So as you can expect driving is an adventure here in Bogota. When our car arrived a few weeks ago I had visions of spending a few weeks doing leisurely Sunday drives with Seth encouraging me sweetly from the passenger’s seat. Now he has been sweet and encouraging but the practicing in this crazy city never occured. A week into the car sitting in the garage, I had a crazy morning and decided there was no way we would make it through the day without me driving. So, Jackson and I headed out. Not only is the traffic pretty heavy here, the people don’t have awareness of lines on the road, motorcycles don’t use lanes and you have to pull in backwards to every parking spot in case you need to evacuate your location quickly. The parking is a challenge because the spots are super tiny. Anyhow, we had a very successful first adventure and have had a few since then.

Today, however, I had my first “Colombian fender-bender”.  No fender was bent, no dent made, no scratch evident. But when a taxi cut me off, swerved in front and slammed on his breaks my car “tapped him”. There wasn’t actually a noise. My bumper is basically plastic. We (Sonia and I)  watched as he jumped out, saw that I had diplomatic plates and the drama began. I wouldn’t say he was a great actor but he drew a crowd nonetheless.  A homeless man without legs “rolled on over” (to quote Michael from the office) to offer his support. He, along with the cars full of people in the two lanes we were blocking, kept telling me that the guy just wanted my money. The taxi driver threw his arms up in the air a few times, pointed to a dent 5 inches above where my car was next to his (my car didn’t reach high enough to touch his car there unless I did a wheely that I wasn’t aware of). He kept demanding that I pay him. Finally, I said in Spanish, “sir, if you want to talk about this I will call my security guard from the Embassy and he will be happy to talk to you. But, sir, he is honest (implying that this man was not) so I don’t know if you want me to call him”. He threw up his arms, did a huge 3 year-old huff and ran back to his taxi.  Sonia stood trembling and the homeless man let out a cheer for our victory.  We actually have security guards that drive around the city in case this kind of situation happens.  If only they had driven by! I’m not sure the legless homeless man could have defended me much if I had needed that. He was encouraging but not ready to throw any punches.

We have collected a few pictures over the last few weeks of signs here in Bogota just to give you a feel for the driving culture.

This sign can be seen from our apt window. We continue to look outside and wonder what it is signaling. We aren’t sure if it means that if we watch long enough we will see an accident. Instead of a speed limit sign to present the warning in a positive light they have chosen the negative  warning of “you will crash”.

Another great sign. If you cross the road here, you will likely get hit. If you are a driver people will randomly run in front of you and you will hit them. In the states it’s a mom walking with her school age child. Not car-crashing and pedestrian-slaying.

This isn’t a driving sign but a funny one! We see this sign frequently. Instead of a friendly sign saying that you need to clean up after your dog, they have illustrated it. No one can say, “clean up what?”

These are the things that make us realize that we are far from the USA!