Bogota

On my first full day in Bogota, I took a hotel taxi to meet a Bogota Graffiti tour. About taxis in Bogota. I was told that the safest taxi to take is a hotel taxi. The second safest is a car from Uber. The least safe, which you should try to avoid, is a yellow cab. There have been some unfortunate tourist incidents using them.

On my ride, we went through a strikingly beautiful upper class mainly red brick development. Photo: one of the many buildings in the development. You see much red brick construction throughout Colombia.

The weather report predicted rain for today but the day started out sunny.

Bogota

The development had many very green parks.

Bogota

Bogota is a developing city, with sections of modern high–rise buildings and many sections with old buildings, many of them colorful.

Bogota Murals

Bogota is known for its murals, with about 5,000 of them. You’ll see some of them wherever you ride. When murals first appeared in Bogota, the artists did them at night so not to be caught by the police doing them. To paint a mural in certain areas was a criminal offense. In 2011, a young graffiti artist was shot dead by the police after being caught painting a mural on an underpass. The United Nations complained and there were protests, but the criminal statues were not changed.

But Justin Bieber came to Bogota in 2013 and was either escorted by policemen so he could paint near the underpass where the graffiti artist was killed or he was caught by the police and not prosecuted. This led to an uproar and protests and led to the decriminalization of street art. Bieber had painted a Canadian maple leaf atop a marijuana leaf alongside a tribute to his dead hamster, Pac.

Bogota Mural

Close–up of the mural.

Parque de Los Periodistas

I was dropped off by my hotel taxi at the Parque de Los Periodistas where the Bogota Graffiti tour would meet. We were to gather next to the dome which contains a statue of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of Colombia and other South American countries from Spanish rule.

Simon Bolivar

A closer–up view of the statue of Simon Bolivar with a regrettable addition of a pigeon on his head.

Simon Bolivar

Closer–up of Simon Bolivar.

Vendor in the Park

A fruit vendor in the park. There are many vendors on the streets of Bogota.

Another Vendor

This vendor is selling coconuts.

Bogota Graffiti Tour

Our tour guide, a street artist, the woman in a blue hat and blue shoes, will lead our tour. There is no charge for the tour but you are asked to donate 20–30 mil pesos. 20–30 mil pesos is 20,000–30,000 Colombian pesos, which sounds like a good deal of money, but 1,000 pesos is 35 cents USD, so 20,000–30,000 pesos is $7.01–10.52U.S. There were about 35 people on our tour, a number too large to be able to hear our guide’s description of many of the murals and the artists who painted them. Our guide told me later that her tours can range from as few as five people to big groups as ours was.  We saw many murals on our tour but actually a small number of the about 5,000 murals in Bogota.

I wished our tour guide had asked people where they were from as I think it was quite an international group. Most of the group was on the younger side. But I did meet on the tour a couple from Poland and a younger man from DC but who had lived in Los Angeles, so an instant connection.

Bogota Mural

A detail from one of the murals that I particularly liked. You can see that there are very good artists painting many of the murals. Our guide told us that there were 8,000 street artists in Bogota.

Bogota Mural

A detail from another mural. You can see that the subject matter of the murals is wide.

Bogota Mural

A detail from another mural.

Bogota Mural

Another detail from another mural. I have put two slideshows on of the Bogota Graffiti Murals. Go to

http://www.peggysphotos.com/bogota–graffiti–murals–1/

and

http://www.peggysphotos.com/bogota–graffiti–murals–2/

(Slide Shows, South America, Colombia, “Bogata Graffiti Murals–1 [and] –2).

Mama Lupe’s

It started to rain at the end of the Bogota Graffiti Tour. My tour guide helped me find a taxi to take me to Plaza Bolivar where I would have lunch. The taxi was a yellow one and all was okay in taking it. There is a street leading down to the plaza on which restaurant employees try to entice passerbys to eat lunch at their restaurants. I was enticed by the very first restaurant, Mama Lupe’s.

Mama Lupe’s

Inside Mama Lupe’s. It had both an upstairs and a downstairs. I ate downstairs.

Mama Lupe’s

The menu of traditonal Colombian food at Mama Lupe’s. My tour guide yesterday had recommended that I try the Ajiaco Santaferno, a “potatoes mixture soup, accompanied by chicken, rice, avocado, capers and cream.” The tables downstairs were very tight and I noticed that a young man at the table next to mine had ordered the Ajiaco Santaferno and I asked him how he liked it. He did and a long conversation with him began. He was from Quebec and was backpacking his way through Colombia.

Ajiaco Santaferno

My lunch, Ajiaco Santaferno. It was good and mild. Colombian food is very good and not very spicy.

Colombian Sweets

I bought a package the next day that contained three of the pastries on the bottom shelf. They were mainly sugar with a taste of coconut. Good but very very sweet.

Plaza Bolivar

While I was eating lunch, the rain came down very heavily with thunder and lightning to go along with it. I walked down to Plaza Bolivar, the central square in Bogota, to take photos. This photo is of the steeple of the Cathedral of Bogota.

Plaza Bolivar

Photo in the pouring rain of the Cathedral of Bogota. I saw only one other person who was crazy enough to be in the middle of the square, a square that in dry weather is full of people and pigeons. But there were many people under the overhang in front of the cathedral and also under other overhangs to keep dry.

Plaza Bolivar

The Palacio Lievano, now the Bogota City Hall, on the Plaza Bolivar.

Plaza Bolivar

The National Capitol on Plaza Bolivar.

Plaza Bolivar

A visitor to the statue of Simon Bolivar on the Plaza Bolivar.

Getting Back to My Hotel

I was now soaking wet even though I had a raincoat on. Time to go back to my hotel. I stood in front of the two policemen to try to flag down a cab. They invited me to stand under the overhang with them––this was done with sign language. They spoke to me in Spanish, I told them “no Espanol,” and they kept talking to me in Spanish. Such an occurrence happened to me often in Colombia. I did get a cab, a yellow taxi. The taxi ride back to my hotel took about 1/2 hour in the torrential rain. I was charged a bit over $4.00U.S. The hotel taxi had charged me $10.00U.S. for a similar ride. But I was told that if I had used Uber, it would have been less than $4.00U.S.