Monserrate: views are better with friends

September 17, 2015

So did I mention Taryn decided to come visit Colombia for a week? This was my ridiculously excited face.

What do we do her first day at altitude? (Bogota is at 2640 meters) Go up some more.

Tall places have great views. They are also very tall. Thus they tend to involve sore leg muscles and a lot of sweat.

Both proved true when we went to Monserrate, a church built in 1620 that overlooks all of Bogota.

2 km trail, 463 meters of elevation gain, and one heck of a view.

Lots of people run up to Monserrate as a penitence.  We walked a bit more sedately.

Crosses along the way up the trail

It was kind of a smoggy day so all of Bogota was a bit hazy but it was still amazing.

The church at the top wasn't bad either.

There were a bunch of cute little houses at the top, all whitewashed. Some craft stalls and food places. Also a Via de Cruces which had a cross to represent each part of Jesus' journey. (The same crosses as the Catedral de Sal which I talk about here)

It fogged in and then started raining while we were at the top. And smelled really good.

The rain erased the view, but we got it back on the way down. Then we got rained on harder, and went to find lunch.

Timer shot once we got below the clouds a little

Day successful.

Catedral de Sal

September 11, 2015

Out of Bogota our second day, Shay and I traveled to Zipaquirá to see the salt mines. We figured out buses from the northern terminal, and 2 hours later arrived to 'Zipa'

Its a super cute little town, and we passed by the main square on our way to the edge of town and the Catedral de Sal.

We followed the white brick road to the top of the hill

Then headed down into the mine.

The plastic guy was a little freaky and had a mustache drawn on...

Its just busting with crosses down there. The guided tour took us past all of them, following Jesus' journey with the cross. Stations represented him falling the three times, getting helped by Simon, meeting the Virgin Mary, etc. I called a little bit of shenanigans since every cross looked pretty similar, and the stripe of other colored rock across the ceiling would represent him getting his face washed by Veronica or whatever. That didn't take away from the fact that the carvings were beautiful and the mines extensive.

Each cross was lit up with lighting of some sort.  They were way easier to see than to take pictures of unfortunately

The two rocks on either side represented the women of Jerusalem he consoled.

Half carved into the wall, half relief.  I thought this one was especially cool.

There was the giant cross way back in the tunnels, 18 meters high and 10 meters wide. It looked suspended, but we found out later when we went a little farther down closer to the bottom that its actually carved into the wall and shows light through the hole.

View from a balcony, maybe 30 meters back from the cross

View from closer up, you can kind of see that it is carved into the wall instead of hanging

Way way in the back were all the gift shops selling salt sculptures, emerald jewelry and all the usual trinkets. There was a cafe 180m below ground, and a claw machine which cracked me up.

Also due to the money amounts here and  the fact that the symbol for pesos is the doller sign, to play said claw machine was only a mere $500

Carving in the walls down by the giftshop

We were confused for a bit, since we definitely didn't do 180 meters of elevation walking, but the mine entrance is halfway down the hill.  It was only 32 meters of elevation on the 2km path through the mine, but then there was more hill above us in the middle.

Mine plan, lots of tunnels

It was a great little excursion, and the walls really did taste like salt. Yes I checked.

Salt precipitating out of the walls near the entrance, hand for scale

Also this was the fat little fish in the pond outside.  I giggled.

The next day I had to watch Shay drive away in a taxi to go back to the US.  We sure had a great run of adventures though, and I have more solo adventures to look forward to now.

Cali: Salsa capital of the world

September 1-4, 2015
*Note: though Cali is the salsa capital, we only went out dancing one night.  It was fun, and a slightly different kind of salsa than in other parts of South America.  But since we only went once, this post doesn't actually talk about about salsa at all. It was just a good title.

So Cali is hot. We learned that right off the bat. Like 86 plus humidity minus a breeze and it doesn't cool down too much at night. There is a lot of ick going on with the weather.

After about 4pm it gets marginally more bearable though, so we ventured out with Jose, the owner of our hostel.

Cali has this awesome boulevard where one of the biggest streets in town used to be, right be next to the river. They stuck the street in a tunnel and turned the street into a walking and biking path. It had some pretty sweet cat statues along it, akin to the Pigs on Parade for you Seattleites that remember them from some years ago.

We walked around the historic district next to our hostel, this is one of the cool churches.

Speaking of hostels, we stayed at Kingbird (shoutout, stay there of you're ever in Cali) which had some of the most beautiful paintings on the walls.

Painted on the walls, outlets and light switch for scale

Paintings on canvas hanging by the TV

It also had sweet furniture made from recycled pallets and a nice lights and wine bottles setup at the end of the dining room.

Also one of the most flopped out cats I've seen.

Out walking one night we found posters for the circus. So we went, and it was worth every penny. Please excuse the picture quality, its tough to take photos in an extremely dark room of moving objects.

Kind of dark circus selfie

Cyr wheel act, feathers falling from the ceiling

Balancing act.  Dude on the bottom was their clown, and he was actually funny.  Had a lovely moment where he ended up dancing with one of the guys in the audience who obviously had no idea what to do in that situation

This guy

Do you think he knows he's riding the bicycle the wrong way?

Climbing up, flipping down, jumping over people coming up...

