RAINY MONDAY

We wake up - at the crack of dawn again - to pouring rain. The interesting thing about that is that our raincoats stayed unseen in the back of Victor's car. The umbrellas didn't make it either. So now what?  I get the excellent idea to find a shopping center, in part to see what the modern Bogota shopping scene looks like - having seen a lot of artesanato, but with the added possibility of buying something, of course.  The hotel arranges for a car and off we go, through the packed morning traffic to the Andino Shopping Mall in the Northern part of the city, Zona Rosa, a modern affluent district where we drive past beautiful apartment buildings and catch glimpses of shops like Masarati and Armani. We spend a couple of hours there and have fun in a music store trying to pick out appealing music - I find myself quietly salsa-ing in place with earphones on, listening to a 'Chocquibtown' album - good music for a rainy day. We buy other odds and ends and have the driver take us back to the hotel, where we "chill" for a while, feeling still quite tired from all the walking we did yesterday. Then, with energy renewed, we walk over to the Casa da Moneda complex housed in a couple of joined and beautifully restored Colonial houses 

and take a quick at the coin collection, with its gigantic presses, and a much closer look at Botero's works - his museum is in the same complex - including the fabulous sculptures.

There's an interesting exhibition of renowned Colombian artists and I fall in love with a "Colombian Libelula", done by artist Feliza Bursztyn

Having checked out a final photography exhibition we leave the complex and meander down the old streets where one jewelry store next to the other offer the famous Colombian emeralds. We duck into the Exito supermarket to buy the fruits and wine, which will be our dinner tonight, and pass the sodden and yet so beautiful Plaza Bolivar with its thousands of pidgeons. Walking up the road to the hotel we spot a short sturdy security guard walking a Rottweiler with a really big muzzle. We recognise the young dog, one and a half year old, who tied to the railings of a garden next to the hotel, worriedly eyed the two big buckets of water next to him when we saw him on our early Sunday walk. He was about to have a bath, and we felt quite sorry for him for it was a cool morning. I run after them to get a picture and here it is:

Here are my photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157629208567433/