A Friday Evening in Bogota

My first Friday in Bogota, I decided to walk home from work- and happened upon the other time per week when the main street is closed to traffic for miles.  Imagine if every Sunday morning and Friday evening, Washington DC closed 18th Street to traffic from Adam's Morgan through Dupont, the business district, past the White House, all the way to the Mall... and everyone walked along it, people set up kiosks with fruit, jewelry, and artisan crafts, and street performers carved out space to dance, sing, or even paint.  That's what Carrera 7a is like in Bogota, except that Bogota has ten times the population of DC!  It was a lot of fun.

I stood up on something in the sidewalk to take this picture, and this guy at a kiosknext to it started goofing around, joking that I should take his picture.  So:

He even got a friend to pose with him!

These paintings were surpisingly good for something done so quickly on the street!

The Transmilenio is less than a decade old, and is the only public transportation in Bogota.  Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of buses here, but they're all privately owned.  The Transmilenio is the only bus with a map, and it has stations where you can transfer for free.  Plus, for much of their routes, they have their own lane, allowing them to move much faster than other traffic.

The light was gorgeous.

Then, twilight fell.

I stopped in a plaza with a market.  People wandered through the kiosks, and sat laughing and chatting with friends around the statue.

I loved the way the jewelry hanging in some of the kiosks caught the light, and almost hid the shopkeepers inside.  I bought a bag that ended up breaking within a week, but I've since reinforced the seams with my own stitchwork. 

A street in La Candelaria.

That night, I went out on my own to explore the nightlife.  And what did I find?

CLOWNS!

A group of street-performing clowns had attracted a large crowd in the plaza near my house (which, it turns out, is something of a social center).  They had the audience eating out of the palms of their hands (me included), juggling fire and machetes and riding six-foot-tall unicycles.

I even got a picture with one!

First view of La Candelaria

The day after I moved into my apartment, I headed out on a stroll through my new neighborhood, La Candelaria.

 

I came upon this lovely intersection, which had a pretty yellow church, and art museum, and a large library.  I went into the library to get a card, and was disappointed to discover that in Colombia, libraries have membership fees!  The cheapest membership allows you to take out three books at a time for a five-day period.  For more money, you can take out videos and other materials as well, with increasing numbers and increasingly long time limits.  Libraries should be free, dammit!  For shame, Colombia, for shame! 

In any case, I moved on to the main square, called Plaza Bolivar, where people of all ages were out enjoying the Sunday afternoon. 

In this last picture, you can see the Biciclovia.  Every Sunday, the city of Bogota closes the main street to traffic, and Seventh Ave becomes a lane for bicycles, rollerbladers, pedestrians, dog-walkers, and little kids being pulled in fake plastic cars.  Vendors with brightly colored umbrellas sell their wares- fruit, candy, jewelry- along the way.  I mostly managed to get pictures of the slower-moving or stationary sights along the Biciclovia; there were some really delightful faster-moving sights as well-- like the guy carrying his dog on his bicycle.  The dog had her back paws resting on the man's lap, and her front paws on the handlebars, just inside of where the man was holing them.  Adorable!  Also, an old, frail-looking man in royal blue sweats and a baseball cap, cruising along on a rusty old bike.  Anyway, here's what I did manage to take pictures of:

At one point, a military guy asked to search my bag (I assume in an effort to prevent terrorism), so in return I took his picture.  I enjoy taking photos of police/military; there are more to come of the men in riot gear near the march I saw this past Saturday.  My perception of military culture is that it's very impersonal: you are the uniform, you do what you're told without questioning, etc.  Taking a photograph seems very personal- it is a record of the individual, not the role.  So here he is:

I walked along the Biciclovia for maybe a half mile before turning back.  At one point, I stopped into an old church and sat in a pew for some moments, thinking.  On my way back out the door, two girls ran by laughing and chasing each other, and I thought to myself, God is out there more than in here. 

As I headed back up the hill toward my apartment, the sky darkened and filled with clouds. 

On my way back home, I stopped in at a hostel to ask for a job, and chatted with some people who were staying there.  I left my contact information with the boss, and I told me to check back in a month.

It started to drizzle.  

