I had anticipated a busy day, so I was promptly on my way by
6:30 am, which is a big mistake because nothing, absolutely nothing is open at
that time (a syndrome that my mother dubbed “The Abominable 9 am Man” to refer
to my Dad, who insisted on starting his tourism at 9 am). I had a point where
the Tourist Bus was supposed to stop, a few blocks from my hotel, but when I
got there at 7 am I saw no sign of it. Asking a passerby I was told that they
had moved out of that location long time ago. Rats! Then I spotted a Starbucks
but, surprise, surprise they didn’t open until 8 am. Ah, but I could use
their Wi-Fi, only to find out that yes,
the website still listed that location, but the details looked a bit vague, so
I suspect they might be off for the season and nobody cared to update the
website. Hmm. Oh, look, there was an offer for a bike tour of the city, again
with very vague details, so I decided to go for it. It was clear on the other
side of the city, but I had time until tour time at 10 am (see, what would I
have done if I had started at 10 am instead of 6:30 am?).
I made a couple of false starts, but I think I have finally
figured out the bus system, and the city grid. One good thing about having to
cross the city from north to south is that I got a reality check regarding the
city. Yes, it is beautiful in the north, but as you move south you come into
more proletarian, and less attractive, portions of the city. Graffiti is a big
problem. Maybe this is a good point to mention that in the 1970 to 1990’s
Bogotá had earned a reputation to be a dangerous city with all sorts of
criminality, poor sanitation, and urban decay. Then, in 1993, Prof. Antanas
Mockus, left a good job at the university to take the post of Mayor of Bogotá,
a job he held for10 years. He donned a Superman costume to promote the image of
the Supercitizen, hired an army of mimes to make fun of people that threw
rubbish on the street, or drivers who had no respect for pedestrians (the idea
was that ridicule was a stronger deterrent than fines), bathed in the buff on
TV to show that water conservation is possible, promoted bicycling as a way
keeping fit and going to work on time, and otherwise built up the pride of the
Bogotanos to the point that the city turned around, in one of the most amazing
social experiments ever. Nowadays it is very chevere to be a Bogotano, and the people have an unusual pride on
being polite, helpful, clean Supercitzens!
By 9:30 am I was at the meeting point, and met my fearless
guide, José Luis, and the third member of the tour, a Spanish woman named Maria
something-or-other. Jose Luis is a tall, light hearted young man who had a
story to tell about just anywhere that we stopped. From him I learned that
Bogotá has more than 500 kilometers of bike lanes, and that on Sunday the
number doubles because many of the boulevards are closed to motorized traffic.
The result is that there are hundreds of cyclists on the street, which makes it
a bit challenging from the standpoint of the newcomer trying to merge into
traffic. Our tour took us through the historic center, where José Luis gave us
the 15 minute version of 200 years of Colombian history, and from there we flew
by the main museums, admired some very fine parks and neighborhoods, and
eventually dove into some of the less savory parts of town to admire some mural
graffiti, the Mercado de Paloquemao (where José Luis invited us to taste some
of the more unique fruits of Colombia, such as pitaya, maracuyá, and mango de
dulce), and visit a coffee processing shop, where we learned all about the
roasting process and the marketing of Columbian coffee. Did you know that Juan
Valdez was a marketing image developed in the 1970’s, and that in the last 10
years the coffee house chain Juan Valdez is a joint venture of the independent
coffee farmers of Colombia.
After a delightful bike ride through the city I went to
visit the museum of Fernando Botero, a Colombian painter that has attained world
fame painting very fat people, and from there went to visit the Cathedral and
try the local delicacy of Hormigas
Culonas, a type of particularly large ants (body and abdomen are the size
of beans) that are roasted on a hot plate to be later eaten like salted peanuts;
not bad, not bad at all.
From there I went to the Gold Museum, which was absolutely
fabulous. It turns out that Pizarro and his treasure hungry horde never game
much attention to Colombia, which was strictly out of the Inca empire, and missed
an enormous amount of pre-Colombian gold. This gold was “spirited away” in
hundreds upon hundreds of burials, which have only come to light as
archaeologists (or tomb robbers) have broken into them. The Bank of Colombia
has been very aggressive at buying that gold, and by now the collection amounts
to more than 50,000 pieces that go from great to sublime.
Not so impressive was my later visit to the Museo Nacional,
which was quite disappointing. I was looking forward to learn more about the original
Muisca inhabitants of the area, and I learned exactly zero ☹ From what I learned in the Gold
Museum, I think they developed in parallel to the Mayan and Incan cultures, but
were never subject to either. A little like the Tarascan culture from Michoacan
with respect to the Toltec and Aztec cultures. I will have to keep my ears and
eyes open for more on the Muisca when I travel across Colombia in early July.
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