Day 426: Bogota’s Free Walking Tour & Gold Museum

We were on the fence about how long we were going to stay in Bogota. We kept hearing conflicting opinions. Bogota was better than Medellin. No, Medellin was better. We were at a loss of where to spend more time before catching a flight to the coast. In the end, despite liking Bogota quite a bit, we decided to head to Medellin sooner in hopes it would be warmer. So with our last day in Bogota (today) we went on the free walking tour, checked out Museo del Oro (The Gold Museum) and even hopped in a taxi to check out the Usaquen Flea Market.

Because we were suddenly pressed for time, we signed up for the free walking tour in Spanish, reassuring ourselves that we needed the practice. Despite understanding most of the Spanish, I was still grateful our guide was bilingual and often gave us a quick recap in English to make sure we understood. The tour wasn’t very long, but it was nice to have a few things pointed out to us that we would have missed otherwise. Below is the president’s house, an elite high-school (if I remember correctly) and a statue commemorating Colombia’s independence.

I felt pretty safe in Bogota. It was grimy and it didn’t always look the safest, but there were so many police officers around looking out for city-dwellers and tourists alike. You can see two officers on the corner below. I think there were four in total. Mostly because this street led to the president’s house, office, and many political buildings… but still, I was grateful and appreciated being able to keep my camera out instead of buried in a backpack on Andrew’s back throughout our entire visit.

We stopped by the cultural center where a public dance class was being held. They were learning (or practicing) the tango. After the tour, Andrew and I had a traditional lunch: an order of ajiaco (a super hearty soup full of chicken, potatoes, and more) and then made our way towards the Museo del Oro a few blocks away. The walk there was full of pedestrians, street performers, human statues, and vendors.

We didn’t plan on visiting the Gold Museum on its ‘free day.’ This was a bit of a mistake. It was packed. So packed, we would speed walk through certain exhibition spaces that were too crowded for our liking. It offers an impressive display of gold and pre-Colombian artifacts. I loved the clay pieces you see above, and was a little disappointed we didn’t see any recreations for sale outside of the museum. I also loved the earrings below. I usually prefer silver, but I would not pass up the opportunity to have a wall full of gold earrings if the opportunity ever presents itself!

The Usaquen Flea Market was a little far, and only seemed accessible by car (or taxi in our case). I was expecting a more traditional flea market, full of used goods, antiques, and the like. The ‘flea’ market was a little more crafty and perhaps trendy(?) than I would have liked. Andrew really wasn’t this grumpy while we strolled through the market, but I thought his expression fit our overall experience.

I debated buying a wooden door (slightly similar to those I admired so much in Salento) but they weren’t nearly as colorful, and in the end settled for a slice of raspberry cheesecake instead.

Day 425: Monserrate

Monserrate is a mountain on the edge of Bogota that holds a church and beautiful panorama views of the city below. We unknowingly went on a Sunday (our sense of what day it is has been long gone) and despite the little bit of rain we still had to navigate our way around the many pilgrims that had made the climb, or rode the tramway or funicular (like we did) to the top. By the time we made it into the church, a mass was well underway. We checked out the chapel in the back, made our way back down the mountain and headed towards the Botero Museum before calling it a day.

Apparently – according to Wikipedia, The people of Bogota believe, if a dating couple visits Monserrate, the relationship will be cursed and will not last. Andrew assures me that this does not apply to us. “We are so beyond dating.”

“What are we then?” I asked, curious and all about putting him on the spot and blogging all. about. it.

“We are in love.” He responded. And I rolled my eyes.

Back down in the heart of Bogota, we decided to duck into the Botero Museum on our way back to our guesthouse. I’m pretty sure this was the first time we were able to walk into an art museum on this trip and not have to pay an outrageous fee. We didn’t have to pay at all! A free art museum! Point for Bogota – and Botero!

From the courtyard of Museo Botero, we could see Monserrate and the church atop. Usually pilgrims make it a point to go up for dusk, but I thought the view of the mountain at dusk was pretty from below! As we made our way back to our guesthouse before it became too dark (and perhaps a little too dangerous to walk around with my camera) we stopped to watch a street performance that was suuuper popular with everyone else. It was a bit hard to follow, but they seemed to be a big hit with the locals. For part of their performance they were singing in Spanish, judging by the amount of laughs, it must have been pretty hilarious. Practicing my newly acquired Spanish in Colombia is not the easiest thing. The dialect or accent is getting harder and harder to understand the more north we travel.

Day 424: Street Art in Bogota

It was supposed to take us eight hours to get from Armenia to Bogota. It took us fifteen.

We later found out that this is fairly common. We shared a taxi into the city with two other travelers and after dropping them off, we arrived at our guesthouse in Bogota around midnight, utterly exhausted. In my efforts to not bore you with another day of us sitting on a bus, or complaining about sitting on said bus, I put together a melange of street art that we discovered during our stay in Bogota. Just in our late night taxi ride from the station to our guesthouse alone, I was amazed by the beautiful murals along the highway. They were everywhere. They were beautiful. They were big. While it was too dark to shoot footage from the cab at night, I found some other equally impressive art throughout Bogota and tried to record as much of it as I could. Had we known from the start of our stay, we would have readily gone on the Bogota Street Art Tour, but didn’t find out about it until we were on our way out of the city.

There are some impressive artists in Bogota. Unfortunately the links that the aforementioned tour provide didn’t work for me, except this one. DJLU was one of my favorites. Also scattered around the city, were these public sculptures of famous artists as well as political and historical figures sitting on rooftops. As well as a few colorful walls and doors dotted the streets as well. How could I refuse taking a picture of this pretty juxtaposition of color?