The first thing that I noticed about Bogota was the weather again. It was the exact opposite of Cartagena; really cold!

Since it’s actually south of Cartagena I was expecting warmer weather, but because it’s high in altitude it was significantly colder and not very sunny. But there was a temporary solution for feeling cold. A very tasty herbal tea called “Aromatica” and it’s sold by street vendors throughout the city, with a little lemon, honey and shot of aguardiente if you are really cold.

My hostel was in a neighborhood called Candelaria, which is supposedly where the city originally started and where most hostels seem to be and several university buildings as well. Which was great because the students brought the prices of food and restaurants in the area back down. I heard a lot of good things about the bike tour through the city so I decided to try it out. It’s also a great way to discover some other neighborhoods other than Candelaria. The tour started in the Parque de las Periodistas, which is one of many parks in the city. There were some very important and huge riots close to this park in Bogota’s history. It all started when the banana plantation workers went on strike to ask for better working conditions. The government at the time decided to take the employers side and crush the strikes. One politician stood up for the workers and was very determined until he was assassinated near the park. This led to the huge riots and derailing burning of the city’s trams. As was the case in the Medillin tour, this was one of many assassination stories told on the tour. Our tour took place on a Sunday, which meant “Ciclovía”, where some streets are closed off just for bikes all day to encourage people to exercise more and use their cars less on the weekend. We biked through the streets and passed by a fruit market to try some of the more exotic fruits Colombia has to offer. This was actually really useful, to avoid buying a lot of something you might not really like. My favorite fruits from the tasting session were Granadilla (similar to Maracuja but sweeter) and Tomate de Arbol (looks like a small tomato but tastes sweeter and is great as a juice). Afterwards we passed by the bull fighting ring, which has not seen any bulls for a while, since it was banned a few years ago. However, the workers went on a hunger strike inside the ring for a few days and ran out suddenly claiming there were ghosts inside. It may have been hallucinations induced by hunger, but there is pressure on the city mayor to re-open the ring for bull fighting.

The next stop was a huge national park, which was full of people playing roller hockey, doing capoeira, skate boarding, having picnics, jogging or just chilling. We tried a very popular snack/drink called Salpicón, which is fruit juice with small pieces of fruit inside. They also had fruit salad with cheese! And as if that’s not enough to get your juices flowing, they also drink their hot chocolate with cheese here 😉

Then we passed through some more alternative neighborhoods to check our some graffiti and passing by the garbage museum. This was an artist’s idea to remind people of their consumption behavior. “People throw away things everyday and never expect to see them again. Here, they can.” Unfortunately it was closed for entry on Sundays, so we moved on to see more graffiti, which plays an important role in the city today. After a 16-year old boy was stopped and shot by the police a few years ago for painting some graffiti. If that wasn’t bad enough, Justin Bieber had a concert in Bogota a few years later and when asked what would you like to do after the concert, he said he wanted to paint a graffiti somewhere in the city. So amongst heavy police protection, he went ahead and painted a Marijuana leaf and canadian flag. This image of the police, who shot the colombian teenager and were now protecting Justin Bieber was too much to take. Once they saw this, hundreds of graffiti artists and young people went out on the streets the next day and painted graffiti all over the city’s walls and the police was unable to do anything about it but stand back and watch as the youth re-defined the status quo. Today you can see lot’s of graffiti around the city and sometimes it is even encouraged by officials.

