Bogotá, Colombia 4.7110°N, 74.0721°W
I’ve been hyping up my Spanish-speaking abilities to Sarah since we left for our trip back in January. She’s heard me say more than a few times, “I can’t wait to get to South America, where I’ll be able to communicate like a local. You’re gonna be so impressed.”
Week two in Colombia and Sarah is not impressed. I’ve been forced to admit that my Spanish sucks. My bilingual skills are so poor, in fact, I had to double check how to spell the number six in Spanish for the title of this post. It’s that bad.
We both knew coming into Colombia that English is not as common as many of the other places we have visited, but the only real planning we did for the impending language barrier was my downloading of Duolingo, a language app that’s really helpful, as long as you use it more than five minutes a week.
I realized how bad my Spanish is during our 48-hour layover in Miami en route to Colombia when I tried to order dinner off the Spanish menu at a Peruvian restaurant next to our hotel. The waitress just smiled at me as I spoke and asked me to point to what I want (she also almost gave us two shots of tequila when I asked for the check). Not a great sign for our next three months in South America.
Four years of high school Spanish….c’mon Gerry
First Stop, Bogotá
The first destination on our South American tour (our sixth continent!) was Bogotá, the capital and largest city in Colombia. Like many previous places, we had heard mixed reviews about the city. Some people recommended spending as much time there as possible, some said a couple of days is enough and a few people even suggested we skip it altogether.
Neither of us loves being in big cities – a few days in Saigon and Bangkok were enough for us – so we weren’t sure how much time we would want to spend in Bogotá, a metropolis with almost as many people as New York. We took a conservative approach, scheduling just three days there to start off our Colombia travels.
Much of our time during the Miami layover was spent researching Bogotá neighborhoods, trying to find a place where we would get the most out of our short stay. We decided on Usaquén, an area located in the city’s north next to Monserrate Mountain.
Saint Barbara of Usaquén Church
A mural of Usaquén’s train station
After taking a few days to explore the neighborhood and allow our bodies to adjust to the altitude (Bogotá’s elevation is more than 8,600 feet), we headed to Monserrate to take the funicular up to the top, over 10,000 feet above sea level.
Atop the mountain is a church, a monastery, a couple of restaurants, lots of souvenir shops and a strip of small cafes serving local cuisine. Because the mountain rises a few thousand feet above the city, views of Bogotá – and its enormity – made the trip up the mountain well worth the five dollar entrance fee.
View from the top of Monseratte
The chapel on Mount Monserrate
Bogotá is huge!
Market of the Fleas
One of the main reasons we chose to stay in Usaquén was because it has one of the cities most popular markets, which runs every Sunday and on national holidays. Since our three-day stay in Bogota would overlap with the Sunday market, we booked an Airbnb not far from the area that hosts the “Mercado de las Pulgas en Usaquén,” the Usaquén Flea Market.
Sarah and I have been to dozens of street markets this year, but after a few hours walking around Usaquén’s, we decided this was our favorite. There was lots of local food, live music, and the vendors were all overwhelmingly selling unique, handmade local crafts that were like nothing we had seen before.
This artist makes tiny shoes
The shoes are made of leather with rubber soles, just like real shoes!
Sarah checking out some handmade jewelry
The main street of the market
This woman was making us a dessert called an oblea (thin wafers, raspberry sauce, cheese, coconut), and her daughters really wanted to be in the picture!
Tastes so good….
Amazing chalk art in the square outside Saint Barbara’s church
Mr. and Mrs. Claus busking during the market
Our favorite street performer. It took us a long while to figure out how he is doing this….
#alleygoals
Roaming Bogotá
While we loved Usaquén and could have stayed there our entire time in Bogotá, we also wanted to see some of the other neighborhoods and learn more about the city. We decided to take a walking tour with a company called Beyond Colombia. The tours run daily, starting in Santander Park in the city center, and then winding through the La Candeleria area of the city where many historical landmarks can be found.
Our guide, Anjelica, was very knowledgeable about Bogotá’s history and had a great sense of humor, which made the tour fun. We covered a lot of ground during the half day tour….
But first, coffee.
Iglesia de San Francisco was built in 1556 and is Bogotá’s oldest church.
An emeralds dealer standing just outside of Santander Park. Colombia is known for its emeralds and these guys do their business outside, under-the-table and tax-free of course!
Anjelica told us a story about the graffiti pictured on the right, which was done by none other than Justin Bieber when he was in Bogotá for a concert. The police looked the other way because of his celebrity, which caused an uproar in Bogotá because a graffiti artist had been killed by the police in 2013. As a result of the public backlash, graffiti is now legal in the city.
Walking in La Candeleria
The avocado, or aguacate, is very popular in Colombia. These larger avocados have only recently been allowed to be imported to the U.S., so get your guac recipes ready!
The small chapel located in Bogotá’s Plaza del Chorro del Quevedo
The National Capitol building in Bolivar Square
Mick Jagger had an oblea here
La Candeleria
Trying some chicha tea, a fermented, corn-based drink traditionally served in a small gourd shell cut in half.
View from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center
Fernando Botero is one of Colombia’s most famous artists, and we saw many of his pieces at the MAMU art museum on our tour. As might be evident from this painting, he is known for his “exaggerated volume” style in painting and sculpting people, places, and objects.
After visiting the Usaquén market and seeing the city on our walking tour, we decided we liked Bogotá too much to leave and extended our stay by a few days. The highlight of our last couple of days was a cooking class with 5Bogota, a business that specializes in providing tourists authentic experiences with locals. We met our cooking instructor, Diana, at her home not far from where we were staying.
Diana, a native of Bogotá, started the class off with an exotic fruit tasting. We sampled about six different fruits, most of which Sarah and I had never tasted before. Sarah’s favorite was a granadilla (similar to passion fruit) while mine was a yellow gooseberry called Uchuva.
Fruit tasting
Gerry working the arepas
Sarah taking a gentler approach
Diana preparing the arepas
We learned that many Colombians will use their feet to flatten plantains
Patacone con queso
Looking tasty
The final product!
Uchuva
Sarah and Diana
To the Caribbean
