Greetings from Bogota.. This will (or should) be.. (barring any unexpected events) my last travel note from Colombia, as we head out to SFO via Houston very very early tomorrow a.m.

1 Enero 2016 (Scary how fast 2015 went)

 Last night (New Years Eve) was magical… We got to Chez Remy at about 9:45 pm.. It’s a very small outdoor (courtyard) French restaurant (run by a French woman and her husband) with about 15 tables (all were reserved for the entire evening). We had had some complications because the restaurant wanted a deposit with a bank transfer (not a credit card). We were in Medellin when they requested this and had a lot of trouble making this transfer happen as we didn’t really have our bank information with us. After a lot of back and forth and help from our Colombian friend, we were able to stall the deposit until we were in Bogota last week and were able to do it with cash in a bank here. Anyway, in the process we were connected to Nora who had left word (although she only speaks French and Spanish, no English) that she would even come to get us at our Boyaca hotel if we couldn’t find the restaurant.

So, last night we met Nora when she “table-hopped” — seeming to know all the guest except us. But I surmised it was her.. and asked and she immediately figured out who we were… So we were sort of brought into the large family of her friends..

Dinner was slow, given that there was only one seating… It was pretty much a fixed menu with just the choice for main course (beef or duck; Mike took beef; I took duck). Started out with totally yummy salmon tartare (lox) with an avocado mousse; next came the main course.. Mike’s thick piece of beef was cooked totally perfect (“azul”) and my duck melted in your mouth. Both were accompanied by some kind of dark raisin bread, potatoes (naturally– since papas are very popular with every dish) and sautéed mushrooms. Dessert was profiteroles. We began the meal with drinks.. and had a wonderful Chilean wine with the meal.

Before we knew it, it was about 11:50 pm and we knew that the Plaza Mayor hosted a big midnight celebration including fireworks.. We quickly moved to get the bill.. and we got to the plaza at exactly 11:58.. It was mobbed — body to body…. big screens around so you could see the bands… and then the countdown.. and exactly at midnight the most amazing fireworks were launched.. lasting about 35 minutes.. non-stop. People were going wild. Everyone was happy, friendly, and taking photos.. Never saw so many iPhones at once.

At about 12:45 am, we strolled to the hotel.. on the stone paths, that were lit with colored lights and metal trees that were also covered with lights (many with speakers that chirped as if birds were in the trees)… the lights were an array of purples and pinks and greens and reds..

This morning we packed, had breakfast and on our way out of town headed to something called “Casa Terra Cotta” — a fantasy house designed and constructed by a Colombian architect named Octavio Mendoza — sort of “melted” Paolo Soleri… Locals call it the “Flintstone House”.. like a mound of clay that’s been baked. The house is more than 5,000 sq ft and is framed by the mountains. The organic form makes it look as if it was cast in a single mold which of course would have been impossible.

There are modern conveniences.. solar panels and the sinks, kitchen, and bathrooms are completely tiled creating brightly colored fantasy scenes.

It took 14 years to build and is still sort of a work in progress.. There is no cement..  He’s also built and sculpted all the furniture which is also developed as huge bugs that become chairs or creatures that become lights..

We then really headed out of the Boyaca region… stopping briefly on the roadside for lunch.. (meat, meat, more meat).. and then on to Bogota on the winding, twisting one lane in each direction roads.. with lots of trucks making passing difficult. When we arrived at Casa Medina.. the staff was once again falling all over us and still apologizing about the rental car situation. They put us in a huge suite (too bad we have to leave at 5 am in the morning..)… And about 30 minutes after we settled into the room, a platter arrived with scrumptious proscuitto and bread sticks.. and a wonderful bottle of wine arrived.

I’ve just completely repacked; we won’t be able to do just carry-on, which is our usual style. We got some books and some “stuff”.. and so we needed to expand our bags which then will require them to be checked in… We’ll carry computer bags on the plane.

Going to be tough getting up at 5 am… but no choice. So, we’re headed downstairs for dinner; all restaurants are closed for New Years Day. Probably better as it will be easier to get to sleep and get up…

 

Signing off —

See you all in California (or Washington)…

Best for 2016.

Fern

Feliz Ano Nuevo / 31 Diciembre 2015

Last night, after finally locating the hotel, figuring out where to park the car, and getting settled — we strolled the town (more on that later) and decided to eat at El Rincon (Gourmet) — a tiny restaurant serving Italian food (but also some Colombian and some Middle Eastern dishes (Arabe).. It was quite charming. At first they said that they were full and we couldn’t even wait for a table, but then they recanted and said to come back in 15 minutes (a table was finishing up). The restaurant seats about 40 people and it’s a sort of piano bar.. with (we think) the owner playing the piano and singing intermittently — when he’s not serving, greeting guests, and doing a number of other tasks.

Anyway, it was quite good. We started out with the Antipasto Arabe.. which included olives, some marinated (sweet) garlic, roasted tomatoes, pickled cucumbers, marinated artichokes and some other goodies. We followed this with a pasta dish (Bolognese which had an interesting mix of spices in the sauce) and our main course was some kind of steak that we remembered to have cooked “blue” or “azul”.. not “raro”…

We strolled a bit after dinner and stumbled on a bar that was playing 60s music! So we stopped in for a drink. It was about 11:30 pm by then.. and we were definitely the oldest people in the bar and the only ones who had a clue about that music and that era.  Strolled back to Meson de los Virreyes..

