Unplanned visit to the commercial district, Bogota

On our first morning we were up and about before the museums opened, so wandered around in the sunshine. We found a bustling area where traders were selling their hearts out. There were enthusiastic calls for just about anything. Mostly, traders were trying to entice people into their shops. Where there were no shops, there were shopping trolleys full of stuff. No shopping trolly? No problem. Load up a child's push-chair (stroller) and get selling. Actually they do that on Henry Street in Dublin too. It seems that some traders run thriving businesses this way. All you need is some merchandise (lollies, popcorn, soft toys, fruit, pictures of saints, lotto tickets, lighters, bootleg DVDs) and a trolly or basket and some pegs (so that you can clip said merchandise onto the sides of the basket or trolly). Another successful business model is to chain up a couple of mobile phones to your cart and charge people 200 pesos per minute to make a call.

Similar shops cluster around the same street. For example, one street had three hat shops on it. I liked "Sombreros Brando" best because of the name, but all three seemed to have the same hats. I love that there are hat shops in Bogota. And gentlemen's clothing shops. It's from another age.

Another street was full of bookshops and sellers were outside pushing their wares. Many were very persistent: "Books, books..Want some books?". We always want books, but this time we said "no, gracias". I can just imagine how that conversation would have gone if we had said "si, claro". They would have desperately tried to get us to buy one of their medical textbooks.

We found a lot of soft toy shops. Three floors of little furry faces squashed against the window. You'd almost want to rescue them. There were malls full of jeans shops too. All the mannequins were much curvier than average. Much closer to shapes of real women. Hooray for Colombia!

So, we went out to see museums and churches, but ended up in the commercial district. However, we really enjoyed this unplanned detour. We turned back when we got to Plaza Jimenez, a massive tatty square lined with hardware stores containing a heavy presence of riot police, a few protesters, lots of pigeons and scattered litter.