It rains frequently here and in Bogotá. Here though, (so I've heard at least) there's a saying "There's no such thing as bad weather. Just bad clothing". I saw that first hand today. Walking home from town, it started to drizzle. I passed a playground, and instead of being deserted there was a mom and her 2 children, about 18 months and 3 years old, playing out on the swing set. Both kids were dressed in complete rain suits- rain coats and rain pants. Rain in Bogotá, on the other hand, snarls traffic, making it take longer to get anywhere. It's almost a good "get out of jail free card"- if you show up late and it was raining, chances are you're not the only one. Whatever you were going to might have even started late due to the rain. And in general, if you live in Bogotá and it's raining and you have a choice, you just stay inside.
Speaking of traffic- there is none here. There are a couple of "major" roads that run through the city and might back up a bit at the lights during heavily trafficked hours, but that's about it. If I take the bus here, I can get from the city center to my house on the outskirts of the city in 15 minutes. In Bogotá, I once ended up 2 hours late to a party (granted, I left a half hour later than I should have) because the traffic was just that bad. Sunday night taxi to my house from the 127? 20 minutes. Monday morning bus ride to the same location? 1 hour.
And buses- It's interesting to me. Everything here is so organized, but I have to admit, I liked the Bogotá version better. I suppose one benefit of a large city is there are more people to move, entailing more frequent buses. If I waited more than 2 minutes in Bogotá, I started to feel like complaining that my bus was taking a long time. Unless I was taking a not too common route, I rarely waited much more than 5. Buses only pass every 20 minutes here (at least the route to my house). There's a schedule that shows at what time they'll leave the market square, and they actually stick to it, something I can't imagine in Bogotá. You wait at a bus stop and can use cash or a bus card to pay when you get on. In Bogotá you could flag down a bus anywhere. The neatest thing about the system here is they give you a receipt, and that receipt is good for any in-city bus for the next 2 hours, so if you are running multiple errands, or have to transfer, you only have to pay once. (Of course, you're paying close to the equivalent of $3.30. In Bogotá it was closer to 75 cents)
Walking here is a pleasure. There are walking/cycling paths all over. My favorite path, that takes me from my apartment to the center of campus in about 30 minutes, follows the river most of the way. Snails crawl across the path, trees are on both sides of me. Cyclists pass me and people out walking their dogs are everywhere. It's quiet and peaceful, and for most of the path, you can't even see the city. I loved walking in Bogotá too, but for different reasons. The streets were full of hustle and bustle- street vendors with 50 cent snacks, Ecuadorian women with their racks of $5 sweaters, beggars, the homeless, business men in a hurry to be somewhere, masses of people. There was always something to watch; here, it's peaceful, but the streets seem so empty to me.
There are a million other differences, some I've noticed, some I haven't seen yet, but a post with a million paragraphs would put us all to sleep, so I'll save some more observations for another day.
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