Bogotá, Colombia gets my vote for favorite city in South America. After six months on the road, we’ve been to quite a few cities and this was by a landslide my favorite. What makes it the best? Bogotá has a lot to offer for people of all ages and interests. Relatively new to the tourist scene, Colombia is quickly making a big impression.
The capital and biggest city in Colombia has a solid collection of museums and monuments to see. The national capital, Palace of Justice, and Presidential House are all in the main square. The square is alive with people and activity. Surrounded by the commotion of countless conversations, stands an assortment of street food stands and magnificent views.
Just down the street from the government buildings are a group of museums. The Botero Art Museum, the Mint Museum and the Gold Museum were the three we visited. I talked about the Botero Art Museum in another post. It was a great day out. The Gold Museum was pretty cool. There were many golden artifacts but the ones that stuck out the most to me were golden seashells. Seashells were covered in gold hundreds of years ago. The seashells had long disintegrated, however the gold maintained the original structure.
The most amazing piece of gold art was a golden raft.
Near the end of a tour was a room with a revolving door. We walked through into a dark, circular room which immediately turned black as the revolving door closed. Little spot lights illuminated coins, sculptures, and gold masks all over the room. It was a surreal experience lights flashed on and off showing new artifacts only for a second and then moving to the next. Lights were all around us, on the walls, floor, and ceiling. At the end of the 5 minute presentation the entire room was illuminated revealing all the hundreds of golden artifacts. I wish we could have gotten a video or pictures but we were completely caught off guard.
When we walked out of the gold museum into a parade downtown. We stopped to take a look. There were thousands of college aged kids performing different acts in the parade. There were some fiery, latin jazz bands playing, men on stilts, acting groups playing out skits, and all sorts of characters. From some of the signs we read, the parade seemed to be a demonstration against the government. The protestors were trying to shed some light on the paramilitary in Colombia. The paramilitary were a group of mercenaries originally funded by the wealthy citizens of Colombia to protect themselves from the FARC. However, they ended up being by far the greatest threat to human rights in Colombia. The protesters were saying the paramilitaries are still in Colombia, still influencing government officials, and the government was not strict enough with suspected paramilitaries.
After all the excitement we headed back to our hostel in the La Candelaria section of Bogotá. Our hostel was a small, neatly decorated hostel owned by two Swiss guys. They backpacked in Bogotá four years ago and loved it! So they moved back to Switzerland, saved up cash and then bought a hostel of their own. They told us tourism in this area grew 800% last year.
La Candelaria is an amazing part of Bogotá. There are tons of interesting shops, restaurants, hostels, and bars. Street art was everywhere! There was a lot of local culture there as well, it seemed a very close-knit community. There is a huge international influence apparent in the cuisine. We saw Thai, Sushi, French, Swiss, Greek, and Israeli food all within a couple of block radius. This is a place were we could live for a couple of years. We even stumbled on an old car show.
The next day we headed to Simon Bolivar Park. It was a beautiful day for a walk and this park was the perfect place for it. The park is home to a huge stage where free concerts are held. It was much quieter while we were there, but we still enjoyed the views.
Bogotá has a lot to offer its visitors. We were more than impressed and it is safe to say we would go back in a heartbeat. Colombia’s new saying is “The only danger is you will want to stay”; we agree.
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