Visiting Colombia
In November I visited my friend and fellow grad student Dave, who is doing research in Colombia Caracas Caracas Caracas 
because there’s more room to spread out. There are also more colonial buildings (many have been destroyed in Carac as
Here are a couple of pictures of Bogotá. One is one side of the main plaza. The plaza is huge and full of pigeons. The other picture is one of the streets in Candelaria, the old area of Bogotá, coming off the plaza.
While we were in Bogotá we went to a number of places, including L
a quinta Bolívar, which is the home given to Simon Bolívar by the newly independent Gran Colombia. We also rode the cable car to the top of the mountain where there is a church named Montserrat. It is a popular pilgrimage for lots of people on Sundays. They often walk up - we just walked down and got caught in a huge rainstorm. It was fun though. The next two pictures are of Montserrat. You can see there are a lot of people and vendors there.
We also went to the Gold Museum and the Botero Museum. The Gold Museum had lots of displays of pre-Colombian gold pieces from various Andean populations. The Botero Museum is dedicated to the works of Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The picture I've included here not only has a typical Botero woman, but also a self-portrait of the artist.
The first little town we went to is Villa de Leyva. It's a couple of hours from Bogotá and a popular tourist destination for people from the capital city. Here's a picture of the main plaza and one of our hotel, which was an old mill from the 1600s.
The final town we visited was Barichara. It's even smaller and further away from Bogotá, and so not as crowded, but even more picturesque. I must have taken a million pictures. I just kept looking and thinking, "Oh, I have to have a picture of that." So I'll just try to pick a couple to share.
All in all, it was a great and much needed vacation. I found Colombia to be a great country and am really glad to have had the opportunity to visit. I probably would not have gone there on my own because I thought it was too dangerous. I actually felt like Bogota was safer or at least calmer than Caracas, with all the political stuff that goes on here. I had a number of Colombians tell me that it is much safer now than it used to be and that Americans always think it's dangerous until they go there. The flip side of that is that I have lots of caraqueños tell me how dangerous the city is now - but that it didn't used to be. Some also tell me they would never go downtown - which is where I go every day. Though I have heard about people getting hassled by the police for taking pictures downtown, which is why I haven't.
But I still need to travel more in my adopted country of Venezuela. I have some pictures of Caracas that I'll post later, but nothing outside of the city yet. I've been reading about Venezuela and have a long list of places I want to visit.
because there’s more room to spread out. There are also more colonial buildings (many have been destroyed in Here are a couple of pictures of Bogotá. One is one side of the main plaza. The plaza is huge and full of pigeons. The other picture is one of the streets in Candelaria, the old area of Bogotá, coming off the plaza.
While we were in Bogotá we went to a number of places, including L
a quinta Bolívar, which is the home given to Simon Bolívar by the newly independent Gran Colombia. We also rode the cable car to the top of the mountain where there is a church named Montserrat. It is a popular pilgrimage for lots of people on Sundays. They often walk up - we just walked down and got caught in a huge rainstorm. It was fun though. The next two pictures are of Montserrat. You can see there are a lot of people and vendors there.
We also went to the Gold Museum and the Botero Museum. The Gold Museum had lots of displays of pre-Colombian gold pieces from various Andean populations. The Botero Museum is dedicated to the works of Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The picture I've included here not only has a typical Botero woman, but also a self-portrait of the artist.
The first little town we went to is Villa de Leyva. It's a couple of hours from Bogotá and a popular tourist destination for people from the capital city. Here's a picture of the main plaza and one of our hotel, which was an old mill from the 1600s.
The final town we visited was Barichara. It's even smaller and further away from Bogotá, and so not as crowded, but even more picturesque. I must have taken a million pictures. I just kept looking and thinking, "Oh, I have to have a picture of that." So I'll just try to pick a couple to share.
All in all, it was a great and much needed vacation. I found Colombia to be a great country and am really glad to have had the opportunity to visit. I probably would not have gone there on my own because I thought it was too dangerous. I actually felt like Bogota was safer or at least calmer than Caracas, with all the political stuff that goes on here. I had a number of Colombians tell me that it is much safer now than it used to be and that Americans always think it's dangerous until they go there. The flip side of that is that I have lots of caraqueños tell me how dangerous the city is now - but that it didn't used to be. Some also tell me they would never go downtown - which is where I go every day. Though I have heard about people getting hassled by the police for taking pictures downtown, which is why I haven't.But I still need to travel more in my adopted country of Venezuela. I have some pictures of Caracas that I'll post later, but nothing outside of the city yet. I've been reading about Venezuela and have a long list of places I want to visit.
posted by Sue Taylor at 3:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home