Don't Spell It With a U
It’s mid-October! Normally I would be really excited around now for fall and the changing of the leaves, but I don’t live in Utah anymore. I live in Cota, a rural suburb of Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. The population (including the metro districts) is around 10.5 million people (to put that into perspective, New York City is at about 8.6 million) Even though we’re technically included as part of Bogotá, we’re separated from the big city by a good thirty minute drive of greenhouses and fields. Cota started as an farming town, and although it’s become more metropolitan over time, has still hung on to its agricultural roots. Amongst the lush green mountain sides reside modern apartments, small brick houses, and fields of food crops. Although Bogotá is relatively close to the equator, we are at such high elevation that it rarely gets above 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Just to give you a comparison, Salt Lake City is 4,210 feet above sea level. Cota is 8,420. The temperature day to day typically stays between 48 and 68 degrees, but sometimes we’ll be blessed and get a warm 73 degree day. Yeah, really different than what I came from which was like 100 degrees every day. It is quite cold here, but nevertheless, we are really close to the equator, so our four seasons are extremely similar and almost nonexistent. It’s basically spring year round. The weather here has really been messing with me. It’s warmest in the early morning and progressively gets overcast and colder after noon. The sun rises and sets at 6 on the dot, and this really gets me because the sun goes from bright daylight to pitch black darkness in about 10 minutes. It’s still weird to go to bed a full 4 hours after dark because I’m used to going to bed like 1 hour after sunset which was still around 10:30. Although it’s so cold here in Bogotá/Cota, Colombia is still a tropical country which means loads of rain. There is the possibility of it raining every single day. Even if it rained yesterday and the sky looks bright and sunny this morning, that means nothing. There is always a chance of it raining. It pours at least twice a week, and usually sprinkles a bit once or twice a day 4 times/week. You never know what days it will be though, so you just gotta be prepared.
That paragraph was probably really boring to read, but the reason I spent all that time talking about the weather is because that was a change in my life that required adjusting to. The first week I was so cold all the time. Eventually my body acclimated and I got used to it, and now I feel fine (indoors at least) as long as I wear socks 24/7. The weather was a natural and short term adjustment, but there were loads of other aspects of my life that did not come so easy. This post is going to be all about what it’s like living in Colombia and how it’s different than the U.S, mixed in with the occasional photo of Colombian sky plus buildings. Luckily, I’ve already discussed the weather so the boring part is out of the way.
Colombia is technically considered a third-world country, which is probably why I get so many questions regarding what it’s like to live here. Yes, the financial circumstances are noticeably poorer than those in the US, but not enough that it matters a whole lot to the quality of life I can live. Yes, there’s more trash in the streets and stray dogs all over, but I have hot showers and good food so it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. To be honest, there wasn’t any cultural shock either (probably because I’ve lived in Mexico) but the transition to from first world to third was kind of nonexistent. From what I’ve seen, I would say that Colombia is not very far away from 2nd or even 1st world status. It has aspects that are incredibly modern, and the majority of people here have professional jobs and postsecondary education. It’s a really beautiful country. Yes, the houses are smaller and the windows are barred, but that doesn’t make the whole country a charity case.
Too many people imagine cocaine and gang wars when they think about Colombia, and although that was a very real and violent time, it was 20 years ago and it’s not like that at all anymore. To tell someone not to travel to Colombia because of the drug cartels is like telling someone not to travel to the Chicago because of 9/11. The violence was not occurring throughout the entire country, and it all ended a long time ago. If you ever meet a Colombian, there are two things that you should avoid doing around them: Spelling Colombia with a U (Columbia), and bringing up the drug trade. If you follow that advice then you’ll find Colombians to be some of the nicest people you’ll meet.
