Day 2

This was my first full day in Bogota and a great one. Since Bogota is such a giant city with nearly 8 million people and tucked in the middle of the Andes mountains, figured a tour was a good way to get a feel for the city. I found a local Bike Tour run by an American who has spent many years as a journalist in South America which was perfect. We spent nearly 8 hours biking all over the city including the typical tourist spots and some places far off the beaten path.

Couple interesting facts about Colombia, they have a pretty interesting history about fighting for control of the country with various rebel groups. We went to the main square where the capitol is, main church, government buildings, including the justice department. The justice department is much newer and the reason is about 25 years ago a rebel group M19 stormed the building and took everyone inside hostage including 11 of the 12 supreme court judges. The Colombian government decided not to negotiate, attacked the building, and essentially leveled it killing many people.

On the flip side, the main government in Colombia is still fighting rebel groups like FARC primarily in the countryside in many cases funded and supported by the US. The fighters are paid bonuses for killing these rebels and a recent scandal has developed where the fighters were kidnapping and killing innocent people and dressing them in rebel uniforms to collect the bonuses. Very sad and we saw many signs protesting this during the tour yesterday.

There are constant battles for control of Colombia and it's certainly something I didn't know much about prior to coming here.

Okay back to the tour.

We started in La Candeleria which is the historic part of the city where it was founded nearly 500 years ago. Very narrow streets, cobblestone in some cases, and very cool old colonial buildings. Picture below of the street where we started and ended our tour, this shot was taken around dusk.



We continued through the business district and actually made a stop at a local restaurant bar where we introduced to a local drink. The name evades me at the moment but there were two interesting facts about this drink. First, it included a live crab that was mixed with other items into a blender. Second, it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac and the sign indicated "natural viagra". Nobody else on the tour wanted to try it but the guide encouraged me so I gave it a shot. It actually didn't taste bad, kind of like a chocolate protein shake but aphrodisiac part didn't work on me. Probably a good thing since I was going to be riding a bike for the next several hours.

Live crabs!



Making the drink



Mmm... Delicous! Can anyone translate the spanish?




Later we stopped at the largest farmers market I have ever seen. This place had to be the size of a super walmart with fruit stands, eggs, cheese, butcher shops, fish, bread, and everything under the soon. We tried probably a dozen fruits that I have never seen before and when we first cracked them open, the collective reaction from the group was... What the heck is that? I'm supposed to eat that? Nonetheless we tried everything and in almost every case it was delicious.

Amazing fresh fruit and vegetables.



Ever seen fruits like this before? I never had and they were all delicious!





Fellow Jet Blue guy Steve playing butcher. (Warming animal right people / squeamish vegetarians might skip this picture)



We then biked through a pretty rough neighborhood but saw some amazing street art, biked through the Red Light District, and saw an old apartment building where one side of the building was completely blown out. It turns out some college students were working with a rebel group to build a bomb and an accident caused it to detonate killing many people in the building. The Colombian government was going to rebuild it for the owner but found out it was purchased with drug money so it continues to rot in place. A very sad reminder of the fighting still going on in Colombia for control.

Amazing art carved into the wall of a building in a rough neighborhood.



The apartment building where the bomb blew up accidentally.



We then hit the major cemetery in Colombia where many dignatiries are buried along with regular people who can "rent" plots there. Most people are not buried there for life only five years and then are replaced with someone else. Many people come to pay tribute and ask favors of the people in the cemetary, one person was a jewish immigrant who founded a beer company and was famous for treating his workers so well. Rumor has it you whisper a favor you need into his ear, leaving flowers, and he grants those favors. We met a local who claimed he had come twice before and the favor had been granted, that gravestone was covered in flowers, picture is below.



Next we hit the major public university in Bogota which was very interesting for a couple of reasons. One it was covered in graffiti that the students put up. Not just a few places but all over the walls, windows, etc. Every where you looked was more graffiti in some cases very beautiful graffiti. The student population here is very leftist, the main square is actually named after Che Guevara and has a giant mural of a former chaplain at the school who took up arms against the government and was killed in his first battle. Second, the universities in Colombia are considered autonomous and have no government presence unless they are invited. Several years ago a rebel group was invited in and a group of 40 marched in uniform in the main square, firing assault rifles in the air, and tossing their homemade bombs / grenades. The police could do nothing since they were not allowed in. After the demonstration they changed into street clothes and walked out of the university gates in Bogota with no issues. That would never happen in America...

Mural in Plaza de Che



Protest mural just on the outside wall of the university



Finally, we were cruising through a major park in Bogota and happened across a blind soccer game. About a dozen people completely blind would dribble the ball towards the goal and kick it. The only person who could see was the goalie who would talk indicating where the goal was and give directions to the kicker in case he lost control of the ball. The ball also was filled with these pellets that made noise for the players to identify where the ball was. It was very cool watching these local guys who you could tell had a blast playing soccer even without the ability to see which most people would think is critical to play soccer.



We hit many other places that day but I'm out of time and getting ready to head out for Day 3 in Bogota. Thanks for reading my blog!

Chris