Well, here we are again....

[BobG]

Chose a good day to leave Blighty. So here I am in a warm, sunny and pleasant Bogotá with this view from the hotel window. I love the chaos of cables everywhere...

BobG

 

[BobG]

Estadio el Campin in the middle of Bogotá.

Although not always used for international matches it is the national stadium. It is also the home of the two biggest Bogotá clubs: los Millonarios and Independiente Santa Fe.

The stadium is in quite a nice area. Loads of things going on hereabouts and loads of nice bars too. The blue lit up place is 'Moviestar'. A whacking great concert and commercial hub. It's just down the road. Very close.

BobG

[BobG]

Estoy mirando un juego de la tercera fase de Conmebol Libertadores aquí en Ibagué.  Deportes Tolima del Colombia vs O'Higgins Fútbol Club del Chile.  Estos ambos estan mucho más rápido que los Rovers.....

Christ! Just when I about to press send, Tolima scored a belter. 1-1 on aggregate now. On performance so far, Tolima ought to win.

BobG
Later. Tolima won the tie overall with an end to end race from an O'Higgins corner. But O'Higgins still had time for a couple of chances they should have scored. Tolima defence went walkabout after rheir second....

[SydneyRover]

Hope you're having a good time Bob, always look forward to your dispatches.

General Bernardo O'Higgins fyi, had to look him up.

https://www.londonremembers.com/subjects/general-bernardo-o-higgins

Any plans for this trip?

[BobG]

Quite a famous ish bloke around these parts is Bernardo. He cropped up a bit in my degree aeons ago too.  Hence the interest. Well, that and the fact I am sat sitting here in Ibague right now. English weather this past few days, but bloody hot today

Not really got many plans tbh. Practice my Spanish. Get used again to food, society, environment that are all so damn different. It's a challenge. Diarroeah is inevitable. Misunderstanding the spoken word, especially when talking to Venezolanos, is horribly easy to do.

I was hoping to get into Chile. But there have been some issues with credit cards. And our f**king banks are just USELESS. Seriously, the 'service' provided by Lloyds, Nationwide and Halifax has been uniformly execrable. And it cost a quid a minute to get too. Arseholes. As you can no doubt tell, I am frustrated, and seriously pissed off.

But I'm back in a country I like a lot. I've just read a rather good interview with the current Colombian President, Potro. He thinks outside the box. And that is something humanity as a whole needs rather a lot.

https://share.google/ILBUIZxMqOtHs5lyu

Sorry for the short code link. It's from Politico.

BobG
PS  Playing footer in this heat would be no fun at all  Its 7.40 pm here. The temperature is still 27°C  Humidity quite high too.

[BobG]

Medellin.  'The City of Eternal Spring'. Also the home of one time hombre bearing the name Pablo Emilio Escobar.  An institution today. The Colombian Robin Hood. Tremendous imagination. Tremendous generosity. Tremendous violence. There is a rather nice monument here to 10,000 shot policemen. Not the ones who were knifed or beaten or drowned. Just the ones who were shot. He thought big did Pablo. Big ambition. Big scale. Big gestures. Blowing up an Avianca jetliner for example; providing free building materials for a helluva lot of locals after a climatic extreme wiped out a lot of homes on the hillsides around and above the city for another.

I'm glad to be going back. Medellin is one of the four cities that are my very favourite amongst those I've visited


BobG

[BobG]

Impressed with the local coppers. Twice now they've checked I'm ok and the company I'm keeping are honest.... So here I am, in the arms of the Colombian police!

BobG

[scawsby steve]

Impressed with the local coppers. Twice now they've checked I'm ok and the company I'm helping are honest.... So here I am, in the arms of the Colombian police!

BobG

I hope they didn't find anything dodgy in that shoulder bag, Bob.

[Iberian Red]

Bob, you look like you need a few Venezuelan arepas in you!

Have fun mate.

[BobG]

Not a big fan of arepas to be honest. Too dry. But the contents of the bag of the guy I'm  with does have some interesting contents...Second childhood I reckon. Just spent 3 hours playing pool - very badly - and drinking beer. Now a nice person is cooking dinner for me

PS  All that's in my bag is insulin, spicy sauce (absolutely vital!) and a battery to charge my phone.

[Usher wide.]

No mirror clearly.

[BobG]

Why?

[Usher wide.]

You look like ‘Steptoe’ lost abroad.

Solo porque hables un poco del idioma, no te hace Alan Whicker!

[Iberian Red]

You look like ‘Steptoe’ lost abroad.

Solo porque hables un poco del idioma, no te hace Alan Whicker!

Bit of a flat earther alert.
 
If i was was BobG,I'd tell you to "vete por el culo,carbon."

[Nudga]

You look like ‘Steptoe’ lost abroad.

Solo porque hables un poco del idioma, no te hace Alan Whicker!

Puta rata cabron

ignora a este coño

[BobG]

Gracias Nudga. Encerio, el no tiene algo sentido o sensibilidad. De hecho, es un tonto.

BobG

[BobG]

I'm in Covenas, on the north Caribbean coast. It's 8.51pm and the temperature is 28°C. I must have forgotten I'm English....

