Botero in Bogota

Friday, February 11, 2011

Gloomy day here in Bogota.  It’s so cold.  I mean nothing like the weather the East Coast is getting, but compared to 90 degrees, the change feels huge. No surprise though given I’m at 2,650 meters above sea level.  The grey sky prompted me to pack my umbrella and after having breakfast at the hostel and puttering around for a bit, I set off to see some of Bogota.

My first stop was the Donacion Botero Museum, a collection of Botero’s sculptures and paintings as well as impressionist art.  I don’t know much about Botero, but I enjoyed walking through the various rooms of his paintings, appreciating his style of representing humans.  Of course, I also loved seeing the few Impressionist paintings on display.  While I strolled around, it started pouring outside, and the open courtyard of the museum showed the intensity of the rain.  When I came out of one of the rooms, I overheard a group of people speaking English.  They looked like backpackers so I asked where they were from.  I mostly talked to the two girls, Brie and Pamela, and got their contact details to meet up with them tonight to go to Andres Carne de Res, a famous restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet.

Botero Museo

Courtyard at Botero Museo

Botero Museo

The Botero museum is connected to Casa de la Moneda, so I wandered into that section.  Casa de la Moneda (mint), building dates back to 1620 when Felipe III of Spain ordered its construction, making it the first mint in South America to produce gold coins.  It houses Colombian and European art and sculptures and the machines used to produce gold and silver coins.  Most of the exhibit was in Spanish and I was starting to tire of reading the text, so I walked out in the rain and went to Juan Valdez, a popular Colombian coffee shop (kind of like the Starbucks of Colombia).  I ordered a latte and sandwich and took a table outside (since there were none left inside), and allowed the coffee to warm me.

The rain had mostly stopped and I ventured to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) in downtown Bogota.  It took a bit of time to find since my map didn’t show the entrance to the museum, but I eventually got to the Parque Santander and to the museum (a unique collection is a poignant reminder of why the conquistadores found Colombia and the rest of the continent so appealing).  There are more than 35,000 pieces of pre-Colombian gold work in the total collection, some of which is displayed on the three floors of the museum and while I took my time in each room, the amount of objects was overwhelming.  The ancient gold objects discovered in Colombia were not made by primitive hammering alone, but show the use of virtually every technique known to modern goldsmiths.  So many small pieces of gold carved in different shapes and figures.  One room in the museum closes you in a dark space then tells a story illuminating gold coins and objects on the floor and walls.

Gold museo

After spending a couple hours examining the thousands of gold objects, I returned to Casa Bellavista for an afternoon nap.  I think the lack of sleep yesterday got to me.  I received an email from Andrea (Kate from my Tucan tour’s friend) telling me that she was going to the famous Andres Carnes de Res tomorrow and a ceviche restaurant tonight offering to join.  I decided I’d try to meet her leaving at 7:40pm to get to Zona Rosa.

It was raining again, and the hostel couldn’t get a taxi over the phone, so Richard (one of the employees) took me out to the street to find a taxi.  We waited for almost 30 minutes in the rain (with umbrellas) to find a taxi with no success.  When I came back to the hostel, Andrea was calling to see where I was and I told her I wouldn’t be able to get there.  So I quickly emailed Pamela saying that I wanted to join them, while she was emailing me at the same time saying they weren’t going anymore.  I ended up calling the hostel and speaking to Pamela; we decided to meet to go for dinner locally.  Pamela, Brie and I went to an Italian a couple blocks away, a nice cozy restaurant where I sat in front of an open fire trying to warm up.  It was a lovely meal with wonderful company. 

Brie, me, Pamela and our waiter

After dinner I said goodnight to Pamela and Brie, who were continuing their evening at a club, and went back to the hostel to relax and take a warm shower.  Turns out the showers in this place are very temperamental – going from boiling hot to cold very quickly.  Anyway, tomorrow is my second and last day to explore the city.  I’m enjoying staying in La Candelaria, an area in colonial style, with narrow-cobbled streets and one or two story houses with tiled roofs, projecting eaves, wrought ironwork and carved balconies.  The plaza next to the hostel, Plaza del Chorro de Quevedo, is believed to have been the center of the Musica village of Teusaquillo and was certainly where Jimenez de Quesada took possession of the territory in the name of King Charles of Spain to form the kingdom of New Granada on 6 August 1538.  The name dates from about 1800 when Father Francisco Quevedo provided a chorro (well) for the local people.  More on Bogota tomorrow.