I´m here. Utterly unbelievable.
I felt very much the gringo in the airport, and I lacked the confidence to speak in spanish to anyone (especially because even when anyone addressed me, it was in english) and I began to worry about the future. Cold feet, as it were.
However, after sleeping fitfully through the three.5 hour flight, I stepped down the stairs onto the tarmac into a bus to the terminal and began to worry about finding an ATM.
I tried some spanish with the customs agents, but they grew frustrated and switched to english. It was especially difficult because they all wore surgical masks to protect them from the swine flu menace. I cannot believe people´s capacity to surrender to fear mongering. Probably more than a third of the pasajeros on the airplane wore the masks (I´ve been surprised to see several pedestrians on the bogota streets also wearing masks. how horrible to live under such paranoic conditions).
Having cleared customs, I stood in line to change money and I heard a New Zealander (could tell by his flight-of-the-conchords accent) flailing to communicate about ATMs. I stepped in with him and we walked toward where the vague directions pointed. We talked for a while and then I acted the translator when we had to find taxis to our respective hostels. Suddenly my confianza was back. Though my spanish is still not quite up to par, I´ve been finding that I have more than many of my fellow travelers, and this is quite a relief.