BobG

[SydneyRover]

It looks a rustic but interesting place after a poke around on google, hope you remembered your bucket and spade Bob.

[BobG]

It's Colombian. Tatty, but this place is nice. Proper haircut this afternoon - for £2.40. Mind you, it was in a tin shack! 33° today. A bit warm. But the playas are ok. Just bought a pretty decent meal for three for £28. With drinks.  I really do like Colombia and its people. Need the aircon though! It's 2245 and the temperature is still 28°....

Forgot the bucket and spade sadly.

BobG

[Colemans Left Hook]

Estoy mirando un juego de la tercera fase de Conmebol Libertadores aquí en Ibagué.  Deportes Tolima del Colombia vs O'Higgins Fútbol Club del Chile.  Estos ambis estan mucho más rápido que los Rovers.....

Christ! Just when I about to press send, Tolima scored a belter. 1-1 on aggregate now. On performance so far, Tolima ought to win.

BobG
Later. Tolima won the tie overall with an end to end race from an O'Higgins corner. But O'Higgins still had time for a couple of chances they should have scored. Tolima defence went walkabout after rheir second....

I have just had a 15 minute argument with copilot and finally beaten it  into submission- in the last month Mrs Coleman and I watched an episode of University challenge and I astounded her by getting the first question right my guess was O'Higgins - the question was about a region of Chile . (We tape it and pause to have a minute to think but I answered quicker than the contestant)

That was the second time i had shocked her by recently by knowing the answer was Giacometti to the initial question.

what shocked me was that Copilot had "been fed" such irrelevant information as the answers to University challenge -

I was recently looking at all the unmined copper deposits running down the western coast of South America.  Then on reading the thread I LITERALLY SEE YOU WITH TWO COPPERS.

I am waiting for a RNS about some COPPER drilling results to be released not in South America but Sidney's back yard.

I thought you might be working for a telecommunication company failing that a mining company - alas no ?  I presume "POTLESS" William Hill (owners stupidly called Evoke) still own a casino in Colombia you never answered

AI is very worrying one day we will have to ALL pay for it.

[BobG]

Haven't a clue what you're on about Coleman, but the coppers wanted a pic with an Inglesi
Try this.
BobG

[Colemans Left Hook]

That's good (neither do I )  - I was just looking for a certain bookmark and came across the copper (not policeman) company i was looking at and yes it was in "mining" in Colombia . I would not risk any of my ill gotten gains investing in Colombia prefer Sidney's country

https://rugbymining.com/cobrasco

As I was saying there are an awful lot of "coppers" down the west side of South America. ba bum

[BobG]

Ah, but I'm in the north and central areas

BobG

[Iberian Red]

I wonder if Usher ever made it out of Butlins. Keep the  the updates coming Bob

[Bentley Bullet]

.

[Iberian Red]

Bit of envy there Bent Bull?

[Bentley Bullet]

.

[BobG]

Wierd how folk can't focus on the topic in hand.

Leaving Covenas tomorrow. Heading to Ibague and then Medellin. One of my favourite cities


BobG

[SydneyRover]

Hi Bob, good to hear you're going well. Just for the record, what is healthcare like should it be needed, public transport, car and driver? food, what are your staples?

[BobG]

The basic staples are rice and chicken. Billions of the buggers. Usually fried one way or another  Avoid street sellers as cleanliness ain't their forte. Huevos revueltos for breakfast, but toast is dry and a side accessory. Soups are good except the bone they put in the middle to chew on. Coffee is obligatory and universal.

You can eat a lot better if you spend more money. But I tend to spend it on the travel and seeing things. US style takeaways exist in the major cities but they're not that common. Cheaper food is universally bland - I bring my own bottles of Encona. Spices and herbs are a rarity. Available, but not much used.

Healthcare is a paid for thing. US style rather than English. Locals can pay a monthly 'segurro' which covers 70% of the cost, but the remaining 30% can be crippling. There are damn fine hospitals in various places and the often US trained doctors do speak English. I've had dentistry and a stomach bug in the past. All done rapidly and effectively. Cheap by our standards. Didn't even bother claiming on the insurance. But a friend got hit by a motor bike a year ago and broke an ankle badly. The 30% she had to pay was over 12 million pesos. That's two and a half grand - a stupendous fortune to most people.

Buses are great, comfy, air con, modern. Huge network. But distances are enormous -16 hours from Ibague to Coveñas and that's not even half the length of the country. Internal flights are good, and cheap by our standards but 3 return flights to Medellin in 10 days time, from Bogotá is still 300 quid plus. Avianca and LATAM are the main airlines though there are also several cheap and cheerful others.

Driving.... I wouldn't drive here if you paid me. No one ever loses their rag but Christ it's different. You would need to learn and understand an entirely different set of behaviours. Oddly enough a UK licence does allow you to drive here. But I ain't doing it!

Oh, whilst plenty of motor cyclists wear helmets, plenty don't too. As it's a hot country the sight of semi clad, nubile female passengers, many without a helmet, sends a shiver down your spine. One bump and they're scarred for life at best.

Finally, in more populous places the Juan Valdez coffee and cake shops are a must. Simply delicious. I bring back bags and bags of their coffee every time.

BobG