The journey to Bogota
was long and tiring. We left Iquitos at crack of
dawn, and flew via Lima
where we had the added fun of a two hour delay. Still, there is a Starbucks at Lima Airport
– but they had run out of Earl Grey tea!! We arrived eventually at about 5pm – we
had chosen to stay at the very posh Sofitel hotel in a “safe” part of town, and
I was really happy with that! It is a
lovely seven storey building, immaculately finished, with excellent service,
superb breakfasts, soft pillows, thick towels and a hot shower!! Quite a
contrast to Iquitos
and the Amazon, much as I loved the Lodge and the whole experience.
We had a little potter around the neighbourhood - they have very weird pavement slabs, quite
disconcerting to walk over
then were happy to spend the evening in the hotel bar and
restaurant – it wasn’t a late night, we were knackered!
Bogota is an enormous city, and we were staying in the North
end, in the main business district, however, the cultural and government centres
are a long way south, in the Historical Centre.
The city is dissected by several very wide multi-lane roads and the
government has installed a terrific public transport system of buses in their
own lanes that whiz all over town for the princely sum of US50cents/HK$4,
GBP35p a trip, however far. Needless to
say, they are well utilized and the rush hour queues are long and the buses
very crowded. Nothing would please Mick
but we work out how to get to the Historic Centre on the buses – no wimpy tourist
taxi for us, we had learnt all about trams and buses on our Europe
trip last summer.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The next day we elected for
an “easy” day – just pottering about, getting the laundry done, a bit of
necessary shopping – decent emery boards are surprisingly hard to find in S America! We recce’d
the local restaurants and then went back to the hotel to catch up on the
blog for Machu Picchu, which meant choosing about 60 photos out of several
hundred, no easy task.
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Then to dinner – first a beer in the fine Bogota Beer Co
on the corner, by which time the two restaurants we favoured were full, so we
went to a sweet café around the corner - most enjoyable and a lot cheaper
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…. So off we set to “do” the town and museums – we left it till after the rush hour, cracked
the ticketing system, eventually worked out which bus to get – and waited, and
waited…and waited. So when our bus did
arrive it was absolutely chocker but we managed to squeeze on. At the next stop
it really got ridiculous and we were all set to get off at the next one and
wait again, but it eased slightly and we moved along to a saner bit away form
the entrance -----and that’s when I realized my phone had been stolen!
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I knew I had it in my front pocket where I had thought it
would be safe – I was busy clutching my little bag with my camera, and simply
couldn’t feel a thing in the crush. It
is so absolutely and almost spoilt the day – but once over the initial anger,
we resolved to heave to and Carry On Regardless.
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We unwittingly got off the bus a stop early, but were glad
we had, as we saw a bit of the “real” Bogota – chaotic, heaving, slightly
threatening (I was a bit sensitive by now), but lots of somewhat surreal sights
and sounds
The centre of town is a mix of ‘Heritage’ renovated old
colonial buildings and the still decaying ones.
We walked and walked – there are lots of fine churches
I loved the street names – Calle means Street….
It was all very interesting, but the two places that stood
out were the Botero
Museum, which we loved.
It housed a fine collection of many reknowned artists including Picasso and
Dali as well as oodles of Boteros – previously I wasn’t a fan, after these I
think he’s a rare breed – a fine artist and sculptor with a great sense of
humour.
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And the Museum d’Oro. housing a magnificent collection of
pre-Hispanic gold artefacts
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Random scenes:
Then on home – in a taxi, which is a whole other story,
sweet old guy but hadn’t a clue where we were going!!!
And an early dinner at a lovely restaurant nearby, where the
entertainment was the two men beside us – one clearly a drug-runner; fat,
complacent and constantly receiving mobile calls and texts, and the other guy –
he paid the bill – who either “owed” him or needed something from him, but was
having a hard time making his point cos of all the calls! It was like watching
a write-your-own script movie!!
Bogota is not a comfortable city and I don’t need to return
– glad we included it, but it has too many large men in dark suits, white
shirts and red ties, patently wired-up, just hanging around, and there are so
many heavily armed guards and security dogs and …..you get the picture.
Plus we found people in general to be
rather dour, not as jolly as elsewhere in SA – but they have lived through,and
are still experiencing, troubled times, so have reason to be serious about life
in general.
And so to another early start for our flight to Cartagena………
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