Tales of Bogotá

Plaza Bolívar

“Bit modern for me”

“Absolutely same. Let’s go”

We walk out of Bogotá Cathedral – a grand Catholic building with adjoining palace that is the seat of the Archbishop of Bogotá. I wouldn’t consider myself religious but I usually enjoy the grandeur and sense of wonder that old cathedrals can inspire. I’ve often found they act as tonics for the part of the brain (or soul?) that deals with the big three questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What will become of us? But the neat plaster work, top of the range speaker system and contactless card equipped donation box wasn’t doing it for me today.

Today is a sunny Sunday with a handful of clouds and the temperature is in the mid-teens. A perfectly pleasant day. I walk hand-in-hand with my beautiful wife. She’s smirking at the deliberately boorish way we both wrote off the too young Cathedral. The sun is lighting up the array of chocolate, honey and umber browns in her hair as her perfectly manicured hands brush through it. She looks with equal parts wonder and disgust at the square full of pigeons and people feeding them. Deliberately touching the winged rodents. She lets her face slip to lean much heavier on the side of disgust and I don’t think I’ve ever loved her more.

IMPACT

I recoil, spinning, plummeting as my vision blurs. So this is how it gets me: In Plaza Bolívar, Bogota. This is where they come for me – surrounded by monuments to historic revolution, by stoic and lush mountains and by selfie-stick merchants.

I try to take in my injuries, self-scanning my body for signs of trouble. My nostrils fill with the stink of what I can only assume is mortal dread. I’ve known that smell only once before…I think as my mind flashes back to another dark time.

Feet, knees and legs all fine: we’ve Uber’d everywhere. Way to submerse yourself in the culture, Jon. It’s so cheap and so convenient to effectively slowly teleport yourself to your next destination. Was I regretting the ‘inauthentic’ decision? Did I already run out of time to “Become Juan with Sud America?”

Torso ok – my linen shirt so slick with sweat (Humidity? Panic?) it becomes a second skin. Arms and hands all responding as they should – I use the right-side combo to reach up and check my immodestly sized head.

Oh no. Before I even reach it, I feel the warm trickle sliding down my temple. My mind flashes back to the impact and I feel the direct hit anew. Few come back from head wounds Jon. And when they do, it sure ain’t the whole of them that comes back. A fresh wave of terror hits me as my fingers touch the sticky liquid. My spinning world slows and darkens as I begin to drift out of consciousness. I can still hear the cackling maniacal laughter of the devil on my shoulder, almost gleeful as it beckons me towards Hell. I hope you’re ready for me, Diabla.

I bring my fingers in front of my face to see the blood. To face my own mortality as thousands of others did, in the worthy name of Simón Bolívar, El Liberador of most of South America from the Spanish Empire and the man after whom the square I face my final moments in is named.

Will they build a statue for me? Will my name be worshipped by an entire continent? Will I – oh it’s pigeon shit.

Sammy’s Bogotá Haiku

Graffiti and fumes
A city hugged by mountains
Tastebuds left yearning.

Monserrate

The mountain of Monserrate was a feast for the senses. Standing at its base, our eyes took in luscious greens: both dense and intricate. Our ears were swarmed by thousands of crickets and hundreds of bird calls. Our noses took in the fresh misty air fizzing off the foliage. And our stomachs took in the humongous and steep climb we were about to embark upon in a cable car.

“Are you Clammy Sammy?”

“Yeah I actually am a bit” she replied, offering her moist palms as proof.

I reassured her that it would be fine, the ride will be super smooth and level – sure enough, we didn’t feel the steepness of the climb and the views on the way up were spectacular. One of the few ways to take in the scale and complexity of Bogotá.

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The winding roads of the mountain wound down to the gleaming towers of the financial district. We saw neat suburbs a stone’s throw from chaotic favela-like towns. And it is VAST. It spreads literally as far as the eye can see.

(Fun fact – ‘as far as your eye can see’ for most people is about 5km away. A six-foot tall person when looking out to sea can see 5k away at the horizon. A wise man once told me that and it’s a fact I’ll never forget it – you know who you are)

When we exited the cable car at the peak, I asked Sammy if she’d seen the two brass sharing our cabin.

“The what pardon me?”

“Brass doors”

She gasped “No! Really? Where? You can’t possibly know that”

“Yes Sam. There was that bloke with two birds much younger than him in the cabin. One was awkwardly smiling at him and not really understanding what he was saying, the other was just taking selfies.”

She thought about it for a moment and declared “they could have been his daughters!”.

I realised that Sammy was so in awe/terror of the cable car view and experience that she had failed to spot some glaring irregularities that would take a battering ram to her argument. The caucasian male had his hand on the bum of a the black girl twenty years his junior. Her selfie-taking friend was a similar age to the other girl but indubitably Latina.

I gently highlighted the potential holes in Sammy’s theory and she quickly agreed. What was he doing? We discussed theories (recent divorce? business trip? widower?!) as we walked off to get a bite to eat.

Walking at that altitude has a really profound affect on your breathing, far more than I ever would have realised. So we took it slow and ended up at this absolute charmer of a place, where we enjoyed a crispy red beer and our first crispy, spiced empanadas.

We then wandered back to take a look at the rest of the peak. Flowers and trees I’ve never seen the like of anywhere else, including the Quiche Morada bush which I’d always assumed were baked in an oven. Colombia was becoming my teacher.

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Sammy also used this time to try and hunt down the man and his two companions. Peering over low walls, gaining high ground and peeking round corners, she sought valiantly. Alas, they had finished their pointless appetisers post-haste and headed back down the mountain for their main course.

We headed back down the way we came up and stood behind a man and his son who stood front and centre of the cable car. He clung on to the hand rail and whooped and cheered through the crack in the window as the car slunk it’s way down the steepest part of the track. He laughed almost the whole way down to his son’s initial embarrassment which became bashful, loving pride.

People flock to Bogotá for countless reasons. Even those within that cable car each had their own individual and very different stories. Cities take all-comers and when you take into account Bogotá’s chequered past, it’s easy to apply a broad brush stroke that it’s trouble. But coming down in that cable car, with the view of that massive city, it felt like a place I wanted to be and somewhere that was happy enough to have you, whatever brought you there.

Especially when you dish out massive tips to someone you didn’t even ask to dump your bags in the back of a cab.