1 car made of 10….

Hola Amigos,

This time I will tell you a story about my business trip to Barranquilla…
Barranquilla is located next to the Caribbean sea so you can imagine that the weather is accordingly hot there. The city has approximately 1.380437 inhabitants (effective in 2005), no beaches and one big harbor. So this city offers the best place to work there because you sweat there all the time in your suit (I know it right now!).
Nevertheless let’s start with the story. I went with our partner to Barranquilla for one week to meet customers. Of course I wore my best and finest suit with a tie. I knew that it would be hot there but I didn’t reckon that it’s so hot. When we arrived at the airport I got the first „heat shock“. The tie became closer and closer and I started within millisecond to sweat. Together with the luggage and my laptop we were looking for a taxi. I prayed that this taxi will have a air conditioning because I wore a nice grey suit so if you start to sweat it looks so fine to have dark wet spots.
We were lucky and found a man (at this time I haven’t seen his taxi) who offered us his taxi service. At this time I thought that I have passed already the worst part and I will cool down in his taxi. So we went out of the taxi zone and I had to carry still my luggage. We went to a big parking place without any shadow. You can imagine how I felt in my suit. Ok, I thought this guy has parked his car quite close. After we have passed almost 10 “nice and new” taxis we stopped in front of a…. how should I explain, something between a Trabi (Trabant) and Lada. Till today I don’t know which brand it was. It was horrible. The car trunk has never been an original part of this car because it didn’t close completely. The color, I think it was called rainbow design because you could find every color on this car, especially rust-brown. Since 4 years I’m traveling but I have never seen any car which was so …..“different” to the others. Ok, we chose the driver so we had to go with this cab. When we entered the car it was like in a sauna. The only difference was that I wasn’t dressed right with my suit. It was so incredible hot there and I was looking for the air conditioning. When I took look around inside of the car it looked like that someone has fixed all the moving parts with chewing gums. I didn’t want to touch anything in this car. I can tell you that the whole world is talking right now about the influenza virus H1N1 but if you have survived this taxi (it’s a breeding place for many virus) you wouldn’t be worried anymore of H1N1.
So, no air conditioning only airstream of the moving car. The side mirror was also fixed with chewing gums and folded paper. During the ride the last part of the taxi was shaking a little bit. It was good because there was no danger to stick with my already wet sweated trouser on the seat.
I was so happy when we arrived at the office. I left the taxi and my suit was …. you can imagine. We went to the office and of course all the people were starring at me like I’m not from this planet. I took a seat next to the air conditioning system to became first cooled down and then dried.
Yes, it was nice. Today I brought my suit to dry cleaner’s. I hope that my next story isn’t about any experience with the dry cleaner’s…….

Saludos de Bogota
Jürgen

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