Bogotá is a city that Americans don't hear too much about. Colombia has an out-dated reputation for crime and drugs. But we have a few Colombian-American friends and had heard good things about the city, so it's been on our travel radar for some time. When we saw a great Delta Skymiles deal we jumped at the chance. We booked a hotel suite in the hip Chapinero neighborhood and planned a four day holiday weekend to explore this South American metropolis of 9 million people.
Bogotá is a direct flight from Atlanta that only takes a little over 4 hours, similar to a flight to the west coast but with only a one-hour time change. We arrived late on the Thursday night before Labor Day. We didn't have the best first experience in Colombia, as it took two hours from the time we landed until we cleared immigration and customs. We took a taxi to our hotel, the
Estelar Suites Jones. We picked this hotel based on the location (we had read that Chapinero was a nice neighborhood), good reviews, and the price. While the room was a little plain, it was massive, clean, and had a great view. The front desk staff was very friendly, and we got by with our limited Spanish and their limited English.
To start our first day in Bogotá, we had breakfast at our hotel. Breakfast was included in the cost of the room - it's a tactic that many hotels use because they can be classified as a "bed and breakfast" and international guests then don't have to pay hotel occupancy tax. Breakfast-wise, Bogotá rolls a bit more like a European city than an American one. Breakfast included cold cuts, lots of great bread, tamales, and tropical juices like guanabana. Colombians consume a lot of fruit juice, and it was clear on our trip that fruit juice is very popular all day.
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| The view to the northeast from our hotel room. |
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| The view to the northwest from our hotel room. |
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| A colorful and delicious first breakfast! |
After breakfast we hopped in an Uber to Monserrate. Monserrate is a mountain topped by a church that overlooks the center of the city. Bogotá is already high in the Andes (around 8,700 ft); Monserrate rises another 1,600 feet above that and offers great views of the entire valley. There are three options to get to the top - walking, funicular (cable car) and teleferico (aerial tram). We opted to take the funicular up and walk back down. We went early in the morning so it wasn't very crowded yet, which was nice. We had plenty of time to enjoy the views in the peace and quiet of the cool morning air. We enjoyed some drinks at the little cafe on top of the mountain before walking down. We saw a lot of people walking up, ranging from young Bogotanos walking/jogging up for exercise, to barefoot nuns and pilgrims literally crawling up the stairs.
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| A map of the walking trail to the top. We took this route back down. |
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| Great view from the top. The city is huge. |
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| The church and plaza at the top. |
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| The view to the east was very green and lush. |
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| Paul overlooking Bogota. |
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| The path down to the city was pleasant. |
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| As we came down, there were more people climbing up and better views of downtown. |
After walking down from Monserrate, our next stop was the Simon Bolivar house (Quinta de Bolívar) a short distance away. It's a small but interesting house/museum with gardens, built in colonial style. Bolivar lived there in the 1820s. From there we walked down Avenida Jimenez, a street that has been converted for pedestrians and transit. It was a nice walk alongside a cascading fountain past some new modern buildings and Parque Germania. Bogotá has a lot of fairly new pedestrian/transit/bike infrastructure, much more so than most cities in developing countries. For lunch we ended up at Restaurante Sardo Tratorria Nuraghe, an Italian restaurant. Bogotá actually has a surprisingly good Italian food scene, and we enjoyed our fresh pasta.
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| One of the rooms of the Bolivar house. |
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| Most of the estate is open air, almost Mediterranean in style. |
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| Avenida Jimenez. |
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| Some cool street art along our walk. |
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| Wall of cats. |
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| Paul leaning all cool on Bogota street art! |
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| The longest bus we've ever seen makes its way down the avenue. |
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| Lots of people were out and about. |
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| Lunch time! We had an amazing burrata as an appetizer. |
After lunch we walked through the Candelaria district, stopping in Plaza Bolivar to see the Cathedral of Colombia (primario), one of the largest churches in the country. There was a little market on the square and we picked up some pastries for later. The main square is lined with some interesting architecture, including the national capitol building, city hall, and the constitutional court. From there we walked a bit south (through a security checkpoint because the street was in front of the president's house) to the church museum Santa Clara (museo del siglo XIX). The interior was an impressive sight - with paintings and a golden baroque altar. We continued on to two more churches - first the 1637 San Agustin church, and then the 1926 Santuario Nuestra Señora del Carmen. It was a nice contrast between the restored Baroque interior of San Augustin and the unique red and white striped appearance of del Carmen.
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| The impressive cathedral. |
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| Inside the cathedral. |
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| The front of the national capitol building. |
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| The interior of the Museo Santa Clara was beautiful and ornate. |
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| The San Agustin church. |
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| It was restored to its original Baroque appearance. |
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| The unique exterior of the new-ish del Santuario Nuestra Señora del Carmen. |
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| The interior was soaring and continued the red/white stripe theme. |
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| The streets of Candelaria were atmospheric. |
Our next stop was the nearby Museo Botero, which is part of a connected complex of free museums. Botero is one of the most well known Colombian artists. He was active from the middle 20th until the early 21st century. He's known for the "fullness" of his images, specifically for delightfully plump and stout people and objects. Once we learned more about him and his work, we noticed his pieces all over Bogotá, from sculptures of rotund people on overweight horses to paintings of "fat" fruit. Definitely a unique style, and Bogotános love him.
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| Hey that looks familiar! |
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| The courtyard of the museum. |
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| Selfie in the courtyard. |
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| Botero had a unique style. |
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| He painted lots of pictures of oddly plump people. |
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| Fat Mona Lisa is one of our favorites. |
After leaving the museum, we stopped by the Candelaria church (lots of churches on our first day in Colombia!) before taking an Uber back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Overall, the churches in Bogotá are and interesting blend of Baroque and colonial. While they're not quite as impressive as European cathedrals, they make great stops as you're walking around the various neighborhoods of the city.
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| The pale yellow Candelaria church. |
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| A simple interior with a Baroque altarpiece. |
Uber was our primary mode of transportation in Bogotá. It's very cheap - we typically paid between $2 - $4 for each trip, which lasted between 15-30 minutes due to traffic. In addition to being cheap, this is also the time David worked on his Spanish conversation skills the most. We typically had short Spanish conversations with our drivers. The people in Colombia are very friendly and are eager to share information about their country and interests with foreigners.
After returning to the hotel, David was tired and took a nap while Paul took a stroll around Chapinero, including a visit to a grocery store, before we headed to dinner. Chapinero is a great neighborhood with a mix of restaurants, bars, offices and people out and about. It's a bit hipster, a bit corporate, and also the city's gayborhood. We really enjoyed staying in this part of town, perfectly located between the historic city center of Candalaria and the more over the top wealthy neighborhoods to the north.
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| They had peanut butter and jelly on the menu. Seriously. |
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| We found the Atlanta building, just a few blocks from our hotel! |
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| The USA section in the grocery store. I guess so? |
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| Because Bogota is at such a high altitude, anything packed near sea level looks like its about to explode. |
Dinner that evening was a restaurant named Leo, in La Macarena district. We booked it a couple months ahead of time and it was such a unique experience that we decided to make
a separate blog post just about the meal.
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| Nightime in La Macarena district. |
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| Club Colombia Negra before bed! |
Out first day in Bogotá was great. It really is a charming and unexpected city. We spent three more days exploring, coming up in our next posts!
