Beer and loafing in Bogota

At the moment I´m casting around for some longer-term plan that involves staying in Bogota beyond the end of my tourist visa in two months. Like many other people, I´m at a complete loss as to why I´m so fond of the place. It´s such a common occurence that people come here for a couple of days and end up staying for months. One such example was Geir, the Norwegian bloke I met in Mexico (when we drove for hours with the 74-year-old to the lost city in the jungle and got menaced by whooping monkeys). He was adamant when he arrived that he was just going to see the sights and head on down to Ecuador. That was two months ago - and he left last Wednesday. We organised a farewell barbecue for him at Platypus Two and I burned my shoes (don´t ask).

Like everyone else Geir could not quite explain the attraction of this city. Of course, you can live really well on little money, the people are amazingly friendly, the women beautiful and there´s a real sense of optimism in the air. It reminds me of when I was living in Leeds about 15 years ago and I witnessed, as they say in Yorkshire, a city "pull itself up by the bootstraps".

But I think the main thing is the sense that almost anything could happen at almost any time. This can be a bad thing, like a mugging, but more often it´s something deeply odd. One such example was how my friend Jess asked me to help her design a Gay Pride carnival float for the homeless transexual prostitutes of the city.

Jess, from Cornwall, arrived about a month ago looking for voluntary work and wasn´t having much luck finding anything. Then, one Sunday, we went for lunch at Dodgy Dave´s where another of the guests was the national director for social inclusion - basically President Uribe´s Jiminy Cricket, whose job it is to keep whispering in his ear about the plight of the poor. He said he could help, so Jess went to see him at the Presidential Palace and was given a large pile of phone numbers for charities in Bogota. After days of phoning round she eventually had a meeting with one of these groups, which she thought was a homeless shelter. What they didn´t mention was that it´s a shelter for homeless transexual prostitutes. No sooner did she walk into the door for an interview than she was told she had four days to create a float. "Do you have access to lorry?" asked the charity´s director.

After this she came over to the apartment (sorry, I mean the pimp´s palace in the sky) in a bit of a panic. We worked out a design that involved a few bits of chipboard, some sheeting and lots of crepe paper. Basically, it depicted a ship full of sailors landing on a tropical island - Transexual Homeless Prostitute Island, I suppose. All credit to her, she managed to get it done on time, and when completed it looked, I´m told, magnificent. And then the transexuals clambered aboard; dozens of strapping six-footers in giant heels shaking their boney backsides at the crowds. Apparently by the time the float reached the city´s main drag, it looked like the theme was ´rubbish dump´ - the trannies had reduced Jess´s lovely design to a pile of matchwood and tinder.

I didn´t see the parade myself. I´d been buying plants at the flea market with John, my Israeli housemate, and I wasn´t sure if I could bring myself to join a Gay Pride crowd holding matching potplants with a man in a multi-coloured hat.

Spud-U-Like

It´s ironic that this journal has prompted such a lively debate about spuds. Only the other day I was in one of the big markets here (buying ingredients for a steak and kidney casserole) when I was struck by the incredible range of potatoes on offer. One stall had nothing but; and they were red, blue, orange, black, white and green - with many colours inbetween. Some were spotted, some striated, some variegated and others shimmered with an unearthly iridescence. They are particularly fond of very small yellow potatoes here, that closely resemble early Jerseys. These are often grilled with coriander and salt and served instead of French Fries in hamburger joints.