First down to the Solarium in the hotel for our free breakfast. I took it easy on the food, not knowing yet how it would be on my sometimes delicate stomach. I had some assorted fruits and cheese, a glass of jugo de mora, arepas and of course Colombian coffee.

There is a travel agency in the same building as the hotel, so we popped in and purchased our flight  tickets [Bogotá to Cartagena], [Cartagena to San Andres] & [San Andres to Bogotá], as well as the all inclusive Hotel Arena Blanca in San Andres all for $620 for the two of us. For some peculiarly Colombian reason the hotel had to be paid in cash, so we popped next door to Carulla where they have an ATM and took out the funds. ( I found that I could take money from the ATM several times until I reached the amount needed, also be sure your card has a 4 digit PIN number)

The day looks nice so la Candelaria here we come. Luckily my wife Maria knows her way around Bogotá, so we stuck an arm out to signal the "Germania" buseta to take us to El Centro, cost is 1100 pesos each, the trip taking about 45 minutes. The buseta drivers are as bad as the taxi drivers, or should I say as good as. As soon as anyone signals to get off or when someone at the side of the road signals, the bus screeches to a halt, slinging you forward in your seat, then they accelerate as fast as possible only to come to a screeching halt a few metres down the road. There are 23,000 buses in Bogotá & 55,000 taxis! How does that compare to your town?

Another thing that is entertaining is the vendors who hop on the bus to sell small items, candies, nuts etc. They first say a polite greeting (Colombians in general are very polite) they then pass out the goods to the passengers for review and to tempt them all the more, then they go into a well-rehearsed spiel, then finally they walk back through the bus and either collect money for the goods or if you don't care to make a purchase the goods are collected and off they go on their way. I learned another thing from my wife about Bogotá, it is customary when riding the busetas to let a seat air out for a few moments before sitting down, you never jump right into a just vacated seat. This will sure to label you a foreigner.

Once we arrived in El Centro we headed for the world famous Museo del Oro, today there was no charge to enter, perhaps because it was under renovation. Sadly the best part of the display was off limits due to construction. I think the objects could have had a better system of labels, it was difficult sometimes to determine which label went with which object, but even with a greatly diminished display it still is very impressive. There were a lot of indigenous peoples milling around looking at the objects that their ancestors may have made and had plundered from them by the Europeans, it seemed a bit sad that they had to visit their artifacts in a white man's museum.

There is a little market opposite the museum, we had a poke around, but didn't purchase anything, Maria spotted a figurine of a nun in the style of Botero that she quite liked, perhaps we shall return for it closer to the end of our holiday.

Next we headed to Donación Botero, so far this has been the highlight of my holiday thus far. In the past they would not allow photography inside the museum, but now they allow photography without flash. I managed to set off the alarm by getting too close to the wall, these are to protect the paintings from being touched. The museum itself is in an old colonial house and is a must visit place whilst in Bogotá. The sheer number of Botero works is staggering, these are supplemented by a few works of modern art by European proponents of this form

Next we went to la Catedral Primada, they were holding Mass and the place was as quiet as a church, except for my squeaking shoes, I am sure they though Bob Esponja was in the house.

We then walked over to Palacio de Nariño, the Colombian version of The White House. I decided to snap a photo and was immediately approached by a stern young soldier with a big machine gun, suddenly I forgot all of my very limited Spanish, he wanted to know why I was taking photographs, but I couldn't think how to reply, luckily Maria came to the rescue and explained they were for turistic purposes. He seemed satisfied, but never cracked a smile. He then checked Maria's purse and let us proceed. From there we wandered around and saw the Capitolio Nacional and the Observatorio Astronómico. Afterwards we popped into "Obleas Jose A" for an oblea filled with arequipe, Maria had masato & I had coffee.

Full of caffeine & sugar we set out for estacion Monserrate, it is quite a hike uphill just to the base of the mountain. We had to take the teleferico to the summit as the funicular only runs in the morning. It is surprising how fast and smooth the ride to the top is, the views over Bogotá are magnificent. We visited the church that is visible from much of Bogotá, Iglesia Santuario de Monserrate and said a prayer for all Colombians who are struggling for survival in this beautiful country. We then wandered around the market a bit and bought a religious ornament for my Mexican pal back in Orlando. After walking around for a bit we both needed to take a pee, we found the toilets but they wanted 600 pesos. Not on your nelly thought I, that's robbery, so I went behind a tree. Poor Maria was bursting, but also refused to give in to such prices. Later I realized that 600 pesos is only 25 cents in US money.  Too late we were already back down and headed back to El Centro.

We stopped at one of Maria's favourite fast food places, Domino not to be confused with Domino's Pizza which they also have here. Domino was started by some Chileans and the empanadas they serve are in many ways like a South American version of a Cornish pasty. A couple of empanadas and a couple of drinks set us back about $2 USD. Oh, they also have a toilet, so Maria was well relieved, in more ways than one.

We caught a buseta back to the hotel, this time cheaper at 900 pesos, it took about one hour and a half because of the heavy traffic. 

After a quick wash and change of clothes we walked a couple of blocks to Ajiaco y Ajiaco for some ajiaco. Well what did you expect? It was perfect, I can't recall if it had guascas though, I am sure it must have, this is Bogotá after all, ajiaco is not ajiaco without guascas. It was my first taste of Colombian corn. The kernels are huge compared to those in the US, and the texture firmer, I think I prefer the corn in Florida, but it was good all the same. 

Tomorrow we are off to Zipaquirá.

All content copyright © 2004 Jim Thompson

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