrounded by high end stores and shopping malls) are designed to look like snow. Pretty cool to see in person.

When Nature Calls...
... you answer! While coming back from buying some supplies for CrossFit Bogota the other day, I turned to my right and happened to see a father, holding up his young daughter (maybe she was 2 or 3 years old) to let her pee. This was in broad daylight, along the side of the autopista and right next to some woman selling stuff that he was talking to.

But then a minute or two later, once again I look to my right to see nature's hand at work again. Well, maybe not hand. Two dogs were banging away, do the nasty doggy style. I just started laughing as I saw two guys watching the dogs get down to business as they walked by. I tried to get a photo, but we turned before I could.

Somebody's watchin' me.
This weekend was a blitzkrieg of drinking. We started Friday night checking out a new bar called Victoria, and began an abbreviated bar crawl. None of us were that into the scene there, so we drank our drinks and proceeded over to Penthouse, which just opened a week ago. Penthouse is supposedly a 4 floor club that even has a sauna. There was a 180 Aguardiente party there, but rather than deal with the door we looked at the crowd and decided we would rather go to our sala de estar... Maroma! After engaging in de rumba for several hours, and getting some girls' numbers, at 5am or so it was time to call it quits.

When I get home, I realize I lost my key, most likely somewhere on the floor at Maroma. After about 10 minutes of trying to wake Ernesto, he came to the door 3/4 asleep and let me in. Literally, a minute or two after I walk in the door the intercom rings. The doorman tells me a girl is downstairs, and asks if he should let her come up. I told him "no way" and that I'll take a look from the balcony to see who the hell it was since I wasn't expecting anyone. Unfortunately, this mystery girl was already in the building's lobby when I went to the balcony, so no luck. I went downstairs to confront this possible late night casual encounter.

A girl was standing there all right, but I had no clue who the hell she was. She proceeds to tell me her name, that she lives in the next building, that she saw me at the club tonight and that she recognized me from the neighborhood. Whoa! That's creepy. Couple that with the fact that something similar happened with another girl a couple days after I moved into the building. I acted gentlemanly, got her number thought I can't remember what she looked like at all, and went to bed.

The next morning, my doorman said that I'm being watched 24/7, and should hire a private body guard. We're all having a good laugh about it, although it is incredibly strange and flattering in a disturbing in a sense.

Llamadas!
I didn't understand what this was all about until last week. In Colombia, the three mobile phone carriers: Comcel, Tigo and Movistar, charge extremely high per minute rates for phone calls made from one network to another (Comcel roughly controls 60% of the Colombian mobile phone market). So, some clever folks came up with the idea to "lease" mobile phones out to people on the street for anywhere between COP 150-300 per minute (roughly $0.09/minute). Pretty expensive, but I guess it is less expensive than calling on your own mobile phone. I'm not sure why the costs are so high, but they are.

You can see people on the street every 20 meters or so yelling "Llamadas! Llamadas!" This explains why so many times when I call or sms someone, they ususally call back from a different number. At first, I thought everyone here at multiple cell phones, so I'd save the numbers. But when I received calls from the same person from more than three different numbers, I thought, "what the hell?" Now I know, and knowing is half the battle!

Clothing Line.
This week CrossFit Bogotá T-shirts arrived! All the initial clients will get one with their membership, and then they'll be for sale for COP 20.000 each (a little less than $10). They came out great, and were custom tailored. The shirts were actually made from the raw fabric, not bought and then screen printed. Gotta love the textile/garment industry down here. I wear them every day when I go to train a class or do my own workout - advertising!

Well, to be honest I'm also almost out of clean clothes, though I expect to purchase a washing machine this week. And after visiting a local laundrymat to see if they do laundry-by-the-pound like in New York, we learned that 10lbs of laundry would cost approximately COP 70.000, or $35! They originally started taking clothes out of my laundry bag, which seemed strange until we learned that they charge per item - COP 1,500 for a pair of socks and COP 3,500 for underwear! Hell, in five wash loads I'd have paid enough to buy my own laundry machine!

Detox.
We do a CrossFit workout in Virrey that was torture after the previous night's drinking display. Breakfast is an excruciating experience, so we decide it would be best to go to the sauna. Man, was that a great idea or what?!

Marco, Ernesto and I drove out to Club El Rincon, which is located somewhere towards Chia north of Bogota. We arrive and immediately hit the sauna (steam room). It was HOT! We hit the steam twice before taking a breather, literally, and ordering some snacks and juice while watching a polo match. We all then proceeded to pass out for about two hours, hit the steam once more, and shower up to get read for Andres. Man, I'm tellin' ya. After those steams and the nap, I felt like Friday night didn't even happen!

Retox.
Andres was about twice as crowded as the week prior, and the hotness was everywhere around us. We arrived late due to a house party earlier, so we didn't have a table when we arrived despite its being Ernesto's birthday. Luckily, within about 15 minutes one of the tables where we normally sit opened up and we were in business. Turns out that Juanes was at Andres as well, and quite a mob surrounded him as he was leaving to do a late concert somewhere. I guess he wanted to make way for Ernesto's birthday!