With six days left before my visit to New York, squeezing in one more destination was possible. I wanted to catch up on some diving, and Roatán, a small but magnificent island off the north coast of Honduras that I thoroughly researched before my trip, seemed just the place. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was five days of rain. I’ve had my share of tropical islands in full rain during my travels and decided to go to sunny Colombia instead, in particular Cartagena, which came highly recommended by a Colombian friend in the Netherlands.
While Cartagena can be reached directly from many destinations, the easiest flight for me had a layover in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and I decided to make that a full day. With eight million inhabitants, Bogotá is huge and there was no way to do a meaningful visit without the help of a local. Luckily, I happen to have a friend in the city and she was free because of Semana Santa, the Holy Week before Easter that is very important in Spanish and South American Christianity and culture. Mariá José (‘Majo’) very kindly picked me up at the airport and took me for lunch trying local food, in particular Ajiaco, a Bogotan soup with chicken and different varieties of potatoes. She also explained about another local dish called Cuy. Now, I know I should be more open sometimes to local customs but I can’t bring myself yet to eat guinea pig….
Probably the nicest thing you can do as an accidental tourist in Bogotá is to go to Monserrate, a 3150m high mountain in the city centre and a favourite of pilgrims that climb its slopes. When arriving at the top (by taking the teleférico or the funicular) you’ll find a 17th century church as well as some restaurants and shops. There were also many, many visitors but I suspect the mountain is less crowded on regular days. Unfortunately, I descend from a long line of Dutch lowland dwellers and any altitude over 3000m always makes my brain shut down and turns me into a zombie. If you suffer from altitude sickness, don’t do Monserrate on your first day. Still, the beautiful views over Bogotá were great and the history of the place is almost tangible.
Coming down from Monserrate it’s an easy walk to Candelaria, the historical centre filled with old houses, churches and restaurants. Very touristic and well worth seeing. Bogotá was also my first experience with the Juan Valdez Café, founded by Colombian coffee makers and their answer to Starbucks, using only Colombian coffee which certainly tasted much better than most US and European coffee houses. Towards nightfall the main shopping street was filled with markets and street artists that entertained the vast crowd celebrating Easter Friday. We came across a weird guinea pig race game that took bets on which small casa the animals would run to. I’m not sure if this qualifies as mistreatment, no animals were hurt in any case and it looked pretty funny…
For dinner we went to a popular, crazy venue called Andres DC which had an absurdly large menu with great dishes. Majo was able to get a table instantly but I’ve understood that normally you’ll have to make reservations well in advance. The place was packed and I’m pretty sure I would have been less successful when I had to rely on my own good looks. This being the only dinner I’ve had in Bogotá it seems a bit preposterous to recommend it but it was very hip and happening and so very… different. Good value for money too. For more information, click here for a good review of Andres DC.
I owe a big thank you to Majo for showing me around for an entire day, giving me an crash course on Bogotá and putting up with a mountain zombie. It’s certainly been a perfect introduction to Colombia.