estamos aqui

Oki here writing from Bogotá! That's right, we made it here, safe and semi-sound. Things got of to a semi-rocky start when Jason and I arrived at LAX first to find that we were in the wrong terminal (easy fix). Then, upon walking to the correct one and waiting in line for about 45 minutes, finding that we were required to have paper tickets in hand even though we purchased our tickets online 3 days before our departure. After a long phone call, a long walk to another terminal, a long interaction with the check-in attendants to print out our tickets, a long walk back to the terminal we are supposed to depart from, we finally checked-in. Upon return, we ran into Jamie waiting in line too.

We walked to the security check-in before the actual security checkpoint, only to find that there was a long wait there as well, with our flight boarding in only 10 minutes... The line inched along, hiding what lied ahead for us at the x-ray machines. Finally handing our boarding passes and passports over, we luckily found that there weren't too many people going through the x-ray machines. Brisk walk to our gate, still boarding, we calmed down.

7.5 hour flight, we finally walked out of the Bogota airport terminal at 6:30 to find Carlos waiting for us. Daniel and Carlos have been in Bogota since Friday, jamming like crazy, doing auditions and location scouting. Hector, our driver, pulls up our white van and we head off for our hotel.

We check in, throw our stuff in our individual rooms at Viaggio Studios, a four story building. Carlos is on the first floor, Jamie on the second, Jason on the third, and Daniel and I at the top. A quick hour for breakfast served in our rooms, and we're off as quickly as we arrived.

We met Bernardo, our location scout, and his assistant, Marvin. All of seven of us jump into the van, with poor Marvin stuck in the trunk area of the van. We stopped at several potential shoot locations for Serafina's home, especially loving a barrio called Sucre. Looked at places all over for a possible make-up store, clothing store, bars, and burlesque clubs. Two clubs of note were the Fourty (mispelled) Niner Club and the Vinacure Club. The first club is (no beating around the bush on this one) a brothel with insane design. Its like a maze of mirrors and booth seating on several levels all hidden inside a very plain looking building. We met the owner, a very nice gentleman, a Hugh Hefner of sorts, who took us on a tour of his own private lair within the building.

The other club, Vinacure, was a full size movie theater hidden in a strip mall, stage and all. The decor is a maddening array of mish-mashed, perverse, and macabre mannequins and statues littering the seating areas and hanging off the walls. The big draw there is a transvestite show on the big stage every hour or so. Check out some of my pics, and you'll get a better idea...

Finally, headed back to the hotel for a nice jet-lag rest, which is where I sit now. More to come tomorrow... Enjoy the slide show of today's pics I took. Jason also took a few of these. Jamie, a pro photog, is also taking some amazing photos which we'll try and get up for you to check out ASAP too! Ciao...