Smoggy Boggy-ta

We’ve been in Columbia 2 weeks already, having arrived in the middle of Feb. We’ve been to many areas and covered a lot of ground, back tracking quite often, which has resulted in a somewhat haphazard approach to our route. Planning is quite hard when the places we want to visit are stretched out across all parts of the country. When this is then mixed with unpredictable external factors such as surprisingly high rates for guides, guerrilla presence in certain areas and of course our great friend, the weather and its decision to bring the rain early, it makes things even harder. Logistically speaking, Columbia has so far been a challenge! 

We landed in Bogata from La Paz on very little sleep. Our first impressions were all very positive. Nice big shiny new airport, frequent buses to the old historical area of La Candelaria, where we had pre-booked a hostel. On arriving at the hostel, we were even given a free breakfast whilst we waited for our room to be made. It was a Sunday and ridiculously early still, so we decided to head up Cerro Monserrate – one of the guardian hills on the eastern side of the city. Perched on the top is the Lord of Monserrate basilica which has been a place of worship since colonial times and is now a big attraction of the city.

With over 1500 steps to the top, it is a hard climb but the view is amazing, so we joined the locals that frequent the place at the weekend, making the trip to the top either on foot or via cable car. It was no mean feat at a height of 3152m with over a 1500m ascent. To keep motivation high, the edges of the staircase were lined with snack sellers the entire way up. The occasional flat area held market stalls and little shacks serving hot food and beers. It was very festival like and we sampled all the different types of street food we could. Partly out of hunger, mostly just out of interest. The supersized corn on the cobs went down well. So did the portions of sheep cheese and the mixture of meat and corn mush steamed in a banana leaf called Tamale. However, the solid sweet chutney thing to go with the sheep cheese had to be ditched. So did the gooey elastic looking mashmallow thing in a cup that was sweeter than sugar, and so did the extra chutney I accidently bought because it was unidentifiable and looked nice, wrapped up in a little bamboo package with a bamboo reed bow. Mostly, people were nice, especially the vendors, but we did encounter the odd murmur of ‘look, gringos’ from some of the younger locals. 

Half way up Cerro Monserrate in Bogota

Nearly at the top

View from the top

Beer and Tamale (corn and meat mash) - Tim was just going for the corn bits here.

We then did the rightful touristy thing of visiting the Museum of Gold. Being a Sunday, the museum was free and provided necessary shelter from the rain that was just starting as we neared it. There were so many pieces of gold on display and we read, as well as we could, with overly tired and jaded eyes, the meaning behind each and how the pieces may have been used by the ancient civilisations that created them. The intricacy of some of the pieces was overwhelming but unfortunately even the sight of so much bling couldn’t reinvigorate our sleepy souls so we skipped a few pieces, but it was still an impressive lot. 

Pieces were made with dangly bits to create music and sounds. It was unbelievingly ornate

Necklaces were made by gluing semi spheres together

Rollers were used for painting parts of the body - my favourite piece!

An old version of our modern day spork

A particularly ornate snuff tray

Attire for burials of the prestigous

Representative of the rafts used during the ritual processes where they would offer up sacrifices into the lake

Luckily by the time we left the museum, the torrential rain had managed to wash away most of the tramps that were hanging around outside the museum, but unfortunately it wasn’t strong enough to wash away the horrendous amount of graffiti and rubbish that littered the plaza. This trail of disrespect for anything prestigious or ornate continued with us back to the ‘nice area’ of La Candeleria, and together with the armed guards on all street corners, our impression of Bogata was starting to slide.

Our classy first night out in a Bogota that went to bed before we ate. We therefore ended up with a reheated empanada and beer in a shop.

Rain threatened most of the next morning so we decided against the bike tour of the city. Instead we did a bit of chilling and planning at the hostel and looked into areas of the country that might offer some good hiking. We were torn between the mountains to the east or west but opted to head west as there was more chance of multi-day hikes and we could visit the famous zona cafeteria on route. The weather forecast wasn’t looking great, unfortunately it appeared as though the mini rainy season of March-May had reared its ugly head a little early, but rainy countryside is still better than a rainy city! 

To secure places on the often full up buses we headed into downtown Bogota to the ticket office of the bus company to try booking tickets to Salento for the next day. In hindsight, we really needn’t have done this, especially when you take into account the route we chose to get there. Not knowing the city too well we weren’t aware it could change from idyllic, historical, tourist trap central into gang-land, drug ridden divehole within the space of a street. The middle of the road was in the process of being dug up, forcing us to sidle past people just hanging around outside their front doors, smoking. Some were sitting on upturned crates and another was standing under an umbrella he had wedged between the wall and a streetlamp. He muttered something as we walked under it and shouted to some other fella up the road. Different music was playing from different parts of the street, some people were yelling at each other, others were just staring at us as we marched through their area, with a shallow confidence. Personally I thank the torrential rain that hit us at the same time for making me appear so pissed off and angry that no one dare approach me for fear of losing their own life. Totally wet and with no real idea of exactly where the office was based, we decided to get out of there and head back to the hostel. We’d just risk the bus out of this place not being full up the next day! 

After drying off and changing we found a bar and had a good couple of beers to celebrate the fact we were still alive and laughed at how bad we do in cities. Feeling drunk after 4 bottles of beer, I blame the altitude, we headed back to the hostel for some veg and quinoa – our simple yet effective hostel favourite, followed by chocolate and an episode of Storm Chasers on You Tube. We are now well aware that in 2 months’ time we’ll be chasing again on the Plains and the excitement is starting to creep up on us! 

Doing better on the beer front the next day - thanks bud for the Columbian beer vouchers!

The next morning we headed to the bus terminal. We obviously got lost a bit first, and in fact nearly ended up back at the airport. But with the help of some locals, we eventually found the bus terminal and got ourselves a ticket out of the big bad city and onwards to Salento, a small town in the heart of the Zona Cafeteria, where hopefully less hectic times lay ahead!