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Published: November 2nd 2008
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Bogotá
Arriving in Bogotá, after a twisty journey through many mountain passes, we followed the advice of Shaun, our previous host, and stayed at the Cranky Croc hostel in La Candelaria, the oldest neighborhood in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Our next week in Bogotá was to be one filled with awesome sights and many ¨rumbas¨(the colombian word for party) as described below:
Walking tour: Our Lonely Planet guide contains a walking tour of downtown Bogotá. We decided to follow this on our first day. We headed south to the Plaza de Bolivar, surrounded by some old and impressive buildings. The plaza was covered by the most pigeons we had ever seen in our life. Apparently their number has been reduced already in an attempt to clean up the statues and buildings. We continued to our first stop - a functional one - to alleviate LM´s craving for good Colombian coffee. We both had some coffee at Juan Valdez Café. Ber couldn´t finish his, though. LM thinks Juan Valdez is the cat´s whiskers.
We continued to the Fernando Botero Museum, which is free. This museum contains paintings and sculptures of the famous Botero, a Colombian artist with
a fetish for fat, or rather, inflated figures. It also exhibits works of Monet, Miro, Dali, Chagall and many more artists, as well as a few earlier works of Picasso, that weren´t specifically good to our probably uncultured eyes.
From the museum, the walk meandered through a nice area of old Bogotá, past many small but cool cafes, bars and galleries to the Parque Santander. There we found a quaint flea market with stalls selling all kinds of bric-a-brac.
Unfortunately, the Bogotá gold museum was closed for maintenance. This sudden deviation from plan caused us to lose focus and start to aimlessly wander the streets, finishing the planned tour.
Monserrate & Teleférico: Physically emulating our high spirits, we ascended to the lofty hights of Monserrate, a Catholic church and shrine high upon a mountain on the eastern side of Bogotá. The result was some breathtaking vistas, as promised by the guidebook. We achieved this feat by taking the Teleférico (cable car) up to the site. We took a metered taxi to the Teleférico and paid for a return ticket. As usual, the butterflies in LM´s stomach were on ecstacy (LM still hasn´t managed to overcome her
fear of heights). The ride up to Monserrate was uneventful (as expected) and beautiful. The chapel was true to SA Catholic form. i.e. beautiful intermingled with some seriously kitch shrines. The main attraction, however, was the view over Bogotá. It was well worth it.
A night out: Friday evening we went out with Gonzalo and Enrique, two Bogotáns that we met in Buenos Aires at the start of our trip. Gonzalo has a car and took us for a ride through town. We ended up in an Irish pub in the famous T-zone - filled with funky restaurants, bars, clubs and designer shops. This part of Bogotá reminded us of Parkhurst in Joburg. We had a very enjoyable evening and got to see a different part of Bogotá.
Andre´s Carne de Res: Six other guests and us decided to visit the famous Andre´s Carne de Res one evening. We got two taxis and headed to Chia, a village north of Bogotá. Andre´s is a huge restaurant, filled with mind numbing amounts of stuff hanging from the ceiling and walls. There are so many kitch things that the overall vibe is amazing. We can´t imagine how long it
must have taken to create this wonderful monstrocity. Everything is slightly eccentric, including menus in a glass faced box with a lever to scroll through them. We all had steaks that were extremely good. There are screens that display the dancefloor, providing quite a bit of entertainment. It was a great but expensive evening.
Salt Cathedral On our last day in Bogotá half our hostel and ourselves visited the famous
Salt Cathedral, situated outside the small town of Zipaquirá, north of Bogotá. This is a must see for all tourists, as it is magnificent. The cathedral is built in a part of an active salt mine in the mountains. The 14 "chapels" bult along the entrance to the main cathedral was designed by a famous Bogotán architect and depicts the last journey of Christ. We think he did an amazing job with it, keeping it simple but impressive.
The cathedral uses red, green and blue lighting, giving everything an ethereal feel. Sunday services are still held in the main cathedral. We will not explain any more of the physical properties of the cathedral, please feel free to click on our link above for more info. The photos were dificult,
as the lighting was dim, but they are reasonable enough to get an idea of how it looks.
Bogotá is, in a nutshell, a very cool and sophisticated place. We would be able to stay there any day.
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