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Bogota
CathedralToday started like yesterday with a late breakfast and then hitting the streets looking at the shops, but today the temptations was too strong and I have brought a few things. A few of the shops in town have weaving machines and actually produce the fabrics in store, and then create a whole range of clothing. We bought a few items too many for our backpacks but are hoping to try and mail stuff home when we get to Bogota. We also took a walk down to the bus terminal and checked out the bus schedule for our journey tomorrow.
The café we dropped in at yesterday was so good we decided to stop at again, and whilst there a bunch of guys approached us and asked if we would do a survey with them. They were from a university and wanted to ask us some questions about our impression of the town and other stuff. It was sort of awkward at one point when he asked what was the best point about the town, and I had to really try and remember where we were and what we had seen.
In the
Villa de Leyva
Weaving machine arvo we went back to our room and attempted to post our blog without any luck, and discovered that the website had developed a huge bug. After about 2 frustrating hours we gave up and went out for dinner. In the main plaza a dog came running up to Shelley (as they always seem to do), and after Shelley gave it a pat she discovered it reeked. Fortunately most of the street dogs in Colombia look really healthy and people do give them attention. After Shelley had patted her new friend she trotted off and got more attention off others wagging her tail as she went. We had a beer at a bar on the Mayor Plaza enjoying our last night in Villa de Leyva. This is a pretty town but is very touristy and is a bit difficult getting around due to the number of cars and motorbikes running around. We feel Barichara was a far better town to visit as it was prettier, less touristy and felt more homely. After a beer we got a feed at a nearby burger joint and then wandered back to our hotel.
Day 204 Wednesday 2nd May Bogota
Griffins on the roof of Government building Because our bus wasn’t leaving till around 10.30 we didn’t need to jump out of bed at dawn but we had to pack so we were up at 7. After all the things we had picked up in town yesterday it was amazing that we managed to get it all into our bags. After breakfast we headed downstairs, paid our bill and walked the 4 blocks to the bus terminal. When we got down there at 10 we discovered that our 10.30 bus didn’t in fact leave till 11 and that instead of a bus we were getting a van. Luckily because we got there early we were able to get on the van early and Shelley could get a seat near the door. At a bit after 11 we were underway and travelling through the magnificent Colombian countryside once more. It was an extremely slow trip with our van stopping at every town and at all points in between. Sometimes people on the side of the road would wave down the bus, would jump on for about 20 minutes and then hop off again. When we got to towns we would always stop at the terminal and would
Bogota
Flag flying over Government building then cruise slowly through the town looking for more fares, which there always was.
Around 3.30 we hit the outskirts of Bogota and our van then fought its way through the peakhour traffic. At 4 we finally arrived at the Bogota bus terminal and as we got our bags on our back a guy in a uniform came over and tried to explain something to us, which we just couldn’t understand. We always get wary about people offering help especially at bus terminals so our immediate reaction was “no gracias” and tried to move on. The guy persisted and walked with us, again trying to tell us something and again we gave him the polite brush off. We were both a bit foggy headed and trying to figure out which way to go, but because the guy kept persisting we had to stop and try our best to work out what his story was. In the end he was just trying to explain how to get a taxi, we had already worked that out via the Lonely Planet” but it was great that he was there to help bewildered tourists like ourselves. The Bogota Terminal has a great scheme
Bogota-Museo del Oro
Clay impression of Shelley after a long bus journey where if you need a taxi you go to a guy at a booth, tell him your destination and he works out what a taxi is worth, gives you a printout of the cost and a number of an available taxi. You walk outside find your taxi, he drives you to your hotel and you pay the rate on the printout. This saves on being taken miles out of your way, being charged a ridiculous fare and/or being taken to the wrong hotel. The scheme for us worked perfectly and despite the trip taking 30 minutes it only cost us 8500 pesos ($5).
The Continental Suites Hotel is our home for our stay in Bogota and we managed to get an apartment style room complete with kitchen. We managed to get a good deal on booking.com and the room is huge and modern but unfortunately the kitchen isn’t fully stocked (no pots and pans) so our plans of cooking are dashed. After a quick shower we headed out to check out the area that is our new home. The hotel is located in the La Candeleria area of Bogota, which is the old colonial heart of the city, and
Bogota-Museo del Oro
Clay impression of Scott after a long bus journey is the location of most of the city sites such as the museums, churches and government buildings. Despite all the attractions, this end of town is a bit dodgy and fairly grungy, but there are plenty of private security guards and police around so it does feel fairly safe. We went looking for a bar to have a beer but discovered a lot of the bars were very seedy. Most were darkened dens with a guy sitting out the front trying to wave in customers. The bars might be okay but if we can’t see in we always avoid. Finally settled on a corner convenience store/bar that sold cheap beer and we could sit down at tiny timber tables and enjoy. The place was packed with uni students and had a great vibe except the music was ear splittingly loud, which is something you sort of have to get used to in Colombia.
