Off To Foreign Lands ... Again

As the title implies, I am once again leaving our fair shores on Sunday in the name of business, and as part of what I believe is a secret program to raise the national IQ (at least on a temporary basis). I suspect in fact, that this may some part of a larger international "sweeps week", and that forcing another country to take credit (or blame) for me is part of a program to improve a national reputation that has taken significant hits recently. 

I will once more be journeying south, this time to Bogota, Columbia. As with most of my previous foreign travel, I am completely ignorant of the city and country that I will be journeying to, deriving any information that I have from news reports over the years of the drugs that come from this country and of course the original "Romancing The Stone" movie. I am reasonably certain that I will be quickly disabused of all of my present stereotypes, since neither of these sources can be considered in any way credible (OK, maybe "Romancing The Stone" is). 

As I did with my travels to Trinidad (which I only discovered today is north of where I am going this time), I will attempt to post something from this foreign land, with pictures if I manage to take any worth sharing. While not looking forward to long hours in an airplane (a recognized form a torture which has been banned by the Geneva Convention), I will at least be able to escape for a few days the political nonsense that is winding up to a fever pitch in this country. While working long hours at the newspaper, I will at least be able to escape the endless political commercials, nonsensical pundits, and news reports filled with quotes of candidates saying the same things that they have said before when I return to my hotel and turn on the TV (of course I probably won't be able to understand the shows on TV, but that too may be a good thing). Basking in what I hope will be the relative peace and quiet of that setting, I hope to regain some perspective on life before immersing myself once again in the final stampede to election day. 

I have great faith that those remaining behind are more than up to the challenge of containing the madness and maintaining order in my absence. They may in fact be considering this a vacation for themselves. As the saying goes... "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the more he's absent, the fonder I become of it."