This morning it was difficult to shower until we got the hang of the water situation. Gets pretty hot after about 5 minutes.. stays hot for about 90 seconds.. goes cold for 5 minutes.. gets hot for 90 seconds.. and so it goes. Mike went downstairs to ask about the water and a guy came up to the room, but he only stayed during the 90-second hot cycle. That said, the place is quite charming with courtyards and great light and our room has a little deck (but it looks toward the car parking area unless you strain your neck and then you can see gardens.)

Went down the street to a little cafe (you know we don’t drink coffee, so it’s always a bit challenging) and had amazing jugos (juices).. I had the guanabana and Mike had some kind of mayacara (?) — Mine was great but Mike said “no sugar” so his was pretty bitter.. Then we began our serious stroll of the town.

Villa de Leyva is sort of like the San Miguel de Allende of Colombia.. wonderful colonial town built around a very large (and very empty) Plaza Mayor (about 4 acres)… I mean that it is empty of any structures.. even benches.. so it feels even more vast. But it is always filled with people.. and tonight we understand it will be body to body. It is already set up for bands and people are lining the “stairs” that ring the plaza… and it is only 6 pm.. The streets are also filling up. Villa de Leyva is a totally, totally cobblestone street town… But the stones are huge so walking is pretty dicey..  Given my history of spraining my ankle on uneven sidewalks, I’m being extra cautious..

Mike and I strolled for several hours separately and then met up at the Plaza a few hours later to head for lunch.. Needless to say there are many, many choices. Some guidebook said there were 140 restaurants in the town.. whose population is under 10,000.. but I’m guessing the population swells about fourfold or more on holidays and weekends.. although it is not clear where people  stay since hotels are truly tiny. The town was founded in the 1600s and in many ways has changed little.. because there aren’t any mineral deposits to exploit, so development is nil.. and the entire town is considered a historic preservation site. It’s sort of like a modern village housed in a shell that is 400 years old. Enabling the town to retain an unbelievable charm. But it’s clearly been “found” so curio shops and cafes line the streets.. But frankly, unlike some other towns that are big attractions, Leyva (as the locals seem to call it) has a charm in spite of the shops as the shops are all small, they are built into the first floors of existing buildings, no real signage… and the colorful things hanging outside of the shops are great contrast to the completely whitewashed buildings they are housed in.

When Mike and I met up, we decided to eat at what looked like a cute restaurant (with a good menu) — turned out to be the town cooking school.. so we peeked into the kitchen .. and I think that the wait staff were all students in the school and our meal was cooked by students. Started with pastellitos that were filled with corn and peas and potatoes, then large scamp sauteed and served with brown rice that had cherries in it.

Continued our multi-layered stroll and then did a little shopping (definitely the best stuff I’ve seen in all of Bogota)… Now we are relaxing as we prepare to head to dinner at Chez Remy and join everyone else at the Plaza Mayor at midnight .. (the end of my birthday).

Take care…

Feliz Ano Nuevo…… Nos vemos el año que vieneo…

Tomorrow we drive back to Bogota.. and spend the night.. we head to San Francisco on a very very early flight.

30 Diciembre 2015. Night before New Years Eve

 Well, where to begin?

About two weeks ago, the Bogota hotel (Casa Medina) — like all excellent hotels — wrote to us asking if there was anything they could do to make our stay in Bogota more pleasant. I wrote back saying that we planned to rent a car (actually we already had done that, but it needed to be picked up at the airport, four days after we came to Bogota — since we didn’t want to deal with a car until we were ready to head to Villa de Leyves today) and that we’d love it if a car could be delivered to the hotel and we can drop it back to the hotel or to the airport on Friday (January 1) in the evening. We had done this once before in a developing country and it was the lap of luxury not to have to taxi to the airport, wait on a line, navigate from the airport.. So I figured, I’d give it a try again.

Someone (Carolina) from the hotel wrote back quickly and said that was no problem. She then wrote again to say that she had reserved a VW Jetta for us.. all was good. So I canceled the other car at the airport. When we arrived at the Bogota hotel, they reconfirmed that the car was all set and said they needed to scan our drivers licenses.. All good. .. in fact too good to be true, so being as compulsive as I am, I reconfirmed about the car each night as we got back from dinner.. All good.

This morning, following breakfast, we went to the reception desk and when I asked about the car, the guy (not Carolina — By the way Casa Medina is overflowing with staff ready to help. Everyone speaks English but at very different levels, although everyone acts as if they speak fluent English). So the guy, very friendly, asks me if we plan to charge the “transit” to our room (??) I repeat that we have a rental car and that we assumed we were paying the rental company. Then things got more confusing… So I asked if Daniel was around — he might be a manager or something, but his English is totally fluent and we needed to get going to Villa de Leyva since we wanted to take a longer route to stop in some towns…

Daniel appeared and in the meantime Mike and I both searched our emails for all the correspondence from Carolina. Daniel looked everything over and I could see from his face that he already knew there was some kind of mess-up.  He came back and said that there was a problem in that the car “had not appeared.” He apologized profusely and said they would get to work on the issue immediately. It was now 9:30. We wanted to be on the road at 9. Then I started putting my iPhone to work and whatever site I tried said that there where no cars available for rent in all of Bogota and surrounding areas.

