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5

ing through clouds and could see nothing but clouds below us. Deep fluffy banks were around us, and another deep fluffy layer below; far above were thin white clouds that looked as clouds usually look. Sometimes we steered around and among the clouds, and once in a while we plunged right through. The near part was always a soft misty gray, with glimpses of a luminous white beyond, that seemed to be part of the far side. As we approached the Sabana de Bogotá we entered dense clouds and the plane bucked a bit; suddenly the clouds opened out and we could see the earth far below. A big flat plain of bright green, crossed by little streams and surrounded with dull blue-green mountains. Ahead of us were the red roofs and church towers of Bogotá, close under the two guardian peaks, Monserrate and Guadelupe. And not yet ten o'clock.
This was our first call at Techo airport, and it was a long one. Dugand had written that he and Murillo would meet us at Techo, but after we had claimed out baggage we had still seen nothing of them, though all the other passengers were received by eager and numerous groups of friends. The bus was ready to leave, and still they had not come. We did not want to make a bad beginning by being too impatient to wait, so we let the bus go off with our baggage (marked for Hotel Granada). We waited on a bench outside the airport shelter until our presence seemed to be disturbing an anxious little soldier. Then we waited inside. We noticed that there was no vehicle of any kind on the place. After we had thought over that angle for half an hour more, a taxi with one passenger drove into the grounds and we were glad to climb in and say "Hotel Granada". At the retén two soldiers came out of a tiny little sentry house to inspect our passports.
The Granada was so superlatively Victorian it was hard to believe that it was less than fifteen years old. Red plush, dark woods, marble tops, very high ceilings, etc. We selected a small room looking on the court; it proved to have an even smaller sitting room opening from it. The court exposure allowed us to sleep through several hours of church bells every morning. A very small boy went across the street to the Avianca office for our baggage, and delivered it at our room. Another almost as small was behind the All American Cables desk. He was very dubious about "PAU" as a cable address, but finally accepted it, and we cabled our arrival to Elsie Brown to telegraph to Lucy and the mothers. The little boy was punctilious; he came to the room twice to make sure of the message and to make a tiny correction in price.
We enjoyed our lunch in the large solemn hotel dining room. The cheerful little head waiter was ready with his English phrases; the waitresses knew no English, but were