Bogata’s famous Museo del Oro has an incredible collection from ancient times. It’s a must-see stop for anyone who visits this city.

I confess, however, that the modern age has entirely captured me. When I came across the piece at left, my immediate thought was “audio headset.”

Guess I need to get out more…

Apple’s iPhone is a lovely piece of industrial design. But international travelers should probably steer clear of it, at least for now.

It’s only available in the U.S. at the moment, and only uses AT&T’s relatively slow 2.5G network. There’s no 3G, and the WiFi doesn’t make up for that. Using it in Europe or Asia will incur large roaming fees.

Apple is also blocking most third-party software from working with the device. So this smart phone is stupid, on purpose.

Rumor has it that T-Mobile will sell a version in Germany later this year. But if the phone is locked to that carrier the way it’s locked now to AT&T, and if it still lacks 3G, it’ll be a nice iPod and low-end voice device with a WiFi add-on, not much more.

I’d suggest waiting for version 2.0 of the iPhone, when — we can only hope — Apple decides to sell a true smartphone with 3G and other needed utility. It’s a beautiful device, but not what international travelers need.

The Wall Street Journal reports “Northwest Moves To Reduce Flights, Hire More Pilots“:

The airline began preemptively canceling large numbers — 100 or more a day — of its 1,400 daily mainline flights, or those with big jets, excluding commuter units and affiliates, late last month. From June 22 though Thursday, the carrier said it canceled 12% of its mainline flights. A normal rate would be 1% to 2% for all causes. Passengers fumed, even those who were contacted in advance and rebooked.

This is, in part, due to a pilot union work slowdown, according to the airline and some independent observers. The pilots flatly deny it. Whatever, it’s a pain to travelers.

A few years ago, pilots at United pulled a labor slowdown. They left a permanent bad feeling — furious customers, in particular, not to mention people in other unions who weren’t party to the labor action.

As noted, this is going to be a long, hot summer for those of us stuck flying U.S.-based airlines. The system is undergoing a slow-motion collapse, and nobody who can do anything about it seems to be doing much to deal with it.

In any event, fly Northwest if you have lots of spare time on your hands.

After an overnight flight I’m in Frankfurt’s not-much-fun airport. But here’s high praise for the shower facilities at the Lufthansa Senator lounge in the B-Gates area, which leave me much refreshed for my onward journey.

The showers at United’s Red Carpet lounge in Tokyo are also excellent, come to think of it…

International Herald Tribune: Europe opens the door to in-flight phoning. European regulators have cleared use of mobile phones and BlackBerry devices for passengers while flying, Airbus announced Tuesday. Approval by the European Aviation Safety Agency means that, from September, passengers aboard Airbus aircraft outfitted with the OnAir system will be able to send and receive phone calls, SMS messages and e-mail messages while flying at altitudes above 3,000 meters, or 9,840 feet.

I’m one of the people who finds it incredibly annoying to be in immediate proximity with someone who’s having a loud conversation on his or her mobile phone. Something about this grates at my nerves, and I’m not alone.

A polite caller will cup his hand over his mouth (the Japanese often do this) or turn his head away so that he’s not being bothersome. But too many people just blab away as if they were the only ones on the planet.

I’ve found a solution to this annoyance when it gets bad enough: I make a point of listening, and make it clear to the talker that I’m listening. Once, when a guy at an airline frequent flier club was being especially loud — oblivious to the fact that people were shooting nasty looks in his direction — I escalated my response by pulling out a reporter’s notebook and ostentatiously taking notes. He finally got the point, giving me a dirty look but also removing himself and his conversation to a hallway where he wasn’t bothering anyone else.

Now, I’m not against mobile phones. I rely on mine. But if we’re going to be using them in super-enclosed spaces like airline cabins, we’ll need some updates of basic civility.

It’s always risky to use anecdotes to suggest a trend, but delays due to mechanical failures seem to be happening more often these days. On both legs of a trip to London last week, flights on United were delayed several hours or more because of equipment problems — and in one case the plane we were scheduled to use was exchanged for another one. (On the return, the passenger next to me shrugged and said he’d just switched back to United because of a series of mechanical delays on American Airlines.)

A related story: A few days earlier, a friend on a United flight to Japan said her plane was four hours into the trip when it was diverted to Seattle overnight for repairs.

Now, international flights are usually the most reliable in my experience, because the hassles for passengers and airlines alike multiply when a carrier has one or at most two flights a day to a given destination — and with planes so full these days you might get stuck for several days or, if you’re lucky, in a middle seat in the back of coach on an alternative flight.

Some journalist who covers the airline industry should take a look at the U.S. carriers’ Department of Transportation reports, which give pretty detailed statistics on delays and cancelations. I’m wondering if I was experiencing trend, not just a coincidence.

So, at San Francisco airport, they’re back to doing luggage screening at the gate on some flights, not just at the security maze as you enter the terminal. (It’s not happening on all flights, just some, and I’m unsure of which ones or why.)

This led to some, um, intriguing logic the other day as I was getting on a flight to New York. A security person looked in my smaller carry-on bag (the one where I keep my computer, etc.) and noticed a small bottle — yes, under 3 ounces — of disinfectant gel that I wipe my hands with before meals aboard flights. The gel had been in the plastic bag with other toiletries, and after clearing the initial security line I’d put the toiletries into my larger roller-board carry-on bag while transferring the disinfectant to the small one.

The security person instructed me to put the disinfectant gel back into the clear plastic bag that was in the bigger carry-on. It almost never does any good to argue with people who have no imagination but (at least in their minds) clear instructions, so I did what she asked. Of course, when I got onto the plane, I put the gel back in the smaller carry-on bag.

My tax dollars at work…

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the U.S. government will delay a new passport rule because its bureaucracy couldn’t handle the flood of passport applications the regulation caused. This won’t affect Dopplr travellers much, we guess, because you all have passports, but it does remind us all that when our passports are getting anywhere close to their expiration dates it’s wise to plan far, far ahead to get the renewal.

The Wall Street Journal does a service this weekend with “Deconstructing TripAdvisor,” a long article (unfortunately behind the newspaper’s pay-wall) that helps explain the popularity — and the flaws — of TripAdvisor, which for many people (including me)

has become a first stop for travel planning. Thanks in part to its prominence in Google searches, some 24 million visitors a month check out what other users have to say about where to stay, eat and play around the world. (In contrast, publisher Frommer’s sells 2.5 million guidebooks a year.) With more than 250,000 hotels, its sheer breadth of properties makes it more useful than other hotel Web sites. Its wide range of contributors — there are nearly 10 million reviews and opinions — make it more democratic.

“Democratic” doesn’t always mean that the crowd is perfectly wise, of course. While I find the reviews to be largely congruent with my own experiences, I keep a healthy skepticism about what I read.

The Journal reporter makes some key points, including the necessity to be wary of reviews that are either pure raves or utter slams. The latter can well be written by people who’ve had (maybe) rare bad experiences or by competitors, and the former can come from people affiliated with the property.

Great piece.

Department of When You Travel Too Much:

Chatting with a fellow conference attendee yesterday, we discovered we’re on the same flight back to San Francisco tomorrow. I scored an exit row aisle, seat 16C, and he mentioned that he’d been in 16A. I frowned and said something about the crummy arm rest next to the window in that seat. He agreed and said something about the way the door sticks out there, too.

Which is when we agreed we both travel too much.