We parked a few yards away and walked to the "shop" which consisted of a 8 foot by 6 foot rectangular building fronted by a pull down metal concertina style door. Inside was a small back room for testing BUT since I had a prescription it was not required, Charlie tanslated on the fly and as we stood half on the pavement half inside the front of the shop the very knowledgeable assistant explained what could and couldn't be done and what would be best. It didn't take long to explain exactly what I wanted and this was priced up. Charlie having called ahead said theprice would be somewhere about four hundred thousand pesos (Approx £100) which for Transition (Photochromic) and Progressive (Varifocal) sounded like a bargain. I had the choice of 3 different lense materials the most expensive being polycarbonate light weight and the highest level of manufacture. Choosing the best quality lenses obviously pushed the price up a little but in the end with frames etc added in the total came to £120. The same prescription set up in UK had cost me over £330 2 years ago. So I am definitly happy and if Charlies recommendation is anythign to go by they should be perfect. As he explained Bogota is a city of extremes. If I had gone to the top opticians in the main Malls I would have paid double for the same thing. But naturally unless you have a friend who knows where things are you can't always get to these places. It was interesting to watch Charlie checking his car every few minutes and on one occassion saying its ok ..its still there.
I pick them up Friday sometime after 2.oo so I will add a picture when I have them.
It was interesting travelling back as we discussed the differences in culture and families and the weather between Colombia and Scotland. Charlie remembers growing up in Bogota when the city was much smaller, how it was a nice city but that now it has grown too much (approx 7 million people live in Bogota) he also mentioned the change in the weather as a boy he remembered the weather rarely got above 16 in the summer where as now it regularly reaches 24 degrees. Its another example like the snow in Greece where weather systems are changing across the world.
I like Charlie he is down to earth, open and honest and his help today was invaluable.
When we got back I decided to walk down and see if the HP store had any more memory in my luck was in and I picked up another 1gb of RAM. My system is now as powerful as it can be and that does make Vista run much smoother. So my recommendation for anyone buying a Vista Laptop make sure you have a minimum of 1gb but preferably 2gb onboard and adding a 2gb USB pendrive that is readyboost enabled helps even more.
I did stop in at the exito on the way back to the flat, but walked out without buying anything... Hows that for strength of will. I do want to stop in at Arturo Calle the mens outfitters in the Palatino (though it has stores everywhere)and check out ties... I would really like a few nice new ties. (Might do that tomorrow)
So today was a good day.. though my bank account will seem a little less comfortable, however it was in a good cause. (Me)
The rest of the day was relaxing, which has been good.
Finally tonight a couple more pictures....
The first shows some cables being laid... what was interesting was that there were about 10 of these guys there to pull the cables through, and it was like a Tug of War... As they lifted the rope took the strain then slowely pulled the cables under the road by brute force.
The work in Bogota goes on, this image was taken on the main road outside one of the 5 star hotels. Obviously they take their image very seriously as there was a small army of staff outside cleaning not only the outside of the building within the compound but as you can see here they were also outside cleaning the pavement using industrial polishers.!! Polishing the pavement outside the London Hilton ... I dont think so!
More updates tomorrow.
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