In the multitude of cars, buses, taxis, colectivos, trucks, bicycles and motorbikes that swarm in chaotic waves between traffic lights, there weave a hundred more streetsellers of all things Christmasy and edible.  You can buy any sort of wondrous fruit on the streets maracuyas, granadillos are just two of the many types of passion-fruit like fruit here, cactus fruit called pitayas and lulos, native mangosteens the eating of which during the 300 years of Spanish rule was forbidden except by ruling Spaniards and punishable by a good whipping.

But today we dont even think about buying fruit, for the car is packed after a morning at the Corabastos, the largest produce market in Colombia.  I have never seen anything like it.multiply Rocklea markets by 1000 the size and you might have something akin, but not really!

The traders in the potato hall are filthy and carry unbelievably heavy loads on towels across their shoulders.  They stop occasionally to pick up one of the mobile phones on their belts.  At the end of trading day (midnight to 10am), they will step into their Mercedes 4WDs and go home to an upbeat campesino house in a ´better´ suburb.  They are generally millionaires as are the growers.  The same is true for many of the fruit growers and traders, especially in sought-after exotics like pitaya, the bulk of all Colombia´s crop goes straight to Japan.  I must admit it is one of the most exquisite fruits I know it is bright yellow, oval, pear-size, with prickley like extrusions, and inside is a perfect oval of clear pulp with small black pits.patterned like a 1950s Hollywood teasetand the taste is like sweet champagne but cleansing like a sorbet.

Over the hundreds of acres, we only covered half of two sheds and filled a car.  We make our way back to the car guarded by an armed security guard and surrounded by hundreds of rickshaws taking boxes from shed to shed and foodstalls where we breakfast on chiccaron papa criolles morcilla. Hernan and Luis (new gatekeeper at our house who used to work as a veggie seller) carry everything in loads as we buy, having negotiated with all the buyers save the few I experiment on.  Some traders make deals with me which is a sign my Spanish might be a little convincing.  Hernan opens every negotiation with How much is it and why is it so much? which never fails to get a laugh. 

It took us another hour to get out of the place because the traffic was banked up against the new TransMilenio bus line which is due to be opened this week.  It is an enormous monument of construction covering the west of the city with buslanes, stations with glass automatic doors in and out like a tube, and five lanes in the middle of the other ten for cars, ending in a grand roundabout of all the flags of Colombian provinces, at the base of which stand five Grecian looking women in marble holding symbols.  The decoration a waste of money no doubt but the bus system itself is essential. It might just help the petrol bus choked streets a little with its methane efficient buses.  There are four more planned cutting across the city to add to the three that already operate and are crowded to the hilt with commuters. Its cheap for 900 pesos (50cents Oz) you can cross the city or go one stop. Its safe special Transmilenio police on every crossing, every station. And it flies like the wind. When I am stuck in another notorious Bogota jam, I see the red double TM buses fly past and feel very envious.

Since we are now living in Suba, which seems to spew forth buses like spawn, I thought the other day I would try negotiating my way by bus far south downtown to my favourite public library, the Luis Angel Aranga in the middle of La Candelaria, my favourite oldest part of town. It is the original city, founded 1543, and reeks of the ghosts of history.  When we were looking for other work last year, we worked hard on researching the local ghost stories and put together a ghost tour which we still havent run.  But I am now collecting the stories into a book with photos so nothing goes to waste.

Anyway, I did some research on my novel in my favourite part of the library, the map room, where you can open enormous leather bound books of maps and comfortably in the broad silence touch ancient maps from European cartographers (German and Italian and Spanish).  The assistant came up to me to see how I was going, and gently chided me for having 30 of them open on the table. I hadnt read the small signs everywhere saying only 3 books on the table at a time. Oops! Most people are curious about what I want to read about. Two map tasks faced me how did the eucalypt physically travel here in 1592 (along with the wattle and banksias) and linguistically where did the Mochica and Chimu languages begin and end.  I have yet to find an answer but thats what I love about research.you never know when the answer will pop up. 

I am also writing about Luis Galan, who was the head of the New Liberal movement in the 1980s and who was assassinated in 1989.  I wanted to find a photo of him since he was such a people´s hero.  I found one and he looked remarkably Irish perhaps some strains of Irish blood from the thousands of them who flocked here to fight alongside Bolivar in the Liberation Wars.  There are so many Gomez O´Reillys or Sarmientos O´Flahertys and redheads, it reminds me of the great Irish diaspora around the world.  Then I remember hearing recently that there are more than 1 million Australians living overseas and think myself part of an Australian diaspora.

Such are the thoughts I pondered on the complex bus rides to get home to Suba from Candelaria, calling Hernan on the way to ease his constant worries when I am on public transport.  Sitting in the front seat of a camioneta for part of the ride, with the radio blasting and pushed up against two other people and the driver, the man in the suit next to me starts an animated conversation and like all Colombians talks about food. He was gesticulating excitedly about the tastiness of papa rellena, a potato filled with eggs, rice and chicken.  He was so convincing that when I went to change buses, I bought one with a drinkable sour yoghurt, Kumis.  You cant eat on the buses here, you can´t even move. 

On the journey home, last stretch, lurching forward in traffic, the bus was tightly packed. Luckily I had a seat and the woman next to me was nodding off on my shoulder.  As women entered the bus, men stood up to give up their seats, and the elderly woman in front of me was grateful for the relief.  Trying to get out of my seat with my few belongings was a chore but I managed to get to the back of the bus to ring the bell in time, not being able to hear it ringing above the roar of traffic.  The bus was in the furthest lane, and like all Bogota buses, he heard the bell and lurched across 4 lanes, inciting a hail of horns against him, to stop like a bullet in rock against the kerb.  Gratefully I got off and climbed the 60 stairs to the bridge to take me away from the pollution to our quiet little forested enclave on the mountain, walking past horses and well-guarded houses, some of which had belonged to various drug-dealers now long dead, the houses requisitioned by the army. 

Annie Hernan and I walk every night around the mountain or up to the local barrio baker for a churro (my favourite doughnut filled with arequipe).  The other evening he took us in the other direction to the peak of the mountain, heavily forested with gnarled and ancient gum trees and wattles in bloom.  In the middle of an abandoned property stood a wondrously old Spanish style house, the original property on the mountain, belonging to the Lozanos.  The plaque on the outside says that Bolivar and his army had stayed here on their way back to Bogota.  Suba used to be its own city but is now consumed by Bogota.  The security guard at the gate tells us tales of the house´s decline into seizure by the banks.  It stands empty and silent, a haven for ghosts.  As ever on the search for more stories of phantoms, he reassures me that he is only slightly nervous at night. It´s the sounds of horses from the now empty stables that gets him. 

We walk in the chill back home, the green grass glowing in the sunset, and the sweet overpowering wattle perfume taking us back to Australia.