Colombian police, La Vega and roller-hockey

As I said in the last blog; the frequency seems to go down but after this weekend I have enough material for a whole load of blogs! Much of it comes down again on using a borrowed car here in Colombia. Where to start; Marcela told me me not to be too negative but actually told her that I don't have to since we also had some very good things happening but let's start with the somehow more "negative" news.

Negotiations about the tires to put on our car; re-use and recyle!
We got second-hand/OK tires for 60.000 Pesos (about 25 euros)

We got busted by Colombian police! Not that we are in jail now but we met some Colombian police officers that stopped us after I tried to be a smart ass making an U-turn where I was supposed not to make such a turn. This somehow reminded me of something similarly happening in one of the other Colo's that I am visiting frequently (Colorado). I also once got stopped by Boulder Colorado University policy making a U-turn where I was not supposed to make it having this policy officer being in her car straight behind me (watch your mirrors making U-turns). Anyhow, now we were stopped by some Colombian officers and after having explained why we made that U-turn (we missed some essential exit) the discussion somehow turned ugly and they decided that our car was in such bad condition that it had to be towed away and this was going to be costly. The main reason was the bad condition of the rear tires (and not so much the fact that I made as a real Fittipaldi an not-allowed U-turn). I could only agree on the bad shape of the rear tire (as you can see on the picture) but also thought that these guys are a "little" inconsistent. At some point where we were stopped you could see some of the smoking buses, much older cars or the "paard en wagen" (horse and carriage) passing at the same road. The front tires of the car are very OK and that matters most but somehow these guys wanted to let us feel that we as Colombian "foreigners" should know better. 

Anyhow, after having waited there for about half an hour (we assume that) they got hungry and realized it would take much longer for the towing truck to arrive. So they finally let us go without us even paying a fine for the U-turn faul! They told us not to leave Bogota with the car and so we decided to stop at a garage where we got actually the rear tires being changed in 5 minutes after 10 minutes negotiations with our car now having "Emmaus"/re-used tires for 60.000 pesos (25 euros)! At the premises of the garage there was some ceremony happening with the holy Virgen de Carmen (that is the patron(as) of the buses) being celebrated. That's why you can see all the buses (and some cars) with decorations where the padre passed by to "baptize" the buses. 

But so, after this experience we made it to our intended destination, the Finca of the family of Marcela's best friend Marcela Santemaria in La Vega. This is west of Bogota at about 1 1/2 hour distance and already much lower (~1500m) where you can really enjoy already much more Colombian tropical life with bamboo trees and the fruits growing in the garden. We had a great weekend there spending time with the family in a settings so different from hectic Bogota life.

But so we had to return sunday night  where everything went smooth until some point that we decided to do some more shoppings. Somehow, waiting in the car the alarm went off and couldn't turn it down anymore! After some 10 minute struggling we decided to bring the noisy car back to the apartment but then being on the road we suddenly noticed two police motor officers. We thought that we were going to meet again our police "Amigos" since we were driving around there producing there all this noise of the alarm. These guys never even looked at us to see if we were indeed some crooks stealing this car! It is probably rather obvious that these experiences don't make me being very convinced about the decisiveness of Colombian police (although we should be very happy not having received a fine)

You probably wonder why I put roller-hockey in the title of the blog but this brings me a to very funny start of this weekend; at some point I thought that we were going to watch on TV an ice hockey game here in Colombia and was really surprised about this. How could such a sport be so popular being broadcasted here on TV?. It all seemed to be a big match with the anthems being played and then at some point I realized these guys were not skating on ice but on roller blades/skates! This appears to be a big sport here where they were competing against a French team. Once more again some of these surprising experiences here in Colombia!

Hasta la proxima, Laurens