The hotel kept offering us food and drinks and time wore on. And we realized things were bleak.. But this was the Four Seasons.. and they learn to problem solve. But we were getting irritated, and it probably showed as we sat in the lobby on iPhones and computers.

Then an American woman appeared — who must be a high level management person; never saw her before. She made apologies on behalf of the hotel and the company and again asked that we have some food… She assured us they would find us a car.

At around 10:30, she came out — all smiles — to tell us they had located a car and that it would be a very comfortable car to drive… Immediately both of us asked “How big is this ‘comfortable’ car?”  She then said it was a Toyotoa Prada, which meant nothing to us.. Mike immediately said .. “If this is an SUV I will not take it; we were clear about our needs.” She turned green and said it was an SUV.. I then checked it out on the iPhone and it’s huge.. like one of those Cadillac Escalades…Must say, I was ready to take it since it meant we could get on the road.. But Mike stood his ground. He said he would not drive into small villages with such a car..

She said they would work on it.. again suggesting we eat.

About 45 minutes later she and Carolina and Daniel and the other guy all appear and say they found another car.. a Toyota Corolla but it would bake another 30 minutes to get here. We said we’d wait.. More time on iPhones.

I said to Mike.. “looks like Daniel might be asked to loan us his car for two days…”

Then they came and said the car was here.. We walked out and there was literally an entourage from the hotel staff there, well beyond Carolina and that woman and Daniel and the other guy… They were carrying shopping bags from the hotel restaurant and a cooler… And there was an older Colombian man standing there looking very nervous next to the car (definitely not a rental car, definitely not new).  So they tell us that in the shopping bags they’ve put sandwiches and fruit and desserts and cookies.. and in the cooler are soft drinks and cold waters.. And more apologies.. and no charge for the car.. just have a good trip.

The older man gives us the keys and he opens his wallet to give us the paperwork for the car.. We get on our way, sort of laughing and trying to figure out if the car belongs to the guy and somehow the hotel is paying him to loan us his car.. As we drove I checked the paperwork.. So what I think is: the car belongs to the hotel and this guy is a driver for the hotel. Obviously it is not fancy enough to take guest anywhere, so maybe he is hired to run errands for the hotel or something. But clearly he uses the car as his vehicle.. or so I think.

Anyway, off we went.. car was definitely not clean (no time) and gas only 3/4 full… but it worked (stick shift) and we headed out of Bogota.

Once we were well into our drive, I noticed that the key ring with the car key.. has several keys — at least two of which are clearly residential keys. Hopefully the guy has another set because I’m pretty sure his primary set is now with us.

The drive to Villa de Leyva was interesting and it feels like a million miles from Bogota. It took us about 3.5 hours (Bogotanas say it takes a 2.5 hours but that is not possible)… Most of the trip is one lane in each direction — climbing mountains and very very very windy roads.. you climb well over 2,000 feet and then descend into the valley…

We had decided this morning to go to three small villages before getting to Villa de Leyva, but given that the sun sets around 6 and we got such a late start, we went past Villa de Leyva to just one of the towns Raquira… about 12 miles further west.. but at least 40 minutes because of roads..

Raquira is amazing.. but overly touristicated (is that a word?) Having come from Bogota where everything (nearly everything) is brick, Raquira is a shock because it is color, color, color and more color.. Even the city hall is painted in many colors. It’s a small colonial village with a big “plaza mayor” and the streets leading to the plaza in all directions boast two story buildings that are painted with every conceivable color (many different colors for each building).. and the shops that line the streets are selling colorful ceramics and hammocks and other tchochkes..

Strolled Raquira and headed to Villa de Leyva (where we will spend New Years Eve)… Our hotel (it was next to impossible to find any place to stay as Bogotanos come here for weekends and holidays) is called Meson de los Viareyes. I’d give it about one star.. but it’s fine; no one speaks any English.. I had to do the whole check-in, and discussion about breakfast and suggestions for dinner places and where to park the car .. all in my terrible Spanish. Oh, I forgot to explain that when we got into town at about 5:15.. we followed the google maps directions and we wound up on a street (all the streets in the entire town are cobblestone and very narrow.. ) that we thought was where the hotel was.. but alas, Google maps messed up.. so we got out of the car to ask someone and he said (in Spanish) that we were on the opposite side of the Plaza.. so we drove again and hit barriers because there are pedestrian streets. Got out again and asked again.. Now we were told that we were a few blocks away in the other direction.. Eventually we figured it out, but had to park two blocks from the hotel because the hotel is on the pedestrian street. It was now nearly 7 pm.

Finally squared it all away.. and a young guy from the hotel walked with Mike back to the car to help him navigate the streets to the parking area for the hotel.. and help carry up our increasingly heavy bags.

