I’m back in Bogota, while the rest of my family is in Houston, enjoying friends and family.  One of our South African friends (actually, they’re really our only South African friends) is in Houston with Kristen right now, stocking up on baby stuff.  As pretty much all our readers know, baby gear is very expensive.  But it’s even more expensive overseas.  She’s told us that a stroller in SA costs about $600.  And we’ve seen firsthand how much baby clothes and toys cost in Bogota.

Anyway, a couple of days after I returned, I tried to start our car, to no avail.  I guess the battery had died during the month-plus that we hadn’t used it.  On Saturday I was meeting with some friends and asked one of them to come back to my place to jump my car, which he did.  Knowing that I now needed to drive around for a while, I took the car out for a spin.  Actually, it’s never quite a “spin” in Bogota traffic.  Nonetheless, I drove it for about 10-15 minutes and then went to get the oil changed.  I turned off the car to see if the gas station could change it (there are no Jiffy Lubes here), which they could in 20 minutes.  So I turned back on the car to fill it up with gas.

Uh oh.  The car wouldn’t start.  I tried to start it a few times, at which point it finally turned over and I pulled up to the pump.  Everything is full-service here, so someone filled up the car.  When I started it again, yep, wouldn’t start, but finally did, so I parked it while I waited for them to change the oil.  I asked if they sold batteries there as well, and they did.  But for whatever reason, they didn’t have one that would fit my car.  Bummer.  But he referred me to a store about 20 minutes away.  They changed the oil, and that guy referred to me a store much closer.  He gave me a specific address, as since the car was barely able to start again, I figured I better go now to get a new one because who knew when I’d have another chance.

Off I went, and of course, there were no stores that sold batteries at that address.  I went a few blocks down to a store that had pictures of car batteries on the storefront, but that guy said that they didn’t have any batteries today.  I’m not sure what that means.

I kept on driving, asked someone else who referred me on to another store, which did have batteries but none that would fit a Honda CR-V.  Meanwhile, I’m having to shut off the car and go into the store each time I go into a store.   (I thought about leaving it running, but that is not a safe thing to do.)  Sometimes it would give me trouble, but the last couple of times, it was starting right up.

I got referred to another store, which although it was only about 8 blocks away, took about 10 minutes to get there.  I pulled up in front, turned off the car, and thought maybe I should try to start it again to see if the battery was working again.  Started just fine.  Turned it off and started it again.  Just fine.

So, I decided to drive all the way back home hoping that the battery was now fully charged.  I got home, turned it off, started it again, and, graciously, it started.

I haven’t tried using the car again, but I’m hoping that it needed more than 15 minutes to charge, and is now working.  We’ll see.

Nevertheless, I was clearly reminded about just how bad Bogota traffic is and how everyone tells you what you want to hear.  They speak authoritatively, but most of the time, don’t really know.

Lesson relearned.