Out of the frying pan into the frio....Bogota

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Just as I was adjusting to the delicious sultry heat of Cartagena, I had to leave. As gorgeous as it was, unfortunately I couldn't stay there forever.

Leaving Cartagena was hilarious. My taxi driver to the airport, Manuel, spent more time looking at me (in the back seat) than he did at the road with rapid fire questioning: do you have a boyfriend? are you married? do you have children? how come you don't have a boyfriend? why are you single? how old are you? (at which point he made me remove my sunglasses, then followed up with "very beautiful eyes"), when are you coming back to Cartagena? can I have a photo? why don't you have a photo of yourself? will you call me? Finally at the airport, "when you get back here, don't forget my face" and he gave me his number. I got the giggles it was so funny.

Arriving in Bogota was a shock to the system. Everybody had told me that it is cold here, and guess what, it's bloody cold here. But the good news about the cold is my hair is back to normal - no more frizz! Not only is it cold, but when I arrived it was raining, heavily at times. Only now have I checked my guidebook and seen that "the wettest months are April and October". It's May now though but obviously the weather gods haven't changed their calendars. As well as being wet and cold, it's also in the Andes and is 2600m high. I hadn't connected my stonking headache with the altitude until I was reading the guidebook information this afternoon, "at this height altitude sickness can occur". I must remember to do more research before I reach my destinations...

The flight here was uneventful (an Airbus A320 ), however the same could not be said for the taxi ride. Well actually most of it was uneventful until we got to a certain point and I noticed a lot of smoke in the distance and what sounded like gunshots. I thought to myself that I was being a little dramatic and it was probably related to the roadworks nearby. However as I got closer I realised that I was right: there were several tanks, and a police riot squad armed with shields, teargas, and lots of guns! We drove right past the action, about 50 metres from the riot squad, my taxi driver seemingly unconcerned, although vaguely curious. I asked him what was going on and he said, "oh it's just the students". This didn't satisfy me at all, so I told the woman at my hotel what I'd seen and asked her what was going on. She said, "oh, at that university the students always go a bit crazy, it never lasts for long, don't worry, we have complete control of the country." Interesting answer! It's not that I didn't believe her, but I did feel compelled to seek out some more information, so I found some articles online here, here and here , which also have some photos. She was right - the whole thing only lasted a few hours, and after the FIVE tanks were sent in the protest came to an end, however the protesters weren't from the university and nobody knows what it was about. Just so happens that my cab passed by at the exact moment that the police were moving in to disband the protest. Quite an introduction to the city!

I'm staying at a great little hotel called Casa Platypus which is about 2 years old, and associated with a nearby hostel but only has private rooms and bathrooms. My only complaint is that there are no heaters. It must be freezing in winter time.

Although it threatened to rain in the morning, by the afternoon the sun came out and I even took off one of my jerseys. I spent the day in La Candelaria, the historical part of the city. It's a strange mix of old houses, churches, and buildings, all in various states of repair, some dating back 300 years, alongside more modern structures. The tourism centre offer free walking tours with local police twice a day, so I signed up for the morning session. Unfortunately for me it was in Spanish. However our policeman talked nice and slowly, and one of the other tourists, a guy from the Basque Country (not from Spain!) would occasionally translate things for me. I then repeated the tour in the afternoon by myself, with time to go into various museums, churches and buildings as I fancied.

The starting point and heart of the city is Plaza de Bolivar, a massive square which was once lined with colonial buildings. Nowadays it's ringed by the Catedral Primada (Cathedral), the Capilla del Sagrario (a chapel), the Palacio de Justicia (seat of the Supreme Court), Edeficio Lievano (mayoral offices) and Capitolio Nacional (seat of Congress). They were all built at different times due to various events in history, for example the Palacio de Justicia and people in it were taken hostage by M-19 guerillas in 1985 (rumoured to have been financed by the Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar), and following a drawn out offensive by the army to reclaim it, it was gutted by fire and was completely rebuilt. The Cathedral was originally founded in 1538 but rebuilt three times, the current one was completed in 1823. In the middle of this massive square covered in pigeons, is a tiny statue of its namesake, Simon Bolivar, which was the first public monument in the city, erected 1846.

I popped in and out of various churches in the afternoon, but the most spectacular by far was the Museo Iglesia de Santa Clara, which is actually run as a museum. The walls are covered in paintings, the altar is a spectacle of gold, the roof is covered in golden flowers and any walls remaining are brightly painted. Gorgeous!

The other highlight was the Museo Botero and the Arte Coleccion. Actually this complex houses four museums (also included is the Casa de Moneda and the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica) and it was rather confusing which one was which. Fernando Botero is one of Colombia's most famous artists and he donated all the artworks in the Museo Botero. There are also works by Picasso, Chagall, Degas, Monet, Miro, Dali and Ernst. In the Arte Coleccion there is a range of artwork spanning several centuries up until about the mid 20th century. As well as a lot of religious art there were two religious thingamies, which is the best description I can give of them. I have no idea what they actually were, but they were large, ornate and quite spectacular, made from gold and encrusted in emeralds, diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, topazes and amethysts.

One of the interesting things wandering around this area is the extraordinary number of police, soldiers, and private security guards you see, all armed with very serious looking big guns, sometimes two each. And then because the Presidential Palace and Congress are located here there are countless Government Police guarding those buildings. Around the Presidential Palace you aren't even allowed to walk on the pavement, and every twenty metres or so there is a Government Police person. Plus there are plainclothes people guarding as well. I'm not sure if this is normal, or whether or not this is because of the upcoming presidential elections, on May 30. According to the latest opinion polls, Antanas Mockus, is the most likely to be the next president. He is an ex-Mayor of Bogota and represents the Green Party. It will be interesting to see what happens.

One of the things that has surprised me about Colombia is how innovative it is. You don't hear much about Colombia in the news media in the rest of the world, but since I've been reading a lot and although still undeniably a third world country, there are great examples of forward thinking and creative policies being implemented. One of these is the Sunday Ciclovia in Bogota, when cars are banned for something like 120 km of city roads for a day, and bikes and pedestrians take over the roads. It's a great shame that I won't be here on Sunday as the driving here is bad to the point of reckless and pedestrian danger is even worse than in Buenos Aires, a feat I didn't think possible!

I've got a few more days here in Bogota - more adventures to come.

(*NB - "frio" means 'cold' in Spanish, to explain the title of this blog)

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Photos

La Candelaria
The area was named after this church, In the background is the Cerro de Montserrate.

Simon Bolivar
In the background is the Capitolio Nacional (seat of Congress)

Plaza de Bolivar
Looking at the french-style Edificio Lievano, where the Mayor's offices are

Statue of a poet on the house
This is in the corner of the Plaza de Bolivar. The flag on the right is for Colombia, the one on the left is for Bogota.

Religious icons
Opposite the Juan Valdez where I was having a coffee was a whole street of shops selling religious iconography.

The horse
One of my favourites

Mrs Cezanne at the window.
But what did Mr Cezanne have to say about it?

Flowers
Not everything was chubby

In the modern museum
Five pieces painted on shower curtains. Can't remember the artist unfortunately.

Spectacular Museso de Iglesia Santa Clara
Wow!

Comments

[anonymous]

have you got a gun fetish?
...not only guns, but tanks too... L

[Brig]

Rach.............looks and sounds amazing...........booked you into SATC2 when you return........can't wait to hear ALL your tales and fun.. take care b xx

[campbell]

thanks for the plane info. Hope things warm up soon!