Bogotá

In the series “I continue to be delighted by Colombia”, here is the episode Bogotá. The scenario was not written in advance. The only actors I was sure to meet were Diana, a friend of my friend Maïwenn, who had offered to host me during my stay and Julien a French volunteer of the Catholic Delegation for Cooperation (DCC) with whom I was in contact.

I would say that the episode even started from leaving Medellín. Already at 1600 – 1700 m. above sea level (5,300 – 5,500 ft.), the road rises rapidly and winds on the hillside on the heights of the Central Cordillera. The Andes are covered by a dense green tropical vegetation. The breathtaking mountain scenery offers its first chills to the traveler. Then it goes down to the Magdalena River, the largest river that runs through Colombia from South to North. Once on the other hand, it slowly up the slope to reach the plateau of Bogota to 2,650 m (8,700 ft). We can then applaud this first scene that still lasted ten hours but without dramatic incident, which is a miracle given the narrowness of the road and the intense traffic of impressive semi-trailers and other trucks.

At the bus station, Diana came to greet me warmly but that did not stop my second thrill of the day: it is 12°C (53°F)! The contrast in a few days between Cartagena, Medellín and Bogotá is striking. I was hosted in the family apartment where I met Diana's parents. The next day, I take the opportunity of her father's birthday to cook a chocolate cake. In North America I already had occasion to note that the cooking took longer at altitude, where oxygen is scarce. But at this point!... Instead of the conventional quarter of an hour, the suspense lasted over an hour, knowing that at half-time I had to resign myself to also increase the temperature from 200°C (390°F) to 300°C (570°F). The family recipe has to be updated with these new elements!

In Bogotá, I met Julien. He's been working for almost a year and has renewed his contract for another year. He works in a popular area in the south of the capital for the association Projecting Without Borders, a development NGO which participatory projects aimed at combating poverty, social exclusion and threats against the environment and culture of local populations . Very interesting exchange of experiences over a cappuccino and then a walk through the historic district of La Candelaria. One of the hundred enriching encounters that make the beauty of traveling.

The next scene takes place over two days. Radical change of scenery. Here is the script. Diana's father has a finca (farm) in Castilla la Nueva, 180 km (110 mi) from Bogotá, where he's used to spend five days a week, his wife accompanying him usually once a month. When I heard that they would go there the next day, I asked to accompany them. The three of us hit the road the next morning, passing from 3,000 m (9,850 ft) on the heights of Bogotá to almost sea level in the vast plains of eastern Colombia. Transition between the fresh Andes to warm Amazonian plain is sudden.

So I spend two days to see this farm with his herd of dairy cows and bulls, with its fish ponds (very good fresh fish!), with fields of corn, with its chickens, horses, and even monkeys. This region, known as los Llanos (plain grassland), extends over half the country, to the borders of Venezuela and Brazil. The smaller western half of Colombia consists of three parallel mountain ranges: the Western Cordillera, the Central Cordillera and the Eastern Cordillera. This is the northern end of the Andes.

The last days in Bogotá, I could ascend Monserrate to admire the view of the city, and visit the Simon Bolivar's house (the Libertador was the great architect of independence of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela) and the renowned Gold Museum. Bogotá is the former capital of the kingdom of New Granada (current Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela), has a historic downtown, popular neighborhoods, business districts, traffic jams, a public transportation system way below the needs of a capital. The city is sprawling, more than 9 million people (one fifth of the country's population). But you get mark rather easily with its grid plan.

Before ending, I have to underline culinary qualities of the different cookers I met in Bogotá and Castilla la Nueva, the bogotanas evenings in the company of Diana, Claudio and Paula, and the Palme d'Or for what I saw on the last day, Sunday at noon. I was buying new shoes at the mall when I saw chairs in the middle of a shopping aisles, in front of the escalators, all facing a table that will quickly turn to an altar for the mass about to start. Mass in a temple of consumption, it is a concept!

Near San Agustín, Huila (in southern Colombia), in the coffee plantation where I will stay for two weeks, I am now far from Bogotá. But this story is for another day…