Running With Pigeons- Our Highlight Of Bogota

Trip Start Sep 29, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Colombia  ,
Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Last night we slept on a pillow that was like a block of stale bread and had cold showers. The Platypus was a ¨backpackers¨ hostel as we expected and full of Aussies, the owner Germain made up for this by helping us out with loads of answers to our questions. Before going to bed i was talking to some English lads who had been to see a guy in Bogota who is making leather jackets that are bullet proof for politicians. The  guys showed me some video footage of them being shot at close range and they had the squashed bullet as a souvenir. Only in Colombia hey! We don´t really feel the need to be shot at in Colombia.

We woke early to the rainy, cold city of Bogota and decided not to climb the Monseratte Mountain because the views would be obscured. Instead we decided to do a city wander and check out the atmosphere around the old and new areas. The gold museum and the Botero art museum were closed on Tuesdays so we hit the pavement and wandered down Carrera 7 to see what we could find. It was a most random day because Bogota is a bizarre mixture of everything. It is bustling and noisy, amazing but aweful, fascinating but dangerous.

We stumbled across a small Colombian cafe in La Candelaria called Antigua Santa Fe where the ladies were serving quality traditional dishes as well as lush confectionery and pastries Miss Colombia billboard
Miss Colombia billboard
 . We ordered the delicious local Bogotan dish of Ajiaco soup which was a creamy potato-y, cheesy soup base with capers, herbs, chicken, a whole corn cob and served with an avocado and rice. One bowl was very filling and enough for two people. We also had another specialty of Colombia which is the hot chocolate with cheese and bread dipped into it. Sounds terrible but is quite tasty if you let the contents sit for awhile before drinking.

The street vendors were out and about very early setting up their spaces on the floor, their trolleys and stalls full of goods and food of every kind. We hit the Bolivar Plaza which was filled with pigeons and school children harrassing them. There are photographers there who drop corn and bread so the birds flock around people for shots to be taken and sold. Running around with the pigeons was loads of fun and the highlight of our day in Bogota. There are loads of armed military men milling around and scioping out their assigned corners. Nadine got in trouble for walking on the wrong side of the pavement in front of a government looking building. We spent some time in a large red and white church we dubbed ¨The Barbershop Church¨ which had elaborate tiling and paint restoration work.

The walk down Carrera 7 gave us a good insight into the frantic city life of the inhabitants who live here. We saw some hilarious random things going on. This includes the giant shoe and the giant pearl necklaces in the shop windows, also some stilt walkers dressed as cowboys and handing out flyers for a steak rodeo themed restaurant Bogota streets
Bogota streets
 . There was also a ¨Wimpy Burger¨and a guy selling those sticky hand army men toys from the eighties that stick to and roll down the window when you throw them. We stumbled across the black market smugglers area where there was all kinds of crazy items for sale including antennas, mobile phone cords, remote controls, electrical gear, massage tools and batteries amongst every other random thing. Another interesting thing was a giant old school style bingo hall where people were going nuts playing all kinds of games at the same time. I scoped out the second hand stalls for the joker playing cards i collect and then scored two new ones at the hostel tonight. Horse and carts ride around  in the city next to taxis and traffic chaos. There are mobile coffee men who run around in uniforms with metal urns on their backs and sell coffee to office workers around town.

Bogota really is the quintessence of all things Colombian. It´s a huge Latin American city which offers just about every modern Western convenience and suffers from every third- world problem.It´s a city of museums, architecture, churches, universities, intellectuals and artists with a vibrant and diverse cultural life. Yet, it is also a city of vast shantytowns, street urchins, beggars, thieves, itinerant vendors, wild traffic and graffiti. The city seems to go on for miles and miles, around 7 million people live here. We are still at altitude too, sitting at around 2600metres.

We tried to get into the Maloka science centre but it was closed. We hit up the cinema for ¨The Sex In The City Movie¨ in English! and loved every minute of it. When we went to come back to the hostel we got on the wrong local collectivo bus and ended up in the wrong part of town driving through countless undistinguished lower income suburbs, something you don´t really want to do in Colombia especially in thhe capital. The process to get back took two hours and some help from some friendly Colombian commuters one of which even got off the bus in the pouring rain to help us. We arrived back just in time to pick up the Galapagos photos which turned out great and had a dinner of salad before hitting the hard as a block of  stale bread pillows in preparation for an early start tomorrow. That´s enough of the city for us.
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