Bogota Reality Check

Well I had a bit of a reality check with Bogota last night. We are
staying at a hotel right in the middle of the old town centre, where
you take one step one way and start getting to the seedy part of town.
I woke up to lots of shouting and noise. At first I tried to ignore it
and go back to sleep but then I went to the window and saw a couple of
men beating up another guy. The beaters where standing over the beatee
with truncheons in their hands and the beatee seemed to be pleading
with them all the time trying to back away from them. After a bit he
backed into the intersections and suddenly ran away down the street
but they didn´t follow.

The two men with the truncheons then spent the rest of the night
around the area, lots of shouting, sounds of broken glass. Scary.

I got out the Lonely Planet book and looked up the number for the
police but luckily the men didn´t come into the hotel. Bars on the
doors.Hopefully locked. Steph had her ear plugs on a didn´t hear a
thing. I didn´t wake her.

Tomorrow morning we have to get a cab at about 4am to catch our plane
to Panama City and then to Cuba. I hope these men will not be back. We
will have to get into the taxi very quickly and get off to the
airport.

In the morning it was just as if nothing had happened. Just the usual
traffic and noise.

Spent a lot of the day doing admin stuff. Did the e-checkin for the
flights to Panama City and Havana. Had to go to the North in a
kamikaze taxi to get to the Copa Air office as our ticket numbers were
not recognized. Taxi driver thought he was in a Grand Prix race. In
the end we had to say Mas despacio por favor and all he said was Si
but then didn´t drive any slower. When we got to the Copa office he
gave us 2000 peso less change and said it was a Christmas extra tax.
Bastardo! That´s about 1 aussie dollar. Steph didn´t want to argue so
I just left it as we wanted to get the tickets sorted out.

Tonight we go back to a great place we found where we can get wine and
access to a pool table. Played 2 games last time and had a great
night.

Seem to know Bogota through and through now. Time to move on.