A Letter From Bogotá, Where Hunger Feels More Threatening Than the Virus

Delivering Fruit by Bicycle, an Expat Pedals Across the Sprawling Capital City and Tries to Imagine What the Future Will Look Like

Earlier in the spring, while riding my bike and delivering fruit around Bogotá, Colombia, I passed by dozens of customers lined up patiently, resignedly, outside a bank on a main avenue. All wore masks, and all left at least a meter distance between each other, in obedience to the police officers standing watch nearby.

But there was something unusual about the group: all were women.

Bogotá and other Colombian cities have long imposed a traffic policy called “Pico y Placa,” which prohibits each vehicle from using the streets every other day as …