Welcome to our last land trip
and destination. There will be one more post after this one summarising the
BEST and WORST of our epic journey. Stay tuned.
Last night was not great for
sleep. It was an unusually warm evening making it hard to sleep. Add the
extremely noisy traffic and people shouting at each other at 3am and that is
the perfect formula for an unsettled sleep despite the Blu-Tac in my ears !!!
We were glad to wake up for
our final 7.5hr drive from the coffee capital of Manizales to the Columbian
capital of Bogota. Caught a busted up formula one taxi to the bus station –
driver did a great job getting us there by 650am for our 8am departure. Plenty
of time for a coffee and pastry. The drive was entirely based in the Andes
rising to a record 3590m for our trip. Parts were fields, parts pine forest,
parts bush but all very green. Constant twists and curves. Our bus was huge so
the driver did a great job manoeuvring the tight curves. We also spent a lot of
time in fog and cloud given the altitude. Most of the journey was above 2100m. It
was a surreal trip for me in that it felt I was back in Ecuador, Peru, and
Bolivia in 2011 – much of the landscape and cliffside-hugging roads is what I
remember. Memories. These Andes are massive. Huge deep valleys, sometimes on
both sides of the road !!! Our journey actually crosses from one Andean range
to another with a huge valley in between. We started out at 2160m in Manizales
on the west range, rose to 3590m then down the west range into the valley bottoming
out at 327m. We then climbed out of the valley onto the east range topping 2705m
with a final descent into Bogota at 2640m. The last part of the drive was
amazing – the sheer size of the cliffs is a sight to behold. It is like this
part of Colombia is just a sea of mountains.
This was easily the best
drive of our whole trip.
Bogotá (Pop 11,658,211) is
the capital and largest city of Colombia, and one of the largest cities in the
world. It was founded as the capital of the New Kingdom of Granada on 6 August
1538 by Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada after a harsh
expedition into the Andes conquering the Muisca, the indigenous inhabitants of
the Antiplano. After the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819, Bogotá became the
capital of the independent nation of Gran Colombia. It was Simón Bolívar who rebaptised
the city with the name of Bogotá, as a way of honouring the Muisca people and
as an emancipation act towards the Spanish crown.
Bogotá is on an antiplano
plateau in the Andes and is the third-highest capital in South America and in
the world after Quito EQUADOR and La Paz BOLIVIA, at an average of 2,640 meters
(8,660 ft) above sea level.
We pulled into the Bogota
National Bus Station at 6pm, exactly 10hrs after we left Manizales. The delay
was due to a huge semi-trailer carrying glass tipping over and blocking the
entire road only 50km out of Bogota. Our first impressions of this big city were
good. It was modern and spread out. It is built on a huge flat plateau but
surrounded by distant peaks. We would get a better idea tomorrow after our daylong
tour. We were glad to get to the hotel and the drill was the usual. Dump our
gear and head to the supermarket to stock up on snacks and drinks and maybe
takeaway hot dishes. No hot dishes this time. It was 7pm Sunday and they had
run out. The only things we could find were burgers, hot dogs and fried
chicken. No matter – it was good to be indoors since it was quite cool outside.
We ate and watched a 3-episode documentary on Woodstock 1999 called TRAINWRECK.
It was incredible to think that this happened.
Our private tour guide,
Natalie, was only 19 but very knowledgeable and very professional. She scooped
us up in a private car and took us to the bottom of the Funicular that goes up
to Cerro Monserrate that sits 512m above Bogota at 3152m. The ride up takes
only 3min and it is terrific. Lucky I got to the back of the cabin with open
views out to the city. This funicular can carry 80 people and was built in
1933. Amazing. The view from the top is easily the best view I have ever seen
of a major capital city on my world journey so far. You think you are seeing
the entire Bogota but Natalie soon fixed that telling us that we only see 25%
of the city. Wow. What a colossal city !!! The top also contains a walkway
containing very realistic and moving life-size statues of the 12 stations of
Christ ending up in a church in honour of His Suffering. The top also contains
ample space for the myriads of tourists that come here – most of them from
Latin America. From here we walked to many places, most of them in the Candelaria
District which is the older part of the city full of street art, cafes,
restaurants, bars and street side vendors that make all their own costume
jewellery, artwork and sculptures. Natalie did a fine job introducing us the
many varieties of fruit and chocolate that Colombia produces. The film will
explain everything. All I will say now is that many of the fruits here are also
found in equatorial Asia because both are the same distance from the Earth’s
Equator with similar climate and geography. We ended up seeing the following
places: Cerro Monserrate (Lookout with Church on top), Plaza de Mercado de la
Concordia (Fruit & Chocolate Tastings), Candelaria District (Street Art
& Old Town), Chorro de Quevedo (First Spanish Settlement), Varietale Café
(Coffee Tasting), Coca Tea, Old Monastery, Plaza Simon Bolivar (Cathedral
Metropolitan Basilica of Bogota, Palacio Cardenalicio, Palacio de Justica,
Palacio Lievano or City Hall, Capitolio Nacional or Parliament), Centro
Commercial Artesanal Plaza Bolivar. The highlight was definitely Cerro
Monserrate but Plaza Simon Bolivar was a close second with its Basilica and
classical colonial Spanish buildings.
On our way back to the hotel
– high drama. There we are walking on the main boulevard and out of the blue
Antonia screams. I look around a big caramel colour muscle built pit ball is
jumping all around Antonia. I arm myself with my Galaxy since it has a
head-smashing heavy case but before I could anything this local-looking
pedestrian rushes to Antonia and shouts “dale tu agua” = “give him your water”
!!! Antonia understands and drops her 1L bottle of water. The dog bolts towards
it, picks it up in its huge mouth and races off. WTF. By now Antonia is yellow
and in a state of meltdown. Natalie does a great job calming her down and after
talking to the strange saviour explains to us that this dog is a stray that
loves water bottles to play with. This was not an attack but a playful play for
Antonia’s water bottle !!! A good ending. Especially a day before our
homecoming !!! We both hugged Natalie at our hotel – she had done a fine job
showing us her birth city.
For me, Bogota was like
Melbourne or Boston – civilised, artistic, foodie versus Medellin which is
Sydney or New York – brash, headstrong, in your face. Bogota is much more laid
back and spread out. My favourite Capital City on this trip.
The next day (Tue 19MAR) was
our last day and night on Ai Cultura. Amazing. We were here. I capped my
personal running journey off with a 10km run at 2670m. Much easier than I
thought. I was nervous waking for this. Busy city. High altitude. I did not
want to get run over on our last day. But things went surprisingly well. Lots
of footpaths next to the major freeways I ran – albeit broken but doable. I was
elated to run this city – the third highest Capital city in the world. The
elation came from the fact that I had now run the top 3 Capitals in the world =
Quito EQUADOR, La Paz BOLIVIA and Bogota COLOMBIA !!! Gold, Silver and Bronze
for the pool room !!!
As promised, I took Antonia back to the Varietale
Café to enjoy her favourite Coconut-Vanilla filtered coffee with a cheese
infused croissant !!! Delicious. This equipped both if us for some relentless
shopping which followed all over the Candelaria District starting at Plaza
Simon Bolivar and ending up in Chorro de Quevedo where a lovely couple sold her
their last two bracelets. Antonia was very please with her spoils so we headed
back to the hotel for a well-earned rest and pres but not until I sent Mini 3 (my drone) above this photogenic city. On my return, I prepared this post and we
geared up for our final evening in Bogota, Colombia, Central America and Ai
Cultura 2024 !!!
And what an evening. Drinkies at Chorro de Quevedo where Bogota started by the Spanish in 1538 followed by dinner next to the Basilica at Plaza Simon Bolivar. What a night of celebration. 74 days together. 74 days of constant adventure. No sickness. No food poisoning. And only 2 days of rain. Thank you God. See you at our last post of BEST and WORST where we sum up our epic trip...
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !!!
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