Bogotá, Colombia

Beautiful city in the mountains

Colombia, from the air, is fabulously green, even during the winter months.

Sitting at 8612 feet, I worried about altitude sickness, given that Denver, Colorado, at 5280 feet, gives me headaches and difficulty sleeping. During this trip, I stocked up on altitude sickness tablets purchased online and doubled my water intake. It helped tremendously, although nothing would help my high heart rate and shortness of breath except acclimation. We were here for 2.5 days, so not enough time.

The City of Bogota

I love green spaces, and Bogota has them everywhere. There are parks in the neighborhoods and downtown area, close to the historic district. (Caveat: I only walked the north side of town and downtown.)

One park has been set aside for the homeless, a gigantic tent city with burning fires and laughing children. I started to take a photo, then realized it made me uncomfortable. Their problems are not my entertainment. I saw no homeless people in other areas except for three ladies and their children in the Zona Rosa neighborhood where we stayed.

Here’s a video of the city from our hotel room. Most of the construction is made of bricks rather than concrete, stucco, or glass, and most of the sidewalks are also made of brick.

On Sundays, many streets are closed to vehicle traffic and are used by bicycles and pedestrians for the day. While this slowed traffic, we had no trouble getting from the airport to our hotel in Zona Rosa.

Bicycle paths also cross the city through the parks. Walking to dinner was pleasant. We could avoid the smell and noise of auto traffic by walking through the parks, making for a lovely evening walk on the way back. The auto and truck traffic appears to have no exhaust inspections or limitations. However, the entire city’s air was much cleaner than Santiago's.

Our only uncomfortable time was walking through a section of the city where we both felt a little out of place. I channeled my internal

Chris Arnade

and walked the eight miles from our hotel to Plaza de Bolivar downtown in the tourist area. While Chris can power through his plantar fasciitis, I could not, and we returned by Uber.

Bogota has a rapid bus system and two or three other bus routes. Yet I learned that the bus system does not have maps to many places. I needed another day or two to get the hang of their bus system. If you do not know the major location where the bus is headed, you will not know if it is the right bus for you. Also, because of the heavy traffic, using the bus may take forever.

On the way in, our taxi driver pointed out the construction of the metro system, which suggests there is hope for a modern transportation system.

Our trip to South America showed how similar these countries are to Türkiye. They developed around the same time and have many features in common, like the fruit vendor above.

Six blocks up the side of the mountain from our hotel, inside a castle, is a coffee shop, La Parla Workcafé, with an outdoor seating area next to a duck pond.

Here’s our walk through the city:

The closer we got to Plaza de Bolivar, the more vendors we saw. They had carts or displayed their wares on blankets for several miles down the street. While we saw many people and vendors, except for the fruit vendors, I saw no one buying.

The most interesting section was the chess players. These guys are serious about their game.

Bogota’s graffiti is at a level I’ve not seen. Most graffiti worldwide is messy and, many times, incomprehensible. In this city, however, it is art. Even the simple tags are artistic; you can sign up for a tour to understand the graffiti. If you want to know more, see Emily’s post at the Wondering Wanderer, as she took one.

I am a tamale hound. If you feed me a tamale, I will be happy for the rest of the day. I love pork ones where I can mix my green and red sauces on top and dig in. My walking target in Bogota was The False Door, one of the oldest restaurants in the city. It serves tamales, but I did not understand that this restaurant’s version of a tamale was not what I expected. Along with my tamale, I ordered Bogota’s favorite snack of chocolate and cheese.

The tamale was a small piece of chicken buried in a massive wad of cornmeal with a jello-like consistency, then wrapped in a banana leaf. The chocolate and cheese turned out to be watery hot chocolate, a block of mozzarella cheese, and two stale bread pieces. It all sounded good on paper. This trip was full of surprises because I didn’t read enough or ask enough questions.

I’ll revise my previous travel recommendation: Research A LOT before you go.

Here’s a video of The False Door and the tourist area near Plaza de Bolivar.

The highlight of our trip was eating steak at La Brasserie and sitting on the balcony of our hotel room, watching the city with the mountains in the backdrop.

Will I return? Yes. But I want to talk to more locals this time and get my questions answered. I will do my research and adventure to other cities, not just Bogota. Yes, I’ve seen the U.S. travel advisory for Colombia, especially to avoid the Venezuelan border and three other areas. That still leaves a lot of country to see.