Bogota, Colombia

When you’re budget traveling, you take the cheapest flights available, which are often times the flights with the worst arrival times. We flew from Cartegena to Bogata and got in at 1AM.

The cab driver picked us up at the airport and drove us to La Candelaria, where our hostel was located. The streets are old and badly marked in Bogota, so there was some confusion about where our hostel was. Our first stop was outside a seedy looking house with a bunch of dudes peering out  from the kitchen. We were in the wrong place. One of the men came outside, looked at us, said something to the driver- who eventually handed him money and sped off.

It was sketchy.

Welcome to Bogota.

The next morning we headed to a nearby museum that showcased art from Fernando Botero, a famous Colombiam artist 

That afternoon we took a bike tour of the city.. also known as “the gringo tour”. It was a group of about 10 people bicycling around some very local parts of Bogota. 

Camelpack.. check. GoPro.. check. Helmet.. check! Most obvious tourists ever…

I hate doing “touristy” things like this, but I was very glad to do this tour. This would’ve been the only way to see parts of the city that I never would have seen without a local guide. Bogota is full of art.. it's everywhere. Nearly every corner in the neighborhood had rooftop sculptures. 

Throughout the city there were huge murals of colorful graffiti. The government recently started a program that funds some of these graffiti artists. 

We learned a lot about the drug cartels and civil wars that went on between the cartels and the government. 

This park was once one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Bogota- if not Colombia. About 20 years ago a large group of people from this neighborhood shot rockets at the nearby governors palace, causing riots that led to a huge civil war. The government eventually kicked everyone out of the neighborhood and bulldozed all the buildings, creating this masive park. 

Our guide took us to a local market where we tried local fruits- dragon fruit, passionfruit, and yellow berries. 

The tour was great, learned lots about the history. By the end of it we thanked our guide and headed out for something a little more local. By the time the sun set, the streets got dark, and we got the vibe that it was time to get back to the hostel. In that part of town we definitely stuck out as tourists.

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