At home and abroad

I started checking weather forecasts for Colombia a few weeks ago, and what I saw made my spirits sink. It looked like this for the foreseeable future in Bogota — and pretty much everywhere else we were planning to travel:

How could this be?!?!  When settling on the dates for this trip (LAST summer!), I’d consulted guidebooks about the best time to travel in Colombia. What I vaguely remember of their advice was that the answer to that varied dramatically from one part of the country to the other (since the country’ geography is so varied). But I think the guidebooks agreed that early June was a mostly good time — one rainy season would be ending and it wouldn’t be too hot anywhere.

And now the weather sites seemed to be promising endless rain. Was this the fault of El Niño? In Bogota, the activity to which I’ve been looking forward most Bogota was a bike tour of the city about which I’d heard rave reviews. A few days before our departure, I emailed the bike tour company to ask if they operated in the rain. Their reply conforted me. “It  hasn’t rained much, unfortunately, as we’ve had a drought,” a guy named Mike wrote me back. (It makes me wonder if Mike and Accuweather might want to talk to one another.).        

When we landed at Bogota’s El Dorado Airport last night, it felt like Accuweather had a better read on the situation. Cold and blustery, the night felt more like dead winter in San Diego than summer in South America (NOT very far from the equator!) But this morning, it’s cool but dry outside. 

Not that I’ve seen much of the outside world. It’s already 10:15, and we haven’t yet seen Michael and Stephanie. We’ve read that Bogota’s famous Gold Museum is not open at all on Mondays, so I don’t think we’ll be squeezing in the bike tour today. Still, we have a full day tomorrow too, and I’m reminding myself that a focus on the present moment makes weather forecasting a silly activity.