Bogota

Day 1 – Columbia’s Capital

We got up in time for breakfast today and after that we spent the morning catching up on the blog and a bit more travel research.

It was then time to leave Villa Del Leyva and head for the big bad city of Bogota.  Once again, we had to drag our bags over the cobbles, but we did find an easier route. We made the bus station for 11am and got on a mini-bus for our drive to the capital.

 

 

The bus was a bit cramped and we ended up on the back seats. I got into a conversation with an American who was a big sports fan and was surprisingly a big fan of English football.  As we were gassing about sports Shell switched off and got into her book.

We arrived in Bogota around 3pm and quickly found ourselves a taxi to drive us the rest of the way to our hostel.  After a few detours and the help of our phone sat-nav we finally arrived at our hostel which was in the tourist area of La Candelaria.

Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, but the hostel was run by two sweet old ladies that made us coffee whilst we waited and tried their best to chat to us.  When our room was ready we found that it was quite small but it would do for a couple of nights.

 

 

Once unpacked and locked up we headed out of the hostel to have a look around our area.  Our first impressions that it was quite an edgy but funky place with lots of young people drinking in the nearby square.

 

We wandered around for a bit looking for a nice bar but after not much luck we returned to our square (incidentally considered to be the first settlement of natives in Bogota) where we found a dimly lit but interesting bar.

Being too lazy to find anywhere else we remained in that bar for the rest of the night and ran up quite a big tab before calling it a night and heading back to our hostel.

Day 2 – Escobar, Gold & Posh Coffee

Shell had heard a loud conversation downstairs around 7am and from what she gathered it concerned us.  Back in Taganga we had a message from the girl from Brighton saying she had left her bikini and other bits there and could we bring them to Bogota with us.  We had agreed to leave it in reception but had forgotten, she had sent a guy to pick them up, so I had to rush downstairs to hand them over just as he was leaving in a taxi.

Now that we were up we headed down for breakfast which was quite simple but nice, boiled eggs, bread and some good Columbian coffee.

Around 9am we headed out in search of the Bogota free walking tour, after wandering around for a bit we found the location where it started but we were very early.  In order to kill some time, we looked for a café where we could get a coffee, but had trouble finding one.  Instead we found a street vendor where we ordered two cappuccinos’ and took them to a square.  Unfortunately, these coffee’s had more sweet toppings that a 99 flake and were disgusting, we did our best to remove the offending topping whilst watching all the kids skateboarding in the square.

We then noticed the guy who was running the walking tour so went over and signed up.  The tour started in the nearby square and continued through the streets to another square where we were told about the illegal emerald trade that takes place there.

 

 

The guide also explained all about Bolivar who liberated 5 South American countries from the Spanish and although a hero throughout South America he eventually became hated here as he became a bit of a dictator in Columbia (he died unloved and penniless).  Apparently for the Columbian’s his second in command, Santander, is considered to be the national hero, not Bolivar.

Another stop on the way was pretty much the reason for Columbia’s recent troubles.  It was a building where back in the 60’s the president elect and new hope for Columbia’s people was assassinated.  There were three theories (although no one knows), the opposition party had him shot, the government did it or because he had communist sympathy’s and idea’s the CIA did it.

Whatever the truth the upshot was that the people were distraught and believed they had no future so they took to the streets and rioted.  The guide showed us some before and after pictures which showed the magnitude of the riots, with everything smashed and buildings being torn down, it looked as though a hurricane had hit the city.  After the rioting this is when the various guerrilla armies started up and caused Columbia a lot of pain until the peace treaty with the main Guerrilla army was agreed a couple of months ago.

Next, we went to the main square where we were informed all about Columbia’s most infamous son, Pablo Escobar.  One of the most interesting things was that in the 80’s the palace of justice was attacked by one of the most notorious guerrilla groups and the stormed the building and killed lots of people.

 

 

Once again there are two very popular conspiracy theories concerning this.  Firstly, Pablo Escobar was trying to avoid extradition to the US so he paid $2M to the Guerrilla’s to do this and destroy all the records in the place.  The other theory is that on the day 50 of the normal security guards failed to turn up for work, which led to the thinking that the government had a tip off about the attack. The thinking is they let it happen as there was only one way in and out of this building, so they could capture or kill all of this guerrilla group easily.  There is a lot more to these theories but you will have to wait until we get home.

The churches also have an interesting story as they all have little side doors. Back in the day the masses went on forever and were quite boring and in latin, so the side door was introduced so the men folk could slip out to the pub for a few beers and then return later, making the service more enjoyable for themselves.

Walking through various street, getting a lot of information from the guide,  we then stopped at the Boteli museum (the guy that paints everything as fat). We entered the museum and had a look at some of his paintings (really good when you see them together), the guide gave us some background on a couple of pictures, pointing out if you see a nude with a freckle on her bum, that’s his wife.

 

 

Walking some more, we then went into a café where we were introduced to the local hard liquor, which was Chicha.  It is a fermented corn drink which was originally banned by the government but is now back on the menu.  The drink itself is very easy to make and is surprisingly quite nice, I may have to set up a distillery when I get home!

 

 

Our final stop was at a large library where you got some nice views of the city from and the guide did his final round up. We then paid our tips to him and after getting chatting to an Irish lad, Ian he decided to come with us for a spot of lunch.

We headed for a restaurant that was recommended to us by our hostel that supposedly did a very good Ajiaco, which we had previously been told on the Medallin walking tour was a must when you were in Bogota.

Ajiaco is a Columbian chicken soup, we all opted for that.  When it turned up it was a very nice heavily populated chicken soup with a corn on the cob in the middle.  The dish is also accompanied by a side of capers, rice (which you add to the soup) and a half of avocado and rice.   It was delicious, we highly recommend it if you are ever in Columbia (John that’’s a recipe for you to look up, we’re back in three weeks!!!).

 

 

After lunch, we said our goodbye’s to Ian and headed back to where the walking tour started. We had been advised that Bogota’s gold museum is the best in the country and also was a must do, so we paid our entry fee and headed in.

In this museum, there is three floors with literally hundreds of pieces of Inca gold, ranging from crowns to death masks.

Although it was quite amazing we felt that there was not enough information on the pieces and after the second floor, we were a bit museumed/golded out.  However, we did get to the third floor where they had one of their most highly regarded pieces, which was a depiction of an Inca ceremony.

 

Just as we were going to head back down an attendant pointed out a room where there was some sort of show going on but we had to wait 5 minutes for the one in progress to finish.  When we did enter, it was quite dark and we found ourselves in a circular room.  Gradually the room started to light up and some native chanting started.  As it grew lighter it looked like there were patterns on the walls, but as it grew lighter still it turned out that the patterns were literally hundreds of pieces of Inca gold, very impressive.

 

When the show finish we then went to the basement to try another must do as recommended on the walking tour, which was to try some of Columbia’s finest (no not that, coffee!).  We went to the café an ordered a couple of normal coffee’s but the waiter upsold us a different coffee.

We sat down and waited for a while before the waiter turned up with a big filter contraption and some weighing scales.  He then spent the next few minutes weighing out water and gradually adding the water to the filter a bit at a time.  It all seemed a bit over the top and poncy but fair enough it did turn out to be one of the best coffee’s we had, even with the coffee being black.  I could drink it black in the future if it was that good.

 

 

It was still not that late in the afternoon so we decided to head back to the Boteli museum again to have a proper look around.  Besides the Boteli painting there was a lot of other painting by modern artists such as Picasso, Freud and Turner.  One really interesting piece was a sculpture by Dali.

 

 

Now we were really museumed out so we headed back to our local square where we thought we would get down with the kids. We purchased some beers and sat down with them on the curb (what you do here). We were soon joined by Ian from the walking tour who bumped into us.  Ian stayed with us for a couple before he had to head off to book a flight and join up with a pub crawl he had booked on.  We stayed there for a couple more and people watched for a while until the call of nature got too much for us, running back to the hostel for a pee once was enough.

 

Combined with the fact that it was also getting dark meant we retreated to the bar from the night before for a couple more (and toilet facilities) before headed back to the hostel for bed.