Although Colombia has been easy enough to get used to, there are some things that are still taking adjusting. The biggest of which has to be the streets/driving laws, or lack thereof. Although I have my license and am pretty good, I never practice driving here. I might come back a terrible driver because there is no way in tarnation (my grandparents read these) that I am ever driving a car here. I would literally die and kill the 15 pedestrians that I would hit in the process. First off, the roads are tiny. They are just wide enough to fit three cars practically touching, which causes big problems when people are parking basically in the middle of the street. For some reason unbeknownst to anyone, the concept of shoulders doesn’t exist so if someone parks by the curb they are also parking right in your lane. It’s even better when two cars park directly across the street from each other. This makes everyone else have to weave around each other and constantly stop and wait for cross traffic to drive through the space barely big enough for one car. You would think this causes enough of a headache that people would make little parking lots or find somewhere less in the way, but NO. Literally every street is taken up by parked cars. Doesn’t matter where you are or the time of day. Parked cars take up the majority of every street. It’s not just the parking situation that the tiny streets affect. The highways from all the suburbs to Bogotá are ALSO tiny and people are constantly passing each other and swerving around the many bicyclists and potholes that apparently live specifically on the highway. Like, I ride my bike everywhere I go here, but it’s fine in the city because people are going slow and watching where they’re going. To bike on the highway, however, is basically a death wish. Imagine two way traffic going 60 mph on a road the width of your driveway. That’s what it’s like. It. Stresses. Me. Out. You would think that with all these bad road conditions and ignored driving laws that there would be a lot of car accidents. The potential is definitely there, but I would see more dented cars in the span of five minutes in Utah than I do in a whole day here. Either car repairs are a lot cheaper, or people are actually smart enough not to drive distracted. I guess when there’s something to potentially hit every 5 feet people actually look at the road and not their phones. Because of that, car accidents are almost as uncommon in Colombia as minivans. Weird I know. You see BMWs, Audis, and even the occasional Mercedes-Benz, but I haven’t seen a single dinky little minivan. Moral of the story, it’s pretty unlikely that I will die in Colombia in a car accident, unless I’m the one driving. Then I’m dead for sure.
The other big thing that I’m still not used to is the absence of heating. Near to none of the buildings are temperature controlled. I’m told that it does exist and is available here, but it’s really expensive so no one has it. This is mostly a problem at night when the uninsulated houses get as cold as 40 degrees. The best solution is to sleep with 7 blankets (I’m not exaggerating, I counted) so at least I don’t sleep cold, but it sucks when we have to wear coats and beanies just to watch a movie in the living room. Never take your furnace room for granted. A/C isn’t really missed because it never gets hot enough to want it anyway, but I hate the cold so much. I’m slowly dying on the inside every time I wake up with bare feet and touch the tile floor. That’s another thing. Carpets are also really rare. I mean, there are rugs and all but no installed carpets. Oh, and another thing. Instead of water heaters, a lot of houses have shower heads that heat the water themselves. It’s honestly kind of genius. They run on electricity (there’s an outlet in the shower near the ceiling. Is it dangerous? Probably.) but they get the water just as hot as any old 50 pound water heater tank. They take up a lot less space and they’re a lot cheaper. And you never run out of hot water and you don’t have to wait for the for the washing machine to stop running. Colombia’s got its quirks but that’s one of them that I’m all for. The lack of heat vents still sucks but, hey, at least we’ve got a dishwasher.
Yep so that about wraps it up. There is more I could talk about, like the food and culture, but I want to go to bed soon so that’ll have to wait for another post. Quick update on my Spanish: this week I learned about “está re bueno” which roughly translates to “he’s hellafine” and ñero which is a breed of Colombian wannabe gangster. I don’t get a headache every day anymore, I’m perpetually sore from the workouts in Jazz, and I’m only kind of behind on my online classes. Overall, I’d say I’m doing pretty well. Haha right? Yeah, but that wasn’t even sarcastic. In all seriousness, I’m healthy, happy, and chévere. Talk to ya later. Bye.
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| Early-morning shot of a field of something green and leafy |
That paragraph was probably really boring to read, but the reason I spent all that time talking about the weather is because that was a change in my life that required adjusting to. The first week I was so cold all the time. Eventually my body acclimated and I got used to it, and now I feel fine (indoors at least) as long as I wear socks 24/7. The weather was a natural and short term adjustment, but there were loads of other aspects of my life that did not come so easy. This post is going to be all about what it’s like living in Colombia and how it’s different than the U.S, mixed in with the occasional photo of Colombian sky plus buildings. Luckily, I’ve already discussed the weather so the boring part is out of the way.
Colombia is technically considered a third-world country, which is probably why I get so many questions regarding what it’s like to live here. Yes, the financial circumstances are noticeably poorer than those in the US, but not enough that it matters a whole lot to the quality of life I can live. Yes, there’s more trash in the streets and stray dogs all over, but I have hot showers and good food so it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. To be honest, there wasn’t any cultural shock either (probably because I’ve lived in Mexico) but the transition to from first world to third was kind of nonexistent. From what I’ve seen, I would say that Colombia is not very far away from 2nd or even 1st world status. It has aspects that are incredibly modern, and the majority of people here have professional jobs and postsecondary education. It’s a really beautiful country. Yes, the houses are smaller and the windows are barred, but that doesn’t make the whole country a charity case.
 |
| View of Cota, taken by way of stairs winding up the mountain |
Too many people imagine cocaine and gang wars when they think about Colombia, and although that was a very real and violent time, it was 20 years ago and it’s not like that at all anymore. To tell someone not to travel to Colombia because of the drug cartels is like telling someone not to travel to the Chicago because of 9/11. The violence was not occurring throughout the entire country, and it all ended a long time ago. If you ever meet a Colombian, there are two things that you should avoid doing around them: Spelling Colombia with a U (Columbia), and bringing up the drug trade. If you follow that advice then you’ll find Colombians to be some of the nicest people you’ll meet.
