in Bogotá.... just for a short while!

Tues 6^th

Surprise, surprise, the hotel forgot my wakeup call but, no matter my mental clock woke me at around 6am and the bus to the airport was booked for 7.30 for a flight at 9am. And in any case I had set the alarm in my phone. I was now 6 hours behind Girona but I really didn’t feel too bad, maybe later when 6pm was equivalent to midnight in Spain. Breakfast was in a huge area behind reception. I was struck by the strange light outside, maybe it was because I had travelled for 11 hours and was 6 hours out of sync. I’ve experienced this before, suddenly planted in a strange city.

The domestic terminal at Bogotá Airport is very well-organised with a huge security area with many scanners. Contrast that with Bristol Airport in the UK which is an absolute nightmare with far too little space. Ironic that the duty-free area next door is enormous. Money talks. Sorry, I mustn't whinge about the UK, it is a pet hobby of mine!

Anyway, back to Bogotá and I found an executive lounge close to the departure gate so I spend a short while there. Since I was still travelling under my executive class ticket, I had a seat in the front of the plane and felt rather self-conscious as the rest of the passengers walked past my enormous seat on their way to the back of the plane. It left the stand more or less on time but it was about 45 minutes before we reached the take-off point due to a long queue of aircraft all with the same idea.

As I mentioned before, I met Nini online and we've chatted camera to camera in Skype but, of course, we had never met in person. Would she appear differently? I knew the answer before I actually saw her. It is very common for someone to appear larger than life on camera. When I came out of the airport in Pereira less than an hour later, there she was..... and appearing smaller than on camera, positively petite. 

In my next post, I'll write about my first day in Pereira because, after we picked up the keys for my apartment and dumped my suitcase, we spent the rest of the day out in the city. So I didn't have time to feel tired! 

I'll have plenty of free time tomorrow, Wednesday 14th, so I'll write a lot more then. And add some photos! Today, I'm out again with my newly-aquired family so there will be no opportunity to write anything today. When I say, "newly aquired", I mean they have aquired me!!They have made me part of their family.