oh bogota
there is something about this place. something intangible, something bubbling under the surface but something that is incredibly difficult for an outsider to fully access. as with so much in this city it feels linked to security but the closed restaurants and deserted streets once the sun goes down suggest a place whose inhabitants have become content to eat, drink and be merry behind closed doors rather than risk any trouble outside. perhaps this is me constructing an image onto the city: vicki is entirely unconvinced that, outside of the sleaziest, most unnecessarily risky districts, bogotanos are unhappy keeping themselves to themselves. and yet, i can't shake the feeling that there is something here, hidden away from the heavily policed streets, and if you could just get to it you would tap into a rich seam of vibrancy which properly befits a metropolis like this.our second day was spent being slung around rickety buses to a town called zipaquira, an hour or so outside of bogota. zipaquira is famed for its salt cathedral, a church carved out of the vast subterranean spaces offered by one of the local salt mines. a bit of an anticlimax to be honest, as you potter along looking at numerous crosses carved into and out of the walls, but the trip was worth it primarily because zipaquira itself has a certain charm, certainly after the uncertainty of bogota. a picture postcard old colonial city with a peaceful central plaza ringed by wooden balconies and churches, it provided a very zen space to spend a couple of hours.
checking out today and off to salento in the zona cafetara. a quick word on our hostel; we had opted for a slightly upmarket hostel, prettier (and more expensive) than your average flea bitten dormpit. set in a nicely refurbished colonial house with the rooms arranged around a central courtyard, casa platypus certainly looked a step up from the places in which i stayed in my youth. unfortunately what you gain in not being kept awake into the early hours by drunk australians and gap year kids you lose at the other end when from 7am onwards hordes of eager sexagenarian german tourists start milling around the courtyard, right outside your window, happily discussing the organised tour of the day. price permitting, hotels where possible from now on i feel; a woken up vicki is a grumpy vicki.
posted by bicrom @ 4:47 pm
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