Last thing.. An older guy from the hotel walked me up to the room while Mike was navigating the car issue.. and I quickly checked the bathroom (I’ve learned from staying in other one star hotels) and as I thought — no hair dryer.. So I don’t know that word.. But I said the word for “hair” and made a motion and a sound like a dryer.. but he got a big smile and went into the bathroom to show me the shower cap!.. No not.. “antes de “.. and I pantomimed it again.. and he said “dryer!”.. I said “Si” and he returned with the gizmo..

OK.. we are off to dinner somewhere here in town.. More tomorrow..

Best.. Fern

Buena Noche… December 29 2015

 

Set out this morning for the Pasaje Rivas — a 120-year old commercial passageway that was initially (or so we are told)  a very fashionable shopping alley with styles coming from Paris. But farmers also used the area to peddle fruits and vegetables and meat, so I think the story goes that the high fashion and the smells of the food did not mix well…. Some time in the mid 1900s it became an alley devoted to arts and crafts.. It’s about a block or two from Plaza Bolivar and is sort of L-shaped.. so you can enter the passageway from one street and leave it on a perpendicular street.. It’s actually at Calle 10 and Carrera 10… (10 x 10)… In recent years the city constructed what they call the Transmilenio (a BRT line that goes for miles)… and one leg of that is on the 10.. so the construction was pretty disruptive.

We were told last night at dinner that if we go here, we should not go onto the street with the Transmilenio because that street is very very dangerous and that we should not wear watches or take cameras or a purse.. not even earrings.. Frankly we thought this was a bit extreme. So this morning we set out for Pasaje Rivas and we did wear watches and we took our iPhones and cameras; the only concession we made was leaving some cash in the hotel room’s safe (and also my second passport).

The Passage is chock a block filled with handmade goods and kitchy souvenirs… of every sort… People were friendly and we even ventured out into the forbidden Calle 10… Don’t really understand all the warnings and fear, except to say that perhaps people who live in Walnut Creek would say the same about coming to Oakland!  Anyway, it was a fun walk and we bought a few things (nothing very big or to write home about).

Then we headed to Monserrate (our one concession to being tourists). Monserrate is the highest point in Bogota and you can see it from everywhere.. It’s about 2,000 feet above the highest point of the city.. And Bogota is at about 8,000′ so Monserrate is at about 10,000′. The hill is a pilgrim destination (and obviously also a tourist destination).. There is an old church at the top… It’s accessed (after a taxi ride to the base which in and of itself is probably about 800′ above the city… ) by an aerial tramway (sort of a ski lift but with just two cars that hold about 40 people each.. The two cars are balanced so one is going up and the other going down). It’s also accessed by a funicular (which we had hoped to use going up and the tramway going down). We had used a lot of funiculars when we were in Chile some years ago and they are truly fun… But the funicular wasn’t functioning today, so everyone (and I mean everyone… literally crowds of mostly Colombians and some tourists from elsewhere.) had to take the cable system.   You can also climb the equivalent of a 200-story building (which we opted not to do)..

I think that had we not had reservations for lunch at the top — at Casa San Isidro — we probably would have bagged the whole thing because as we looked at the line we realized it would take us about an hour to get into the cable car… But we we were already here.. so we trudged along… eventually making it into the cable car.. and up we went.. seeing Bogota from higher and higher up… and in a broader and broader context. It’s huge.. and very dense.. 4,300 people per sq. kilometer (11,200 per sq mile).

Anyway, we made it up to the restaurant at the top.. Casa San Isidro — lovely, but overpriced and OK food, not worth it… But nice to sit and sip wine and eat as we looked out and over the whole city. Coming down on the cable car the wait was another hour, so I’d say we sort of “lost the whole afternoon!”)

Finally, I’ve cracked the code to understand the street system, which is not easy because there aren’t any streets labeled (or let’s say the vast majority of streets have no signs — a lot like Panama City).. but if you have some kind of reference point it’s not too difficult.. And some residential towers have numbers on them.. So it goes like this: North and south streets are called Carreras.. perpendicular streets (east / west) are called calles. Generally there aren’t any names, just numbers.. So if a building says 52-25-45 it means it’s on Calle 52 near carrera 25 and it is 45 meters from the corner of carrera 25… Just in time to leave Bogota, I’ve got it figured out..

Hopefully this will help as we drive out of Bogota tomorrow to spend two days in the Boyaca region.. Driving? Well.. we shall see. Streets tend to be packed.. drivers stray into adjacent lanes frequently, and they drive very fast…

We’re hoping that once we leave the center it will be easy. We shall see.

Best on these waning days of 2015.. Where did the year go?

Fern

28 Diciembre 2015. Bogota 

Hi all —

First, regarding my reference to Brooklyn yesterday… I was not referring to the hip Brooklyn.. I was referring to areas that are filled with many ethnicities, have lots of mom and pop stores, where people live above repair shops, and where lower income families reside in old tenement style housing… Yes there still are unfashionable parts of Brooklyn today.

Today began with a visit to Bancolombia which is about 10 blocks from the hotel. We needed to do a bank transfer for the restaurant for New Years Eve in Villa Leyva. The restaurant won’t take a credit card and we needed to do it “their way”… No one at the bank spoke any English… We knew that we needed to give the teller the cash and they would create the transfer. Somehow we made it happen. But soon after doing this, the hotel in Bogota called my cell to say that they had called the restaurant and that they would hold the reservation without the transfer… apparently, according to the Bogota hotel it was because of “faith” in the Bogota hotel (vouching for us)… But then the hotel said that the reservation was apparently in the name of our friend here in Colombia who made the reservation. So the hotel changed the reservation to Tiger. Then we realized that the bank transfer was in the name Pyatok.. So this little restaurant is now totally confused. Hopefully we get it squared away.

