Today I did a walkabout in Madrid (I am not in Spain, Gentle Reader. Madrid is the name of the town where I' m staying just outside of Bogotà..) I sat again in the square, which is pleasant enough but not really overflowing with flowers. l basically repeated the route that Alonso and I took together the other day, but roamed around a bit more All over the place there are stray dogs. One smallish little mutt in the square seems to like couples, and will not approach anyone sitting alone, only male and female couples, but even if she's wagging her tail, no one seems interested in petting her. They don't seem to have the kind of dog culture here that has been wagging Vancouver by the tail for the last few years, though I understand that middle-class folk in Bogotà are also lavishing all the attention due to a spoiled child on their little pedigreed darlings. I also saw a lot of people on bikes. One young man was peddling with his grandma riding on the handlebars. Seriously!
I have found how important it is to ask strangers for help or directions. The municipal buildings are around the town square so I asked a security guard, a mature gentleman in a wheelchair, for directions to a washroom. He directed me to the municipal office across the way, where I was directed again to another department around the corner and the security man was very kind and accommodating. Then I sat on a cafe patio with just two tables, sipping a very strong and delicious Colombian dark roast while working on my current drawing. From there, l repeated the previous route where I ended up at the mall to sit again in the food court with my drawing, do some grocery shopping, then head back to the apartment. so I could find out what is happening with my laptop. The charger cable is not functioning and the young man working there was giving me a bit of a runaround so he could sell me an expensive battery that my computer is not needing. I happen to know this because one of the technicians who helps repair my laptop in Vancouver told me just last month that there is nothing wrong with my battery. Alonso is being super supportive by the way. He went with me this morning to take in my laptop and explained on my behalf to the young staff person what the problem was. I was told to return at three, which I did. I was asked to come back at five, I came back at five. That was when the young guy tried to sell me the expensive battery. It turned out that his own Spanish pronunciation is quite sloppy, as is often the case with young people speaking their language, and he figured out that my Spanish was stronger than he assumed and that I was not about to be taken for a fool. We agreed that I give them another twenty minutes. When I came back I was asked to return before closing time at nine. Alonso came home from work and said he'd come with me, so we arrived around seven. It turns out they can't get the cable back till tomorrow morning sometime, likely at eleven. I am cutting them slack for the delay, since Alonso has mentioned to me how bad and slow the traffic has been today in Bogota. And he is kindly lending me his own laptop right now so I can go on thrilling everyone about my travels here in Colombia.
Yesterday, Alonso`s brother came to visit and we all toured around together in the car, first to a town called Facatativà (go ahead, try repeating it three times fast!). We visited an archaeological site, called Las Piedras de Tunjo, a large natural area full of interesting rock formations and ancient rock paintings from pre-Columbian times. Even though it is an interesting site, there were too many people, this being Sunday, and few seemed interested or engaged about the historical significance of the place and instead were rock climbing, playing soccer with their kids or picnicking It felt rather like a desecration since this is a sacred site, and I rather found it difficult not to feel annoyed. Then we came across this gigantic stone disc, maybe about forty metres circumference which was apparently an ancient site for rituals of sun worship. Then it all began to make sense to me. This place was the key, the energy centre of this site. And Alonso and I both talked afterwards about how the spiritual energy of a place like that tends to keep people away because it was the only place that people seemed to actually be avoiding.
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