We brewed "real coffee" this morning and, I suppose unsurprisingly, it tastes pretty much like "Colombian" coffee that you get back home. There was this great crafts fair we had planned to go to but I had done my research incorrectly: it is on the first Saturday of every month! With those things out of the way, we decided to ake the cable car as far as it would go and then check out this El Poblado district that all the American websites, and even the friendly fat Colombian Carlos who we met on the plane, raved about.
Walking down La Setentaa from our apartment towards the metro station at Estadio is quite pleasant. Like Calle 44, from yesterday, the shops spill out onto the street but there is much less vehicle traffic and everything is retail. There are many vendors that sell handcrafts but I will wait until I get a general idea about pricing before I buy anything.
The metro station itself is an interesting price of architecture and I will certainly post some pictures later. While we spent some time studying the route maps and tiered pricing charts, this was effectively meaningless; the clerk at the ticket office showed our balance to us with a calculator and, as far as I can tell, even with unlimited transfers and distance, if you don't leave the secure zone, you pay a flat rate of $1,700 COP to go anywhere. Well, anywhere as a commuter, anyway.
When we got to what the map showed us to be the top of the cable car line, there was another cable car system that seemed to go even further. $4,600COP later, we were on a cable car deep into the Colombian jungle. Luckily, the destination was some sort of national park. Another $4,600COP will get you out of the tourist trap *ahem* "National Park" and back to the tram station at Santo Domingo. We chose to walk through the neighborhood to the next tram station.
Narrow roads and clear poverty were around us. We found ourselves on a staircase between Barrios stopped by "stair urchins" who were trying to communicate politely but it wasn't until "neccessito denaros a comar" that we understood what they wanted. At the next opportunity, we took the tram. The experience has been extremely positive and people have been very friendly, been extremely polite, and demonstrated pride in showcasing their home. However, there are places in any city where the locals don't hang around if they can help it.
A few metro transfers later found us in El Poblado. Gangs of white people with dreadlocks and backpacks gave away the neighborhood long before the truckloads of Policia, private Securidad with shotguns, and eventually street signs ever did. We stopped briefly for some of the most expensive arepas in all of Colombia before being caught in a torrential downpour on our way back to the Metro station. Don't worry, while all the locals hid under awnings, we did our maple leaf lapel pins proud by powering through unimpeded to a station just jammed with locals wearing red shirts.
Not long after squishing into the metro car did we put the shirts together with out stop: Estadio. SOCCER GAME TONIGHT!
