Bogota, Columbia

October 20, 1995

You never know what your first impression of a new city or country will be, though advance reading and discussions with friends will often create a predisposition of some kind. As for me, I had neither the time nor the inclination to read any tourist books about Colombia before I arrived in Bogota a couple of days ago; no one I know has ever been here before, and the only thing I've read is the standard yellow-press journalism about the drug lords in Medellin and Cali.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually like Bogota. Maybe it's the altitude: I like mountains and cool air, and Bogota is located at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet. But it's the people and the overall atmosphere and culture that really appealed to me. Unlike cities such as Lima and Caracas -- both of which are also in the northern portion of South America -- I didn't have the impression of squalor and poverty. There was no sense of quiet desperation, beaten-down humility, or seething hostility that I've seen in several other parts of Latin America, or small developing nations around the world. Maybe it's here; maybe I just didn't see it during my brief passage from airport to hotel, and in taxis around the commercial part of the city. It's hard to judge accurately, and one can only form first impressions.

It's also hard to judge the level of computer competency here. I gave a presentation on structured analysis, which nobody wants to hear about in North America; but in Colombia it seems to be the dominant methodology, and the universities are still teaching data flow diagrams to their students. Only one person in a group of 45 said he was doing anything with object technology, and in this regard, I got the strong impression that Colombia is at least five years behind the U.S.

But things are more up to date with regard to the Internet. First impressions again: before I visit a country, I log in on CompuServe at home to get a list of local telephone access numbers (America On Line has no such numbers, apparently based on the parochial premise that only Americans would want to access their service). Countries like Brazil and Venezuela typically have only one or two access numbers; Bogota had six, including a 14.4 kilobaud connection to Sprint. The hotel where I stayed had a modern phone system with RJ-11 modem jacks; it was almost as if I was in, say, Cleveland.

At least 90 percent of the people in my seminar claimed that they have access to the Internet and the World Wide Web -- about the same number I would expect if I was speaking to an audience in the U.S. However, I don't have any idea how often the Colombians actually use the Internet; I have the impression it's not as pervasive as in the United States.

For some reason, the flights home from Caracas, Bogota, Mexico City and a few other Latin American cities leave early in the morning; and because of intense security and general confusion at the airport, it's necessary to arrive two hours before the flight. I had to get up at 4:30 this morning to get a taxi at 5:00, in order to arrive at the airport early enough for a 7:30 flight to New York. Driving through a city as it slowly awakens in the pre-dawn hours is always interesting; and from this perspective, too, I foiund Bogota a more pleasnt city than most I have visited recently. The taxi driver felt no obligation to stop at any traffic lights along the way; he slowed down, flashed his headlights, and kept on driving. Well, what the heck: nobody got hit.

Oh, yes, one last point: there were no drug lords in sight. It reminds me of the stories about people who hear that New York City is the Mafia capital of the country, and then express surprise that they haven't actually seen any Mafioso strolling down Fifth Avenue. But I assume that it's the drug situation that leads to the tight security: I went through three metal detectors, and my carry-on baggage went through four X-ray machines after checking in, and an Army soldier did a full body frisk right at the entrance to the plane.