Bogota

June 13, 2014

Bogota had been a much-anticipated stop for us. We’d heard of a recommended mechanic that could do some of the work that we needed done to the van and the conveniences of a modern city was also on our list of things to be excited about. Despite the insane driving, the kindness of the Colombian people showed true even in this massive city.

We arranged to drop the car off at 9 in the morning on a far side of the city and in true Latin America fashion we waited for an hour before there was any sign of life at the shop. After we got the van into the tiny space, we were talking about all the work we wanted done when another customer arrived to discuss his racecar that was also in the shop. Yep, that’s right Dolores was getting worked on by a Race Car mechanic. Anyways the other customer, Juan Carlos, started chatting us up and before you know it, he offered us a ride to back into town. We learned more about him during the drive - that he owned a few hotels in town and a shipping business in Miami. As we neared town, he decided to take us to his hotel and insisted on buying us breakfast and having his driver return us to our hotel another 30 minutes away. He also offered to help us with anything else while we were in town. His generosity made our heads spin.

It sounded like the work on the van could be completed on Monday. We had dropped it off on Friday so this gave us 3 days to explore the city. There was plenty to see, but 3 days turned to 5 and 5 turned to 7. At one point we thought we were going to have to jailbreak Dolores, but despite the numbered mechanical set backs, and the massive damage to our budget, we loved every minute in the city.

We explored the gold museum, which holds the largest collection of gold works in the whole world. Many of the relics were found in Lake Guatavita, which you may remember our visit from here. There were tiny intricate figurines, stunning pieces of jewelry, masks, weapons, full body armor and so much more. The designs and ways they learned to work with the gold by heating it to different temperatures and mixing it with different metals was fascinating. We thought our spin through the museum would be quick, but it was so impressive we ended up being the last people ushered out at closing time.

Most mornings in the city for us started at a little French bakery we found around the corner from our hotel. They served the most amazing jamon y queso croissants - they were buttery, light, fluffy and flaky, pure heaven in a bite. With the great coffee and fresh orange juice and fluffy eggs, they were hard to beat.

Perhaps one of the most exciting days was when Colombia played their first game in the Cupa del Mundo (World Cup) in 16 years. We knew the city would be wild and crazy, you could tell from the build up of vendors selling Colombia gear on every corner, taxi drivers decking their vehicles out with flags and banners in short – the city was a sea of yellow, red and blue. We had scoped out our places to watch the game the day before –Bogota Brewing Company down the street. The owner of our hotel warned us that the city could be pretty dangerous on a day like today so we need to be extremely careful. We expected total mayhem in this city of 5 million people, but the craziest thing happened. In the hours leading up to the game air horns blared from every corner of the city, taxi drivers excessively toted their horns, everyone was wearing their jerseys and flags as capes things were shaping up to be pretty wild. About an hour before the game it happened. As we opened the door to leave our hotel we looked around we saw the most stunning scene. In a city that hadn’t stopped in the three days that we had been there, we looked out on complete stillness and quite. There wasn’t a car on the road, not a person to be seen, it was absolutely silent. We both looked at each other in awe. Everyone in the entire city was glued to a TV somewhere ready to cheer on their team. As we made our way to the Bogata Beer Company you could begin to hear out of every tienda, bakery, restaurant, and place with a TV or radio the same announcer introducing the Colombian team. It was the only thing to be heard and it echoed across the entire city.

After an exciting win against Greece the city exploded. Cheers, air horns and boys running around blasting anyone and everyone with flour and powdered sugar riddled the city. As a precaution all of the squares were closed and we saw only one wild chase involving police on motorcycles and the epic take down of the runaway.

We took to the street on bikes on a Sunday. We quickly learned that many of the main streets in town were closed to cars on Sunday and replaced with vendors, bikers and Sunday strollers out enjoying the sun.

We checked out Monserrate, a famous city look out. Originally we were going climb to the lookout, but after our friends told us about their encounter, which you can read about here, we took the tram up and down. It was a bit of a gloomy day, but still made us appreciate the massive size of the city.

When Dolores was finally released back to us we felt fulfilled about our time in the city look forward to visiting there again.

Is the Lake Half Empty or Half Full?

June 11, 2014

As we continued to make our way south towards Bogota we tried to make an interesting go of it. Based on advice from a few other travelers we skipped the salt cathedral in Zipaquira and headed for the smaller salt mines of Nemacon, which made for a pretty interesting afternoon of licking salt walls and exploring the underground mine.

From there we headed to Guatavita where we were hoping to see a volcano crater that actually had water in it, but as you may recall from here, we weren’t getting our hopes too high. Turns out there was water in the crater and it was pretty stunning seeing more of the mountains of Colombia. Many pre-Colombian cultures also held this place sacred and there were tales of years of continued sacrifices here involving a golden raft and the beheading of many a virgin.

We met a nice lady outside the park that invited us to stay in her yard for the night. She wanted us to join her for a cup of agua panella before we left, during which she sweetly asked for my Patagonia down coat. I had to sweetly tell her that I needed it, to which she sweetly replied, but you can always get another one. We wrapped up our cup of tea, and thanked her for her hospitality and pointed Dolores towards Bogota.

