Sightseeing in Bogota

After the detour to the commercial district, we got on track with our sightseeing proper. Sorry to list these like a shopping list. Might be boring to read, but I have done this for my benefit so that I don't forget all the wonderful things we saw today. You might enjoy the pictures, but for some reason I can only get them to go at the end of the post and not under the relevant text. iPads can be very annoying sometimes and I can't be bothered to faff around with the html.

1. The cathedral on Plaza Bolivar. 

The plaza was interesting. Full of pigeons and traders. The cathedral was rebuild in the 1800s and is vary spartan inside. One point of interest was the gruesome stations of the cross posters. I'll post a picture of the Plaza I took from the Museo de la Independencia.

2. Museo de la Independencia / Casa del Florero

A beautiful and old, old building that was once a home on the corner of Plaza Bolivar. Nice exhibitions with text and recordings that really stretched my Spanish. I'll post a photo I took in the courtyard of the house.

3. Museo del Botero

Botero is an artist from Medellin and I'm sure everyone has seen his iconic painting of the chubby dancing couple. It's housed in the Botero museum in Bogota along with paintings and bronze sculptures of other voluminous people, animals and fruit. There are also some nice pieces by other famous artists - Picasso, Lautrec, Renoir, Miro, Henry Moore. I'll post a pic that David took of the enormous bronze hand at the entrance to the museum. If you want to see more of Botero's work click here.

4. Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Centre

It's a centre named after the writer - there isn't a museum or anything. Actually, we just went to the Juan Valdez cafe which is a bit of a cultural icon in itself. It seems to be Colombia's answer to Starbucks. Loved the place, but I wasn't keen on the dishwater coffee.

5. Changing of the guard

This was very cool. We saw the parade in and out of the Casa de Narino (presidential house). I'll post pics and a video clip of this.

6. San Augustin church

Very beautiful and peaceful church built in 1575. You can see this church in one of the pictures of the marching guards.

7. El Claustro

A university owned building. Beautifully restored housing an exhibition on forensic science. I'll post a photo of the cloistered courtyard.

8. Santa Clara church

9. Museo del Oro

Wow. Mind blowing. A huge gold collection containing 55,000 pieces. I loved the Offering Room which showed how gold was used for rituals. Must go back as there was too much to take in all at once.

10. Drinks on a terrace overlooking the street 19

We looked at our guidebook and decided that we'd go to Medellin next. Time for a look at Colombia's hard working, hard partying city.

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.

La Candelaria, Bogota

We are staying in the old town or "La Candelaria". Our hotel is in a Spanish colonial building and has simple rooms around a series of courtyards. It's a bit more rustic than we are used to, but it's quite charming. Whitewashed walls, wooden floors, exotic plants on the patios. Our room is tiny and the floorboards creek and move when you walk on them sending the wardrobe wobbling. The safe is in the bathroom. That's a new one. Despite this, we had a great night's sleep last night and the breakfast was fabulous. Juice, fruit, bread, eggs, cafe con leche. We sat on a little balcony looking over rooftops below and Montserrat Church high in the mountains above. We are within walking distance of Plaza Bolivar and most of the museums, so the location is pretty good. Even at night, the streets around us are fairly busy and it doesn't feel dangerous at all. There are a couple of universities nearby so there are always plenty of students around. We walked around a bit last night from dusk. We stayed off the quiet streets. We aren't so naive to think that the whole city is as safe as La Candelaria is. There are a lot of police around. With guns.