There are plenty of quaint and large parks in Bogotá to enjoy.

I don’t know what is it with Colombian security guards and cameras, cameras may look like guns to them. I am taking pictures of my wife and the pretty flowers in the background. I clearly look like a harmless gringo when three men in suits come rushing towards me as if I about to detonate a bomb, and tell me I cannot photograph here. When I ask why they say because the Canadian ambassador is visiting inside a building where I am photographing. Wow how important, one thing you can always expect in Colombia when you ask, “why” is an answer that does not tell you why. I am surrounded by tall buildings, I am on a public sidewalk with a camera that is pointing towards my wife and not a building (as if it would matter one bit if it were a building) and this is considered a threat. Anything that they would not want to be photographed could easily be photographed from the many passing cars or from the many buildings in the vicinity or surreptitiously by cell phone for that matter by someone walking by. Anyway, while I am being chastised for photographing, a graffitist who is spray painting follow-the-arrow-signs towards the Canadian ambassador is being ignored. If you think about it, why did they tell me who the “important” person was and in what building. That's security? I now know who and where the target is. Security in Colombia is a closed curtain in front of an open window. Like everything here, it does not work. Anyone under security protection in Colombia is pretty much sure to die.

When I was in Parque 93 (Park 93), which is one on the more expensive areas in Bogotá that many tourists would visit, I was photographing flowers that were up in a tree and was stopped by security. So I go through the futile process again, and ask why? I was told because it is an administrative law. In Colombia one can never know the truth, misinformation is rampant. I guess I could conceive that someone determined that photographing in public parks is a nuisance and should be prohibited. I know you can’t conceive that, but I live in Colombia so I can scramble my brain in such a way that I can conceive such stupidity. Since law enforcement is not equally administrated in Colombia, I was allowed to photograph in the park another day. But be warned, if you are in Colombia minding your own business, while taking photos, and see a pack of police dogs and screaming men in uniform rushing your way, don’t think for one minute that they are going after the delinquent defacing someone's property, it’s you who they are after, the gringo with the camera.