Our final stop was a local Tejo Bar, which is a very crazy colombian style bowling or actually more similar to the french game “boules” or “petanque”. We walked in the place quite innocent and noticed that people were throwing things across the hall and the spectators weren’t watching them but us. So we thought, of course we are tourists and they don’t see many. Then with a very loud bang, we understood why. As each of us ducked, fell or turned around quickly at the loud sound of a gun shot, they all started laughing and pointing at us and returned to watching their friends playing. So the game consists of a mound of clay about 25 meters away. In the middle of this clay mound, an iron hoop is hidden beneath some more clay. Little paper triangles filled with gun powder are then placed on the iron hoop’s edges. The idea is to through another piece of iron from 25 meters away and either hit the clay mound right in the middle of the iron hoop (2 points) or on the outside on the paper triangles and make it explode (1 point). We tried our luck for about an hour and it is actually extremely difficult but also a lot of fun in a weird way. After finishing the tour I went to try a very popular and tasty colombian dish called Ajiaco, which is a soup with 3 kinds of potatoes, chicken pieces and corn inside it and a side of avocado, rice and capers.

The next day I decided to climb up Monserrate, which is the higher of the two Mountains in the city. It was surprisingly a nice and sunny day and a lot of locals also had the same idea as it was a public Holiday, which was great because if the path up the mountain is empty, it can get a little dangerous. It’s known to be a hotspot for muggings. There is a church at the very top and the views were quite impressive but hard to capture on our simple cameras. Once we were back down, we passed by the Septima street, where all the action happens. We’re talking live music, stand up comedy, pantomime, puppet dancing, art galleries, guinea pig betting, Oculus simulations, chess playing and lots of street food selling.

One of the more interesting shows, was a painter, who painted using spray paint and would then sell the paintings for 20 000 pesos or via lottery tickets to 10 people for 2000 pesos (about 1 Dollar) each. Afterwards, someone from the crowd would pick a number from the bag and one of the 10 people would win the picture for 2000 pesos. I was impressed by how he explained the procedure as he continued to spray the painting and by how this “low risk” alternative actually always seemed to work. There were always 10 people interested. While we watched this, another much more impressive trick was being played. All of a sudden, one of the guys with us put his hand on the back of his head and looked really disgusted. Apparently a bird had left it’s mark on him. As we went to grab some tissues, we saw that it was actually human spit, not bird dropping on the back of his head. So he was even more disgusted as he continued to clean himself up. Once he was done, he swore out loud (hmmm sol, might be a new abbreviation??) and told us that his phone was gone. This turned out to be a popular pick pocketing trick here, where someone sprays the back of your head or spits on you forcing you to remove your hands from your pockets and be busy with feeling around. Within 2 seconds another guy passes by close and grabs your phone, wallet or whatever is accessible. It was really quite impressive!

On the last day I passed by the Botero and Gold museums, of which I preferred the Botero one as it featured his paintings too. All in all I had a good time in Bogota and really loved the craziness and randomness of the Septima street, so let’s see how it will compare to the next big town.

Getting my daily dose of aromatica.

Salpicón on the right and cheesy fruit salad on the left. The choice is yours!

The bikers stopping for a sweet pineapple snack during Ciclovía.

Artist freely painting on the city walls.

Huge graffiti representing the different people (and dogs) from different walks of life.

More feet.

This was a project by a well known graffiti artist to recycle some material and make art pieces in the park, which would represent different regions of colombia and be there for the kids to play in.

The entrance to the garbage museum.

We sort of cheated while playing Tejo and were throwing from half the distance, but i was still really difficult.

This was the very tasty and hearty Ajiaco.

The view from Monserrate.

One of the weirdest shows on Septima. People play by placing their bet on one of the colored buckets and once all the buckets have some bets, the gameshow host would release one of the very well behaved guinea pigs. Which ever bucket the guinea pig goes in to wins. We didn’t really understand how much people win though.

Stand up comedian drawing the crowds on the Septima as he jokes about relationships and marriage (I think).

One of the bystanders feeling lucky with her lottery tickets.

Some serious chess playing.

The first real moneymaking application I’ve ever seen for the Oculus drift, which are basically virtual reality goggles. I think it was like a paragliding demo and the players would stand on a brick to feel a little unbalanced and go with the flow. That’s also why the guys behind them had to hold on to them.

Because why not!?

This was my favorite Botero painting. The Mafia scene.