Category City
Colombian shopping malls
Continues from article Colombian town planning – One may hope that rental arrangement at shopping malls would work better. Because shopping malls are Bogotános’ second homes, only the crème de la crème gets to live in these spaces. However, walking into a shopping mall is yet again puzzling. The shop layout just seems to be in […]
Colombian town planning
Well, to be more accurate, there is no town planning in Bogotá! Residential buildings are built right next to major roads that have 4-6 lanes. If you live in one of those buildings that would mean that you are living right above the busiest, noisiest and most chaotic streets in the city. Yet some of […]
Colombia’s road obstacles
Wanna play a real life TV game? Drive in Bogotá! Here you have to actively avoid the endless obstacles on the road. It drives you crazy and turns you into a completely different person who is permanently agitated, impatient and angry. Plenty of people juggle at the crossroads to make a living because they can […]
Bogotá – The nameless city
A typical address marking in Bogotá The streets in Bogotá are governed by numbers. Just numbers. You don’t have any names at all (well, apart from a few in the old town area – check my previous post). To some, this is godsend, to others, like me, this is a nightmare. For those who like numbers, […]
The journey to Bogotá’s hottest club!
Armando Record is the talk-of-town at the moment! The killer combination of a relaxed joint, constant reliable supply of good music and a happy crowd is sucking up all the party-goers in town! The interior: Cool tones, retro, geometrical shapes, idiosyncratic (or simply strange?) The crowd: Think arty-farty; moustached customers and DJs The music: Latino, indie, lounge, techno Random […]
Directories in Colombia
In this photo, you see the poor old man with 3 yellowpages/directories.. So why the hell would he need so many of them? ‘Why did the directory man give you 3 phonebooks?’ ‘Because we have 3 telephones.’ So, yes, it appears that in this country, phone directories are given out based on the number of […]
Bogotá’s new year
It’s quiet! That’s one thing for sure! The city has become so breathtakingly surrealist! There is hardly anyone or any car on the streets! A 6-lane highway has perhaps 10 cars running at a time. I couldn’t stop wondering where all the people had fled! It’s incredible! On the first day of the year, all […]
Colombian Routines
Your life is governed by pico y placa.. Because of real bad traffic jams the government has an initiative to control the number of cars on the road. Cars with number plates that end with odd numbers are not allowed to drive on the odd number dates, and the same for the even number plates […]
The City of Absence
A typical 6-lane (or a 2-lane?) highway Some things are deemed to be fundamental to a city so that it would run smoothly. As city dwellers, we take things for granted. What you think should exist don’t always exist. You only realize the quiet, minute existence of such elements of the cityscape when they are missing […]
Colombian Driving style
If you asked me if it was difficult to get a licence in this country, I would say no, because there seems to be no decorum on the road! People are permanently driving on top of two lanes at any time.. Maybe that’s why some roads have unmarked traffic lanes because even if the roads […]
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