We had read a lot about Bogota before visiting. It was boring. It was just a dirty city. There was nothing to do. Our first thoughts when we got off of the bus were… wow, Bogota is cold! That’s the first thing we notice. Usually, we’ve seen locals wearing jumpers and coats whilst we are still in flip flops and shorts, but this time we are joining them!
We weren’t really sure what to expect of Colombia’s capital as many people have said they didn’t like it. We, however, were loving it from the moment we arrived. We stayed in La Candelaria which is an alternative area covered in graffiti. Grafitti is absolutely everywhere in Bogota and is actually encouraged to avoid the scrawled tagging which covered houses and shops otherwise.
We joined a Free Walking Tour, which is now our favourite way to orientate ourselves within a city. Although the guide didn’t quite match up to the guy we had in Medellin it was great; very informative. It is still so interesting to learn about Colombia’s violent past, which really wasn’t that long ago and shows you why Colombians are the way they are; generous, kind and really, really grateful that tourists now realise they won’t be shot just for going to Colombia!
We also took a graffiti tour (another ‘free’ tour, tip dependant). It was interesting to learn about the history of culture and graffiti here, as well as the local artists. There are some fantastic elements to the graffiti here that you won’t appreciate unless you go on the tour so I really enjoyed it.
We took a local bus to a town called Zipaquira to see an underground cathedral made of SALT. The entire cathedral; choir, kneeling platforms and chapels were all entirely made of salt by minors, 200 metres underground. We licked the walls just to be sure…! It’s a crazy sight and I am sure we won’t find anything like this elsewhere on our trip. Apparently the cathedral hosts over 3000 people for services on Sundays!
Continuing our church theme, we hiked up to the chapel which overlooks the city. It was a tough hike up there and we were really impressed to see how many Colombians were out for Saturday morning exercise. As we went on we realised that they were actually making their pilgrimages up to the church. Old ladies with no shoes on, a man with one leg, a man with no legs at all…. all making their trip up to Monseratte just before Easter.
Bogota gave us some of the best and worst food experiences we have had so far. On our first night we headed to a restaurant famous for it’s local food. We were offered ‘chocolate con queso’ and accepted it thinking we’d try it and that it couldn’t possibly be chocolate with cheese…. It was. It was horrible, yet all the locals, everywhere we went were enjoying it! A bowl of hot chocolate with cheese in it and sweet bread. When our hostel offered us chocolate with our breakfast the next morning we both said ‘NO!!! Gracias’.
However, we also enjoyed amazing tamales; steamed parcels with vegetables and meat inside, and the local Chicha drink which is sold everywhere but mass manufactured no where; each bar makes it’s own and we had a great evening in a bar in La Candelaria sampling it with the locals. It burnt your throat!
Our strange little old hostel (Hostal Bellavista) didn’t seem like much at first but ended up being one of the best places we have stayed so far. The owners were so kind, and so caring, and they made us breakfast each morning. They laughed at us when we told them we were going to take the Transmilenial (bus network) in the dark to the terminal, and asked us how we were going to run away from bad people with huge bags on?! We aren’t getting complacent, but just haven’t seen anything particuarly threatening in Colombia yet. They told us to get a taxi instead as it was safer.
We have plans in Quito so are pushing on to cross the border but if it wasn’t for this we both agreed that we would stay double the amount of time we had planned in Bogota. Love this city!
