Advertisement
Published: August 30th 2010
Bogota: Street view
Up a side street near the Presedential palace to the church & start of the Andes aboveI am writing this blog from a bouncy minibus as we leave Bogotá for a 5-6 hour drive to Villa de Leyva north of Bogotá and the first stop (after BOG of course) in our tour de Colombia. It is just after 3pm and its gridlock in Bogotá. Just like Mexico City, the traffic in Bogotá is a nightmare. It is every person for himself and if you are in a taxi you are lucky if you don't have at least 1 near miss during the race to your destination. To give you an idea how manic the traffic is, I saw a police motorcyclist sign himself with the sign of the cross before tackling a narrow gap in the traffic.
As a pedestrian you quickly learn to be carefully adventurous crossing the road - its the only way to move forward.
Our Colombian adventure started 3 days ago. Unfortunately Star Alliance is pretty bad in central, southern America and so our Round the World ticket required an 8 and a half journey to fly from Mexico City to Bogotá. Normally this would be a 2 hour trip. We had to change planes in Houston. Why oh why do the
US authorities insist on a full immigration and customs clearance, which took about 45 minutes, when we were only in the US for 90 minutes ? - I've no idea.
We landed in Bogotá at around 8:30pm, seemingly a peak hour with a number of flights arriving from Colombia and around the world . The small, low ceilinged terminal building that we arrived at had huge queues stretching almost from the gates to the immigration desks and they were growing as additional flights arrived. Some people were in transit, but because of the chaos not all in the queue made their connection. We wondered whether this was going to be worse than JFK. In the end it took us 50 minutes to reach an immigration officer. Felicity & I went to the desk together. The guy could handle the Aussie passport OK and Felicity got a 30 day visa. Switzerland was a little too exotic for him, however, and I was ushered to another booth where my passport was tossed in together with a bunch of others that were waiting to be a processed. There didn't seem to be a problem as such and in the end I got
a 60 day visa.
Despite it being almost an hour since we got off the plane, we still beat our baggage to the baggage hall. But we got out of the airport around 90 minutes after arriving - still only half the record of our waits in JFK. Bogotá is the first international airport I've seen where the terminal didn't have an arrivals hall. Those meeting people had to jostle with others and the traffic on the roadside to be seen by the arriving passengers. Getting an authorised taxi was also a little chaotic - but we managed it in the end.
When I first started this blog 45 minutes ago, there was just the two of us in this well worn little minibus. Now after 20 minutes of 'kerb crawling' at Puerta del Norte, in the north of Bogotá City, we are now a full house of 12 passengers and 1 driver. First stop Tunja.
For our 3 nights in Bogotá we chose a small B&B in the Candeleria district of Bogotá. B&B Chorro de Quevedo was a tricky place to find and even the taxi driver got lost. Fortunately it is near a square (plaza)
Bogota; Presidential Palace-1
Don't stand on the pavement to take such a photo of the same name - so after a couple of wrong turns and a policeman's directions we got there. The place met our two requirements of being relatively cheap (Bogotá hotels are not cheap) and good reviews on Tripadvisor. What we found was an oldish building with poor sound insulation. For street facing rooms, the walls seemed paper thin so any conversation outside was as if you were right in the middle of it. Fortunately the side street was quiet. For the rooms at the back, the walls were still thin and conversations going on at the entrance could be heard at least two floors up. This is a place where earplugs are obligatory and you should also bring your own soap - toilet paper is the only 'consumable' supplied to the room. The owner and staff do their very best to please and they did quickly address, where possible, issues we raised. The breakfast was basic but good and included an excellent fruit smoothie, coffee and 'huevos rueveltos' - not revolting as the name may suggest they are basically a scrambled egg/omelet-cross.
The hotel is in a safe, if a little depressed area, close to some of the
hills that surround Bogotá. It has a few nice cafes and restaurants within 10-15 minutes walk and some good museums nearby too. On our first day we walked down Calle 7, the nearest main street in the direction of the Parliament and Presidential buildings. We had a quick look around the main Cathedral first, but as a midday service was just starting and the building was no where near as impressive as those in Mexico, we didn't linger.
We walked down what would be the equivalent of 10 Downing Street along past the Parliament on the left and the Presidential building on the right, complete with machine gun-equipped guards in full ceremonial regalia. The difference, to the UK or US equivalents, is that the public can walk down the streets - but don't step on the right-hand pavement and take a photo of the Presidential building like I did, or else you'll got a polite little white gloved reprimand from one of the guards.
An update on the journey. We've just stopped in the middle of no where and picked up someone else. The driver has added an extra seat to the minibus that he had in the
boot. Now we are 13 + 1.
