LAST DAY FOR ME

I wake up early (as in 5am…) and work on my blog, wondering whether travel bloggers do this because they’re terminally jetlagged and awake when others aren’t. Whatever the reason, it’s a satisfying thing to do for your own self. When you read your stories and look at the photos, your travels and experiences jump to life even years after they happened. I used to do scrapbooks before there were laptops. I’d clip and glue brochures – never photos, that was cheating – and write my text in a notebook bought at our first stop with multicolored pens acquired during the trip also. Whenever I look at one of those today the trip comes alive with all the little moments I’d forgotten.

It’s my last day in Bogota. Oswaldo will stay on for his conference and only leave on Sunday afternoon. I pack my suitcase after the lovely hotel breakfast, 

and then we head out in the rainy streets to see the Museo de las Esmeraldas, which turns out to be housed in a modern office building near the Museu del Oro. The streets are lined with colorful vendors, 

but also with soldiers in full military gear and policemen walking dogs with big muzzles. They are there to detect the bombs that have fortunately not yet reached Bogotá.

I photograph several and even spot a female Malinois, much darker than Thor, but with the same black face and wide-set eyes. The dogs never look at me, not even when I bark to make them look at the camera!

The emerald museum also has a lot of security. No wonder when you see the treasures inside. On the 23rd floor our guide takes us through a narrow, dark tunnel showing different types of emerald ore and explains about the peculiarities of the Colombian emeralds (not volcanic, like the Brazilian once, and therefore with less inclusions), as well as the working conditions in the mines. In some workers deal with temperatures reaching 45-60 degrees Celsius, this 600m under the ground, and in others they move in water to their knees; their dream of finding that huge life- changing million dollar rock keeps them going.

We emerge into a showroom filled with emeralds, in the brute and lapidated, and in colors ranging from a deep bluish pine green to a watery mint. It’s a fascinating sight and we ask many questions. 

Afterwards we join the lunch crowd on the street, stopping to buy odds and ends, 

but heading back to the hotel where Oswaldo has to change rooms. He gets a new room on the same floor, but with a view to the mountains, which reminds me strongly of Thimpu in Bhutan.

We have lunch in a great place, El Olivar, just around the corner, and eat our best meal in Bogota: mushrooms cooked with herbs in a buttery sauce, a salad with all the crunchy vegetables you can imagine, including nuts, and finally grilled salmon with pure of a yellow root and a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. All so simple and so good.

There’s only time left to return to the hotel and brush my teeth and grab my suitcase. Mauricio, the driver,  is waiting outside, Today there’s no traffic and we have a tranquil trip, chatting in Spanish about our dogs – he has three - and of taking his family to Lake Guatavita, which they'd never seen, after having gone there with us.

The airport is another story, but then they always are. As I leave Bogota a huge full moon is rising over the mountains, the same moon that I will see when I land in São Paulo 6 hours later in the middle of the night local time.

Here are the last pictures including some of the street-vendors:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157629232717795/    Hasta luego!

RAINY MONDAY

We wake up - at the crack of dawn again - to pouring rain. The interesting thing about that is that our raincoats stayed unseen in the back of Victor's car. The umbrellas didn't make it either. So now what?  I get the excellent idea to find a shopping center, in part to see what the modern Bogota shopping scene looks like - having seen a lot of artesanato, but with the added possibility of buying something, of course.  The hotel arranges for a car and off we go, through the packed morning traffic to the Andino Shopping Mall in the Northern part of the city, Zona Rosa, a modern affluent district where we drive past beautiful apartment buildings and catch glimpses of shops like Masarati and Armani. We spend a couple of hours there and have fun in a music store trying to pick out appealing music - I find myself quietly salsa-ing in place with earphones on, listening to a 'Chocquibtown' album - good music for a rainy day. We buy other odds and ends and have the driver take us back to the hotel, where we "chill" for a while, feeling still quite tired from all the walking we did yesterday. Then, with energy renewed, we walk over to the Casa da Moneda complex housed in a couple of joined and beautifully restored Colonial houses 

and take a quick at the coin collection, with its gigantic presses, and a much closer look at Botero's works - his museum is in the same complex - including the fabulous sculptures.

