Bogota

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Hola!

A 9 hour bus ride from Manizales later and we are in the capital city of Colombia, Bogota. We decided to stay in the historic center of the city which is called La Candelaria. This area of Bogota is filled with colonial buildings, vast plazas and many of the main museums the city has to offer. After settling in to our hostel, we had some dinner and then headed to the more upscale are of Bogota called La Zona Rosa for the night. This are is filled with restaurants and bars and is packed with people on weekends. One thing we quickly found out however is that the places were not cheap! Basically Canadian prices for drinks which we had gotten used to NOT paying. With no other options really, we enjoyed a nice pitcher of a local craft beer brand and enjoyed some time just walking around

The next day we got up relatively early with elaborate plans to visit many of the city's museums (Bogota has some cool ones) however to our surprise they were closed not because it was a Sunday (which would not have surprised us), but because it was Mother's Day! It seems Mother's Day is an official holiday in Colombia or Bogota at least. So, with no museums to check out, we just decided to walk around a bit and check out some of the architecture and plazas Bogota is also famous for. Fortunately for us, every Sunday in Bogota is "Cyclovia" where they close down many of the main streets in La Candelaria and surrounding areas to cars, allowing only pedestrians and bikers (Quito does the same thing). This makes for a pretty cool atmosphere as many street performers come out and there is loud music everywhere in true Colombian fashion. For the evening we finally made it to a futbol (soccer) match! We had been trying basically since the beginning of our trip to see a live match and witness first hand the South American futbol passion, but in Argentina and Chile the season wasn't really going, Bolivia we were sick half the time, Peru we were recommended not to go in Lima because the stadiums were not in a safe location, and Ecuador we were only there for a week. So.....FINALLY. The match was between Santa Fe (one of the Bogota teams) vs. Boyaca Chico a team from just outside Bogota (I think). The crowd was obviously pro-Santa Fe with maybe only 20 Chico fans who were put in a special section away from the Fe supports for security reasons. The final score was 3-2 for Chico so there were some pretty upset fans. The first half ended 0-0 which made for a great second half with 5 goals. We ended up going with a group of 6 other people from the hostel and felt totally safe. It was far from what we expected with many women, elderly and children filling the stands. To be fair we sat quite far from the main Santa Fe supporters who you will see in the photos, but the entire process (tickets, game, leaving the game, etc.) felt totally organized. Add to that the beautiful landscape behind the stadium made for a very memorable first live futbol match for both of us.

For our third day in Bogota we went on a bike tour of the city with Mike's Bikes. This guide had been recommended to us by the Dutch guys we met in Manizales so we figured we'd go for it. It turned out to be a great day, and probably the best guided tour of any city we have been on thus far. In total the tour was about 4.5 hrs long which allowed us to see a good chunk of the city. The highlights;

- The history lesson: Mike has lived in Bogota for 5 years now (he is American) and has lived in South America for I believe 12 years he said, his time split between La Paz (Bolivia), Caracas (Venezuela), and Bogota. For most of this time he worked as a journalist so he is well versed in Latin American history as well as full of interesting and crazy stories of people he has met/interviewed. He taught us all about the former struggles in Colombia between various guerrilla groups and the government, Colombia's rich history with cocaine, as well as filling us in on some information on the up coming presidential election which happens at the end of May. The great thing about the tour was the ability to ask questions which sounds simple but makes things way more interesting. The tour was more like a conversation than a lecture which was great.
- The fruit: We stopped at a big farmers market and got to try a bunch of Colombia fruit, all of which were great! There was also tons of fish, meat, veggies, etc. at this market and so it was cool to go through a place like that far from the normal "tourist attractions"
- The Cemetery: This wouldn't have been a highlight more than likely, except Laura made a great decision. This cemetery was quite large (similar to the one we visited in BA) and it had many statues of the more famous inhabitants. Mike told us that a popular thing for Bogota residents to do is whisper in the ear of one of the statues and ask for favours. As far fetched as that sound, Laura decided to ask for me to be accepted to the University of Toronto at a time when we were sure I'd be rejected. Fast forward 3 days and I find out there had been a mistake and I had mistakenly not been notified of my acceptance. Coincidence? I think not. Thank you Sr. Kopp!
- The University: We toured around the campus of Colombia's largest university and again got some cool background history from Mike. The campus was covered in leftist/socialist oriented graffiti all of which had a deeper meaning to either an event which occurred on the campus, or in Colombia in general. We learned that the campus is totally autonomous which means Bogota police are NOT allowed to come on the campus resulting in quite a unique environment within the campus fences.
- The Bull Fighting Ring: As our last stop of the tour we got to walk around the famous bull fighting ring which unfortunately is not in season right now. However, bull fighting is still quite popular in Colombia, and all the best fighters come to this stadium during January and February.