We stayed in this bar for 3 beers before heading off in search of somewhere to eat, which ended up being more difficult than we expected. There are a lot of fast food joints around here, large chain variety and local greasy spoon types, and nearly
all specialize in hamburgers. We both had a craving for a steak, which seemed to be impossible to find and as a last resort we decided on eating at the Hotel restaurant. As a sort of unwritten golden rule of ours we generally avoid the Hotel restaurants as they are generally overpriced and generally of poor quality. Occasionally in the Middle East and in India we broke this rule and it worked out okay, but as yet we haven’t broken it on this trip, and after the feed we got we are not likely to do it again. The menu said it was 250g steak but I seriously doubt that both our steaks weighed even half that, and rather than getting cooked potato or even French fries with it, we got thin sliced chips (crisps) from a packet. The whole place was done up like a 5 star restaurant and so Shelley couldn’t hide her disgust at being served up chips with her steak. The meal ended up being fairly expensive, and I guess deep down we were angry with ourselves for breaking one of our travel rules, and so only had ourselves to blame. When we got back to
Bogota-Museo del Oro
Ancient fighter jet??? our room we discovered that we still couldn’t post our blog and spent most of the night on the Travelblog forums and emailing one of their trouble shooters trying to fix the problem.
Day 205 Thursday 3rd May Despite having a late night, and huge comfortable bed to sleep in we were up early to explore Bogota. It is always exciting on the first day in a new city with so much to see and today was no exception. Before hitting the street we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for our breakfast, and to our complete surprise it was great. Was a little afraid that the chef from last night may have been on duty to spit in our juice but thankfully our feed appeared to be flem free.
First on the agenda today was to check out the cost of having a box of stuff sent home, as our bags are starting to split at the seams. From what we have read on the forums, the local Colombian post is completely unreliable and not to be used, one guy stated that the only chance you have of the guys running the mail not
stealing your post is if they lose it first. Apparently our only choice is the large international courier companies and so we headed off to the office of FedEx first where we were quoted $360 for a 5 kilo box……holy S#%T. Oh well went off and found DHL and we got exactly the same rate, so we are now stuck with carrying all our added burden into Ecuador where hopefully we get a better price.
After that rude shock we decided to enjoy the sites of the city starting first with the town’s premier attraction of the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). This is a museum filled with thousands of precious golden artifacts from the pre Colombian tribes of Colombia. The country once had dozens of tribal groups and nearly all of them were experts in the use of gold and this museum contained some of the best examples that survived the plunder of the Spaniards. The museum was larger than we expected and all items had descriptions in English, which was a nice surprise. The quality of the work on display was quite stunning and in particular the small pieces which were extremely intricate. Because the items were
Bogota-Museo del Oro
Golden El Dorado barge of gold the age of the pieces was fairly open but some are assumed to be up to 2500 years old. A few of the pieces I have seen in books like the small fighter jet shaped pieces and the incredibly detailed golden barge of El Dorado.
On the top floor just when we thought we had seen it all and as walking to the stairs to leave a guy in a uniform came rushing up to us telling us that we had missed the best room. He took us back to a spot where a circular door on rollers slid open letting people exit from a darkened room. We wandered into the dark, the door closed and we were given the most incredible light show. The room was circular and around the wall was arranged hundreds of golden artifacts, which were used in a light show depicting the rising and setting of the sun. It was a great way to end our visit to an amazing museum. Probably the only criticism was that there was very little information on the people that created the items but then maybe we don’t really know who they are.
