8,300 Feet Above Sea Level

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March 5, 2005

Spring Break Central

Flight 1089 from Washington, D.C., to Miami was spring break central - and I found myself stuck with a pack of horny kids in route to St. Marteen. To my left sat a set of twin brothers and graduate students from Virginia Law School. Behind me was a spiky-haired blond with buffed biceps he proudly exposed by tearing off the sleeves of a navy blue T-shirt. So 1980s... Anyway, the blond hunk fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and the reason I know it is that he snored - and the snoring was hard to ignore. A woman who had the half-dazed look of someone who caught no sleep before boarding the red-eye flight eventually turned around and awoke one of the twins with a brusque pat on his knee. "You´re snoring too loudly," she said to the twin´s bewilderment, for the real culprit sat just behind him and kept on sleeping and snoring through it all.
I arrived in Miami without incident, bought a giant cup of overpriced Starbucks latte and boarded a plane to Bogota. I write this from what´s going to be my base in Colombia for the next five weeks, an apartment in beautiful El Nogal. My hostess, a very cool lady named Irma Ramirez, welcomed me with a glass of Cuban rum on the rocks, which might be just enough to lull me into deep sleep.
Tomorrow, Carrera Septima, which crosses Bogota from north to south, will be closed for traffic and turned into a giant bike path, so I´ll go for a walk, my first stroll in the city that´s 8,300 feet above sea level.

Posted by Fernanda Santos at March 5, 2005 6:51 PM

Comments

Posted by: Virginia Lam at March 5, 2005 9:34 PM

Posted by: john at March 5, 2005 10:23 PM

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