Bogota, Colombia

The first day after I arrived in Bogota I hiked up to Monserrate, the church on a mountain that borders Bogota to the east. Considering that Bogota itself is at an altitude of about 8,300 ft, it was quite taxing, especially after spending more than a day sitting on a bus. The pathway up to the top was buzzing with activity since it was the last Sunday of the year and many people were making the pilgrimage to the church. The trail was essentially one continuous market with one stall after another on the spiraling stone pathway. It took about an hour to walk the stone steps all the way to top, which is at an elevation of about 10,000 ft. At the top there were great views of Bogota as it sprawled away from the hills in all directions.

After lingering at the top for a while I decided to head back down to the city. The alternative to walking up to the top was to take either the cable car or the old railroad. Of the two, the cable car seemed much more terrifying so I opted for that. With the maximum number of people crammed into the cable car we began plummeting nearly straight down towards the base of the mountain, reaching the bottom in a few minutes, definitely a lot quicker than walking and much easier. Following my visit to Monserrate I went to the Museo del Oro to the see the collection of gold artifacts. When I got to the museum there was a sign posted saying that the museum was closed for renovations until 2008 and a few of the most important pieces has been moved to another museum across the neighborhood. I visited this other museum and the few gold pieces that were there were really nice, but the selection was quite limited.

I continued walking through the historic district, La Candelaria, and looked at some of the churches and other buildings. The road was closed in front of the presidential palace and armed guards were walking up and down the sidewalk. When I stepped onto the sidewalk to take a picture the guard told me that I wasn´t allowed to walk on the sidewalk. I was a bit perplexed and I think that was the first time I had been told to walk in the street rather than on the sidewalk. I spent some more time wandering around the city before taking the Transmillenio, Bogota´s mass transit system, back to my lodgings. The Transmillenio is a bus system that runs in special lanes in the middle of the road along selected routes. It is really convenient for the parts of the city that it serves, although it is rather confusing as there are all sorts of different continuing routes marked by different letters and colors and these are interspersed with both normal and express buses to add to the confusion.

The next day I attempted to go to Zipaquira, the underground salt cathedral located an hour north of the city. After a 20 minute Transmillenio ride and another hour on a local bus, followed by a 15 minute walk through town to find the place, I got there around 1pm only to find that they had closed at noon because it was New Year´s Eve. Apparently no one else knew either because there were lots of cars filled with Colombian tourists also trying to get in. Despite the long process involved in getting there I decided that I would have to come back the next day to see it, after all, it is one of the unique attractions in Colombia.

Following several days in the city I have to say that Bogota seems to have a pretty good climate. Due to the elevation it is warm during the day, in the 70s (F) with a strong sun, and cold at night, sometimes down near freezing. I haven´t experienced the rains that are apparently common but other than that it seems quite pleasant and something that I could get used to.

On New Years day I headed back to Zipaquira to finally see the salt cathedral, assured that it would be open by the posted schedule that I had seen. The streets of Bogota were eerily deserted in the late holiday morning as I made my way to the Transmillenio, followed by an hour on the bus, and a fifteen minute walk. I entered the underground labyrinth of the salt cathedral and there was a series of crosses carved into the stone in various forms as I continuously made my way further underground. I didn´t really understand much of what the tour guide was saying as it was difficult to understand the Spanish echoing off the cavernous walls of stone.

Eventually we reached the overlook for the main cathedral, an immense room with wooden benches and a huge cross that was carved into the stone wall at the back with various lighting effects creating a stunning scene. Soon the room filled up with people attending the service and I began to wander back up to the surface. Many of the pictures that I had scene of the salt cathedral were of the old version, which was ornately decorated to the point where it made the cave unstable and the area has since been sealed off. That was in 1985 and since then this new salt cathedral had been constructed, though it is much less elaborate, its shear size was impressive.

When I surfaced to the bright mid-day sun I sat down to look at the map of Bogota and decide what I was going to do next. While sitting there, a Colombian family approached me and asked if I needed help. The man, Gernan, spoke English rather well and so we talked for a while and I spoke with his children and his wife´s parents a little in Spanish. They asked if I wanted to come back to Bogota with them to a New Year´s Day party. I agreed, not knowing exactly what to expect but figuring it would be an interesting experience.

We arrived at their friend´s apartment in Bogota and I walked in with the family to everyone suddenly staring at me. We proceed to go up to the rooftop where they were busy grilling all sorts of meats and vegetables, talking, and enjoying the nice weather. Gernan introduced me to everyone and we waited for the food to finish cooking. When the food came his wife´s mother made sure that I tried everything; there was lots of steak, various sausages, potatoes, and other things that I couldn´t identify. When I enquired about one particular sausage, it had rice and peas and a red paste in it, he said it didn´t really translate but said that I should try it. I tasted it and I found it to be very good. Then I asked him what the red stuff was inside it and he said, “Oh that´s the blood of the pig.”

After eating we played a traditional Colombian game called Tejo, which involves throwing a metal disk that weighs about 2 pounds towards a sloped board covered in clay. At the center of the board there is a metal ring and at the top and bottom two explosive triangles are placed as targets. Normally you throw from very far distances like 30 meters or so, but since we were on a rooftop it was only possible to throw from about 20 feet. The object is to hit the explosives, causing them to explode, but you can also score points for hitting the center of the ring and by landing your disk closest to the center. It was pretty fun and the loud bang that happens when you hit the explosive was startling. We played several rounds and I was able to hit the explosive a few times, so not a bad effort for my first time.

As it began to get dark everyone started to leave so they took me to the bus station so I could buy a bus ticket to San Agustin, my next destination. I thought that they would merely drop me off there but they were so nice that they parked the car and came inside with me and helped me buy the ticket. It was quite an ordeal because the bus terminal in Bogota very large with separate terminals for each direction of travel. After finding the south terminal there were about 20-30 different bus companies there. I asked how one is supposed to know which company goes where and apparently you have to go up and ask each one or look for some small signs; quite the system they have developed. Fortunately, I was able to get a ticket and then the Colombians were nice enough to drive me back to where I was staying. They even offered to let me stay with them the next time I was in Bogota.

So far on my trip, brief as it has been, I have met some great people who have definitely made my trip much more enjoyable. While traveling has much to offer, such as the opportunity to see and experience a wealth of different things, the problem with traveling is that you are doing just that, traveling. When you travel, it seems that you are always leaving something behind, whether it be a unique place or interesting people, the only consolation is the hope that your next destination holds more of the same.