Adventures in Bogota and Beyond to Boyaca

Unnamed flower near the banos

This is going to be a lengthy account, even if I am brief! Eight days in Colombia were packed with activities--new sights, new foods, new drinks, new people...

Scroll through the photos, or just skip it all. This post is for me!

So here goes...

EIGHT DAYS IN COLOMBIA - NOVEMBER 2017

After a day or two in the Orlando area ... and following a tasty pre-boarding dinner at On the Border and an unremarkable flight on Jet Blue from Orlando to Bogota (except that our screens were displaying only annoying static so RV (the daughter) and I watched Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock, double dipping with a splitter into the husband's downloaded stash) ... everything changed quickly.

After a very long late-night walk to the immigration area, we found those lines very long. Because of our flight delay, four planes had landed just before ours, from Cuba, Venezuela, NYC and somewhere else I can't remember.

We were suddenly immersed in a sea of Spanish-speakers. We would probably still be stuck or lost in the airport if not for our locally-born, guide extraordinaire, GQ (the son-in-law). Our Spanish is pathetically limited. The husband only knows written Spanish. I studied German. I was able to recall a few words from the our children's Sesame Street years, like peligro and salida on signs, but Colombia was the Tower of Babel for me!

It was after midnight when we finally arrived at our 2-bedroom condo and quickly took to our beds, too tired to try the pan of soup that MT (Bogota Mom) had so thoughtfully left for us.

The first morning we quickly packed for a scheduled 3-day weekend in Villa de Leyva. After viewing the city from the mountainside and taking our first Bogota photos, we had a rather long drive through the countryside, encountering quite a bit of construction along the way. Having borrowed MT's small red car, we welcomed an opportunity to stretch our legs at two locations--at a lovely lake where GQ used to windsurf...

...and a large store (Alpina) with lots of cheese products and more. I ordered a latte and we snacked on some meat and cheese. I also sipped an oat smoothie, while we sat outdoors in a park-like setting.

We finally arrived at our gorgeous finca after dark. We quickly took some photos (before messing up the place), but we took many more by morning light, including the amazing vistas looking down towards town.

View from the patio

But first, we still needed some dinner, so we drove into town, walking carefully to the restaurant (like the old folks we were), hoping not to twist an ankle on the uneven cobblestones of the town plaza and surrounding streets. I ordered a familiar entree, lomo al trapo. It was dark. I took no photos and don't remember what anyone else ate as we sat by the fire in a sparsely filled restaurant with live music in the next section. It was late and this was not a holiday weekend, so things were not busy. This town is like a national monument and the shops and streets are kept in their historic old style by law--including all those treacherous cobblestones.

The husband managed the restroom in the dark, not yet having figured out that the light switches are often on the outside in Colombia. When we returned home that night, we had no light at all, so we found the bathroom (and our beds) by lantern light!

I like to note what is different when I travel (and that certainly includes restrooms). I have made a short list for Colombia ... I guess the first being those elusive light switches on outside walls. (We mostly had toilet paper, but twice I was caught without, as it was available, but also found outside of the stall!)

Difference #2, pun intended, (still in the restroom), was multiple toilet flushing options! Not since Toyko, where I first encountered multiple bidet functions at the Amway Japan have I had to struggle with proper toilet usage. You might say there are flushes for #1 and #2! And oh, I deciphered enough Spanish on the signs to figure out that most paper use was not expected to be flushed.

We did figure out the word for facilities soon enough--not that tough, really:

Difference #3 and #4 were animal-related. First, cows were tethered roadside to mow the ditches, which were lush with grass, growing in patches that I thought must be the result of fertilization by cow pies, but GQ insisted were just the normal growth pattern of grass in the area. As we traveled through the countryside from Bogota to Villa de Leyva, we saw many kinds of vacas (cows), mostly dairy. RV was obsessed with taking photos of them, but while cows are cute, they are not such a novelty for this former farm girl!