Although Colombia has been easy enough to get used to, there are some things that are still taking adjusting. The biggest of which has to be the streets/driving laws, or lack thereof. Although I have my license and am pretty good, I never practice driving here. I might come back a terrible driver because there is no way in tarnation (my grandparents read these) that I am ever driving a car here. I would literally die and kill the 15 pedestrians that I would hit in the process. First off, the roads are tiny. They are just wide enough to fit three cars practically touching, which causes big problems when people are parking basically in the middle of the street. For some reason unbeknownst to anyone, the concept of shoulders doesn’t exist so if someone parks by the curb they are also parking right in your lane. It’s even better when two cars park directly across the street from each other. This makes everyone else have to weave around each other and constantly stop and wait for cross traffic to drive through the space barely big enough for one car. You would think this causes enough of a headache that people would make little parking lots or find somewhere less in the way, but NO. Literally every street is taken up by parked cars. Doesn’t matter where you are or the time of day. Parked cars take up the majority of every street. It’s not just the parking situation that the tiny streets affect. The highways from all the suburbs to Bogotá are ALSO tiny and people are constantly passing each other and swerving around the many bicyclists and potholes that apparently live specifically on the highway. Like, I ride my bike everywhere I go here, but it’s fine in the city because people are going slow and watching where they’re going. To bike on the highway, however, is basically a death wish. Imagine two way traffic going 60 mph on a road the width of your driveway. That’s what it’s like. It. Stresses. Me. Out. You would think that with all these bad road conditions and ignored driving laws that there would be a lot of car accidents. The potential is definitely there, but I would see more dented cars in the span of five minutes in Utah than I do in a whole day here. Either car repairs are a lot cheaper, or people are actually smart enough not to drive distracted. I guess when there’s something to potentially hit every 5 feet people actually look at the road and not their phones. Because of that, car accidents are almost as uncommon in Colombia as minivans. Weird I know. You see BMWs, Audis, and even the occasional Mercedes-Benz, but I haven’t seen a single dinky little minivan. Moral of the story, it’s pretty unlikely that I will die in Colombia in a car accident, unless I’m the one driving. Then I’m dead for sure.
 |
| Rooftops in cloudy Bogotá |
The other big thing that I’m still not used to is the absence of heating. Near to none of the buildings are temperature controlled. I’m told that it does exist and is available here, but it’s really expensive so no one has it. This is mostly a problem at night when the uninsulated houses get as cold as 40 degrees. The best solution is to sleep with 7 blankets (I’m not exaggerating, I counted) so at least I don’t sleep cold, but it sucks when we have to wear coats and beanies just to watch a movie in the living room. Never take your furnace room for granted. A/C isn’t really missed because it never gets hot enough to want it anyway, but I hate the cold so much. I’m slowly dying on the inside every time I wake up with bare feet and touch the tile floor. That’s another thing. Carpets are also really rare. I mean, there are rugs and all but no installed carpets. Oh, and another thing. Instead of water heaters, a lot of houses have shower heads that heat the water themselves. It’s honestly kind of genius. They run on electricity (there’s an outlet in the shower near the ceiling. Is it dangerous? Probably.) but they get the water just as hot as any old 50 pound water heater tank. They take up a lot less space and they’re a lot cheaper. And you never run out of hot water and you don’t have to wait for the for the washing machine to stop running. Colombia’s got its quirks but that’s one of them that I’m all for. The lack of heat vents still sucks but, hey, at least we’ve got a dishwasher.
 |
| Red brick condos in Bogotá under a blue sky, ft. taxi |
Yep so that about wraps it up. There is more I could talk about, like the food and culture, but I want to go to bed soon so that’ll have to wait for another post. Quick update on my Spanish: this week I learned about “está re bueno” which roughly translates to “he’s hellafine” and ñero which is a breed of Colombian wannabe gangster. I don’t get a headache every day anymore, I’m perpetually sore from the workouts in Jazz, and I’m only kind of behind on my online classes. Overall, I’d say I’m doing pretty well. Haha right? Yeah, but that wasn’t even sarcastic. In all seriousness, I’m healthy, happy, and chévere. Talk to ya later. Bye.
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