A Little R&R

June 5, 2013

From El Cucoy, we made the long drive to Villa Del Levya, which offered us a much-needed place to rest. We pulled into Hostal Renacer as the last minutes of daylight slipped away, Sara and Lupe (of SardineTaco) greeted us, “we both knew the sound of that vehicle!” Amazing hot showers, free coffee all day, and some of our friends on the road made it a great place for us to set up camp for a few days. We explored the town and surrounding area on bikes that our new-found friends, the Germans, Doris and Torsten lent to us.

We ventured to the town of Raquira and enjoyed bounties meat and pottery.

 

We ate ice cream, read books in hammocks, drank hot chocolate every night and reveled in the amazingness that is Colombia.
As we continued on our way to Bogota we stopped in Suesca and were surprised to find very few accommodations to offer, or even a place to park. After driving around and finding nothing appealing, we were forced to consult our last resort, the Lonely Planet. It mentions one hostal in the area, which after a little asking around, we found in the middle of a field. The place was dark and the sign hanging half-off lead us to believe that it must have shut down or was closed for one reason or another. Seeing that turning around at the end of this dead end road was going to be difficult, we deiced that this place was as good as any for the night. Sleeping with the cows would be fun. So we made dinner and settled in for the evening.
As we were getting ready for bed, a knock came on the door. Not a scary, make you jump a little knock, but a soft, I’m sorry to disturb you knock. George and I both assumed it was one of the neighbors just coming to see what the hell we were doing. We introduced ourselves to the nice lady and after we told her our names, she asked us, ?Que nessicitas? (what do you need?)
Us, Nothing. We were looking for the hostal but we see it’s closed. Is it okay if we park here for the night?
It’s open I’ll show you.
Low and behold through the gate, around the corner and behind two houses, a few big trees, bushes and water tanks there were lights on at the hostal.
Another great Latin America Lesson – open locked fences and wander around peoples yards, otherwise you’ll never find anything.

Glaciers near the equator, really?

George and I had a night of much needed rest last night in the van. The cool nights here in Villa de Levye, Colombia are amazingly fresh and something we truly miss about the climate at home in Colorado. Two days ago we returned to the van from a hike through El Cocuy National Park. Somehow we lucked out with one of the only clear days during this season. It was six miles in, but almost all of those miles were straight up (almost 3500 feet of climbing) and we were headed to about 14,500 feet. The views on the way up were amazing; we saw waterfalls, giant cliff walls, valleys of these crazy fuzzy plants that were 300 years old (they only grow a centimeter a year and one field of them was over head high), we hiked from green lush mountains with ferns and flowers to wind swept moraine fields. We were rewarded with views of “Pan de Azucar” the crazy mountain we were hiking to at different crests of the hike. When we made it to our camp spot at, Laguna Grande del Sierra we were stunned by the view of the three glaciers in front of us. The sky was blue, the air was cool (and thin), and the glaciers glowed in the sunlight. The lake reflected each of the glaciers and the peaks surrounding the lake. Pan de Azucar was a funny mountain and ‘peak’ is certainly not the right word to describe it - sitting atop what looks like a tall hill is a perfect square of rock. From our perspective the glacier sat to the left and spilled down the hillside and like someone set a huge piece of chocolate next to a pile of whip cream sat the perfect square that is Pan de Azucar… Crazy Colombian Mountains.

That night the wind picked up and things got a little serious when the wind was so strong it blew the tent flat against our faces while we were laying down. At first we were a little terrified but then luckily it started raining and the wind died down to a more reasonable level. It rained all night and through the morning. By 9am and with the increasing amount of water making it’s way into the tent we decided that it was time to toughen up and start our trek down. We knew if we could make the short distance to the ridge the weather would just continue to get better as we worked our way down the valley. At one point in the heat of our discussion about what to do I looked at George and said, “I’m afraid were going to die from exposure.” He, knowing I had too many scary Everest storm stories stuck in my head, reminded me that although it was raining and windy, it was sill way above freezing temperatures, after all we were close the equator and we had good rain/waterproof gear. He promised me we weren’t going to die. He said, “it may suck and we might get wet, but we are NOT going to die,” and then he might have laughed at me a little. All things he said were true, except it didn’t suck as bad as I thought. We were warm the whole way down. At one point I got hot and had to stop and strip layers off. All in all, a few blisters and some wet camping gear later we arrived back to the warmth of the 200-year-old farm where we’d parked. The sun was out and we were able to spend the rest of the afternoon drying out our gear. That night the farm owner’s son made us a special dessert of fresh cheese (that they’d made on the farm that day) with Panela syrup and a cup of tea from freshly picked herbs. We sat around the fire that night and he told us about how his grandfather had worked a deal with New Zealand 50 years ago to import sheep from there and how it had made their family very prosperous. You could see them grazing in the fields around the farm and how different they looked from the other sheep in the area. Sheep herding and cattle were their main sources of income, but welcoming tourist that were exploring the park to their home seemed like it was also becoming more common place as the park continues to be discovered. We also learned while we were there that the indigenous people had permanently closed the interior of the park. There were too many people covertly searching for oil and gas and they wanted to make sure that gas or not the land was protected. Pretty amazing people cruising around at 12000 feet.