es peligroso
Jun. 27th, 2018 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeA couple of times when we were in Bogotá, we ventured into places we shouldn't go. Both times locals swooped down like guardian angels to redirect us.
Once was when we started up a path into the hills, thinking vaguely that it might get us up Cerro de Monserrate, a mountain that's a pilgrimage site and from which you can see all of Bogotá. I wasn't super keen on being along on a trail in the hills, but Wakanomori pointed out that there was a grandfatherly-aged man up ahead of us, with a child, and that so long as there were other people around, we'd be fine.
We hadn't taken more than two steps on the path when the grandfather turned around and came up to us. "No vengas por aquí,"** he said. "Es peligroso." Don't come here; it's dangerous.
I don't know whether he meant the path itself was dangerous--like there were steep drops or something--or that there might be other sorts of trouble, but we didn't argue. We just said thank you and that we'd turn around. We took the cable car up Monserrate instead. It was magnificent.
cable car going up
view from the top
The other time was when we went to see the church that's right at the edge of the Egipto neighborhood, which has a fair amount of gang violence. (Basically, as you go south from Bogotá and up the sides of the hills, things become more precarious.) We walked up the steep streets (not yet in Egipto)...
... and came to the church (there are many, many beautiful churches in Bogotá). It was begun in 1556 and finished in 1657, but the present look is due in large part to modifications at the start of the 20th century.
You can see that there are paintings on the wall beside the stairs to the right of the church. Up just a little way past there were some interesting wall murals, and we decided we'd juuust walk that far and take some pictures. We started walking, but two women, coming up in the direction we'd just come, called to us and came hurrying our way.
I didn't understand what they were saying at first--and they recognized that I couldn't, but they persisted anyway; they didn't give up. I finally understood that they were asking if we were sightseeing, and I said yes. Like the man on the path, they said it was too dangerous. Safe as far as the church, but no further. Wakanomori recalls, though I don't (maybe because I was struggling to understand and respond to the words), that the woman drew her hand across her throat, miming death. Point taken! We thanked them and went back the way we came.
I was really grateful that people looked out for us in that way.
**What I remember is "No ven por aquí," but when I check online, that seems to be grammatically wrong so ... I'm putting in what the internet says is right.
Once was when we started up a path into the hills, thinking vaguely that it might get us up Cerro de Monserrate, a mountain that's a pilgrimage site and from which you can see all of Bogotá. I wasn't super keen on being along on a trail in the hills, but Wakanomori pointed out that there was a grandfatherly-aged man up ahead of us, with a child, and that so long as there were other people around, we'd be fine.
We hadn't taken more than two steps on the path when the grandfather turned around and came up to us. "No vengas por aquí,"** he said. "Es peligroso." Don't come here; it's dangerous.
I don't know whether he meant the path itself was dangerous--like there were steep drops or something--or that there might be other sorts of trouble, but we didn't argue. We just said thank you and that we'd turn around. We took the cable car up Monserrate instead. It was magnificent.
cable car going up
view from the top
The other time was when we went to see the church that's right at the edge of the Egipto neighborhood, which has a fair amount of gang violence. (Basically, as you go south from Bogotá and up the sides of the hills, things become more precarious.) We walked up the steep streets (not yet in Egipto)...
... and came to the church (there are many, many beautiful churches in Bogotá). It was begun in 1556 and finished in 1657, but the present look is due in large part to modifications at the start of the 20th century.
You can see that there are paintings on the wall beside the stairs to the right of the church. Up just a little way past there were some interesting wall murals, and we decided we'd juuust walk that far and take some pictures. We started walking, but two women, coming up in the direction we'd just come, called to us and came hurrying our way.
I didn't understand what they were saying at first--and they recognized that I couldn't, but they persisted anyway; they didn't give up. I finally understood that they were asking if we were sightseeing, and I said yes. Like the man on the path, they said it was too dangerous. Safe as far as the church, but no further. Wakanomori recalls, though I don't (maybe because I was struggling to understand and respond to the words), that the woman drew her hand across her throat, miming death. Point taken! We thanked them and went back the way we came.
I was really grateful that people looked out for us in that way.
**What I remember is "No ven por aquí," but when I check online, that seems to be grammatically wrong so ... I'm putting in what the internet says is right.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-29 02:40 am (UTC)I can imagine the tone of people's voices as they warned you out of their neighborhoods. This one time in 2004 I was in Leeds (the one in England) on 5 November and I got lost and kept going round the same block, and the fourth time I passed one bar, the bouncer, who looked like Igor, told me kindly that I was an obvious tourist and shouldn't be in the neighborhood on foot. My 40 lb. knapsack and I got a cab.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-29 02:50 am (UTC)I'm giggling just a bit at the thought of you walking around a block in Leeds, near Northampton, MA.
That was decent of the bouncer. The world actually has a good supply of decent people. Or at least people who act decently a fair amount of the time.