Bogota by bicycle

I arrived safely in Colombia, after about 28 hours of travel and flight delays that resulted in a missed connection and a long layover in Mexico City. I arrived at my hostel, Alegria's Hostel, around 10:30pm and promptly showered and passed out. I was mentally exhausted but physically restless. I can only handle sitting in airports and in airplanes for so long. I slept insanely well though, and woke up this morning ready to move. 

Since I only have one full day in Bogota, I decided to sign up for a city tour, something I usually wouldn't do because 1) I'm a cheapo and 2) I prefer to explore at my own pace. However, there are a few companies in Bogota that offer city tours via bicycle, which is perfect considering I wanted to see as much as I could while getting exercise. Plus, Bogota is famous for being accessible to cyclists with the most designated bike paths of any city in the world and weekly events during which main streets are closed so that people can bike without worrying about car traffic. I went with Cerros Bike Tours, a company recommended by my hostel. Apparently, since Lonely Planet has recommended the other main company, Bogota Bike Tours, their tours are overcrowded, whereas Cerros is newer and has not yet made it into the world of travel guidebooks. Thus, their tours are much smaller. I ended up being the only person in my tour, which meant I got to pay the group rate (~$12 USD) for a 4 hour private tour. My tour guide, Jose, spoke both English and Spanish, but since I want to practice my Spanish, we spoke mostly in Spanglish. We started in La Candelaria, the historic section of town, and made our way through various neighborhoods and parts of the city. The tour included a stop at a market, where I got to try about 6 new types of fruit - dragon fruit, pitaya, guayabana, guava, tomato del arbol, and some others I can't remember the names of. We stopped in the Parque Nacional and had a refreshing fruity drink under a unique species of palm tree that grows at high elevations. We continued on to a street famous for its graffiti, which is legal and abundant in Bogota, and Jose explained the cultural significance of many of the pieces. Later, we visited a coffee roasters where I drank the most delicious americano of my life. It was so good I didn't even add cream or sugar. Throughout the entire tour, we'd stop at historic places and Jose would share the history of each location. He rattled off an impressive list of dates and events for each location. What I got from it was that Bogota has lots of old buildings, many of which were built in the mid 1800's, in which many people have been murdered during hundreds of years worth of internal conflict. Jose noted that this week is an especially fascinating time to be in Colombia, with the public's rejection of the peace deal agreed upon by the FARC guerrillas and the government. He said the country is polarized, but overall ready for peace. The eagerness for peace is clear in much of the graffiti, which depicts scenes of war an destruction alongside images of hummingbirds, Colombia's national bird, and other nature scenes which Jose said represent the  internal conflict between war over resources and the desire to simply live and let live.

I was impressed by the amount of bike lanes in Bogota, and the general ease of navigating the city by bike. While Bogota is far ahead of many US cities in its bike accessibility, there are constant reminders that you're in Latin America. Many cars spew black exhaust and never use turn signals. Stray dogs run alongside the traffic and vendors walk between cars at traffic lights selling bottled waters and snacks. In some of the streets, pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars weave around one another in no obvious traffic pattern. I almost go hit by cars twice; luckily my bike had great breaks and I was wearing a helmet. I am thankful for my experience biking in Guatemala, where every day for about 10 months I would bike to school on a crowded road without a shoulder. My 10 year old self thought that I was going to die at least a dozen times per commute. My general cycling experience in the US made the tour much less nerve wracking than I think it would have been otherwise. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Bogota by foot. Besides my bike tour, my favorite part of the day was visiting the Museo de Oro (the gold museum) which is packed with pre-Colombian artifacts. 

Tonight, I'll grab a beer with some new friends from the hostel, and tomorrow morning, I'll head back to the airport where I'll meet up with Hana, aka Lil H-Busse, and we will fly north to Santa Marta for a week of scuba diving and sunshine.