Bogota - Botero, Beer and Baddies

We arrived in Bogota late at night and caught a howling taxi through the empty streets of the city to our hostel, Casa Platypus, in the old centre of town, La Candeleria.

Once we had showered we walked outside to have a look around. The streets were completely deserted (it was a Monday night) but we came across a dark, narrow drinking den through a concrete door, filled with an interesting bunch of Colombians knocking back Aguila after Aguila – the cheapest beer in town. The room had blue walls, a guitar-shaped juke box, odd pieces of art and an old organ. Daggy cool.

Favourite drinking spot - blue walls, bench seats, odd mural, guitar shaped jukebox

Bogota is the third highest capital city in the world (after La Paz and Quito) and although the rest of Colombia is hot and tropical, Bogota is cold and wet. Miserable wet. We were told that it has been overcast and rainy every day for the past year, and our experience there was no different.

On our first day we decided to check out the old quarter – but about 5 minutes into our foray it started pouring. The city was bustling with people, and within about 2 minutes the streets and pathways became torrential streams of water. Everyone squeezed themselves into crevices and sheltered areas along the sides of the roads, and watched as brave people, or people who just had somewhere to be, took running leaps across the roads which had become rivers. So many wet feet.

After the downpour, we walked to Plaza Bolivar, the centre of the city, surrounded by important buildings – the usual suspects: a church or two, miscellaneous government buildings, the Supreme Court etc. In the centre was a statue of Simon Bolivar on a horse, completely covered in graffiti – political slogans and the like.

Rain in Plaza Bolivar

The Supreme Court was an ugly monster of a building. It was rebuilt in the late 90s after a siege in the 80’s in which a group called M-19 stormed the building and took all the Supreme Court judges as well as hundreds of others hostage. It was claimed that Pablo Escobar paid the group to burn files relating to pending extradition charges against him. After a stand off lasting weeks, the army was sent in. In the process, all of the judges and the staff of the Supreme Court were killed (wow) and the building was burnt to the ground. The burnt ruins remained sitting in the same position for the next 7 or so years as the violence continued in the city.

We stopped for a traditional Colombian snack at a famous sweet shop called La Puerta Falsa. We had a huge tamale and hot chocolate with cheese – you are actually supposed to dip the cheese in the milk – and it works pretty well!

Cheese and hot chocolate

In the evening, we went on what became a bit of a bar-hopping-expedition of La Candeleria:

• We started with 2 for 1 mojitos at a little Thai place – serving the only vegetables we have eaten in weeks;
• Moved onto a grungy little coffee shop serving hot aguadiente (a Colombian spirit – literally ‘firewater’) tea – I had one mixed with passionfruit – super strong;
• Went to a blue-lit drinking hall filled with office workers knocking back huge piles of beers after work (you keep bottles at your table and they are counted when you leave); and
• ended at our fave little tavern from the first night.

Picture in a bar

Happy

Other Bogota highlights:

• Danger…? Umm… Lonely Planet says Bogota and is a safe place to travel and we felt pretty comfortable strolling around on our first couple of days. However, 2 things:
• First, we met up with a friend for dinner who has been living in Bogota for a few months. He started out living in an apartment in the centre of La Candeleria but had since moved to a place in a different area. The reason why - in the course of a few weeks, the apartment security guard was kidnapped and murdered and another person was stabbed on the pavement outside the building. Fair enough.

Dinner with Jonathan at Wok

• Second, we met an American writer, Mark, at breakfast one morning. He was from Chicago but had lived in Bogota in 1992 to 1993 when things were “unbelievably bad” (as he described). During that time, he had lived on the same street as we were staying and said that if you went walking down our street at night during that time, there was a pretty good chance (50-50) that you would get robbed or worse. While he admitted things had improved in leaps and bounds since then, he said that he had received multiple warnings from locals when walking around the area the night before that he should NOT be there. 
• After receiving these 2 pieces of information within 12 hours, we were a little more cautious about our late night walkings.
• Botero museum – free, and full of paintings and sculptures of rolley-polley people and things. Botero, who is still alive and painting, is a legend throughout Colombia. Prints and figurines of his plump people are available everywhere.

Botero Museum

Feeling a bit pale

Even the cake is fat

• Birthday – sadly, we were feeling a little unwell for my birthday but still managed to have a beautiful dinner out in Zona Rosa – although we struggled to finish the bottle of wine.

• Leon Ferrari exhibition – a political modern artist.

Leon Ferrari - cool, hangy thing ... meaning ?

An arty take on architectural plans

• Explorations of Zona Rosa – the rich area of town, complete with some very cool shopping centres.
• More explorations of La Candeleria.

Police escort for kids on excursion

La Candeleria 

La Candeleria

• Woops - after 4 days we went to catch what we thought was a 8 hour bus to Medellin . However, the highway to Medellin was closed due to bad flooding and landslides. It was a 14 hour journey on back streets.

Grey excited for the '9' hour bus trip ...