Two Wheels, One Bogotá: A Guest Post

After two of my college roommates visited from California, I had to get their perspective in writing on an interesting adventure they had while in Bogotá: Bogotá Bike Tours! They found the tour and booked online before even arriving in Colombia, so I´m not sure they knew exactly what to expect...lets just say that they saw a totally atypical side of Bogotá! Enjoy...When I think of Bogota, cycling does not come to mind. But when you have a limited number of days and you want to get in as much of the sites, sounds, views and smells that central Bogota has to offer, all with the assistance of an English-speaking (albeit quirky) American guide, then Bogota Bike Tours is your only option. While a walking tour of the city would have most likely been the safer option (Bogotanos aren’t the most cycle friendly of drivers), you get to cover some serious ground with the Bike Tour and at the same time get to provide Bogota city-dwellers with some amusement since a dozen ‘gringos’ on bikes probably isn´t a common occurrence.

The tour is not the most traditional in terms of the areas you ride through and the attractions you stop at, but pick up any Lonely Planet or Frommer’s and you are a likely to figure those out on your own. What Bogota Bike Tours does show you is the more everyday side of things in Central Bogota.

The tour starts out in ‘La Candalaria’ at the tour’s office (Carrera 3 12-72), where you get outfitted for a ‘bici’. While not all of the brakes and gears are operational in any sense of the word, I can attest that they do get you from point A to point B and then to point C, and somewhere along the way you miraculously end-up back at point A. The ride in general throughout ‘La Candalaria’ is pretty straight-forward, riding past the major museums, making a stop in Simon Bolivar Plaza, getting some snippets about the FARC’s history with the Judicial Palace. Mind you because you´re in a city with cars and people all around you, it’s sometimes difficult to catch everything the guide tells you, so make sure you weasel your way to the front of the pack.

You pass by the informal emerald exchange and you get to hold some emeralds, still not entirely sure if they are real and/or being used for money laundering. The next stop is in plaza where Peruvian-looking alpaca/llama hybrids hang out as a tourist gimmick, their mini hats and colorful saddles are pretty adorable, so they make for a good photo op. You should be aware that the guide is snap happy, but not in the posy-let’s-make-sure-I-get-good-shoots-of-the-riders kind of way, more like the random-shots-from-a-distance kind of way. He also does not tell you that the photos will be available for your viewing pleasure after the ride, but he does a good job of posting them in an online gallery if you are really keen to see yourself at your most awkward moments, and on this ride there are a lot of those.

The next stop is what at first appears to be a smoothie bar, but at further examination turns out to be a stop on Colombian delicacy lane if you like live raw blended crab mixed with honey, brandy, whiskey, and yogurt. According to the guide it’s a natural aphrodisiac, and all Colombians drink it. After the tour I asked around, it’s not as popular as the guide makes it out to be, in fact no local Bogotanos had heard of it... But all raw blended crabs aside, I tried it and it wasn’t as horrible as expected. After the ‘smoothie’ stop there is some slightly treacherous riding on some pretty busy streets. If you can handle riding on those, I think you can ride just about anywhere else in the world. After multiple near death experiences, the next stop is a fruit market (the highlight of the tour), the guide is pretty good friends with a couple of the venders and you literally get to try every exotic fruit known to man. My favorite was Guanabana, what a treat! The crew then heads off to the red light district, where the Zones of Tolerance are thoroughly explained by the guide just in-case you have some plans to spend some more time in the area after the tour. You are then led to the main cemetery in Bogota and get an impromptu, yet not entirely accurate history of Colombia and its politicians. More than enough time is spent in the cemetery, so when you arrive just know it’s a long stop but it does eventually end.

The next stop on the itinerary is a coffee roasting facility, where you can pick up a much needed java kick in the café that is attached to the warehouse and get a chance to use the restrooms if needed. After your coffee jolt, it’s off to a seemingly normal intersection that upon arrival you are informed is the abortion clinic area in Bogota that the guide seems to be just a tad bit too interested in. You then start the journey back to La Candalaria with a stop in front of a former prison, where you don’t learn much about that particular prison, but another prison in La Paz, Boliva called San Pedro (the guide gets on tangents easily), it’s interesting but doesn’t have much to do with Colombia or Bogota. The last stop before returning to the Bike Tour office is the Bullfighting Ring, you actually get to go inside and learn a little about the controversial sport. The rest of the ride is a breeze compared to what you previously had to endure and at the end of it all, it’s a pretty enjoyable experience. One caveat I would suggest is to only do the tour in fair weather. I did it on a rainy day and with some relatively long riding sections you get pretty wet.

New Bogotá Slogan?

A friend snapped this shot on the outskirts of Bogotá. ¨Good, pretty & Cheap¨ - Not so creative!

