Street Vendor at Bull Fight

Porsche Club Road Rallye

Bogota Porsche Club Members at lunch. This was soft drinks and Ice tea for sure!
Speed on public highways is not a big deal? We essentially "raced" 100 miles [one way] on main public roads, dealing with car, truck, motorcycle, and a few horse carts in the mix. The National Army/Police are rarely visible, but sometime do set up roadblocks to check registration, etc.
The above is a Porsche G-2 . Really fast ! Owned by a friend of Fernando. He passed us numerous times, as he and Fernando are competitive. We were doing 230 K's, and he left us standing still.
Above is 2009 Ferrari, 12 cylinder. In this country, by the time you pay purchase price and import duty, you could easily have $ 300,000 ++invested.
This is Fernando's ride. A Carrera convertible and capable of more speed and power than I can handle!

Bogota Bull Fight

Bull fight in Bogota on Sunday, 01/30/2011.
The main attraction was the Young Spanish Bull Fighter, some of you, may have seen on US television recently. He is Pablo Hermoso. He and his trained horses [travels with 8] fight the bull from horseback, including the "kill". These horses are unbelievable, as they challenge and tease the bull. Occassionally the is able to "chase" the horse, never catching, because the horse will out smart the bull.

Modern apartment building and old Bull Ring in the Central District of Bogota.
Really spectatadors.

Inside Stables

Only "dreaming".....Nada said they would not look good at home ?
This is an Ireland import..Used only for pulling antique carriage. Beautiful, but requires "hair dresser"

Horse Stable

Horse Stable adjoins Spa property

Hiro has "world class" horses and for that matter, probably "first class" accomodations.....? Take a look. He has about 100 horses stabled here and another 80-90 on adjoining ranch.

Views of International Spa

Courtyard of main personal residence

International Spa-Horse Ranch

This is Fernando and a friend, Hiro, whom Nada and I met when last visiting Colombia in October, 2010. Hiro is quite unique and has undertaken a very unusual project. We were invited to lunch last week to view his property and the current construction. I will only show here, a few pic's to hopefully give you an idea of what he is trying to accomplish. So far, his investment is well over $ 10 million [U.S.]. Hiro will incorporate many different native beliefs and methods using native Thai, Chinese, Indonesian personnel, etc. in the administration of therapy.

Hello Friends and Family.

I hope that you have enjoyed the "posts" to my blog on Nada and my current, extended trip to Colombia. We have been frequent visitors to Daughter Lorelle and Fernando, in Bogota, for more than 17 years now! We are always favorably amazed at how the City landscape, and economic conditions change, from one visit to the next.

It occured to me today, that, some of you who follow the "blog" for the first time, may not be aware, that you can very easily check back a couple years, for some previous experiences, during our soujourns. Such as, 4X4 wheeling in a very remote area of Colombia, previously help by the FARC and drug cartels, my meeting a "gringo" who was member of Missionary family that settled in that area, 30 years earlier. Or, a visit to Lima, Peru, The Pan American Highway, and NASCA Lines. You may even run into a picture of the Blog author, at a Bogota hospital after a 4X4 accident 90 Kilometers from Bogota.

When you get to the current site, click onto "view my complete profile" Scroll down to "my Blogs" From there just click onto any listed. Hope you enjoy.

Bob

Bogota Panoramic view

Downtown area of City. Apartments and commercial stretch to base of mountains, and more recently, starting to be built at higher elevations.

Bogota has a city population of approximately 7,300,000 persons, with a Metro population estimated to be 8 million 500 thousand persons. The city is at 2,625 meters, or 8,612 feet altitude [above sea level].

This picture of the city was taken from a drive above the City, crossing the mountain range ,

that you see in the background of the buildings in the first picture posted above.

Central Bogota scenes

Colombia Village-200 kilometers from Bogota

Arrepas in the window, cheese in orange container. Cheese is placed inside before grilling. taste good!
Main street of small village in country side.
Don't be offended! What else can be said. Outside the butcher shio.
Local butcher shop on Main Street.

We were invited for lunch at the company cafeteria! Unfortunately, we had other appointments, and had to keep moving, or fall behind schedule!

Even in Central Colombia, Blackberrys are required tools.
A Toyota "desktop" is useful. It explains why Toyota has such a large share of the market in the Southern Hemisphere!

Coal Mines Visit

This coal mined from independently owned mines, using pick and shovel manual labor, is much in demand due to current coking coal crisis to keep steel mill production in China [and other global users]operating. We visited storage locations like the ones pictured here. This coal will be "crushed" into a high grade coking coal, transported to ocean ports, loaded on ships and exported to world markets. Other coal mines in Northern Colombia are owned by larger corporate companies, have larger coal deposits, use higher technology and mechanization in the mining and processing of the raw material.
As noted above, this is a storage facility at the base of mountains, where mines are visible in next photos. Operators of these facilities are independent businesses that purchase from the independent miners , his mines output and sell onward. Some international [American]business acquaintenances of Fernando were looking to arrange purchases of three shiploads of coking coal for export to China, from ocean Ports on the west coast of Colombia. Most of the Northern mines ship from the East Coast [East of the Panama Canal]. The most direct route to the Far East is on the Pacific Ocean coast.

Look closely at the mountain range! See the grey areas on the side of the mountain? Those are coal mine entrances, that have been dug into the side of the mountain to reach the coal seam. I was told that the seam is only 15 to 20 inches wide or high, but goes back into the mountain for various depths and are considerable. This makes the manual mining of this raw material very, very difficult. It was noted that Colombian Natives, indigenous to this area, are rather short in stature.

Business discussion on the hood of a Toyota?