Good morning from our first new continent in 2023 a few days ago we spent the night
in the airport before flying here and we've been behind our laptops for the last three days only
really seeing the city in the breaks we give ourselves between working it's been awesome
but today that kind of changes we are spending the entire day walking around seeing the sites
we're going to walk through La Candelaria but it all starts by summiting this mountain
This is crazy there are apparently three ways to get here the one we took the funicular is pretty
easy it's very Steep and intense and it costs 16 Australian dollars for the both of us you
can get a cable car I don't know how much that is or if you're feeling super fit you can hike
up here which would be intense because we're at 3152 meters high so that would be quite the hike
we were not expecting there to be so much stuff up here restaurants churches it's really cool
and the views are just insane like you have the green foresty looking mountains in the
background and then just the city and the it just expands so much further than I thought it would
just surrounded by beautiful views you could spend the day up here pretty easily there
are heaps of like markets up here so we're stopping for a coffee because look at this
view how can you say no to this this is the first place pretty much since sapa in Vietnam
that I've genuinely been like wow like these views are insane I've never seen this much
green and all these different shades of green just from this perspective here
such a good like restaurant balcony bit if you come here and you want to know which
one this one is you just keep walking all the way to the end this is the last one also this
is going to be our first actual Colombian coffee just been having like instant stuff
Colombian coffee is amazing it was because it was full of sugar
that's still really good
it feels so much steeper on the way down and it feels like it's going so much faster
wow oh wow did we get here at the right time come early in the morning if you want to do
montserrate because look at this line now we didn't wait at all to buy tickets I think no
matter how you choose to go up there paying for the funicular or the cable
car or hiking it it's definitely worth it you have to do it and what's really cool is that
we had such a bird's eye view the city from here we've got about a 10 or 15 minute walk
to what's supposed to be the very very first square of Bogota where it all kind of started
This is La Candelaria which is one of the oldest suburbs in Bogota so much so that they have
applied to be listed as a UNESCO world heritage site which should hopefully come true it is just
beautiful here the mix of architecture from like the real Spanish stuff to almost German
architecture not to mention we're just surrounded by the beautiful street art amazing cafes and
everything it is just such a unique part of the city and we keep coming back here time and time
again we are in one of the most iconic spots in La Candelaria it is the site where Bogota
started way back in 1539 the church behind me was even rebuilt on the same site as the first church
so cool there is so much happening here there's like an Amphitheater all of the street art people
drinking Chicha I love it and it's right in the heart of the next thing we're gonna see
There is a lot of graffiti here in Bogota and some of it is not very good to look at but when
you're in one of the most street art friendly countries in the entire world you kind of have
to take the good with the bad and the good is definitely worth it Bogota wasn't always that
street art friendly and actually had a pretty dark past in 2011 any Street art or graffiti
was considered completely illegal and actually one day the police pursued someone who is graffiting
under an overpass chased him down and ended up shooting him and killing him he was a 16 year old
called Diego beccera there was effectively riots in the streets about this understandably and it
played a big role in downgrading street art and graffiti from a criminal offense to a violation
and eventually to completely legal the mayor did a complete 180 and was commissioning murals to
be painted all around the city they're some of the most beautiful things I've seen and now the
street art community here is so prolific and well known that they're getting International artists
here to take their spot on the wall it's really beautiful this piece here is by someone called Mr
Gareck he's very very popular and Incredibly talented you can tell it's his one because
he signed it but two they always have a glisten in the eyes which is supposed to represent hope
he also owns a cafe in La Candelaria which we might check out
This is Plaza de Bolivar if you don't know who that is because we didn't either it's
named after Simon Bolivar who was the guy who liberated Colombia, Venezuela,
Ecuador was all part of one big country of Colombia it's also the guy whose sword you
see in the first season of Narcos and I've only just seen that first season on the plane here
it's made to be like the political government Hub so there's a bunch of government buildings
all around about 19 million pigeons I think I've counted eight alpacas, corn, different stores with
like sugarcane that you can drink and at night time it looks very different also if you're here
at night time a lot of the Stalls start selling aromatica which is like this alcoholic punch that
reminds us a lot of glog so it brings back all the Christmas feels and so many llamas
can't believe how
lucky we got with the weather today but I want to make the most of it while it's
still sunny and the skies are blue so we're going to run quickly to some
beautiful church that's around the corner before maybe heading to the gold Museum
We do need to confess that we don't actually know too much about the
church other than the tour we were on yesterday our guide pointed it
out as something that is Iconic and really beautiful and he wasn't wrong
it is probably one of the most beautiful churches we've seen they're like Spirals and the detail on
the spirals going up the colors the stripes it's just so pretty I think again we got so lucky with
the weather because just with the blue background and the clouds moving past so quickly it makes it
even more pretty and inside the detail is just insane we felt a bit awkward because there's a
service going on so we quickly poked our heads and then left let's check out the museum okay
We just came into the gold Museum expecting to pay 5 000 cop each we got in for free which I
don't know why but I'm happy about it the gold museum is definitely one of the most
recommended things to do in Bogota and I can 1005 see why the exhibition is amazing
one fun fact is like El Dorado the whole city made of gold isn't actually the truth the truth is that
there is a lake I think two hours away from Bogota and the natives used to hold ceremonies
there and they held no monetary value on gold so when they held these ceremonies they floated
out and threw a bunch of golden emeralds into the lake apparently when the Spanish came over
they figured this out and they started taking all of the gold out of the lake which is very
disappointing because all of that history is just gone but now it is like bad you're not allowed to
go swimming in the lake again searching for gold staying in there. I'm starving tacos burritos
see we actually came here yesterday and we loved it so much we've come back and
I'm sure it's not going to be the last time we're in Bogota because this place
is awesome you can eat cheaper you can get Street eats quite cheap but the quality here
absolutely delicious as always the same as it was yesterday and so good
kind of motivates me now to do the food tour which I think we're probably gonna do like
tomorrow and just run around and try a bunch of different boots I'm so excited Colombia is
the best if you come here get the birria out burrito it's the winner the Spanish no bueno
you know what this looks like there was this toy we had me and my sister when
we were little and you used to feed the baby and the grapes or the jelly
on the spoon used to disappear and that's what it looks like.