Bogota!

Bogota is a huge, modern city with nearly 8 million people.  Most of the population are city-dwellers with only about 25,000 living in rural areas of the district.  It is the capital of Columbia and dates back to the 1500s when it was named the capital of New Grenada by Spanish Conquistadors.

There is so much to see and learn, We are just beginning but we are ready to go.  To get the lay of the land we walked from our apartment to the El Centro.  The route took us through neighborhoods that reminded us of those we saw in Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Barcelona, and Madrid.  This is a very European city. 

Most of the walk was pleasant with wide sidewalks and plentiful paseos for bikes.  However, the trek was noisy with great traffic and a large section of the way was under heavy construction.  We found the National Museum which we did not visit but put it on our list of must-sees.    A primary bus station is across the street so we were able to purchase and load our transit card.  We are in business to travel now!

The city is on a high plateau, Bogota Savannah, in the Andes, 8660 feet above sea level.  While the South American cities Quito and La Paz are at a higher elevation, Bogota is the world’s largest city at this elevation. The air is thin and comfortable.   Known for year-round cool temps and lots of rain, we’ve found the weather to be spring-like; mid-60s in the daytime, and cool enough to be just right at night for pleasant sleep.

We’ve planned the first part of our stay here and will start with a self-guided walking tour of La Candelaria, Bogota’s Old City.  Later we will tour the Museo de Nacional, climb Monserrate, have lunch at La Puerta Falsa and make a day trip to The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá.

I found an app that offers self-guided tours in 1400 cities worldwide but in addition, it allows a user to create a customized tour so instead of following a canned tour, an individualized map can be created via GPS.  It costs $18.99 a year.  We will give it a try today and if we find it’s not worth it, I’ll cancel before the end of our 3-day trial.

Yes, there is political unrest here.  A bombing took place at a police station last Saturday killing two children and injuring 39 others.  Horrible!  Just horrible! A rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was blamed.  And get this, per Wikipedia,  FARC has battled the government since 1964 in an attempt to impose a socialist regime.

We received an alert from the US Embassy yesterday that demonstrations by violent protesters are taking place now.  The area has been closed off and be assured, we will be far away from that area and other government offices today.