And then there were the dogs--running wild on the streets--everywhere! The first church we entered on Sunday in Raquira seemed to welcome dogs into the sanctuary! The doors were wide open, so why not? The dogs were out of control! When we cleaned out the fridge before leaving Villa de Leyva, we packed a doggie bag of leftovers and treated a hungry hound running wild alongside the road. They must be street smart, because, thankfully, we witnessed no dog fatalities.

Difference #5 (not in order of importance), was the unique food and drink we encountered. I didn't find the vegetables or the plants to be so different, but I tasted many new varieties of fruit (can't remember all the names) that are not available in the US, many different kinds of arepas and even ate a fat ant from a street vendor. If I read the Spanish correctly, there is some aphrodisiac benefit!

Yes, I swallowed it!

It was hard to find the cero (zero) variety in the stores of Villa de Leyva, but we needed Colombiana soda to mix with a local beer for a favorite mixed drink, refajo. And then there was that most popular drink of the Andean region of Colombia, the anise-flavored aguardiente (firewater), which we had a chance to sample at the friends Thanksgiving event later in the week.

Colombiana Cero (for refajo)

The special soup that MT made for a lunch at her house is a traditional Bogota chicken soup made from 3 kinds of potatoes (some to thicken, along with corn, and some added later), plus shredded chicken, with a few carrots and peas and a chunk of whole corn thrown in, and then garnished with avocado slices, large capers and laced with poured cream ... so unusual, but hearty and delicious! It was served with some crusty bread, a fruit smoothie type drink and a sparkling version of Lambrusco, a brand we used to buy back in the 70's. And there was a delicious homemade caramel flan for dessert, with some Colombian (of course) coffee.

Ajiaco soup by MT with a chunk of corn in the middle

I don't mean to be negative about anything here, but the variety of corn that is eaten is so different from the delicious sweet corn (and I am even fussy about how fresh-picked that is!) that I am used to. I am not sure our cows would have enjoyed this variety of corn. And I have tasted the cow's "field corn" back in the day.

We also had good meal with 7 of us at a restaurant in Villa de Leyva (graciously sponsored by JC (GQ's brother) on Sunday afternoon, with dessert, compliments of MT at a nearby chocolate shop, Museo del Chocolate. And a final family dinner for 9 at a tapas restaurant in Bogota on Friday, our last night in Colombia. On the night that 7 of us were together at the country house in Villa de Leyva, we had a massive barbecue (asado) with steak, sausage from the market, including morcilla (blood sausage) and all sorts of grilled vegetables, all eaten outdoors on the pleasant (maybe 68 degrees and sunny) patio. Coke Zero is available but we also had local beer and a pitcher of that Colombiana Cero/beer mix, refajo. I mixed some leftover champagne with the Colombiana--and that was also tasty!

But the highlight for me was eating in style on the top of Mt. Monserrate. We were offered a window seat (since the restaurant was not that filled at 6:00), with a view overlooking the lights of Bogota below. We huffed and puffed up the mountain from the tram car ascent (a little unnerving) to the restaurant, but were happy to just sit and enjoy linen, wine, cocktails and fine food at an elevation over 10,000 feet above sea level. My food was more local/traditional than fancy--plantains and chicken in a mandarin sauce, but all the meals were plated beautifully and the desserts were works of art--one including some coffee caviar! The prices were in pesos, which I never learned to properly calculate, but they seemed reasonable compared to the United States--when I occasionally asked GQ, who handled all the money, to translate for me.

Another notable food event was the fun lunch we enjoyed with MT at a very popular 5-floor restaurant, Andres Carne de Res. RV and I were given welcome sashes and crowns along with a short mariachi serenade. It must have been pretty obvious that we were foreigners and we were welcomed as such. The arepa I ate there was stuffed with beef and egg and the empanada was the best.

Difference #6: The flagrant use of stone and tile, inside, outside and everywhere.

This was the master suite sink - a giant stone slab. The bathroom included a double walk-in shower with a skylight!

