El Tour de Bogotá

Today I took a bicycle tour of Bogotá - definitely not for the timid. There was no ciclovia today because of the elections, but the traffic was fine because it is Sunday. Even on election day it was more tranquilo than during the week. The hills were not too bad, but there were some scary moments on narrow streets with taxistas who insisted on the right of way. Plus, my helmet kept slipping over my eyes so I had to take it off and ride without one, blazing through red lights and down bumpy, pedestrian-filled sidewalks trying to keep up with the tour guide. It was a lot of fun though, and I got to see much more of the city than I would have otherwise. The first photo is of the original plaza of Bogotá, which is now where the hippies hang out. I had been there before but didn't know the historical significance until today.

I especially enjoyed the visit to the market, where we tried some delicious tropical fruits, the names of nearly all of which I cannot remember. We also stopped for a snack at some stands in Parque de la Independencia. The dog in the crate was not friendly, but I suppose that I did not ask permission for that photo.

The park is Parque Tercero Milenio, which was established after the FARC accidentally destroyed a poor neighborhood in that location when their missiles missed the president's mansion. The elections today were much less exciting. There are 3 main candidates all neck-and-neck, so everyone is expecting that there will have to be a second round. The tour guide, Nicolas, says that the first round you should vote for the best, the second you should vote against the worst. Still, I think I would prefer that to only 2 parties.

La Candelaria and Museo Nacional

I won't bore you with the details of the conference unless you ask about them, although I must say that I enjoyed a lot of the talks here. It was a very nice conference overall, and I'm looking forward to next time when I should be comfortable enough to present in Spanish. I was close to doing it this time, but settled for slides in Spanish and speaking in English. That combo only tripped me up once. :)

Today I took advantage of the sunshine and walked around the area near the hostel, called La Candelaria, and downtown. La Candeleria is part of the old city, which is mostly occupied by hippies and artisans. It is fantastic, colorful, and fun. The graffiti around here is great, I haven't taken pictures of all of the ones I liked but I liked the one that reminds us that the image of Che is totally overused.

I also visited the Museo Nacional. Apparently it used to be a prison, so a lot of the places where they have paintings and sculptures are actually old jail cells. They turned one into a display of the shackles and such, and you can still see scraps of newspaper and some writing on the wall from the prisoners. They called it the panopticon, but I don't think it would have met Bentham's standards. There were some other cool pieces of art and history in there, but unfortunately 2/3 of the museum was closed to change the displays. There is also a photo of some Colombian pesos from back when they were reasonable denominations. Now I feel very rich when I go out, because I'm dropping $6,000 for a full meal. That comes out to about $3. When I pull out the $50,000 bill I feel VERY rich, indeed.

The last photo is just some scenery near the hostel and the university where they held the conference. Monserrate is in the background.

Monserrate y el Museo del Oro

The day started with a llama ride. Well, I sat on a llama anyway. Such a touristy thing to do, but I couldn't say no to an offer like that! I felt bad for the poor thing, I don't know how it managed to hold me up! We are in front of the Funicular that takes people to the top of Monserrate, a small peak that overlooks the city of Bogota. The view was incredible when the sun came out. It was pretty good when the sun wasn't even out yet!

Vera and I learned our lesson about hailing cabs on the street. We ended up taking 2 different cabs trying to get to the Museo del Oro, but neither one ended up putting us in the right place. The first one took us to the Plaza del Torro (ha), the second one dropped us off several blocks away. We did manage to find it, though, and it was a pretty neat museum. It was full of gold, mostly precolombian, mostly stolen from graves. Shiny pretty things, though. The most interesting parts were the explanations of techniques for getting certain designs using wax and clay molds, and different colors using alloys of gold, silver, copper, and platinum. Muy interesante. The best room in the whole museum had a bit of a light show on many pieces of gold while playing shamanic chanting. The best piece in the museum was the boat, shown below.

The next day I visited the mother of a friend of my father's. She is a super sweet grandmotherly lady with a ridiculously interesting life. She lived in more countries than I have ever even visited. She is Swedish-Colombian, so she made me a Swedish pancake with lingonberry jam and creme. Definitely not what I expected to eat in Colombia!

The pad thai that I had today wasn't impressive. It wasn't pad thai at all, really. There was no sauce or peanuts, and it was served on spaghetti instead of rice noodles. I'm not even sure why they called it pad thai. Maybe it was because what they called it was phaid thai.

Museum weather

It rains buckets pretty continuously here, which is great for museums. My bunkmate Vera (from Holland) and I spent the day together yesterday in Zipaquira, just outside of Bogota. Remind me to tell you some funny bus stories later. Zipaquira's claim to fame is that it is cute and historic, and very near a large salt mine.

The salt mine was pretty cool. To the left is an optical illusion. Maybe it is obvious in the picture, but in real life it was difficult to tell that there was water reflecting the ceiling. All of us on the tour were fooled by it!

Vera and I took the miner's tour, where they show you how the salt has been mined over time. We got to use pick axes to mine some salt ourselves, and then they simulated an explosion and explained how dangerous mining salt is. Apparently there are flammable gases in salt mines, too.

After they mined a couple of levels of salt out, someone decided that what the mine really needed was a church. The entire third level of the mine is a giant cathedral, with 14 rooms dedicated to the passion of Christ. Everything is made out of salt, including the lectern, places to kneel, and the confession booths. To the left is part of a nativity scene carved from salt.

The mine boasts the world's largest underground cross. And here I am in front of it!

¡Bogotá! - Hot Coffee, Cold Shower

Day 1 in Bogota. The hostel has its charm and its lack thereof. There are no lockers, only small lockboxes for valuables in the office, and the shower this morning was ICE COLD. I didn't even notice at the time that I was using lotion instead of conditioner in my hair, but to be fair the two bottles are identical except for what is inside and what is printed in small type. I'm currently thawing out with some free hot coffee, though, and the staff is incredibly nice. I'm considering looking for a different hostel, but I am also considering toughing it out. Going outside of your comfort zone is supposed to build character, right? If that is the case, I'm going to have more character than I can handle by the end of this week!

The plan for today: contact and meet the mother of one of my father's coworkers, who lives here in Bogota. Then, check out some museums and sights around the city. I'll give the hostel at least one more night, but I will keep an eye out for other options. I might just find some more comfortable digs for the conference days. Hmm... I should make that presentation at some point...

Preparations underway!

I would say that I am sort of halfway packed at the moment. I am having trouble minimizing my load while bringing sufficient supplies. I still think that I am going to try to squeeze everything for the full two months into a backpack so that I don't have to worry about dragging around a giant suitcase every time I change locations. Thanks to Summit Hut I have some travel underwear and some laundry soap tabs, so that ought to help quite a bit. I hope that no one is expecting souvenirs, because I have no idea where I will put them! :)