Biking in Bogotá

Bogotá has been ranked the 3rd best city for bicycles in the world, so I figured a great way to see the city would be on a bike, and I was right! The company was Bogotá bike tours (http://www.bogotabiketours.com/), and the owner, Mike from California has lived all over South America and is super knowledgeable. We started off in the neighborhood where I was staying, La Candelaria, which is set on the hill and has a lot of colored houses, universities, cultural centers, cafes, etc, and is one of the parts of Bogotá which is experiencing a resurgance, according to Mike. We visited the plaza where the Spanish founded Bogotá, rode down into the downtown, saw the plaza where the M-19 took over the Palace of Justice, to the bullfighting ring, parque nacional. It seemed as if every place downtown was a spot where a political figure was killed, where bodies were stored during whichever period of violence, where someone started a revolution... really made an impression on me think about how it would feel to live in a country with such a violent recent past and present. We rode through neighborhoods, over to the national university which is very left-leaning and is covered in graffiti (including graffiti that says yanqui go home), to the national cemetary, and then stopped for lunch at a vegetarian cafe called Blue Lotus. I was very impressed with Bogotá, the climate is super cool, it is surrounded by lush mountains, the parks are nice, and it just seems like a really neat city which is growing culturally now that it has gotten safer.



As much as I liked the city, I couldn't sit still knowing the carribbean was so close!!