Monday 10th August 2015
In the morning, I learnt more about fruits and veggies of Colombia and took a cooking class with Master Chef Elcida. In the afternoon after THE awesome soup for lunch, we left the house to head to Bogota centre. Here all houses have gates and all windows have iron gates too. Feels like what I heard about South Africa. There are even dogs on the watch!
That dog was checking me out. Hey you, who are you? Never saw you around here. What are you doing here?
We got to the Transmileano which is a bus system where you hop on and hop off buses the same way as you would do with metros in Paris!
View from the top before to head to the platform.
While in the bus, I did not take my camera out. I closed my pockets and I was on the lookout for the one who would try to steal me. Just all those stories you hear, you know. There were 2 guys who entered and asked the crowd for words. Love, Despair, Hope, Bogota, Family. Then they put the music on and improvised some rap music. I didn`t understand everything but I could tell they were really good. The crowd applauded, they went around, people gave some coins. I have never seen rappers in the subway of Paris ask people for words and do that. It was cool. Then at another station a guy entered and started distributing chocolate bars and saying something, and then people could buy the bars by giving him some money. Never saw that either in Paris metro. Interesting how even in that you can have differences.
We got to the Parque de los periodistas. There I took my camera out and took that shot of this tag and street scene.
Parque de los periodistas.
A big tower being built currently, the highest in Colombia.
Shoe shine.
The Museo del Oro was closed as it was Monday so instead we went to the Avianca tower, on the 23rd floor to the Emerald Museum.
Going pretty high
Emerald Museum entrance.
View from the 23rd floor over the city.
Another view
Monserrate
Other view
Other view
As for the Emeralds themselves, we were not allowed to take photos of them. I learnt some cool things though. There are 3 countries in the world which mine the emerald, Brazil, Zambia and Colombia. Colombia produces 50% of the emerald, and 80% of the highest quality emerald. It is said to have 80% of the world reserves in emeralds. I really didn`t know this at all! It was quite interesting.
After the visit, we just walked around the streets. Elcida was walking slow, which was awesome for me the slow walker. Finally finding someone who is walking at the same pace as me ahahaha. 🙂 She knew so much about her city, and here is the building blahblah and there is the building blohbloh. I was trying to follow but it was so much to take in! It was really cool though.
Street life
Il Tiempo
Many street sellers of tickets for gambling.
The road in the middle of the main street is becoming a passer-by road, there is a lot of road work going on.
Come on guys, wear some helmet to protect your ears!! Nuts.
We reached Plaza Bolivar.
The church on the plaza
I have a joke. If Bolivar was fighting for independence as much as he is nowadays skewing the pigeons annoying him, I can definitely understand why he got so successful!
Nearby is the street that passes the Presidential Palace. You need to open your bag before to go through the gate.
A glimpse of the palace.
In the streets. I love that there are those mountains in the background. Reminds me of my 2 years studying in Grenoble, I looooved that city surrounded by mountains!!!
Bogota crepe called oblea with arequipe anyone?
Military on the lookout. Making sure the city remains safe.
We stopped in the library. So many books…if only I could read Spanish!
We had coffee and cake at Juan Valdez, it is a chain very similar to Starbucks.
Nearby was a Miro exhibition that we checked out.
I love Miro, he is nuts, that suits me. You can make up what you want when looking at his drawings.
On the left, “Man with a moustache bleeding from the nose”.
On the right, ” Disco waitress jongling with plates”.
On the left, “Witch which stick her broom into her eye while dancing”
On the right, “Dancing ant carrying too much stuff, D2R2 helping her out.”
Yep. Totally. What? You don`t see that???
After that exhibition, we headed to the bus stop. Awesome tag in the street.
And here was the bus stop in view. Putting back my camera in the bag, and locking my pockets. Ready for the ride.
It was pretty crowded in the bus. We got home and had a nice dinner. Master Chef Elcida is awesome. I blogged a bit, on my new computer youhou…It makes it so much easier!!!!
Next day, catching up with Flavius met at El Cocuy with who I had spent the day with Santos touring Guican, heading to Museo del Oro and the graffiti tour!
Pom explores 