Bogotá (Colombia)

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After 5 cities I finally made it to Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia!

From Salento I took a night bus with my new made friend Sisca. We arrived in Bogota early in the morning but well rested since we paid for the VIP part of the bus and we got huge reclining seats, just like business class on an airplane!

To be honest what I was the most excited about in Bogotá was to check out the Botero museum so we dropped off our bags and off we went to explore the city and to the museum!

What I love the most about Botero is that his genre/kind of art is very his, when one sees his paintings one immediately knows who the artist is.

The Monalisa, Botero style!

The president and the first lady.

The collection at the museum went beyond Botero's art, the artist also donated some paintings from his private collection that included artists such as Picasso and Dali.

The museum complex where the Botero is located has 4 different museums, all free of charge and a good way of spending an afternoon in Bogotá.

From the museums we went to explore the old town center.

The streets were filled with people selling trinkets and beautiful art.

We then arrived to the most iconic place in Bogotá: Plaza Bolivar with its hundreds of pigeons!

Plaza Bolivar

We also explored the beautiful and very colourful neighbourhood of la Candelaria, filled with colourful spanish style houses.

View of the old center from a hill in Candelaria

Weird but in a way cool balcony!

That green guy gets and amazing view of Bogota from up there!

Loving the colours!

One thing that caught my attention in Bogotá was the amount of trash everywhere in the old town. Well, it turned out that some parts of the city were having a little garbage pick up crisis!

I thought the placement of the garbage near this painting was quite cute, flowers growing from it!

The white building on top of that mountain is Montserrate, located on the edge of the city. From there one can get an amazing view of all of Bogotá but unfortunately I wasn't able to go as every day it was overcast and we wouldn't be able to appreciate the view... One more reason to go back to beautiful Bogotá!

Walking the streets of Bogotá one could find all kinds of food, Sisca and I took advantage of it and tried a couple of different things!

My favorite street food was probably the empanadas de yuca con queso... so delicious!!!

And of course the Obleas con arequipe! yummy!
These were huge thin wafers (like the ones you get at catholic church) but filled but dulce de leche or many other toppings such as jam and cheese!

sweet treats!

On the streets people were rolling carts full of fruits:

Fried meat anyone?

While walking we saw people playing chess on a pedestrian street.

And even some kind of protest/ political campaign. These guys were dressed up as "luchadores" (fighters) fighting for a better Bogotá.

Of course we couldn't miss the shoe shiners!

And the lotto stand!

Sisca and I really wanted to go to the big market we saw on the bus ride so we decided to walk there. First we stopped at a big plaza, there were lots of people and some even seemed a little sketchy! Sisca and I carefully got our camera and phones out to take a couple of shots but always looking at our surroundings since pick pocketers are everywhere.

We then walked by the party supply street that had literally anything a person would want to throw a birthday party!!!

From there we got really lost but it was ok, it gave us the chance to see a little bit more of Bogotá. To be honest it reminded me a little bit of Yangon in Myanmar with all the shops on the street.

We walked by shops that sold every kind of nut, seed, and grain imaginable!! It was unbelievable!!!

After a long way we finally arrived at the Paloquemao Market, a huge produce and flower market! We arrived in Bogotá before 6am so when we drove by the market there were trucks full of flowers making deliveries and the flowers looked lovely, I needed to come check them out.

There was so much produce! We wanted to buy some mangoes but we had to ask a lot of sellers because the prices they were given us were absurd, a mango for a dollar?!?! totally crazy when I knew that I could easily be 3 mangoes for a dollar.

When we finally got to the flower market we realised that they were all closing and that flower market are a morning thing! Despite our late arrival we got to see some shops open!

Bogotá is one of the cities where graffiti is legal therefore making it a great city to walk around spotting art in different corners!

"To dream is to build reality"

For sunset one day I went out for a walk and got an amazingly beautiful sky!

After spending 2 days in the old center of Bogotá I moved to the northern part with my friend Camila. Camila and I met at a bus station in Plovdid, Bulgaria, waiting for a bus to go to the Rose Festival and I knew I had to see her in her town!

She came down south to meet up and took Sisca and myself to "La puerta falsa" a staple restaurant for Colombian food.

Sisca ordered a tamal with chicken while Camila and I each got a hot chocolate with a piece of cheese and some bread and butter. In Ecuador I wasn't brave enough to put the piece of cheese inside my hot chocolate but I here I went all out and tried it, it was not bad at all!!!

We also went for some "tinto." In Spanish the word "tinto" is used to say red wine, vino tinto, but not in Colombia! When somebody asks you if you want some tinto they mean coffee! Go figure!

Having some tinto and empanadas!

My last two days in Bogotá I spent it with Camila's family who were kind enough to host me at their house.

Here we are having some ice cream after lunch

Staying in the north with Camila made it easier for me to reach Zipaquira, the cathedral inside a salt mine and one of the wonders of Colombia!

My journey to Zipaquira started by meeting Sisca at the 106 station and taking the complicated transmilenio to terminal and then getting a bus on the side of the street with the sign “Zipa” on it.

After a very slow ride due to traffic we arrived to Zipaquira and the collector asked those going to the cathedral to get off, so off we went. We walked up the hill and asked a couple of people how to get there since there were no signs or information about it. On our way we stopped by two beautiful plazas:

The first one was the main plaza with the cathedral and its tall and robust palm trees.

The second one, “plaza de la independencia”, was found by mistake since I didn’t follow Sisca’s advice to turn left and kept going straight.

From plaza independencia we walked a couple of blocks until the entrance to the salt mine and went up stairs for what seems forever! Once up we had to buy our tickets and turned out to be way more expensive that what I had seen online; each ticket for a foreigner was 50,000COP ($18!) so Sisca decided not to enter.

I thought the price was high but I also thought that I had come all the way to zipaquira for it, it’s a thing you can only see in Colombia, and that after all it’s only money and things always balance out.

With ticket in hand I headed down to the mine and waited for my one hour and a half tour to begin. As we walked in the guide said that cathedral was actually one kilometer in from the entrance and 180m below.

The guide started by giving us some facts about the cathedral like it’s only 22 years old and that in 1990 it was still an active salt mine. The project of building “the cathedral” (which in my opinion is NOT a cathedral, more like one cross and a chapel that they want to give it a better name to make it fancier) started in 1992 by 107 miners. The whole thing took 7 years to carve and the “cathedral” alone took 4 years.

At the entrance of the mine salt was pretty much white but as we walked deeper into the mine it all turned black. The guide said that it was because there was also charcoal in the mine which stains the salt due to its minerals.

On the way to the chapel the miners carved many crosses depicting the viacrusis, the different stops that Jesus went by. The crosses are rather simple since the carvers were only miners and not artists but somehow they found a way to symbolize what the stop meant.

For example, stop 10 was when Jesus was undressed and the miners carved a cross into a big wall to show that something was missing (I think, at least that’s what I got from it.)

We then got to cúpula, which is strangely not on top of the church but right after the viacrusis and before the lane heading to the church. The cúpula took six men six months to carve.

From there we walked to the choir, a nice viewpoint for the cathedral (aka the cross) that has an angel figure playing a trumpet. Apparently it’s up there where the best acoustic is at.

Then we headed down the stairs where we saw the another sculpture, this time the arcángel.

The archangel on top of the rock!

Downstairs we found a very cute chapel and then in one of the chambers there was a huge nativity with 6 figures, each weighing one to two tons!

And finally we made it to the “cathedral” which was nothing but a huge cross at the end of one of the chambers in the mine.

Another important piece of the church is the huge medallion made of Colombian marble, an “inspiration” from the sixtine chapel.

The tour of the cathedral pretty much ended there but then the guide took us to the very touristic part of the mine full of shops and extra activities.

Overall the experience was really nice but it didn’t feel like a church, it felt more like an attraction.

From Zipaquira I went back to Camila's house and that night she took me out to one of the many clubs in Bogotá and danced the night away to the rhythm of Vallenato, Bachata, Salsa, and whatever Colombians dance to!!

My last stop in Bogotá was at the Usaquen market, a weekend market full of crafts.

Traditional Colombian purses!

After four days in Bogota it was time to keep going on, this time on a night bus to Medellin!!!

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!