Bogota, Columbia

I arrived in Bogota late at night and took a prearranged airport transfer, the safest route to the hostel I booked in the Candelaria district, the old part of town. All the guidebooks warn that this area is not safe at night and I believe it. At midnight we arrived passing several little clusters of men hanging out on the street. I noticed when we got out of the cab that they moved in on us just a little but did not bother us. We had to hike up a very narrow cobbled alley to get to the hostel itself. 

One of my planned destinations was the Museum of all thing fat featuring the Colombian artist Fernando Botero. In it were many of his paintings, big ones of big people, big fruits, even portraits of other artists, all blown up and fat. What a sense of humor! His later style was wonderful, having the look of soft, blended pastels though much of it was done in oil. He also sculpted beautifully. There were paintings by on the notable artists but his were the best.

In a large square in front of a huge old cathedral, there were a handful of people gathered with llamas selling yellow tubes of something I did not buy or even inquire about. Other than them, the square was carpeted with pigeons, millions of them, I´m sure. After watching for a while I figured out what was in those tubes...food for the pigeons. People buy it, pay for the privilege of being covered with wildly flapping, pecking birds for a few minutes. What fun to watch them.

I stopped to eat in a tiny cafe because I was attracted to the little mounds lined up in the window, colorful and obviously sweet. I wanted substance so I went in and ordered a large item wrapped in leaf, a tamal, and a glass of curuba, a fruit found only in the high altitudes of Columbia, mixed with milk. The tamal made with a more textured masa than those from Mexico made of corn with yellow peas in it that looked like mini garbanzos. Inside that was a very tender chicken drumstick, bone and all. Delicious. I even tasted the leaf because  it looked so much like a seaweed but was not at all salty. I asked the owner who was a tall distinguished man, seventh generation of this family-owned business in a 400 year old building. He told me the leaf was a plantain variety. 

What impresses me most about Bogota is the graffiti  It is everywhere one can possibly paint, miles and miles along the highways, on just about every wall, on buildings. No surface is safe from it. It ranges from colorful scribbles to fantastic fine rt. On a bus I passed through an area of new brick apartment buildings, block after block of them, all with iron fences. No graffiti (yawn) how dull. If I were a graffiti artist, I would take that as a challenge.