Weekend Away: A gastronomical tour of Villa de Leyva

Bogota's smack in a the middle of a gorgeous part of Colombia, so sometimes it's nice to get out and explore on the weekends. If your Bogotano friends don't have a finca to invite you to and your dying to get out, a good option is Villa de Leyva, which is about 3-4 hours on bus from Bogota (longer lately, as the rains have closed some of the main roads, see Times article on the rains).

A few weekends ago when I went, we spent our days walking around the cobblestone streets, peeking into old Colonial buildings and mostly eating our way through the town. Here's a list of recommendations from that trip:

La Pastelaria Francesa: You could probably start your day here (and spend the afternoons as well) every single day of your visit, as we did. The cappuccinos have foam that floats inches above the cup and their quiches and croissants are perfectly cooked. We found it impossible not to end breakfast with a pain de chocolat or torta de cafe (a rich dessert on its own). Ask around for the direction, because it recently moved.

Savia: Found in the quaint Casa Quintero courtyard, towards the back, Savia is known for fresh organic fair and has an extensive menu that includes vegetarian sandwiches, pastas and seafood. Their hibiscus lemonade has a spicy ginger aftertaste and their juices come without added sugar. My favorite dish the miso soup, which was big enough for a meal and filled with noodles and mushrooms. Their pastas also proved worthy, and we had no space left for dessert afterward!

La Bonita: In the same courtyard of Casa Quintero, we discovered a Mexican restaurant that was much more authentic than anything I've tried in Bogota. It's menu and decor is simple and fresh, but the atypical Mexican dishes were impressive and the lovely Mexican owner and chef sent us away with some samples of her fabulous hot sauces.

Casa Quintero
Corner of Carrera 9 and Calle 12
Villa de Leyva

Colombia´s Internally Displaced People Catastrophe Analyzed on the PovertyMattersBlogs

Sometimes, living in Bogotá, it´s hard to remember that Colombia is still a country with waging war-zones - mostly in rural areas - and all of the secondary effects that come with internal conflict. Colombia is probably one of the only countries in the world where one can work on conflict issues: child soldiers, displacement, human rights...the list goes on...yet live in a city where you can go out for a sushi dinner and dancing to techno music when the work day is over.

The article on this blog looks at current displacement and human rights statistics and really hits at the root of the conflict in Colombia: demand for land and the natural resources on it.

Land Grabs Have Dominated Colombia´s History

After Sudan, Colombia has the world's largest number of internally displaced people, and land grabbing for economic gain is the main cause...

If you were to write a history of Colombia you could do worse than call it "Land Grab". Starting the day Rodrigo de Bastidas and his companions arrived on the Caribbean shore around 1499 looking to make a fortune, there has been one constant theme at the heart of Colombia's social and armed conflict – land.

Colombia has the greatest number of displaced people in the world after Sudan, some 500 years after the Spanish set about ruthlessly "cleansing" indigenous communities from the land they deemed valuable. While the government claims things are getting better, although still admitting 120,000 newly displaced people in 2009, the more trustworthy figures come from the human rights group Codhes, which sets that figure at nearer 300,000. This brings the total number of displaced people in Colombia to between 3.4 million (government) and 4.9 million (Codhes), about 10% of the population.

Colombia is rich in export possibilities, from coal, oil, gold and emeralds under the ground, to any number of crops above it. But whatever the commodity, you need the land to get your hands on it. Under the Spanish, many communities fled from their favoured lowlands and coastal areas to the mountains to preserve their way of life. Ironically it is these mountainous and jungle areas that are now deemed important for the exploitation of gold and coal and for mega-monocultures, so indigenous people, along with Afro-Colombians and campesinos, once again find themselves at the centre of one of the world's most devastating land grabs (see image at left of an Embera indigenous man walking to his community territory in the Darién region of the Chocó department in Northern Colombia).

Some displacement occurs as a result of armed conflict encroaching on civilian settlements, but the majority is probably due to simple land grabbing. The war with the guerrillas and the coca trade have exacerbated deep social conflict, but they are also handy excuses for using violence to remove people from their land. Amnesty International did some maps a few years ago showing that most displacement occurs around areas rich in mineral resources.

When I first saw the ruined villages of people who had fled for their lives, with their knocked-down schools and overgrown fields, I could only think of one word – anti-development. This, in my mind, was development in reverse. The communities may have been very poor, but they did at least have land, schools, culture, a political stake, plans for a better future, dignity. Now they have nothing.

But I was wrong. This was not anti-development. It was, in fact, the development model in Colombia. Natural resource exploitation and farming remain at the heart of the economy in Colombia. Communities deemed to be using the land unproductively, because of their refusal to welcome large-scale farming or mining, are considered a barrier to wealth generation and progress.