There's an interesting exhibition of renowned Colombian artists and I fall in love with a "Colombian Libelula", done by artist Feliza Bursztyn

Having checked out a final photography exhibition we leave the complex and meander down the old streets where one jewelry store next to the other offer the famous Colombian emeralds. We duck into the Exito supermarket to buy the fruits and wine, which will be our dinner tonight, and pass the sodden and yet so beautiful Plaza Bolivar with its thousands of pidgeons. Walking up the road to the hotel we spot a short sturdy security guard walking a Rottweiler with a really big muzzle. We recognise the young dog, one and a half year old, who tied to the railings of a garden next to the hotel, worriedly eyed the two big buckets of water next to him when we saw him on our early Sunday walk. He was about to have a bath, and we felt quite sorry for him for it was a cool morning. I run after them to get a picture and here it is:

Here are my photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157629208567433/

SUNDAY IN TOWN

It's a beautiful not-too-cool day and we don our many-pocketed 'Scottivests' and carry everything zippered in safely on our bodies, hands free. You get a good education about the possiblity of street crime in Rio de Janeiro. Turns out most of the large avenues have been closed for various activities and we move amongst  runners and bikers, little kids with their parents, and sullen teenagers on skateboards. We walk the 6 blocks over to the Museo del Oro, which hasn't opened yet, so we join the mass at the Iglesia de San Francisco and admire the old wooden roof and the nave in floor to ceiling gold, as well as the fresh flowers amassed in front of the images of the saints. Then we cross the avenue to stand in line to get into the museum. Sunday is free entry and there are a lot of people, including a fair amount of teenagers, which is really nice to see. The collection is both rich and beautifully displayed and we try not to take too many pictures of all the amazing things we see, including pieces reminiscent of Pomodoro, an Italian jeweller, we know from the gallery.



As a final touch a guard, of which there are many, more or less pushes us into a dark, round space, muttering something about a short show. It gets pitch dark for a long moment and then starts a fabulous lightshow illuminating hundreds of gold pieces to the sound of Indian chanting and water rushing by. Quite spectacular - also the fact of being alone in there. The next lot waiting outside looks to be about 20 random people and we wonder how they'll feel standing together in the total darkness.

We stop for a look at the museum store, where the one thing that stands out - a bright red hand-made hammock - turns out to cost almost $3.000. So, empty-handed, we head into the basement for a show about the Mayan culture, the ceramics of which we admire until we reach their offfering stone. Adults were sacrificed for their entrails and "children for their hearts" - all of which was put on the stone to appease the gods. After this our keen interest in that civilization diminishes considerably - in spite of the beautiful ceramics. We prefer the truly spiritual Muiscos of yesterday.

Out of the museum we head uphill toward the cable cars and funiculars which will take us to the Montserrate Sanctuary, high above Bogota. We haven't factored in that Sunday is family day, so we walk in the now hot sun with thousands of local people heading, perhaps, for the one o'clock mass on top of the mountain with their families. Street vendors line the avenue, hawking juice, sliced fruits, ripe coconut slivers with maple suryp, all manner of corn cakes, barbecued corn and meat, toys, cookies, hats, scarves - anything! We struggle uphill, again catching our breath in the richly scented air and eventually get to a a point where we can buy a ticket. The line is another question - reminiscent of Disney, where you turn a corner to see another endless line ahead of you. We'd planned to go up by cable car, but so had half of the population of Bogota, so we go by the much faster funicular. We emerge in a sea of people, going up more stairs to the sanctuary, or around to follow a Via Cruxis to taped music.

We choose to do neither, but find a secluded spot on the veranda of the pretty, old Casa Santa Clara restaurant appreciating the view of  the city sprawled beneath us, and enjoying a shared $5 beer.

When it's time to go down, and the first splatters of rain fall on us, we realize most people thought they'd return by the funicular also. The line is impressive, as is the good behavior of the children, which we'd also seen on the plane going here. It appears Colombian children do not whine and carry on. They seem happy and flexible, and their parents very affectionate.