From the
Bogota - Military museum
Machine guns in Military Museum gold museum we walked down through the shops of central Bogota till we got to the main plaza, surrounded by the huge granite edifices of government. Up the road we came to the military museum, and as it was free, how could we resist. The museum was rather small but had a great collection of guns, cannons, aircraft engines and a shooting star fighter jet. After boring Shelley for half an hour we moved onto the Botero art museum, which not only had a large collection of work by Botero but also other artists like Monet, Picasso, Renoir and Dali. We are really starting to fall in love with Botero’s work so it was a real joy to stroll through this gallery. The amazing thing about this art gallery, (along with a lot of other galleries and museums in Colombia) is that it was free. What we found extra amazing is that you are allowed to photograph the paintings, with the only stipulation being that you don’t use the flash. To add to our surprises there was a money museum next door that was also free but we were not allowed to photograph the large antique money making machines……don’t know
Bogota - Military Museum
Shooting star fighter jet in military museum why.
Late afternoon we went in a different direction and found some nicer bars a few blocks from our hotel. After we had a quick look for restaurants, but nothing stood out so we went back to one we had seen earlier it was cheap and basic. The good meals are eluding us this far in Bogota.
Day 206 Friday 4th May After breakfast we tackled the Transmilenio (bus system in Bogota) which is one price to any destination – 1750 pesos (AUD$1.00), it is cheap and it runs regularly the only downside it can be extremely packed. All the buses are the huge bendy type, generally in 2 segments that carry 110 people but there are also ones in three segments. The buses run along bus only lanes and shift over a million people a day, which gives you an idea how many buses there are and how fast the system moves. We worked out the connections to Zona Rosa which included a change of bus and got there no problems. On the way there was a large presence of police at our bus stop they were at the entrance with riot shields and
checking bags and IDs not sure if they are expecting trouble but everything seemed quiet. On the bus trip we saw mounted police, water cannons and lots of police but no trouble maybe it has to do with the FARC action lately, but at no time did we feel unsafe. Zona Rosa is more upmarket than where we are staying with exclusive shops and heaps of restaurants and bars, and I hope a good hairdresser as I need to get my hair done. We walked around the shops which were out of our price range, although I did see a nice Cartier watch that would go with my cargoes and hiking boots. We walked past a hairdressers and I chicken out so we kept walking but found no others and returned, it must have been fate just as I asked if they spoke English a lady paying her bill said “I can help you”. The lady was lovely and translated everything I wanted and checked on the price for me, she even stayed for a while to ensure everything was clear. It all turned out good and I even had my hair blow dried with Farah Fawcett flips which seem
Bogota - Botero Museum
Some of Botero's great art work big here, and now I am all ready for Friday night.
Scott came back and picked me up and we went to a bar he had discovered which he said the prices were reasonable, but I think it was more to do with the pretty waitress that could speak English to him. After a drink we went in search of dinner this area definitely has better looking restaurants and we settled on a chain one called WOK, this was a great choice as it had everything from sushi to curries and it was tasty and reasonably priced. When we walked out the weather was beginning to change and there were large black clouds threatening above, so we high-tailed it back to the bus stop which is under cover. The buses back were packed with people’s faces pressed against the doors, but we were lucky enough to get on one that I could breathe and make it back without a panic attack.
Day 207 Saturday 5th May This morning is raining so we didn’t hit the road till 10.30am and jumped on the buses again this time to Zona G, another area of Bogota that we have read
has a large English bookstore. We have both finished reading the last book and need something new, the bookstore is called Authors and it has a good selection. After 45 minutes we both had chosen our new reading material and went for a walk around the area before getting the bus back to La Candelaria. The buses were so packed we could not get on the express ones so had to opt for an all stops one back to Calle 22 where we changed to the express one to Museo del Oro which is near our hotel.
Late afternoon we walked to the Centro area and found an upstairs bar that had tables overlooking the street with good music playing. There are a lot of bars and nightclubs in this area so we had a choice of places. We sat here for a few hours looking at Bogota life going past plus the multitude of buses that seem to document the history of transport, there are buses of every shape and size in this city. The temperature is a lot cooler tonight and eventually we decided to move on and get some dinner which turned out to be another
Bogota - Botero Museum
Mona Lisa Botero style cheap restaurant that serves huge portions.
We did the long walk back to our hotel checking out the nightlife of Bogota, the streets appear to be relatively safe with lots of people and families. Like all big cities you have to be careful and choose well lit streets with lots of people and watch your belongings.
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traudy glasencnik
non-member comment
Lard lardy lard.
Are all of Botero's sculptures and paintings super sized? I quite like them.where else on this trip did you run into his works? I cant recall what city, you've been to sooooo many. Nice hairdo Shell. I must say you both look great in the photo's posted, fresh, healthy and happy. Love from us xxx