The 155th Episode : Altitude of 7,700 feet

Bogota, located at the north end of the Andes Mountains
(Borrowed from a certain web)

[September, 1999　Bogota, Colombia]

     I arrived at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota, Colombia, from Lima, Peru.  The president of our distributor himself picked me up.  He wore the suits with a necktie, on the other hand I were in T-shirts and jeans.  I wasn’t doing what my boss told me.  It was simply a travel day, so I was in casual clothes.  Besides I don’t like the suits and neckties basically.

     We were talking in the car heading to the hotel, then he suddenly asked me “are you alright?  Don’t you feel bad or headache? …”   “No, no, nothing.  What do you mean?”

     “Here Bogota is on the altitude of 7,700 feet.  Some people often occurs high altitude disease when they fly here at once from the plains, that’s why I asked.”  He said.  Indeed.  I’d been to the top of Mt. Fuji three times, the highest mountain in Japan at 11,510 feet, when I felt nothing wrong either.  For I climbed the mountain step by step with my feet it’s not simply comparable though.

     We can not easily recognise the altitude in the map.  Looking at the map, Bogota is located at the north end of the Andes.  The mountains around looked approx. 3,000 - 6,000 feet.  I was on the 7,700 feet, so those mountains are 10,000 - 13,000 feet high.  They are all higher than Mt. Fuji, no places in Japan.