Once down we head down the crowded avenue, ducking into a flea market, and then into a deserted artesanato court, where nothing seems very interesting at all. We're going for dinner to the house of mathematician Xavier Caicedo and his wife Carmen with our old Venezuelan friend Carlos di Prisco, so we head home to get ready.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157629191732123/

A ROADTRIP

High on our list of places to visit is the Lake Guatavita, a sacred lake about and hour and a half out of town. One legend - and there are several - has it that the Eldorado was here and that the still lake conceals unimagineable treasures in gold from ancient burial ceremonies. We've made an arrangement with Mauricio, the hotel driver, who picked us up from the airport yesterday, and at 9.30am - after our breakfast in the lovely hotel courtyard

 - he's waiting for us. We hit huge traffic on our way out of town, apparently Saturday is THE day to visit the cemetaries at the outskirts of town, and, as we get closer to Guatavita, we get the feeling that this is Mauricio's first time here also, as he struggles to find the right route. But eventually we reach the entrance to the lake and begin our 40 minute climb up in the thin air, making us stop many times heaving for breath - and keeping always ahead of an earnest tour group with guide, whose monotonous explanations grow fainter as we work on creating distance between us and them. The stone path to the top is lined with wildflowers and the occasional sign with spiritual sayings from the Muisco tribe, which used to govern the area.

The view at the top is spectacular, a circular green lake with no tributiaries, reflecting the white clouds above while occasional flurries of wind ripple its surface. The silence is wonderful, just the wind, which at one point blows forcefully through some low pines and creates a sound, which makes my skin prickle. A special place indeed.

The walk down is a lot shorter than the way up, but uneven, as if we're walking in a riverbed, reminding us of the rains which castigated Bogota last year.

Back in the car we make a short stop in the town of Guatavita, rebuilt several years ago after the original town was flooded to create a huge dam, which we have been driving along. It is not a cheerful place. The uprooted inhabitants now work in a multitude of souvenir stalls selling identical wares in the largely empty tourist center. We find a little café, and after a surprising good coffee - those without milk are called 'tintos' here - and a delicious mushroom and cheese toast, we get into the car to head to the famous Salt Catherdral, built in an old salt mine, more than an hour away. It's a sunny day and we're driving through a fertile rural area, where we see not only small homesteads with their thoughtful cows, but also huge flower plantations, roses and orchids being some of Columbia's main exports.

 The Catedral de Sal lies in an underground grotto/excavation, which you reach after entering the old mine and walking down paths leading you past representations of the Via Cruxis done basically with large crosses set against the rough hewn stone and lit in spectacular ways:

After passing a petrified waterfall of salt, with an intermittant soundeffect of what it must have sounded like, you reach the vast cathedral

Everything is done very sparingly and with extremely good taste. It's another emotional experience.

Back in the light we head back to Bogota, where we have an hour to rest and change before we get picked up by Tomás Barrero, a resident philosopher, who has offered to take us to dinner. Turns out to be a great little restaurant, Mini-mal (http://www.mini-mal.org/), simple in the way that Miam-Miam is simple and with the same level of prices! But the food is spectacular, creative, and includes many fruits which you will find only in Colombia. Sipping my Agave Margharita I think we have had a very full day! 

Here's link to the rest of the pictures:http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157629191227211/

THE WAY TO BOGOTA

We’re up at 5am getting ready for the taxi booked for 6am. The ride to the airport is swift, as is the flight to São Paulo. Oswaldo sleeps while I watch Paquetá, Itaoquinha, Marambaia, Ilha Grande and Gipoia glide past in the flat blue sea under a cloudless sunny sky. 

The island is the little dot top left in the photo

The wait, in São Paulo, however - determined by my ticket on miles - is long and tedious, as is the 6hr cramped flight to Bogota with really bad food (overcooked pasta with sliced blanquet anyone?).


Our Hotel de la Opera in the older Candelária part of town is wonderful. We have a 7th floor ample room with a view across the old rooftops and the hills beyond.

Casal by Botero

We drop our stuff and walk around the area, finding the Botero museum nearby, which we walk through to conclude that between the paintings and the lovely old building there are so many treasures we have to return in daylight. 

Busto Retrospectivo de Mujer by Salvador Dali

Then we find the Centro Cultural de Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and stop there for an excellent coffee in the Juan Valdez coffee shop – somewhat reminiscent of Starbuck’s. We go home to showers and putting our legs up and end the evening with dinner at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant, where we’re surprised when a person looking a lot like John Malkovich in a pink shirt, turns out to be the Cuban crooner. He turns on his computerized back-up music and launches into a series of Latin songs, many of which we can hum along with. Then we collapse in our room – it’s been a looong day. 


Here are the rest of the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157629190883025/