Sunday, February 16, 2014

Colombia Bogota: Day 1

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Bogota. It is a nice room: small, clean, efficient, and modern. In spite of its attractions I am firmly facing the wall, trying to ignore the beautiful soft bed behind me. I really want to write something - just a little bit - but the bed is difficult to ignore. With less than 4 hours of sleep last night, a full day of travelling followed (almost immediately) by a 2-hour meeting & a delayed supper, I AM TIRED.

Bogota is a big city. From the air, it seems to completely fill a broad plain among the Andes in northwest Colombia, and at 2625 meters you can feel the altitude. We are almost on the equator here but the day's temperature seldom goes much beyond 20 & at night it can dip into the single digits. We had a rainshower, short & sharp while driving from the airport to the hotel, but tonight the sky is almost clear & the air is fresh. Like Canada in early fall.

Our 2-hour meeting was pretty intense. The 3 colleges who will be working in this area met with the ACCC (coordinating group) reps and we discussed project planning. Our 3 projects have considerable overlap in their goals and timings so we must work together from the beginning. The information available is very, very plentiful but it is not yet coordinated into something that fits into a cohesive plan. That cohesion will come! For me, the meeting was complicated a bit by the fact that conversation was conducted in 3 languages & sometimes it was hard to tell when the group had switched from one language to another.

Ok, I think I am going to give in to that bed now...

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