Basketball at Midnight

Greetings from the capital!

For the last two days, Selby and I have been wandering around Bogota, the sprawling, altitudinous capital.  It is 2630 meters (8629 ft)  above sea level; to give you a comparison, the tallest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains is 6643 ft.  Although it does not have a fancy elevated metro system like Medellin, they have an intriguing and expensive mass transit system consisting of double-length buses on dedicated lanes that provide express service through most of the city and local service for special “zones.”  It takes a few minutes to figure out, but it occurs to me that it is inexpensive to build and reasonably effective.

We stayed in the historic central area of town, which boasts most of the civil attractions (like the parliament, mayor’s house, and presidential palace), as well as theatres, coffee shops, and, as the book describes, the center of student and “intellectual” thought and discussion of Bogota.  We didn’t pick up on a lot of political discussions, but we did wander down the street and into a massive festival in one of the central squares.  Apparently we had arrived in Bogota on the day in which they set up the city Christmas tree and all of the Christmas lights in the city!  There were people selling a mulled tea (with or without alcohol), breads, meats-on-sticks, cotton candy, lighted toy helicoptors, light sabers, clay dragons, ….. and the list goes on and on.  As we left the main square (which had a concert and occasional televised commentary) and headed up the main avenue which was also completely full of lights, we saw mimes, street-show acts, a guinea pig race, and a couple rappers spitting in a secondary plaza.

As we woke up and left the hostal today, we found that, it being the last Sunday of the month, many of the main streets were shut down and dedicated to pedestrians and bicycles.  Some major roads that were separated by medians had traffic flowing in one direction on one side and pedestrians on the other, and the opposite direction traffic would travel along the next major street down the grid.

Aside from the historic center, we also went far to the north side of town, which has become the upscale center, complete with elaborate shopping malls, expensive cafes, and plenty of discos.  Some of the houses were in brick-gingerbread style like we see in Saint Louis, and there were plenty of mostly-glass office buildings and large, gated apartment complexes.  For one of our more expensive meals of the trip, we stopped to eat lunch at a little creperie there.

Now, we are planning to head for Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, the highest mountain range in Colombia.  I doubt I will have internet for the next few days, but expect to hear more when we return to civilization.