Sorry guys, I have not had internet access for a whiile but tomorrow should be able to use my computer so no pictures with the blogs today. check back tomorrow!!
Thursday, September 10, 2009 continued
What a wonderful way of seeing the city. The owner, Mike, met us at our hostel at 10am and walked with us down to their shop at BiciCycle on 3rd Cerrera. We met Tatania, our guide. We had explained that we normally ride at 600 ft and had only been in Bogota, at 8600 ft since the night before. Tati, assured us that would not be a problem. After some problems fitting bikes to riders, we were on our way, primarily in an area of Bogotá called La Candelaria , which includes much of the historic part of town. We rode from about 10:30 am until 5pm. What an amazing city! We have included a few pictures here but since we don’t want to spend all of our time at a computer while here, we will post more later.
Tati was a great guide, very knowledgeable and took us through some back roads to avoid the heavy traffic. We stopped at Casa la Cicuta, which is a beautiful garden setting restaurant owned by an artist as evidenced by a gallery of paintings and other art work. We had what would be the Columbian equivalent of a smoothie with a variety of fruits and mint. It was tempting to stay in the garden, so tranquil, but no, off to battle the traffic of Bogota and discover her sights. We rode to the Plazoleta del Chorro de Quevedo, which is credited as the birthplace of Bogota. It is a very small Plaza ringed by a church (of course) and several small shops. Then up to a wonderful little farmers market where we sampled several fruits strange to us. The bananas and the hand grenade were yumm. The large green blob not.
We rode down to the huge Plaza de Bolivar and marveled at all the government buildings as well as the Catedral Primada which line the Plaza. The Plaza is filled with people walking, photographing, selling various items and feeding the thousands of pigeons who take advantage of their largesse. Several of the highland people had brought their alpacas to the plaza, I was unclear as to whether they were selling rides or pictures of children on an alpaca. There were lots of school children including some brightly dressed preschoolers being brought to the plaza by their teachers.
We went by the Emerald Traders market (Colombia is one of the principal miners of emeralds), saw the Juan Valdez coffee shop. We rode down Carrera 7, the center of Candelaria past shops, churches and craft markets. We passed what Tati calls the museum square-a several block area with museums including Museo Botero(a famous artist of the area) a museum of coins, a military museum etc. We had lunch at a charming place on Cerera 7, sitting upstairs. We chose their cerviche and epanadas. We have had wonderful food in Bogota, both in the restaurants and from the street vendors.
We then visited the bullfighters’s arena where a class of toreadors was in training with their capes. Interestingly enough, the best of the bunch was a female. Although I have no desire to see a bullfight, I was impressed by the architecture of the building and the grace of the bullfighters.
We visited the Quinta de Bolivar, a beautiful residence surrounded by a gorgeous garden with walking paths that wander through various waterways and plantings.. This appears to be where Bolivar when with his mistress and where he died. It is truly a wonderful setting. Last, we visited the Park Independencia, a large welcome area of nature in the middle of this large teeming city.
We finally returned to the bike shop and were treated to a cup of tea. In addition to seeing many of the important sites of the city, this tour gave us an orientation to Bogota, which we will use the next day on our independent excursion.
We decided since we were on that side of town to go up to the aerial tramway to Monserrate and see the lights at night. There is a beautiful church at the top and though quite chilly, we wandered around, took photographs and finally made our way back down. We took a taxi to Casa Viejo for dinner where we split one dish of beef brisket and chicken and another of Colombian variety foods, both fantastically delicious but expensive and served with uncharacteristic snobbishness, arrogance and intolerance of language communications problems (i.e. don’t put this guy on your itinerary).
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