So the question very quickly becomes one about the nature of development itself. What kind of development? Development for whom? One narrative is that better land exploitation will lead to more exports, and thus economic growth, more jobs, more taxes, and an overall trickle down into the economy. If some "backward" communities need to be sacrificed so that the majority can develop, so be it (in the image on the right, Afro-Colombian communities live off of the river and mangroves on the Rio Atrato).

This is at odds with a modern understanding of human rights, and it is seldom spelt out as starkly, but it is the underlying philosophy of good-willed, and ill-willed, decision makers in Colombia. I have spoken to USAid and Colombian government officials who, while sincerely seeking to help people affected by violence, have said of indigenous communities fighting the encroachment of coal mines on to their ancestral land that they "don't want to develop".

But apart from the questionable morality of this approach, it is unclear whether the economic analysis is right either. Will the majority benefit from what is fundamentally a feudal land management policy. Mining and monoculture are not big employers and manufacturing has signally failed to take off, reducing from more than 20% of GDP in the 1980s to about 15% today.

Another narrative sounds simplistic but may be nearer the truth: it is just one more manifestation of the age old tale of powerful people pushing weaker communities off land to get even richer.

The kind of land grabbing going on today in countries all over the world is common throughout history, from the highland clearances in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries, to winning the west in the US. It will probably become more common as resources become scarcer in an overpopulated and overheating world, and as the logic of rapid resource exploitation continues to meet traditions of sustainable agriculture.

The most tragic aspect of all is that human memories are so short. Remove the communities whose way of life is considered backward and unproductive and, yes, there will be problems with those pesky human rights campaigners, but give it 10 years and with luck history will have moved on. There will be a coal mine where there used to be a village, or a vast expanse of oil palms where there had been jungle, but the families and campaigners will have long since died or moved away, and the legal cases of murder and intimidation will have been successfully lost in a cupboard.

A friend in the British embassy who was committed to defending the rights of indigenous communities once gave her weary assessment: "We are fighting a losing battle; these communities will not survive." Is she right? Only time will tell.

Salsa Clubs in Bogotá

One thing is for sure, there is a lot of good dancing and music of every type in Bogotá. There are the upscale clubs playing American hip-hop mixed with reggaeton in La Zona T-bouncers and lines and all. There are the underground techno parties that pop up in abandoned buildings in Chapinero. And one of my personal favorites, especially when I want to show out-of-town friends a true Latin scene, is getting a big group together to go salsa dancing. A night out salsa dancing nearly always requires sharing a bottle of aguardiente or rum, meeting strangers, and getting a workout. Here are a few fantastic options:

Quiebra Canto: Like its sibling in Cartagena, this is a popular spot for tourists and locals alike (which means people will definitely ask you to dance!). Quiebra Canto is in a house built in the 170o´s in La Candelaria, you can feel the history in the wooden floors and fireplace. The cover is low, beer is cheap, and the salsa is pure and old-fashioned. Don´t expect a wide range of music, but prepare to hit the dance floor (skills not necessarily required) until the wee hours.

Tel: 243.1630
Carrera 5 no. 17-76
Bogotá
Cover: Depends on the night and the live band, check website for calendar

El Goce Pegano: In an old colonial building in front of Universidad los Andes, el Goce Pegano is known for its pure, traditional salsa and a friendly atmosphere mixed with locals and backpackers. It´s only opened on weekends but never gets so packed that the dance floor is prohibitive.

Tel: 317-501-61 7
Clalle 20 ( Av, Jímenez-Eje Ambiental) no. 00 - 06 este
Bogotá
Cover: 6,000 pesos that can be used toward consumables at the bar

Focus on Street Art: Stinkfish

Stinkfish is a Bogotá-based street artist recognized in the states and all over Latin America. You can see his whimsical pieces all over the city, especially on the crumbling walls of La Candelaria.

Date-night: Best places to take a date for a drink in Bogotá

There are a number of cozy bars that are atmospheric and quiet, perfect to relax and lose time on a romantic night or afternoon out. Here are two of my favorites:

At Café Mágico, you can snuggle up on cushions on the floor in a number of dim, candle-lit rooms on two levels. Cocktails are creative and purely Colombian, using a number of different types of alcohol and tropical juices. The walls are covered with murals depicting archangels and saints, and drippy candles grow in alcoves, all which evoke a chic underground café in Mexico. I´ve never seen her, but apparently there´s even a tarot card reader who can predict a future of love...