 When the drizzle turned into a full-blown rain storm, I was in a cute little plaza which I've since realized is actually a bit of a social center in my neighborhood.  I ducked into the nearest cafe  to stay dry, and sipped on a hot chocolate while I read my current book, Hija de la Fortuna (Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune, in Spanish).  When the rain had subsided, I snapped a quick photo of the plaza and headed home- an afternoon well spent!

Apartment

After ten hours of winding mountain roads on the way back from Cali, the driver and I went straight to my new apartment (I had been staying with Lilia).  Marcela, my flatmate, is a 36-year-old artist, graphic designer, and human rights activist.  She'd just gotten back from a trip and was still clearing things out of my room, so I sat on the couch reading until my room was ready.

My apartment is awesome! Apparently some crazy architect lived here, and made a lot of modifications; none of the other apartments in our building have the thick tiled floor and chunky wooden island in the kitchen, nor the arched tops to the doorways.  It's also old; the sink in the bathroom doesn't work, so you either have to go out to the kitchen sink, or lean into the shower (which is also arched on the top and curved on the bottom).  The decor is appealingly artsy, including plenty of paintings on the walls.  My room is still pretty empty; I use a sheet pinned onto the doorframe of my balcony instead of a curtain, and will until the end of February.  I don't have a real bed yet, either- just a mattress on the floor.  It's not very comfortable.  The bedframe was supposed to make an appearance.... three days ago.  Marcela explained yesterday that when Colombians say "tomorrow" it doesn't actually mean "tomorrow."  I told her, thanks for the cultural lesson!  I have neat in-wall shelving, but nothing to put in it.  Marcela has given me free reign to scavenge the house for artisan crafts or knick knacks to fill up the space.  She also let me use a bunch of her art prints and some original pieces by her to brighten up the walls-- including a gorgeous poster she made with a portrait of Tina Modotti.

Marcela is awesome, and the few times we've had conversations about things other than the apartment,  I've been really grateful to have such an intelligent and interesting flatmate.  For those who can read Spanish, here is her blog: dosgallinas.blogspot.com

 

 My building

 The living room

 

 The living room

 

 It even has a fireplace... although it's rarely cold enough to use it.

 

 The view west from the living room balcony

 

The view northeast from the living room balcony.  See that church at the summit of the mountain?  It's Monserrate, and it's on my list of things to do very soon.  

 The kitchen

 

The kitchen, again

  

 Funky shower

  

 My bedroom.  That bed is NOT comfortable. 

 

I love the arched doortops!

 My favorite wall decor- a Marcela Vega original

 Close-up

 The view from the balcony in my room

 The laundry shed in our building's courtyard, as seen from my bedroom's balcony.

Cali

After returning from the hearing, I traveled to Cali with Lilia's family.  The road to Cali passes over the mountains to the west of Bogota.  Lilia's son, mother, and driver spent ten hours speeding along windy mountain roads.  I do not do well with curves, but I found that if I slept through them, I didn't feel as motion sick.  Before I started napping, though, I got some nice photos of the Colombian mountainscapes: 

Cali is the kind of climate you expect this close to the equator.  Thanks to its perch in the mountains, Bogota stays a brisk 75*F or so, but Cali, down at the feet of the mountains, is truly tropical: palm trees, humidity, the whole deal.

My week in Cali was largely uneventful.  I accompanied the family to the university (a pretty campus: palm trees, gardens, and brick buildings) a couple times, while they went through Lilia's son's admissions process.  I went out for dessert some evenings with Lilia's son, and spent a lot of time in the apartment.

One night, the family went out to a mirador, a restaurant with a view.  One the way there we stopped to take some photos:

On Thursday, I went to the Central Plaza, where proud-looking colonial architecture looked out over park benches full of people and street musicians playing haunting tunes on wooden instruments. I ducked into an big old church, where I sat reflecting for a moment before moving on the the anthropological museum and the gold museum. 

 

 

My last night in Cali, I participated in a well-honored Cali tradition: salsa dancing!  This was my first real (partnered) salsa experience in Colombia.  They have a slightly different style than the Cuba/PR-centric style I learned in DC-- there are fewer spins, and more side-to-side movement.  I managed to pick it up as we went along, and had a lot of fun! 

