Colombia: Bogota, Saturday

We arrived in Bogota on Friday night, but unfortunately Semana Santa Friday equals a completely dead town. We ended up going to bed early to begin our Saturday tour of Bogota. La Candelaria District is old town Bogota. Although I have been overall impressed with how clean and orderly Bogota has been, there was not really a wow factor involved in old town. We walked around the main plaza Bolivar, saw some churches, walked past the presidential building, and then decided to make the trek up to Monserrate. This is the hill that overlooks Bogota, which is serviced by a cable car and funicular. It did offer great views of the city even if the weather was overcast. We have decided that we have taken enough cable cars in our last months of travel though....New Mexico, Monjuic Barcelona, and another similar named church Montserrat in Spain!

We finally made it to the Museo del Oro, which was fantastic. It holds one of the larger collections of gold in the world. You can see some of the intricate pieces pictured below. We followed that with the Botero Museum. Apparently many of his statues are also in Cartagena. His art regularly involves voluptuous figures...

The evening was spent at Andres Carne de Res, a famous establishment in Bogota that involves a four story restaurant and bar that later becomes an all night dance party. We spent five hours there which included lots of Colombian beer, mojitos, steak, a band and its dancers, and some quality salsa dancing. Definitely a good way to end the evening.


Plaza Bolivar in Central Bogota, La Candelaria District

Plaza Bolivar



View of Bogota from Monserrate

View of Bogota downtown from Monserrate

Monserrate Panoramic

Church at the top of Monserrate. According to Lonely Planet, lots of miracles happen here.

Museo del Oro...there were tons of pieces like this that were incredibly intricate.

Perhaps one of the more impressive pieces found in the museum.

This was a special sala that played shaman music while lighting up all the gold that surrounded you.

Botero Museum...all his figures look similar as you can tell from one of his sculptures below.

More Botero art.

Andres Carne de Res. We were given the Colombian Flag as a welcome from the band.

Just some visitors to our table.

That is a lot of steak. Too bad we don´t have a picture of Drew´s food because it was even bigger!

Our new Colombian friends. A good time was definitely had by all!