As you might imagine the Parliamentary area is swarming with police, but this includes a Police Museum. Whilst we were looking for it a Policeman asked us where we were going. We replied in our broken Spanish and when he heard 'Museo de la Policia', he smiled, stopped the traffic and guided us across the road in the direction of the museum. It actually looked like a police station when we got there and we had to ask again. But we were again greeted with smiles and told (in Spanish) yes this is the museum and a tour in English has just started, The tour guide was keen to speak English - he was doing this as part of his 1 year national service. We were guided around, starting first with the history of famous drug barron Pablo Escobar and his gang members and the years of chasing before he was finally shot. It was explained to us that the drug problem is now much smaller than it was then. They were keen to give the impression that the issue is under control and proudly showed us awards from the US FBI
Bogota: View from the Police Museum:-2
During Escobar times the park in the distance was shanty housing, where people caught up in the drugs problems lived. and Drug Enforcement Agency recognising the Colombian police's outstanding efforts. The museum is full of interesting memorabilia - much of it weapons seized from the illegal gangs. There is also a great view over some of Bogotá from the top of the building. Like many museums in Bogotá, this was free and well worth a visit.
We also visited the Gold museum, sponsored by one of the Banks. This contradicts my last statement - in this museum we had to pay to get in. However, it was probably worth it. It has a lot of detail on the development of gold and other precious metails such as silver and platinum, how they were first discovered and used and how the importance, especially of gold, grew, together with the technologies to refine & use it. It also has some impressive gold statues and offerings that date back a number of centuries.
One museum that was free to get in, but we were paid to leave - by being given a specially minted coin - was the numismatics museum, otherwise known as "La Casa de Moneda" (the house of money). This basically traces the history of money in Columbia, showing
Bogota: Police Museum-1
Pablo Escobar and his main gang members the involvement of the US, UK and other countries in its development. It includes a few original coin minting machines from the Birmingham Mint in the UK - but the room that contains most of these machines is the only one you are not allowed to take photos in. Not sure why. I doubt they are worried about the stealing of technology. Anyway, surprisingly, this is quite an interesting place to visit and very well laid out, with details in English and Spanish.
Update on the journey. We are here in the very pretty Villa de Leyva our next planned stop - more on that in the next blog. I had to give up in trying to touch type my way through this blog when evening arrived and the fog and rain gathered over the hills we were driving through. As is the norm in South America, the journey had its 'exciting' moments but we got here safe and sound in four and three-quarter hours without a stop - if you ignore the kerbcrawling.
The 'Casa de Moneda' is in a cultural area which includes a few art galleries. One is an interesting concept, with Colombian artist Fernando
Bogota: Police Museum-2
The Harley Davidson, Escobar's no.2 used to ride around on. Botero dedicating his artworks to all things chubby. This usually means pieces of art showing similarly looking chubby men or women in variety of roles, often with the same title - for example 'Hombre'. Botero is truly prolific and has some interesting pieces, but in other galleries there are works by names such as Picasso, Velázquez, Moore, Cezanne and many others. I have added a few snaps at the end of the blog to give you a mini-view of this galleries works.
The number of good quality museums in Bogotá was a distinct advantage whilst we were there. It was a little rainy and quite cool. Despite being nearer the equator than Mexico City, we are also higher up (8660 feet amsl) and whilst we still wore T-shirts, fleeces were also required.
It is clear that mobile phones, just like in Mexico, have really taken off. Every few metres on the main streets there seems to be a shop selling something to do with mobile phones. Wandering around the streets of Bogotá we saw an interesting expansion of mobile phone usage. All over were people with signs saying "Minuto $200". These people had a number of mobile phones
on long chains attached to their belts and you could basically buy telephone airtime by the minute (ca 11 US cents) from these guys. Probably only national calls, but it beats having a subscription if nobody needs to phone you & you just need to make the odd call.
Bogotá is a tale of (at least) two cities. The area that our hotel is has slightly crumbling, graffitti-ladened buildings where there are a number of holes in the pavement and occasionally the road, to be avoided. The people aren't exactly poor looking, beggars excepted, but they look identifiably different to those of Bogotá's Zona Rosa, where we headed on our last night. This has expensive shopping malls and restaurants that wouldn't look out of place in any modern western city. People there are clearly wealthier. There is actually another area called 'Parque de la 93' which is apparently even more upmarket. But we didn't have the time, or money, to visit that.
Bogotá has a reputation of being a very dangerous city to visit. Fifteen years ago, when Felicity first visited it, that was truer than it is today. Then people, especially women, didn't carry bags around and
petty and more serious robbery was a lot more common. Now, in the places we visited at least, it seems this danger is very much more under control and there is less to fear from walking the streets, even at night, with a bag in Bogotá. Of course if you want an adrenalin rush, there are places to visit where muggings and robbery are still likely, but that's true of many cities but for our short stay, where we strayed, we felt safe.
Places we have visited and can recommend Museums (all in Candelaria district)
Police Museum, Calle 9 No. 9-27
Gold Museum, Calle 16 No. 5-41 (On one side of the Parque Santander)
Casa de Moneda, Calle 11 No. 4-21 (Next to Museo Botero)
Donacion Botero, Calle 11 No. 4-41
Advertisement
Tot: 0.17s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0742s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ann Hawkins
non-member comment
wow
Hello to you both. These blogs make great reading and am really enjoying 'travelling' with you. Keep up the good work. Love from us both xxx