But our real day began when Mike’s friend Sylvia (a planner who had worked at his office in 2000, after completing her Urban Design degree at Berkeley), picked us up to give us a tour of affordable housing in Bogota. But first she took us to a neighborhood close to our hotel where a community had worked on a project to clean the stream and create a steep walking trail. Apparently this was a pilot project in a well-to-do neighborhood and now is a model for lower income neighborhoods.. We then headed to pick up a friend of the planner whose father was a very famous architect in Colombia (and had worked with Le Corbusier in the 50s.. and today at 92 is still working!) and who herself is a noted architect and now chair of the graduate program at one of the universities in Bogota. On the way we stopped to look at an interesting little neighborhood of self-help houses built about 40 years ago.. that is now surrounded by high rises filled with wealthy residents. Apparently the neighborhood is well organized and has successfully fought displacement. The houses were originally worker houses for a salt mine (long gone).

Finally we picked up our real “guide”… Sylvia’s architect friend, Ximena.. and the “tour” began. We visited (walked) about four different projects on the west side of Bogota.. and along the way many others were pointed out.  Many were designed by Ximena’s father (who is in his 90s and is still coming into the office) and some by her, although they were mostly self-built or combination of contractor built and self-built… For example in one case, families got a two story shell (no interior walls or finishing) and they also got “approved” plans and five options on how to construct a third floor (which by now — after 20 years or so) are all built up.. In many of the projects the first floors were purposefully designed to be shops so that residents could set up small stores and earn money where they lived above. We also visited projects that were five stories (obviously not self-built) — all walk up, no elevators. Plans for the projects were quite good with parks and child care centers and walkways throughout. In nearly all cases, parking was outside of the project site.

We got to go inside one house, because the woman was sitting with her door open, and she was quite welcoming once it was explained that we were here from the states. She had been living in her unit for 50 years, raised her children there, and now has converted the top floor into an apartment that she rents to a very low income family to earn extra money.

I’d say that all of the housing we saw today (what they call formal — meaning built by the government or by private organizations like unions; what they call informal — meaning people have built it themselves) was all of quality that is about 10x greater than what we had seen in the favelas of Medellin. That is not to say that there are not similar favelas here in Bogota, just that we have not visited them, yet.. and that what we saw today were efforts to supply decent housing to the poor. Most of what we saw here was a combination of the formal and informal sectors.. The formal supplying the neighborhood master plan and the infrastructure and the informal being the people privately building their homes or finishing them within the “rules” of the plan. Most of the housing was about 100 units to the acre. I believe there are huge areas to the south of the city that are much like what we saw in Medellin (but no escalators and no cable cars.. and actually no Metro in Bogota.. everything is by bus.. and the BRT)

Along the journey we heard a lot more about life in Bogota and also about the family lives of our friends. We also discussed the politics of Bogota (and Colombia). Apparently there have been two leftist mayors in the last 15 years and the sense is that they were terrible managers. While they focused on the poor (who got them elected) they neglected the remainder of the city. So now a more moderate mayor is coming in, who was the mayor 15 years earlier and who is credited with a lot of the positive physical infrastructure development, and there is a lot of hope and anticipation that he will be able to accomplish more than the left mayors… or so the story goes.

We also learned that there is a sense that many Colombians believe they are descendants of Jews.. (despite the fact that in a country of more than 48 million there are only 2,500 people who identify as Jews) because a large number of predominantly Sephardic Jews came to Colombia during the Inquisition and over the years not just married non-Jewish Colombians, but also changed their names and converted to Catholicism for protection. In any case, there currently are three synagogues in Bogota, although we have not stumbled upon any.

I could go on and on about the places we visited, but that will have to wait for moments when I can do it verbally as it would take up too much space in this note.

We also visited a large library situated within a big park designed by a famous Colombian architect known for his brick structural and sculptural buildings (we also saw one of his high end residential projects).

We ended our tour and headed for dinner at Sylvia’s place where we were joined by Ximena’s husband (also an architect) and Sylvia’s cousin (a civil engineer). Sylvia lives in a wonderful apartment up in the hills surrounded by lush green parkland.. She’s got a very spacious duplex apartment. She served a traditional Colombian (Sunday dinner one-dish) meal — a thick soup made with three different kinds of potatoes (one for thickness, one for flavor, and one for texture), chicken, cilantro, corn (still on the cob)… and you add based on your liking capers, avocado, spicy salsa, and/or cream.. The dish came with arepas (little corn cakes).. and then we had the sweetest dessert imaginable (berries with some kind of dulce de leche and a quince jam with cheese… calories galore)..

Dinner conversation was fast and furious — politics, housing, community, world travel, funny language translations, experiences living/studying in the US when they were younger (Harvard, Berkeley, U of Illinois, Penn, etc.), the strength of the dollar and the declining value of the Colombian peso.. Spanish words they think are funny in Mexico and Puerto Rico; words and accents they couldn’t understand in the states, political corruption… and of course Donald Trump!  They have seen all the debates and get lots of US information.. They are very concerned that we might have a president like Trump. And we are equally concerned!