Tiles - inside, out, and on the roof

Difference #7: The traffic, with primarily small cars and taxis, horrendous traffic and motorcycles constantly moving in and out of traffic lanes. After returning MT's car back in Bogota we struggled to find Ubers and taxis of adequate size for the four of us. And we experienced some unbelievable traffic congestion. It all seems to work. The vehicles do not appear to be dented. But commutes must be insufferable. There are even restrictions on which days you can use your car!

Difference #8: The weather. There are no seasons in the plateau between the mountain ranges. No heating or air-conditioning is needed! It was warmer on sunny days than I had been led to believe, but I loved the cool evening temps. It rained a lot in Villa de Leyva, with quick showers, but we had clear weather in Bogota. The moderate year-round temperatures allow Colombia to be such a big exporter of coffee and flowers!

That's about it for my list.

Of course, there were things that were surprisingly the same. For instance, the dishware at our finca was white Corelle, the same as at my house!

Corelle at the Villa de Leyva house

Now for a day by day account:

Highlights of the first full day in Villa de Leyva included going to the market and sampling some new foods, as well as RV and I selecting hats. In the afternoon we welcomed members of GQ's family with some Brut champagne (which I later mixed with the Colombiana). After our grilling feast, the younger folks went back into town and the husband and I stayed home to relax and catch up with our phones, since the Wifi was now working.

My Villa de Leyva market (farmer) hat made it home, but for what?

Sunday we enjoyed assorted fruits and breads at the house before heading out to see the old Duruelo hotel, situated halfway up the mountain, and then on to the shops in Raquira/ I purchased a rauna, and some wooden spoons. Knowing our luggage had limits, I tried to be judicious. There were many shops with all the typical wares of the area in abundant supply.

At Duruelo. Silly RV!

We had some fun family photo ops at the hotel, in the Raquira shops and at the church at the Raquira plaza, where we first spotted those dogs in church!

RV searched for the perfect rugged wool rauna for a friend to wear when they sit around their chimenea on cold winter nights back in Maitland.

Nativity at the Duruelo Hotel

Monday we packed up and headed back to Bogota. We were kept in the dark, so to speak, about the planned descent into a salt mine later that day at the Catedral de Sal. We arrived in time for the last English tour at 5:00 PM. The salt mine was an incredible place. A whole post could be written on this underground wonderland of salt, with 14 stations of the cross and several functional churches within its tunnels and caverns, all carved out of the salt! We watched a presentation explaining how this massive salt deposit came to be. I did not take photos here and the husband and I had all we could do to manage the walks and inclines. At the end there were 42 steps of penitence up to the exit path. We huffed and puffed our way up and out in the thin mountain air, happy to find the car parked nearby!

Hungry from the tour de salt we decided that fast food at a popular hamburger chain in the mall in Chia would suit us just fine. And then back to our condo in Bogota.

I visited two malls in Colombia that were modern and much like American malls. They were already very much decked out for Christmas.

The next day we walked to some stores nearby the condo, bought a beautiful cake at a bakery and some roses from a street vendor, for MT. We took an Uber to our 1:00 lunch at MT's house, the house where GQ grew up. That night was the big surprise birthday party for RV with all GQ's "old" Colombian friends, so the older folks once again stayed home and relaxed in the condo.

On Wednesday late morning we took an Uber to GQ's University, tucked into the side of the mountain. He was able to talk his way (and ours) in as an alumnus, and fortunately, elevators had been installed so we could ascend up the mountain to where his architecture classes had been held. His wife (RV) had never seen the University, either. The "professor" pretended to lecture GQ in one of the empty classrooms for a photo op. We had a snack with the students outdoors and watched as a noisy tuition protest group moved through the campus.

We also took a trolley tour of the historic La Candelaria section of Bogota near the University, which boasts both old and modern buildings along with an unusual amount of artistic graffiti. The tour was conducted in Spanish, but we enjoyed the views and were happy, as always, to be sitting. While waiting for the trolley, I bought a black coffee mug from the Juan Valdez coffee shop nearby, bought a cool carved record of Abbey Road from a street vendor, took a photo at the Cultural Center with the name of their Nobel prize winning author (100 Years of Solitude!) on the building ... and ate that ant!