Its super blurry, but this was the top guy holding on with his feet, holding the hands of the gal, and she was walking down the pole as he slid down.  I will probably never be as ripped as they are.

The whole 18 person cast, including the fantastic live band that was playing for the whole show

So Cali had a hot and kind of icky climate, but was filled with things to do if you only know where to look. I intend to go back and find more of them.  Also there is a salsa festival.

We left for Santa Marta where I learned how to scuba dive, but that post will be very out of order since I'm still trying to compile photos from different places for it.

The Sights of Bogotá

Sept 14-15, 2015

So this post is a little out of chronological order.  I'm still working on getting posts for Cali and diving in Santa Marta put together.  Those are still on their way.  However, I´m doing a long-distance learning thing with my aunt's Spanish 1 and 2 classes in Port Angeles, which I'm super excited about.  They are following my blog each week, and I'll be answering questions and talking with them about my travels here, and then visiting their classes when I get back to the states.

This week they researched Bogotá a little and send me some suggestions of things to do, so here I have pictures from those places and some stories about them.

I had a couple days to explore all by me onesie between sending Shay off in a taxi to fly home (sad face) and my good friend Taryn arriving for a week of adventures. (excited face)

La Candelaria
The main downtown area of Bogotá, which is all the way in the south, actually.  It is home to Plaza Bolívar, which is huge.

It's also filled with pidgeons.

The surrounding area has quaint streets filled with food and hostels, which got explored a little.

There is also La Septima (Carrera 7) which is a perpetually blocked off main road.  It's filled with food vendors, artists, street performers, and people with tarps of goods to sell (shoe laces, blenders, shirts, soccer jerseys, books, scarves, etc. One thing per tarp) lining the sidewalks.

You can see the street with everyone in it here, I didn't get a very good picture of the street vendors/performers unfortunately...

 These signs were lining a construction zone in the middle of the street.

In the new 7a! You will enjoy much fresher air, without cars, with more plants

The new 7a! It will be a place where you, as a vendor, can show your products in spaces designed for it.  Your clients can shop peacefully while they walk in a green space free of vehicles.

In the new 7a! It will much greener with sustainable gardens and new healthy trees. You will have a new walkway where it will be a pleasure to walk!

In the new 7a! You will be the good guy because this was thought up for you.  You can walk with your family and friends in a safe and calm environment.

Museo de Botero
Fernando Botero, painter, born 1932.  He is well known for his paintings and distinctive style of fat people.

Fat Mona Lisa

He also had some sculptures on display, all in the same chubby style.  These were my favorites, titled 'Horse', 'Cat', and 'Bird' respectively.  He doesn't have very inspired titles for his art.

While I'm not totally enamored with his paintings, it was a free museum and interesting.  There were also paintings from his personal collection, by artists including Picasso, Degas, Monet, Matisse, and Dalí, which was kind of cool.

Pablo Picasso

Claude Monet

Attached to the Botero Museum was Casa de Monedas, or the House of Coins.

It was a museum dedicated to the money of Colombia and its history from ancient times.  There were coins and bills from Conquistodor times, and a very interesting history of the emergence of a central bank in Colombia.

When paper money became a thing, each bank printed its own bills for varying amounts.  It was a while before the government managed to set up a central bank that was stable and accepted by the population.

There were also some antique minting machines on display.  This one was made in the US in 1883.  Different machines were able to make different diameter and thickness coins.  They had the original carved and wax designs for the current 500 peso coin, though I wasn't allowed to take a picture of it.

Museo de Oro

The gold museum in Bogotá is huge.

Its got three floors filled with gold, silver, and copper artifacts dating back to 1200 BC from South America.  There were lots of nose rings and breastplates.

earrings, maybe 2 inches across

Adornments for ceremonies.  They were shiny to reflect light and the bottoms have a kind of gold fringe with small pieces attached with rings so there was movement and sound too.

Displays had bowls, jewelry, diety figurines, masks, tools, and crowns from all over South America from different times in history.  Signs and videos showed processes of hammering, embossing, smelting, polishing, and goldsmithing using moulds.  It was extremely interesting.

Embossed pieces.  The sheets were poked or hammered while laying on top of a soft surface

There was a floor dedicated to the history of gold with ancient societies and how they viewed it as being connected to the spirit world.  Lots of jaguar and bird shaman figurines there.

This one happens to be a fish

Botanical Garden
This was a student suggestion (shoutout to Hugo) that I gladly followed.  There is a beautiful big botanical garden in the middle of the city.

It had sections for all the different types of plants growing in Colombia.  I got there near closing time (Bogotá is big and takes longer to walk places than you might think...) so I didn't get to see absolutely everything.  It was still lovely though.

Some of my favorites

Rose gardens with a fountain

Room full of orchid species, of which there are a ton in Colombia

I have no idea what this flower is, but is a puffball and that's fun

Tree covered in either vines or roots

The Amazon room complete with pond and hanging vines

Desert room.  Cactus for dayyyys.

One of my favorite desert plants, its so wonky looking.  They're around in town too.

There was even a heron/egret in the pond completing the ambiance

I had a lovely couple days adventuring around in the city, enjoying the sunshine and getting to know the public transit systems a little better.  I still have to make it up to Monserrate, a church on top of one of the hills overlooking the city.  It's definitely on my list though.

View from Plaza Bolívar of Monserrate up on the hill

Stay tuned...