On the road back to Bogota, I was alone with the driver (to explain: from what I understood when it was briefly mentioned to me, Lilia's car and drivers are provided by the government for protection; the drivers are armed, I think.  It's dangerous working in human rights in Colombia).  The driver and I bonded: he stopped for me to buy some fruit for breakfast, and explained how to eat it, since it was a type I've never seen before.  We chatted and ate lunch together, until the motion sickness level got to the point where I turned to in-car napping for relief.  As on the way to Cali, I did manage to get some nice shots of the mountainside landscapes before that point:

Political Prisoner

The Monday after my arrival here, I went to a hearing of an outspoken professor who'd been arrested and charged with working with the FARC.   Each month, they give him an hour of court time, and then he has to wait in jail for another month until the next hour's worth of the hearing.  When the judge adjourned the hearing after this month's hour, a large percentage of the spectators started chanting about justice for political prisoners.  Outside the courthouse, there were lots of protesters as well:

The sign reads: "We are professors in favor of Human Rights and free expression.  Thinking differently doesn't make us terrorists."

My arrival in Bogota

I'll admit: I was very nervous to go to Bogota.  In part because of Colombia's reputation for being unsafe, but mostly fears about whether I'd be happy here.  I was worried that my still-imperfect Spanish would limit my usefulness at work and ability to socialize, that I wouldn't like the city, that I wouldn't be able to find friends.

Here is what I wrote the night of my arrival: 


I woke up in my parents' New Jersey home this morning, and tonight I am falling asleep in Bogota.  

I woke up with a splitting headache, stumbled to the bathroom to down some acetaminophen, and fell back asleep for a couple hours.  I showered, packed my toiletries and some other last items, bought travel insurance, dropped my guidebooks back off at the library, wrote down the embassy and other important contact information, hugged PJ goodbye and hit the road with my dad.  PJ stood in the driveway an we drove off, doing a one-person "wave" through the rearview mirror.  On the way to the airport I cried a little (nerves and sentimentality) and slept a lot.  

In the check-in line and in the waiting area, I eyed people who looked about my age, wondering how hard it would be to make friends once in Bogota.  On the plane I was seated next to a lovely young woman who turned to me almost as soon as I was seated and asked, "Do you speak Spanish?"  (in Spanish, of course)  I said yes, and we launched into conversation.  Her name was Diana, and she worked for the UN helping children in indigenous communities affected by the conflict.  She lived near Cali, but we exchanged contact info and she promised to connect me with friends of hers in Bogota.  I would have loved to chat with her the whole flight, but as we were preparing for takeoff, the flight attendant had her switch seats with the woman across the aisle so there wouldn't be two babies in the same row... which was ok, because then I got to sit next to an adorable little baby on her first trip to her mother's homeland, on her way to be introduced to grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  

After claiming my luggage and passing through customs, I wandered the pickup area searching for Lilia, the executive director of the organization for which I'll be volunteering.  After fifteen luckless minutes I began contemplating my other options.  I had Lilia's phone number, but no phone.  I also had her address, but it wouldn't help if she wasn't home to let me in.  I had the address of a hostel but I needed to be sure Lilia wasn't there waiting for me before I left.  I must have looked pretty lost, because a young man trying to attract people to the hotel he worked for asked if I needed to borrow his phone.  He dialed it for me, and after several times with no answer, Lilia picked up and told me she was on her way.  As I waited for her, the helpful hotel fellow checked back with me a couple times.  I asked for his contact info as well.  

Standing there outside the airport, I thought, I think I'm going to like Colombia.  We got off to a good start.  

Finally Lilia arrived.  In the car, she asked how tired I was, and mentioned that her friend who was leaving tonight was out dancing salsa for the next hour until her flight.  I said I was up for iy, so off we went!  There was a big group of people at the salsa club, most of them my age.  I spoke with a couple of them, and I'm hoping their connection to Lilia is not so tenuous that I can't hang out with them again.  Lilia's son, the English professor, was at the club too.  He speaks English very well, and we conversed in both languages.  He's about my age too.  I'm feeling a lot less nervous about making friends now.  

We got home at around midnight, and after a brief tour of the apartment (which is very nice!  It even has a balcony with a view out over the city), and a promise of a tour of the city center tomorrow, we said goodnight.  I am sitting in my low bed listening to lovely music PJ gave me (Bright Eyes, Cassadega) and remembering my day as a type this.  

I think this is going to be good. 


The following day, I took pictures of the view from Lilia's balcony: