Bogota Dreams

In order to verify that movies like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Clear and Present Danger and Romancing the Stone have their facts straight, I made a trip to the capital of Colombia, the infamous Bogota. I was horrified by how it did not live up to my hollywood dreams. Imagine, a city of eight million that wasn't a collection of small, tile roofed, white spanish homes with chickens and burros running wild in the sweltering heat. What bullshit. This place has been misrepresenting itself for years. As a matter of fact, at 8660 feet above sea level (2640 meters) it's not exactly hot, especially coming in from Barranquilla, which, at sea level, is (hot). So, anyway, Bogota looks like any other city in the year 2005, rapidly approaching 2006, at least in the downtown areas and no bombs went off, and I saw no chickens running through the unpaved roads, nor was I chased by men with machetes. I did however, see a taxi driver discover a novel way to squeeze an extra passenger in for the fare (to be fair this was in Barranquilla on the way to the airport) which shows some Colombian ingenuity. And, also, in an attempt at fairness, I did see a horse pulling a cart downtown in Bogota, which seemed pretty out-of-place and not nearly as natural as it does in BQ.

In all, much was proven to be blatant misreprenetaion by the city of Bogota, through the innocent and unknowing medium of Hollywood filmmaking, to keep the city clear of American tourists, who are known for their lack of culuture and spending dollars and who often insist on speaking to people in English, which, of course, is the language of the devil.