COLOMBIA: BOGOTA TO PEREIRA TO TINAMU, DAY 1

 March 18, 2023

During the night I began stressing about my stolen phone and couldn't sleep. I looked at my email on Bob's phone and saw an email from either Verizon or Apple (I can't remember which) that said that at 4:45 PM someone had tried to retrieve my password to unlock the phone. That made me nervous and didn't help my insomnia. I was also a little nauseous. I think I fell asleep around 2:00 AM and got two hours of sleep before being startled awake at 4:00 by the alarm.

We were picked up at 4:45 AM and transported to the airport. We were supposed to have been given boarding passes, but they hadn't come, so we had to figure out how to do that. We made it to our gate in time to get Savannah a "pink drink" at Starbuck's for breakfast. I had a Coke to settle my stomach, and I bought some chocolate for the first time on the trip. 

Somehow we got seated on Row 2 in business class, which was the best seat on the plane. (Row 1 had less leg room.) It wasn't especially luxurious, but they did put a little table where the middle seat should be. It was a small plane, and they did make us check our bags.

Our flight to Pereira was supposed to be a little over an hour, but as we were coming in for a landing, the plane suddenly jerked upward for a steep climb, and then we made a wide circle (or two) before making a successful landing.  I have no idea what that was about. Pilot in training?

You can see from the map below that Bogotá and Pereira are not that far apart relative to the distance between Cartagena (top left of map) and Bogotá. We could have had someone drive us to Pereira, a distance of about 200 miles, but it takes almost eight hours to make the drive, which indicates what the roads are like. No thanks.

We had never heard of Pereira and don't know anyone else who has, even those it has a population of over 700,000 people. It is located in the Andean foothills and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia." The soil in this region is rich in minerals from volcanic eruptions.

We were picked up in the Pereira airport by a very friendly and talkative driver who took us to Tinamú Birding Reserve, abouat 1.5 hours away. We started on a very nice highway that eventually devolved into a narrow, bumpy dirt road with tight turns, and by the time we arrived, I was green. At the very end we cam nose-to-nose with a car coming out. Our driver had to back up quite a way before they could pass each other.

We got to the reserve at about 11:00 AM. We had a fairly large cabin not far from the main lodge. Here is the front entrance:

. . . and the side view:

I loved the tropical murals and bed throws in our room.

COLOMBIA: BOGOTA PART II (SHOPPING, PLAZA DE BOLIVAR, CITY STREETS, AND A SERENDIPITOUS MEET-UP)

 March 17, 2023

From the Botero Museum, we walked to an area where souvenir items are for sale on tables lining the street. This is the "Old Town," known in Bogotá as the Candelaria District, and it includes the foundation buildings of the city. Candelaria is Spanish for "Candlemas," a Christian holiday that commemorates the presentation of the baby Jesus at the temple.

On our way there, we passed this awesome three-wheeler that was selling, among other things, arroz con leche, or rice pudding.

The Nobel prize-winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) is extremely popular in his home country of Colombia, as well he should be. There are many sites named for him, such as the cultural center in Bogotá that we walked by.

We also saw many artworks depicting "Gabo," as he is affectionately known in Colombia. He looks like someone I would want to know, at least in this painting!

There was a lot of art for sale, often copies of well-known works, such as Botero's Mona Lisa in the bottom right corner.

COLOMBIA: BOGOTA, PART I (WHEREIN WE VISIT MONSERRATE AND SIMON BOLIVAR'S HOUSE, MY PHONE IS STOLEN, AND WE GET UP-CLOSE WITH BOTERO)

 March 17, 2023

Our second destination after Cartagena was the capital city of Colombia, Bogotá.

I got up at 4:30 AM to take a shower and repack so that I'd be ready for our return trip to the Cartagena Airport. It is a very small facility--essentially one large room. We got there about an hour before our flight to Bogotá, and there wasn't much to do. Our flight was pretty short, maybe 1 hour 25 minutes, but it would have taken almost 20 hours to drive it because of the roads and the terrain between the two cities.

On our arrival in Bogotá, we were picked up by a non-English speaking man and a driver named, of all things, Judy. They took us to our hotel, the Hotel Casa Deco:

. . . but it was still pretty early in the morning and the room wasn't ready, so we left our luggage and headed out with our guide, a woman whose name we never really got. She turned out to be a good guide, although she spoke a bit too fast and was harder to understand than Carolina, our fantastic guide in Cartagena, and she often misinterpreted our questions. I think if she had just slowed down, communication would have been a lot better.

The first place we visited was Monserrate, the tallest mountain in the city and therefore, like yesterday's Mount la Popa in Cartagena, a great place to begin because it offers a 360° view of the city.  Unlike the lower elevation of Cartagena's viewpoint, however, Monserrate is 10,341 feet above sea level and a 2,000 foot elevation gain from bottom to top. 

Pilgrims make their way to the top of the mountain on foot, but we opted for a funicular ride. Our guide had purchased "fast  pass" tickets, so we didn't have to wait in what was a very long line, which saved a ton of time. The funicular had four sections with maybe 20 passengers in each, all standing.

You can get an idea of how steep it is from these photos Savannah took:

COLOMBIA: CARTAGENA PART II

 March 15, 2023

One of the things we quickly came to appreciate in Colombia in general was the street art.  I think they have more murals than anywhere we have ever been. Little did we know when we were ooh-ing and ah-ing over the murals in Cartagena that they were just a fraction of what we would see later in the trip.

COLOMBIA: CARTAGENA, PART I

 March 15, 2023

Bob had arranged in advance for a private city tour in Cartagena, and after we dropped off our luggage at our hotel, we were joined by what turned out to be our best guide of the trip, a young woman named Carolina. She was excellent in perceiving our likes and dislikes and adjusting the tour accordingly.

Cartagena, founded by Spain in 1533 and located on the Caribbean coast of northern Colombia, is a city of almost a million people. It is a major port (one of the largest in South America) and historically part of world exploration and trade. 

Our hotel was kitty-corner from the Castle San Felipe de Barajas, a fortress built in 1536 by African slave labor under Spanish rule. It is an imposing presence and defended the city from attacks many times in the past. Along with the historic city center, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. These days it is used for social and cultural events. 

Our first destination was the Convent of Santa Cruz de la Popa, a convent built by the Spaniards atop Mount la Popa, the highest hill in Cartagena (about 500 feet high). From that spot we pretty much had a 360° view of the city. 

We could see the downtown/business district skyscrapers, which are almost all white. The contrast to the poverty-stricken areas full of cardboard shacks on our way up the mountain was pretty stark.