They are proud Colombians — hopeful for the future.

All good… Need to end and get to bed.. Long day tomorrow..

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the holidays.

 

Fern

Feliz día después de que el día después de Navidad (December 27)

Last night we decided to eat close to the hotel; by the time we were ready to eat, it was pretty late and we were beat — trying to understand Bogota. So we walked to a place called Nazca (about 10 blocks from the hotel) — Peruvian food (which I know these days is very hip — having recently eaten at Lima in London), quite different from the marginal food we ate when we were actually in Peru in the 90s..  Nazca was quite chic and the food was good.. We decided we were well enough to venture back into the world of ceviche, tuna tartare, and spice.. as well as wine.

We started with a tuna tartare, then moved onto some kind of stuffed red peppers (which were the spiciest things I have ever eaten in my life — and I’ve had a lot of spicy food!)  The peppers were stuffed with some kind of spicy meat.. and on the side were onions that had marinated in vinegar.. Nearly died! I said something to the waiter about the peppers being really good.. but very “hot”.. and he said they were “mild” when compared to how they do them in Peru. OK I’m a wimp. The main course was some kind of super tender pork that had marinated for more than 8 hours. It was scrumptious. Given that the portions were sort of California Cuisine size, we decided to give the torte de limon a try. .It was delicious and tastefully small and delicate.

This morning, following breakfast, we set out for the Paloquemao Market.. As you can tell from previous posts over the years, we are suckers for markets… Decided to take a taxi as we were a little unsure of the bus routes.. and the hotel warned us that on Sundays about 1/3 of Bogota streets are closed for bicycles and walking.. so it was unclear which buses were running and where.

Probably was a good idea since the market was a lot further than we thought… Bogota is quite large with 8.5 million people (counted). I keep thinking about what I would advise if someone was coming to NYC for just 4 days.. Mike and I finally thought through what we’d tell them to do (beside “stay longer”).. Even “little” San Francisco.. what would you tell people to do if they had just 4 days.. And SF is about 1/15th the size.. So the NY analogy is closer.

On the way to the market, we passed several of the BRT stations (Bus Rapid Transit) which we are determined to try to take tomorrow if time permits…  We got to Paloquemao Market which unlike Bazuri Market sells only food stuff.. primarily fruits and vegetables.. It goes on for about 4 city blocks and is chock full of just fruits and vegetables in tiny stalls.. Seems as if there are two parts.. maybe one part is for commercial sales (restaurants) since those stalls specialize in just one item (avocados or corn or peas or oranges or whatever).. whereas in the other part the vendors have diverse products.  We saw some fruits we have never seen.. and are difficult to describe. Meat and fish and cheese and other stuff are also sold.

Paloquemao is located in a pretty dicey area that looks like it could use some big repair and infrastructure investment. When we told the hotel that was where we were headed, they offered lots of caution. But it was quite comfortable when we were there.

The drive to the market was interesting and several of the wide streets lined with tiny commercial ventures were just like Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn.. other parts felt like Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn… Low cost shops lining the streets, people mulling about.

Interspersed within the food stalls are tiny, tiny eateries that can feed about 6 people on stools.. In one, the cooking area was about 6′ x 10′ and four people were working behind the counter, cooking, serving, taking money. We stayed at Paloquemao for about two hours and then headed out.

We were going to see another neighborhood, but since I’ve been a bit worried about getting  all my work done before we head back on Saturday, we decided that we should deal with getting a few souvenirs (haven’t bought anything since we got here).. Checked into a few shops and decided that one of the artesenal craft stores sounded good and it was located next to the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de las Aguas.. Seemed pretty far from where we were, so we opted for our favorite “taxi amarillo”… The driver didn’t know where the church was, but said he’d figure it out.. Showed the picture and the address on the iPhone, and he said he was good..

Every few blocks he’d roll down the window and ask another taxi driver where this church was… each gave different directions (naturally), and he trudged on, always saying (as far as I could understand) that he knew where to go.. Eventually, he let us off in the Candelaria where we had been yesterday and pointed to a church. We knew from the get go that this was NOT the correct church.. but oh well.. he was very sweet.. and as he was driving I noticed what looked like a good, old, traditional restaurant.

When we got out of the cab we looked at the name on the church and it was nothing like what we were searching for. Then we saw a nun and figured she’d know all the churches in bogota (maybe it’s on the test)… Of course she knew.. and we were somewhere between 10 and nineteen blocks away… Kept changing her mind.. Anyway, we decided to walk.. and once we walked about 10 blocks, we asked again and then it was just a few blocks up hill…  As we walked we found ourselves in this amazing graffiti /mural area where every building was painted in great colors with huge depictions of various “statements” — some political, many just ornamental. So the unexpected walk was great. Then we came upon Iglesia de las Aguas.. the most delightfully wonderful church built in the 1600s; we peaked in and there was a lively mass going on… Naturally, we could not find the craft store, so we opted to walk to the restaurant I had seen from the taxi..

Casa Vieja turned out to be a quite good and charming old Colombian restaurant serving very traditional food. We had two appetizers that we shared and we were stuffed.

Tonight, we went for dinner in Usequin area of Bogota… Most restaurants were closed due to it being Sunday and still part of the holiday season. Indeed, we’re finding that many restaurants we’d like to try have been closed since before Christmas and are not opening until after New Years.. The ride from the hotel to Usequin neighborhood took about 30 minutes because traffic was horrendous… some streets were completely blocked.. Everyone was stopping to see the holiday lights. Like Medellin, Bogota is infatuated with holiday lights.. In this one park that everyone was stopping to view, the park was completely covered with lights.. It really was a spectacle.. After sitting in the taxi for a while, we did the NY thing of saying that we will walk the rest of the way.. And we did..

So we ate at La Mar — a very very chic, hip Peruvian fusion restaurant. Food was great, but we are now totally stuffed.. We were good and avoided the raw fish although it was tempting beyond belief… Started with some shrimp appetizer in an orange sauce, followed by what they called “Pastel de Choclo”… but it was their own version.. We think it was a shredded tenderloin with raisins and walnuts that had probably been marinating with the meat.. and then it was all covered with some kind of pureed sweet potatoes and herbs in a terra cotta pan and baked so that it had a very very thin “crust”..It was totally yummy and by then I was so full, but the main course had not yet appeared… snapper in a chorilla sauce (tomato and tamarind and other spices)… great but we are stuffed…

OK.. there’s my foodie report of the day.

Tomorrow we meet up with a woman (planner) who worked at Mike’s office a while ago.. She and her friend (architect we think) will show us how affordable housing is being tackled here in Bogota and then we will go for dinner. In the morning, I hope to finsh the first syllabus and then move onto the next one, as well as some budgets for new projects.

We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

Best —

Fern

Short note…

 Left wonderful Medellin (really would have stayed longer if we could).. 45 minute drive to the airport — climbing high into the lush green hills… Fairly new airport but the design enables the sun to stream through all the floor to soaring ceiling glass, heating the space up into a steam room! Nearly missed the plane since they changed the gate and we didn’t really pay attention to all the announcements on the speaker system since it was sort of a Spanish blur. Suddenly we found ourselves almost alone in the gate area and jumped up realizing something must have happened.. But all is well; made the plane; arrived safely in Bogota after the extremely short flight.

After landing we set out to find the Lost and Found (for United Airlines) since Mike had left his electronic pouch on the plane when we flew from Houston to Bogota a week ago… He received an email from United saying they located the “object” and that he can get it at the Bogota Airport. Well this turned out to be a wild goose chase… with us finally locating a United “office” that is only open from 9 am until noon. So now, Mike is attempting to have someone from the hotel go to the airport to pick up the package. We shall see.

Taxied to the hotel, for the 30 minute ride — (about $20/maybe less) — just imagine taxi fares in NY or SF to and from airports. We are staying at a rather wonderful hotel called Casa Medina, built in the 1940s using salvaged pieces from two colonial convents that  were being demolished at the time. So there are stone columns and original wood floors and hand carved doors.

The downside of staying at an upscale hotel is always that they are trained to assume that because you chose that hotel (which we really picked because it is located close to someone we are visiting during our stay in Bogota), you want all your services to be above the norm. Once we settled in and freshened up and grabbed a quick lunch here at the hotel, we set out for the Candelaria neighborhood (oldest area in Bogota). We were about to hail a cab (the normal yellow ones that are everywhere) when the hotel said to wait a moment they had called a cab for us.. Up drives a big white four-wheel drive with a driver wearing a suit and tie. I didn’t want to go in, begging off saying we wanted the taxi amarillo (yellow)… but Mike said that was insulting so we went with the big car. The driver took some circuitous route that took us above the city to get spectacular views but his “route” doubled the 15 minute distance we knew it should take… A bit of a disagreement in the car.. as we said we wanted him to take us “directly” to the Calendaria… and he said his route was better because it was out of traffic. We explained in Spanish that we were fine with traffic as it gives us a chance to see the city… But his sense of a tourist seeing the city and our sense were clearly opposite…

Finally arrived at Candelaria area, which is like the “old city” in other cities… buildings are mostly Spanish Colonial, baroque, and some art deco…  Lots of museums are located around this area and there’s the old, large cathedral with a huge plaza out front. People were milling about, vendors were hawking various things to buy.. kids were chasing pigeons. Weather is picture perfect… cooler than Medellin and now as I sit typing this note, it’s actually quite cool… probably about 60 degrees..

In my few hours here, I can tell you that it feels like the huge city it is… 8 million people… seems to go on forever. Going to be complicated to decide what to do and where to go.

Heading out to dinner soon; Peruvian restaurant called Nazca.

By the way on nearly every corner in every city, you can find a Juan Valdez cafe — their equivalent to Starbucks.

 

Best –

Fern

Christmas Day. Medellin.

Today was a very bittersweet day. Early this morning, I learned that one of my dearest friends lost a very valiantly-fought battle for her life. She was vibrant, strong, wise, and a force to contend with. Spent a bit of time reminiscing about the good times and feeling saddened by the loss — more saddened for her wonderful family. Glad I was able to see her just a day before taking this trip. Still it was important to carry forth… Indeed, she was one of the most faithful readers of these travel notes — and who knows, maybe she is reading them still.

