It’s my last night in Bogota, my plane leaves late tomorrow evening. I’ve spent more time in Bogota than I expected, and I’ve enjoyed it more as well.
Bogota is big: spread out and populous, and the character of the city varies from one part to another. The city sits high up on a mountain plane and and has a cool climate, days average in the low to mid twenties, nights in the low teens. Rain showers are frequent, but the rain doesn’t last long.
I’ve been staying in the Centro historico part of the city, called La Candelaria. This is where the city started, and it’s now a tourist and bohemian area, lots of hostels, cafes, craft breweries, lots of street art, tattoo artists, barber shops, etc. There’s also lots of universities, I’m sure I’ve seen 5 or 6 different ones in my local wanderings. Here are a few photos of la Candelaria.
I’ve taken several walking tours, visited a number of museums and art galleries, spent a lot of time walking through markets — produce, used goods, etc.
A highlight has been all the street activity, especially on weekends. I’ve watched comedians or entertainers holding court, sometimes with a monologue, sometimes with audience participants. I haven’t been able to understand much of what they’re saying, but I know they’re being funny. I’ve watched dancers, break dancers, jive dancers, ballroom dancers – they bring their music, set out a hat to collect money and then they dance — for hours. I’ve watched skateboarders skate and chess players play (and cheat).
There are also many streets with artisans and crafts trying to sell their wares — they’ll do your caricature and I even saw one young man sitting by a typewriter (manual) who was offering “poetry writing services”.
And I had my shoes shined, again, but this time I established the price ahead of time. This time it cost me 8000 pesos, or about $4.
The best tour I’ve taken in Colombia was called the Bogota War and Peace walking tour. Our guide was Ana, a political science graduate student who took us through the city centre, recounting events and telling stories about Colombia’s conflicted past — speaking critically about all the powers involved: the colonizers, the Catholic church, the political parties, the government, the army, the business class, the leftist guerillas, the right wing militias, the drug lords, the evangelical missionaries, and on and on and on. Each group ends up looking out for themselves, and making deals with each other, to benefit themselves. For instance, she was saying that many evangelical church leaders had strongly opposed the peace negotiations with the left wing guerrilla groups and were instrumental in persuading their congregants to vote no in the peace referendum. They preferred to continue to fight them with the army and the right wing militias.
Ana also recounted how the “war” had affected her personally. Her mother, a psychologist, had been working with a peasant women’s group in the countryside where they had a farm, and had been accused of being a communist because of this. She was forewarned about an impending arrest and managed to escape to the city with her children.
Ana’s father, an agriculture professor who was also farming, had gone with so e of his men to buy cattle in a distant town where he wasn’t known. The army (or a militia) had come upon these “strangers” and had shot them and dressed them in guerilla uniforms so they could collect a bounty. One of the members had escaped and returned home to tell the story.
The war and peace tour ended in a museum, like the one in Medellin, where photographs of victims and their survivors are displayed on the wall. It was hard not to be overcome with emotion.
One other must do item in Bogota is a visit to the Monserrate, the mountain overlooking the city, just beside our Candelaria neighbourhood. On top of the mountain, there is a park, a church, a via Dolorosa with the stations of the cross. You can get to the top by cable car or by a tram, or you can walk.
I walked. Its about a 2 km walk, with an altitude gain of about 400 metres, but what makes it tough is the high altitude. I was breathing heavily much of the time, but then so was everyone else. I have no clear idea how long it took to do up, but I know I spent an hour resting before coming back down. I can still feel some fatigue in my legs, from the descent.
I had a great appetite this afternoon, and now I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight.