A week in Bogotá

We arrived around 2:00pm. We had paid a little extra for Aeromexico’s AM Plus service. Not only did it give us extra space and priority check-in, our luggage got equal service and was off the plane in the first batch of bags. Then we flew through immigration and met our guide (Alejo) and driver (Fernando) who will be traveling with us for the first half of our visit to Colombia. 

We started our month long trip in Bogotá, which in in the mountains at 2,640 meters (8,660 feet) then heading north to Villa de Leyva, and Barichara, two small, charming towns where we plan to enjoy lots of outdoors activities before moving on to Medellín, Tayrona National Park and Cartagena.

After a quick stop at the hotel, we went out to get some local currency (400,000 Colombian pesos...about $130) and to buy a Sim Card for Pat's phone (30 days with 2GB data and unlimited What’sApp for less than $20). One nice thing for us, is that it seems that Colombians are less comfortable using English than the locals in most countries we visit. We could just return home speaking Spanish better than when we left...

We settled into the room, which has an enormous king size bed, and then went out for dinner. Having had only a light breakfast on the plane we were ready. Our hotel is surrounded by fine restaurants. We decided on Primi (mediterranean food). The wine list was interesting but on the pricey side. Our hotel is in the Zone Rosa District which our guide assures us is one of the most expensive districts. Typical wine prices here are $40 - $60. Our first choice one turned out to be $90, We decided that was a bit much for how tired we were. We ended up with a nice Cabernet / Tannat / Merlot blend from Uruguay for about $45. Typical appetizers are $10. Later when we ate in the the old city wine was more typically $30 and the entrees (not starters) were $10. 

We decided to pretend we were at a Tapas Bar and ordered 3 starters to share. Grilled artichokes, arancinis fungi (breaded balls of risotto with mushrooms), and carpaccio primings (hand cut “lomo” or loin topped with a fresh zucchini, radicchio and parmigiana salad). This turned out to be plenty despite the little bit we’d had a chance to eat on this travel day. 

Friday morning we started with a visit to Paloquemao Market with its vast offerings of flowers, vegetables, fruits, packaged goods, meat and seafood. We first headed to the flower area since that area sells out and closes early. They do love to use artificial coloring in their fresh blooms but they also had beautiful ranunculus, proteas, water lilies...aside from the typical alstroemeria, sunflowers, roses, and, of course, a few that I didn’t recognize.

Then we  sampled some great breads at the the Delibono food bar. Great flavors and textures. And we sampled the Masato, a thick creamy white drink. A little sweet with maybe a hint of coconut but quite tasty. 

The fruit tasting arranged by Alejo, was quite interesting with several fruit we had not seen before. 

• Kurua, pink on the outside and orange inside....ck movie again
• Lulo, looks like a smooth orange on the outside and has multicolored flesh inside green center surrounded by orange flesh.
• Pitaya (of the dragon fruit family, originally from Central America but now extremely popular in SE Asia). It grows on several varieties of cactus. I have one at home but the fruit I get are too small to bother with. The fruit makes me think of a kiwi except the flesh is bright white.
• Granadilla (of the passion fruit family, there seem to be many similar fruits here. They tend to look quite different on the outside but inside is unmistakeable, consisting of black seeds covered with a transparent bit of fruit. You slurp it down seeds and all.
• Uchuva wih a papery husk and a small cherry tomato size fruit inside. Pat's Mom used to grow this and called it husk tomato. 

From there we wandered through massive sections featuring fish, meat, herbs/spices, ...

We moved on to the warehouse district where the city encourages artists to paint “graffiti/street art” on the exterior walls. We got a glimpse of an artist at work and a lot of other paintings. In one area small people have been added dressed in blue public works outfits. They are to draw attention to value that these often “unseen” people provide. And once you notice them on the artwork, you notice them much more in real life.

The Street Art project dates from 2011...following the police shooting of a 16 year old street artist while he worked on  the underpass of a bridge. The following uproar lead to Street Art first becoming decriminalized, then condoned and finally encouraged with some artists being paid up to $10,000 US for their work.

For lunch we got our first taste of Colombian food, tasty but too heavy to meat and rice or potatoes for our taste. 

We then walked to the funicula to ride to the top of Montserrate, which looms 512 meters, nearly 1700 feet, over the city. Even in ancient times, pre-Colombus, it was a sacred site. Now it is a popular tourist destination (favored for the views), as well as a frequented pilgrimage site with a religious sanctuary and massive statue of Jesus Christ at the top. The sanctuary was built in honor of the statue of Our Lady of Montserrat at the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery in Catalonia, Spain.

Unfortunately it was overcast and the views were not particularly photo-worthy. A few sprinkles later we headed back down. Three of us shared our one umbrella in the slightly heavier rain on our way to the car. It turned into a downpour with rivers in the streets as we drove back to our hotel. 

We went across the street to La Brasserie for dinner. We shared some nice appetizers with a French flair and a Bornada from Zuccardi in Argentina. Pecan Salad with pears, blue cheese and cranberries; Paté Maison and Lamb Meatballs with Labneh (Greek Yoghurt).

Two highlights for visitors to Bogota are The Museo de Qro (Gold Museum) and the Museo Botero (artwork by Botero, the painter of cute but very fat people and things, and great artworks from his private collection.) And these were the highlights of the following day.

The Museo de Oro has such an extensive collection of Gold and Gold alloy objects on display (6000 of the 55,000 in the collection) that it was a bit overwhelming.  With works of the many all the various(10 or so) indigenous groups and the variety style of the designs, it would take 2 or more days to see and absorb. A couple standout displays included that of the many amazing objects made simply for sacrifice. These were collected from a sacred lake and included “Balsa Muisca,” a detailed model of a Sacred Barge made totally of gold. 

Initially I thought of these as large earrings.
Whatever they are the monkeys are ver simple and very cute.

The character in this is life-sized.
That's a lot of gold.

This is the sacred barge. The boat may be 10-12" long.
Lovely work found in a lake with many sacrificed gold pieces.

Another was a round theater with gold objects displayed on the wall and others in a round “pit” in the center of the floor. You enter in the dark. Then various objects are lighted to focus your attention. In addition to displaying impressive objects, the lighting effects are quite enjoyable.

Finally there was a huge safe with the most precious objects.  You enter into the area with several large display rooms through a huge safe-style door roughly 18” thick. 

We also enjoyed the informative displays about types of metals (gold, copper, platinum) and their alloys. 

We ate lunch at El Mirador in the Hotel de la Opera. It is named for the views over the nearby tiled rooftops of the city center. The burrata al forno with pesto and tomatoes was quite good, the grilled trout wrapped in bacon was dry and disappointing and the seafood risotto was exquisite. We washed it all down with a chardonnay from Argentina.

After lunch we visited the Museo Botero which displays works of Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero. In addition there is collection of art by renowned artists from around the world, including Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Sonia Delaunay, Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. Botero’s signature style features people and things with  exaggeratedly large or “fat” proportions. Mostly they make one smile. Although he did a couple of serious series (the Colombian Conflict and the Abu Ghraib Prison). The serious series were not on display but would be interesting to see.

 Above: Mona Lisa (left) & "The Thief" (right). 

Below Chubby Cat (Pat's name for it.) All by Botero.

 Above: Works from Botero's personal collection. Retrospective bust of a woman by Salvador Dali (left). "Misty Morning" by Camille Pissaro (right).

On our way back to our hotel we stopped at the Andean Mall to get Bill a local SIM card and to explore the mall and nearby “T-Zone” with its shops and restaurants located along two streets that connect as a "T". 

Feeling stuffed we settled for some granadilla fruit (complements of the hotel) for “dinner".

Sunday, after a relaxing morning and a short walk around our neighborhood,  we headed off to the Usaquen Sunday market and bought several items for gifts and sampled some local street food. After the market we went to lunch at Abastos where we shared an excellent grilled artichoke and corvina (similar to sea bass) with cilantro coated mango and avocado - very, very tasty. After lunch we made our way back to our hotel with a short stop at a local park and a Juan Valdez coffee shop--the banana bread was excellent with the coffee. Later we wandered down to the hotel bar for a glass of wine and some crunchy bar snacks (crispy giant corn kernels and fava beens.

Monday was our leisure day. We took it easy in the morning and planned to go to Rafael’s for lunch. We ate at his place in Lima a couple years ago and were looking forward to it again. It was about a 35 minute walk, but along the way Bill started feeling off. We made it to the restaurant and got a table. Pat drooled over the menu while Bill looked at it regretfully. He really couldn’t eat any of those amazing creations. So we called a taxi and headed back to the hotel where he snoozed and Pat explored the neighborhood before returning to the hotel restaurant for a caesar salad and glass of wine. 

Bill perked up a little so we went to the hotel restaurant again and both of us had the veggie lasagna. Not bad, with Karu Carmenere wine.

The next morning we dropped some clothes off at the nearby laundry and Uber’ed to the Botanic Garden. Alejo arranged for Paola, a botanist, to give us a tour. Pat & Paola had fun comparing Spanish and English names of the plants. Some were basically literal translations. “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow”, Lily of the valley, Kangaroo paws, ...

Others were entirely different. And sometimes the “Spanish” name differs between Colombia and Mexico. For instance, the fruit of the prickly pear cactus (nopal) is called "tuna" in Mexico and "higo" in Colombia. We all know what "tuna" is in English. In Mexico, that is "atun". And "higo" in Mexico is the word for "fig". Bottom line, when it comes to plants, you can only depend on the latin name.

One of the most interesting plant was a native pine (with leaves more like a redwood). 

Palma de Cera (wax palm) is the Colombian National Tree. which grows to 200 feet and lives more than 100 years.

The lulo fruit, which we tasted at the market, with the smooth orange skin and the green pulp inside, turns out to be a fuzzy fruit when it is harvested, Somehow they remove the fuzz before sending the fruit to market.

We had a great lunch at Di Lucca. Bill had spaghetti with carbonara sauce. Pat had vegetarian risotto. And the wine was especially good: Villadoria Dolcetto and quite inexpensive for the area (around $32.)

Later we wandered the neighborhood a little, got some cash and picked up the laundry. Exciting, eh?

We ate lunch late so snacked on some banana & passion fruit compote (pudding) the hotel dropped off. Tasty. 

On Wednesday, we started early for the 1.5 hour drive to Zipacón for the "Coffee Experience” at La Palma & El Toucan, "Coffee growers and processing specialists". The main goal of the business is to develop ways to take coffee growing from a barely break-even business to a profitable business that will hopefully maintain the coffee culture in Colombia.  At the same time they appear to be dedicated to sharing their coffee expertise. 

They took us thru planting, harvesting, preparing the beans for sale, roasting, and a range of brewing methods. We learned how to plant coffee so that it will develop strong roots and how to spot the perfectly ripe berries that are critical to high quality brews. We were introduced to the chart for describing aroma profiles and then had to put our noses to the test, trying to identify the some of the standard aroma styles... very similar to the wine aroma descriptors and samples. In fact Phillipe claims that the coffee standards were developed first. We didn’t get into this but there is a whole science to roasting as well. In fact there is a very expensive roaster that can be programmed to provide a consistent roasting sequence.  

Above: Coffee Country
Below: Planting coffee

Coffee Tasting Chart

At one point they realized that providing jobs for the local men was not sufficient because they tend to spend too much of their income on drink, not on family care. They moved the men to doing heavier work and hired the women to harvest. In order to train the women to find beans with the perfect color, they found fingernail polish in the perfect color. This way the pickers could compare the beans to their nails and know they had the right color. The women harvesters are called “butterflies” because they like to wear colorful dresses and they look like butterflies at work.

The tour group was interesting as well. One member is a student from Norway who  owns a speciality coffee shop and is working on her thesis focusing on the role of the coffee industry and development of the country. We were also joined by Benjamin Put, his parents, sister, wife and young son, all from Calgary. Benjamin is the Canadian Barista Champion (since 2013) and has placed in the top 5 in the World Championships. 

For dinner we returned to Di Lucca to have more of that Villadoria Dolcetto wine that we enjoyed so much. To go with it we had a very nice pizza with prosciutto and arugula. 

On Thursday we headed north from Bogota to Villa de Leyva.  Along the way we stopped in Zipaquira to visit the Salt Cathedral which is carved out of the tunnels of an old salt mine 200 m underground. The local Muisca people started mining in the area in the 5th C BC, The church, inaugurated in1954, replaces a sanctuary the miners had carved for daily prayers to Our Lady of Rosary, patron saint of miners.

The main nave includes a monumental cross. The right nave includes the Stations of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, with images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. Typically the 14  stations of the cross include art clearly depicting a moment on that infamous day. Here, each station is a small chapel featuring a cross to convey its message. The cross might be serval large boulders standing out from the wall as for station 11 (Jesus is nailed to the cross), or a cross carved into the wall for station 13 (Jesus is removed from the cross). 

The cathedral is part of  Parque de la Sal (Salt Park) which includes many opportunities to learn more about salt mining and geology. In the interests of time, we chose to pass these up.

As we continued on to Villa de Leyva, stopped at a large cheese factory which also happens to serve a decent lunch. 

After lunch, we traveled through green lush dairy country. The farms consist of one or more pastures with maybe 10-30 cows. Luckily we went by at milking time...some farmers just sit up a stool in the field and milk the cow where it stands. Other had small sheltered areas where they could milk one or two cows. The milk is poured into cans and transported by mule cart...to somewhere (maybe to the cheese factory?). It really wasn’t clear. 

Besides the dairy industry, there is a big flower export industry. Roses are the primary export flower, followed by carnations and chrysanthemums. The United States accounts for over 75 percent of the total. So, strangely enough plastic covered greenhouses dot the countryside. The business below likely combines represents both industries. 

A ways further on we crossed a small stream, and suddenly we were into country with brown, barren hills with bits of green here and there. This is the terrain around Villa de Leyva. We are told the area gets little rain but we could seem to be the “lucky ones” NOT that do get rain.