Another, equally romantic spot that evokes more of a Swiss mountains vibe, is the Café de la Montaña in northern Bogotá. A restaurant that is actually open for meals all day, it has been voted ¨most romantic cafe¨ and ¨best place for a first date¨ numerous times. With a half price happy hour between 4 and 7, you also don´t have to break the bank to impress your date. Sit at dark tables or cozy up on pillows on the floor and warm up by one of the two fireplaces drinking a tropical cocktail or hot wine (vino caliente). But maybe stay away from the Eukasoluc, a drink that contains almost every imaginable liquor and is restricted to ¨one per customer¨...unless you really need to loosen up!

Devachán Café Mágico.
Phone # 313-1542
Carrera 9, no. 69-16


Cafe de la Montaña
Phone # 214-5312
Diagonal 108a No. 8-11
Parking and live music on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays

Book Review, Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography

2002, Dominic Streatfeild

An excellent history of the drug that has affected every aspect of the conflict in Colombia. Streatfeild, a witty and often ironic British author, takes you through the coca plant´s history all the way back to the Incas and explains how enmeshed it is in South American culture. He takes the reader from the initial contact between Spanish colonizers and the traditional use of the coca leaf into its popularized form in Paris and London, with chapters dedicated to famous users and abusers such as Freud and many of his intellectual contemporaries.

He then explains the difference between coca and it's refined cousins cocaine and eventually crack. Streatfeild sets the scene for the cocaine battle in its many forms in the Americas and explains why we will never eradicate this drug. Each chapter in the last half of the book is dedicated to the drug´s effects in different countries in the Americas: Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, South Central Los Angeles and certainly Colombia. He interviews everyone from rural coca farmers to corrupt politicians to leftist guerrillas to top druglords themselves, and the reader comes away with a pretty comprehensive understanding of the multiple complexities surrounding cocaine and drug trafficking in the Americas.

Best Place to Party on a Tuesday Night in Bogota

Bogotá is a city of at least 8 million people and any night you want to go out there is surely a number of fun things going on. The key is simply figuring out the rhythm of where to go on which night. If you want to party with the cool kids on a Tuesday night, come to the unassuming bar on the second floor of a music shop, Invitro.

If you just want to party, don´t show up until sometime after 11pm when it starts seriously filling up. If you want to catch a bit of culture, show up before 9pm to when you don´t have to pay cover and watch one of the Colombian short films they play.

On Tuesdays Invitro usually has a good DJ who mixes Latin music with techno and hip hop, and a hip, alternative young crowd of actors and artists who stay around after the screening of short films earlier in the evening and anyone else who doesn´t seem to worry about waking up at 8am on Wednesday. Buy a beer or a bottle of aguardiente to share, check out the smoking room and the dance floor, and make some new friends!

Calle 59, no. 6 – 38
Bogotá
COP$ 15,000 cover after 9pm

Taking Taxis in Bogota

Taxis in Bogota are a bit more complicated than in other parts of the world. For the most part, they are quite safe, but it's worth taking the proper precautions in order to arrive at your destination in one piece.

First of all, don't hail taxis off the street, always call for one. If you are calling from a landline, the phone service will give you a security code (usually the last two digits of the phone number you are calling from) and will tell you the license plate number of the taxi they are sending. This is for the safety of both you and the driver, and the driver will almost always ask you for the security code.

A few numbers for taxis are:

222-2222
311-1111
211-1111

If you absolutely must hail a taxi on the street (many Colombians do it), first of all have someone who is not getting in the taxi (a friend, a security guard from the restaurant or bar you are at, etc) visibly write down the license plate number of the taxi you get into. I would also recommend knowing the route to your destination so the driver doesn't take you for a ride and over-charge.

Tipping: Taxi drivers do not expect tips, but if they are particularly friendly some extra coins or 1,000 generally puts a big smile on their face.

Two things to look out for that I have been warned about by Colombian friends (I have never had a problem taking taxis, but it's better to be safe than sorry...):

Taxi drivers often drive with the front passenger seat folded over so people on the street can see that it is free. One friend getting dropped off at home when someone popped out from under the folded-down passenger seat and proceeded to rob him with the help of the driver. It's worth asking the driver to put up the seat normally, or taking a second look before you get into the car.

Secondly, I recently heard a story about a college professor who flagged a taxi to work at 8am. The driver asked her if she wanted to read some magazines that he had in the taxi, and she said no. He became more insistent, which began to scare her. It turns out that he had placed escopolamine** in the pages of the magazine and attempted to violate her.

**If you don't know about escopolamine (usually called burundanga), it is worth learning about. It is a drug made from a common tree in Colombia and used by thieves to render victims unconscious-even a small dose will make one lose their will, even though they appear completely normal. It is often put into drinks or cigarettes, and sometimes blown on the victim from a sheet of paper (hence the magazine in the taxi).