Different Circles

The next morning, the three of them flew direct from DFW to El Dorado International in Bogota, Colombia aboard an American Airlines A-320—a five-and-a-half-hour flight. After clearing customs, where Travis got his very first stamp on his new passport and Jill and Jake got their very first South American stamps, they endured a terrifying thirty-minute taxi ride through the crowded, congested city streets of the capital city to the Hotel Charleston, a historic luxury lodging located on the east side of the city, nestled up against the towering Andes mountain peaks that rose another nine thousand feet into the sky.

The trio spent most of that day acclimating themselves to the high elevation of Bogota. The city sat an average of 8800 feet above sea level on a high plateau of the Andes and its air was very thin by Los Angeles, or even Denver standards. Jill made the adjustment by staying in her bed as much as possible and moving as little as she could. Travis tried this for a bit but then elected to go with Jake’s method: sitting in the bar and drinking while munching on local appetizers. It may not have been a method endorsed by the medical community for dealing with such a situation, but it did take their minds off their hypoxia.

And now, at ten o’clock in the morning of US Tax Day, it was time for them to head to Guaymaral Airport to take a look at the plane. Not wanting to put himself or his companions through the terror of another taxi ride, Jake had arranged with the concierge of the hotel to have a limousine pick them up for the forty-five-minute drive.

“How’s the breathing today?” Jake asked Jill as they settled into the back seat of the white stretch limousine in the valet area.

“It’s better,” she said with a shrug. “The headache is gone, and I only feel winded when I go up a staircase or a hill.”

“Then don’t do those things,” Jake suggested.

She gave him a sour look. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Jake turned to the mechanic, who was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a blue button-up shirt. “How about you, Travis?” he asked. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Passed out like a light,” he said. “And I still have quite a headache, though I’m pretty sure it’s not the altitude that’s causing it, but all that guaro we had at the bar.”

“Guaro?” Jill asked.

“It’s a very popular local drink, apparently,” Jake said. “And very economical, you’ll be happy to hear. Only five thousand pesos apiece, plus tip, of course. That’s cheaper than buying an American beer or a shot of American whiskey.”

“They did go down pretty smooth,” Travis said.

“That they did,” Jake agreed. “I wonder if I can get some of that guaro shit in the states?”

“If you can, it will undoubtedly be at an extremely inflated cost,” Jill told him.

“I don’t care about that,” Jake said, telling her nothing she did not know. “Think of how cool it would be to have a party and serve some genuine South American hooch as part of the theme.”

“It would go well on taco night,” Travis suggested.

“Hell to the yeah!” Jake said, smiling. “I’ll get the Nerdlys and their internet surfing skills working on this thing as soon as I get home.”

Jill simply shook her head and opened a bottle of water to help sooth her dry throat. You just couldn’t tell Jake anything.

The limo pulled out of the hotel valet area and onto the congested boulevard. The driver, who had introduced himself as Jeronimo, spoke only limited English and Jake spoke even less Spanish, but they had managed to achieve communication on a high enough level to get across their destination and to agree on a price for the trip, the waiting time, and the return trip (ninety thousand pesos, the equivalent of about twenty-five dollars American, which even Jill had to agree was a very reasonable price). He closed the partition as soon as they started out and turned on a local talk radio station, playing it loud enough that the sound filtered through into the back. He drove aggressively, with many rapid starts, stops, changes of lanes, but nowhere near as wild as the taxi driver from the airport.

The weather was chilly and overcast, with a steady misty rain falling and obscuring their visibility to some degree. It reminded Jake of Seattle weather, both in temperature and precipitation. They passed by a plethora of high-rise hotels and office buildings and then, about twenty minutes into the trip, the urban landscape began to thin out to some degree, replaced by more hilly terrain covered in lush green vegetation. Again, the similarity to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in general was quite apparent.