Sunday we found the Ciclovia. Bogota shuts down a few of the big streets on Sundays. Then thousands of people come out biking. It is a lively scene with street vendors, performers, and protestors. Jill and I wandered over to the National museum. Another great thing about Bogota is many museums are free on Sundays. The national museum tells the story of Colombia from its first people until today. It is a great museum set up in a former prison. The only problem is that everything is in Spanish. Reading and understanding Spanish seems to take forever and my interpretation rarely justifies the means.
Colombia has had a bloody history. For example, in 1948 a presidential candidate named Gaitan was assassinated. It sparked a 10 hour riot in Bogota known as the Bogotazo. Thousands of people died and most of central Bogota was destroyed. The riot began a period called La Violencia, which was basically a 10 year civil war in the countryside claiming 200,000 lives. The country struggles on and is finally, hopefully on its way to a peaceful modernity. After the museum Jill cooked dinner and we ate a variety of interesting fruit.
Today, we went to several more museums. We went to The Museo de Moneda, the Museo del Arte, and the Museo Botero. The Moneda museum is all about the coin and currency of Colombia. They had a bunch of machines on display for making coins and some rooms explaining the story of money. I thought the art museum would be quick and we could go to lunch. It turned out to be over two hours of art through Colombian history. It was really good with a fair amount of English. It is a spectacular collection. We had a delicious lunch at Enchiladas, a Mexican restaurant. Then we went back for the Botero museum. Fernando Botero is a Colombian painter and sculptor. He worked mostly in the first half of the 20th century. His common theme is fat people. Everyone in his paintings is obese and slightly dull looking. They remind me of muggles from the Harry Potter books. Now that I think about it Harry’s family in the movies were probably modeled after some Botero characters.
Jill fiddled and grumbled through all these places with our troubled camera. This evening we decided to ship it back to Olympus for a fix it job. Jill got the ball rolling online and we walked off to find a FedEx store. We were skeptical they existed here. After trying two addresses that led nowhere we found one. The camera is bundled up and should arrive in Connecticut in less than 48 hours! Jill declared her love for FedEx. We had supper at what appeared to the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis. I got some quinoa samosas which had mint in them. Indescribable really.
Tomorrow we are off to Medellin and we will see what that city is like. Colombia is a wonderful place so far.
Great post Martin! I find it interesting that you went to a Mexican restaurant in Colombia.
Mexico es mejor