After the trolley tour, we shopped in the emerald district to purchase a couple of small loose emeralds. We walked to the old city plaza and fed the pigeons corn. We were swarmed, some landing on our heads. Fortunately, no stray poop!--because after that we were scheduled for our fancy dinner on top of Mount Monserrate.

The husband's fancy plating of something - risotto under there?

On Thursday, we went to lunch at that famous Bogota restaurant Andres, mentioned above and shopped at the mall where I purchased a lazy susan made from different colored cow horns. MT helped me pick out a leather summer purse.

In the evening we attended a Thanksgiving dinner with GQ's friends at the condo of DJ, who lived for a time in NYC. The NYC friends were familiar with American traditions and managed a great big 3-day-marinated turkey, mashed potatoes and some kind of stuffing, along with salad and more. It was suggested that I bring maple syrup from Michigan but ended up gifting our hosts with a bottle from New York state which looked a lot like booze. I hope nobody mistook it.

It was a party atmosphere, with hired musicians making an appearance after dinner. We were more than a little out of place with the sing-a-long of old folk songs from the coastal region around Cartagena, lots of booze, and the loud celebrating of old friends. They treated us kindly and most were able to speak with us in English. The party lasted until after 2 AM, and many had to work the next day! I will not include the photos of me with the accordion player, or with a strange man's arms around me that RV snapped. Just in case you're wondering (and in spite of the referenced photos), my drinking was very modest! Although, this is the night we had a chance to try a (small) sample of the aguardiente. Also, this is the night I became Rosita!

The last activity before packing to get ready for a very early morning flight Saturday morning was a tejo contest. I was mostly throwing wildly, but in the end I placed a shot solidly in the winning circle in the center of the ring. (see below) The game is free, but you have to buy a case of beer, whether you can consume it or not. We did pretty well with that! It was a locally brewed low alcohol lager called Poker. We also got just a little dirty. Three out of the four of us (me included!) managed to hit the embedded gun powder packets for a big explosion. What fun!

 Actually, we cleaned up and went out to dinner at a cozy tapas place that night, sitting on cushy leather sofas around a large wooden table. Gifts were exchanged and we met GQ's sister for the first time. There was a lot of laughter and plenty of red wine along with many shared small plates. Since I don't have photos, it is hard to recall! (If I don't have a photo, it didn't happen!) And all the ordering was done in Spanish. I remember that I had some octopus and some yummy pasta. There was a big argument whether GQ's father had played tejo back in the day, but it was news to all except for MT.

I left my camera home for a 4th day in a row. That's why I don't have so many photos in Bogota! Borrowing photos from others for my blog does not seem authentic, and many of those are already on Facebook. However, I will share one borrowed (unattractive) photo of me (tummy bloated with beer) showing off my final winning throw for team GQ and Me!

I returned with plenty treasure from Colombia. The rauna I selected is unique and classy, as far as raunas go. It is soft and silky. No labels. Maybe Pashmina?

 MT bought a nice leather purse for me at her favorite store for such things at the mall. I also took home a beautiful lazy susan made from cow horns. And I was gifted with some earrings and some tiny Colombian dolls. The husband was gifted with a nice leather belt and MT bought him a wallet. And there was that Juan Valdez coffee mug. And two stamped out records--I chose Abbey Road. And the wooden spoons. And the emeralds. And some colorful coasters from MT. And two containers of chocolate covered coffee beans. The rest of the ants. The hat. And a tiny pig for O's garden.

The market hat was a pain to get home, as I didn't want to crush it in a suitcase. And of course, I had to take home at least one bag of coffee beans, which might help me learn some more Spanish! But of course, I can get good imported Colombian coffee here in the states. I didn't actually have any amazing coffee there. I would have liked to visit a coffee grower. Maybe next time!

 It is appropriate, I think, to have begun this post with a flower and to end with a bag of coffee, since those are the things we all always knew and loved about Colombia (and certainly two favorites of mine): the great coffee beans and the beautiful flowers! But now I know so much more of the beauty of Colombia!

Took home a bag of Colombian coffee beans!