So that was a lot about a 4.5 hr tour, but it was wicked as you can probably tell. Colombian history is just incredibly fascinating.

The next day we hopped on a flight to Cartagena which is on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. We would spend 8 days on the coast, visiting a few places, and then returning to Bogota. That stuff will be in another blog. Back to Bogota.

Our first day back we spent the afternoon at the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). This is the largest collection of gold artifacts in the world, and Colombia's most famous Museum. Overall it was pretty cool. A ton of stuff to see (and read) and very well laid out. As we have mentioned, we are not big museum people but this was actually rather interesting, the amount of information was just a bit overwhelming. One funny story from the museum: when we tried to pay for the entrance, the lady selling tickets informed us we had a counterfeit 10 000 COP bill ($5US) which we realized had been given to us by the cab driver we took from the airport that morning. Counterfeit bills are not all that uncommon in South America, but this was our first experience. No big deal, the lady knew it was an honest mistake on our part. The funny part, was the response of the female police officer standing at the ticket office who witnessed the entire thing. What did she do after showing us the difference between the 2 bills? Instruct us how and where to use the bill successfully while both her and the ticket lady (and us by now) laughed hysterically. No demands to dispense of the bill....she honestly could care less haha. We thought it was pretty hilarious. Yet another example of how far we are from Canada.

For our last full day in Bogota, we checked out 2 more museums we had wanted to see. The first was an art museum of the Colombian born artist Fernando Botero. It included most of his pieces plus a good chunk of his personal collection which included a few Picasso's and a Monet. As you'll see from the pictures, Botero's work was quite unique and it centered around, well, big stuff! Big people, big fruit, etc. We found it actually pretty hilarious (not sure if that is what it's supposed to do) and enjoyed checked out all his stuff. After that we checked out the Museo de Policia which included a guided tour by one of the officers that talked about the Colombia police history, structure, etc. The most interesting part of this place was the room they had dedicated to Pablo Escobar who you might know. He ran the Medellin drug cartel in the 80s and was at one time the 3rd richest person in the world! For those of you who have seen the movie "Blow," he's the guy that Johnny Depp's character meets in Colombia. The room contained some interesting pieces of Escobar memorabilia including a roof tile stained with his blood from the place he was shot.

In true Colombia fashion we decided to use our last night in the country to finally learn to dance Salsa. We had been putting this off for some time now and so we finally joined in on a free class at a neighbouring hostel (where we were only 2 of 4 people). In total we learned the 3 basic steps and both did pretty good I must say. It's not easy that's for sure, but we felt ourselves getting better over the course of the 45min class. Now we just need some more practice!

As you can probably tell from the amount I have wrote we really enjoyed Bogota. It turned out to have much more to do than we expected and it's probably our favourite capital after Buenos Aires.

Next stop, Leticia which is at the tri-border of Colombia/Brazil/Peru which we will reach by plane. Then a quick jump over the Brazillian border and onto a river boat to slowly make our way (3 days) to Manaus (Brazil) down the Amazon sleeping in hammocks along the way. It should be an experience!

Take care everyone,
Greg and Laura

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