 With Mike feeling almost normal, we headed to see more of the barrios that line the mountains of the valley of the city. We set out to visit Comuna 13 — a neighborhood that has a long history of being a gang center. As a neighborhood, it is the most densely populated in all of Medellin, has been home to hosts of gangs and violence over the decades, and also had ties to Pablo Escobar. But in recent years, as the government has intensified its commitment to rebuild Medellin into a modern, sustainable city with a commitment to those whose economic, educational, health situation is at the bottom of the heap.. the area has been integrated more into the life of the full city.

One of the things the government has done is to construct an amazing series of outdoor escalators (escalares electricas) that climb the hills of this neighborhood enabling residents of the area to quickly come and go up and down the very steep hills where their self-made houses are built. There are “guards” (mostly local youth) paid to monitor the escalators to ensure safety. More about Comuna 13 in a bit.

So, we walked from the hotel to the metro station at Poblado; then took the smaller train at San Antonio (as we had done yesterday), but we did not take the cable car. Instead we got off at San Javier and walked out of the station. We asked several people about how to get to the escaleres… and finally were told we should take a “collectivo” (a small bus run by the locals)… We walked about a block… got onto the collectivo (which cost about 20 cents) and asked the driver to let us know when to get off. The bus holds about 16 passengers. The driver’s seat was covered with some fake white fur. About 15 minutes later, we were told this was our stop… Then we had to ask a lot of other people for the next set of directions. Basically we realized we needed to be climbing up… so in about 8 minutes we reached the escalares…

All along the walk were people sitting outside their self-made houses… some only about 300 sq ft.. others having a similar footprint but built vertically — many with exterior stairs (mostly spiral).. And just about every house had speakers outside and music was blaring.. It was like a giant series of parties. Food, music, dancing.. all on these little sidewalks by the houses. Clearly there aren’t any porches or yards, so everything happens on the deeply sloping streets.

People were very friendly; photographed many of them… and everyone was in a jovial, holiday mood. Eventually we reached the escalators.. It’s amazing that these were built.. it’s a huge infrastructure investment.. There are six sets of escalators.. taking you up about the equivalent of a 20 story building!… There are landings after each level and you can walk the neighborhood at that level..

Another interesting investment has been in community arts … The area is rich with huge murals, clearly created by the people of the neighborhood… and I think the government gave the residents paint so many houses are painted with very bright colors. In the other areas we visited the houses were all brick.. There are libraries (another big innovation from Medellin in that they have placed beautifully designed libraries in the lowest income neighborhoods — mostly within parks — feeling that these public investments should again be in the most marginal neighborhoods). We saw new community centers, health clinics, schools.

One other thing of note, there are signs all over the city welcoming and thanking people (not tourists, because many of these signs are on the metro.. and they are in Spanish)… As you walk into the Metro… there are signs welcoming you to Medellin and the Metro… as you leave another sign thanking you for using the metro… big, bold signs… no matter what Metro stop you are at.

Anyway, after the visit to Comuna 13, we were starving and decided to take a taxi to Plaza Botero… His sculptures are everywhere… in parks, in plazas, in buildings..  figuring that even on Christmas Day the Plaza would be busy and thus some restaurants might be open.. But alas, we walked and walked and not much was available… Finally stopped at a second floor “cowboy” restaurant “Llanero” where we got a fixed meal plate for about $3.00…. potatoes, plantains, and slices of pork.  Nibbled, had water… and went on our way to the next destination — a visit to some neighborhoods to the north… Got off the train at Acevedo.. and took a cable car line we hadn’t taken before — it makes about 4 or 5 stops, into the neighborhood (again, self-help housing with lots of additions built over the years).. The cable car seems to just skim the roofs of many houses.. sometimes only about 10 feet above, sometimes 75 feet above… From this cable car you can also get off at the Biblioteca Espana — a modern library (again purposefully located in a park in close proximity to low income households).. There is some kind of structural problem with the library at the moment (a series of black geometric shapes) so the building is shrouded in black plastic. No big deal, not sure we would have made the effort to see it — except from the cable car.. Street life far more interesting..

OK.. I’ve gone on way too long..

A few tidbits I’ve been forgetting…lots of babies… I think the Colombian population must be growing by leaps and bounds based on our observation  … and the moms are pretty young… Also, Mike had his own little interesting story in that he went to the bathroom in a restaurant — and went into the door marked “M” instead of the door marked “H” for  “hombre”…. Mmmmmmm….. He realized this after he departed the stall. .. and breathed a sigh of relief that no madras walked in while he was there.

And now that we are out of Cartagena… we are not hearing much English spoken, but maybe because we haven’t ventured into the more popular tourist destinations like museums.

Had dinner at San Carbon… in the hills above our hotel. Not much choice on Christmas Day night.. It was one of those restaurants where it is meat, meat, and more meat… We had trouble communicating that we wanted our steak “rare”… I always thought “rare” was “raro”… but maybe that is rare, like a rare book?? Since the waiter did not understand; he kept asking if I wanted my steak “azul”.. azul, like the color blue?? Anyway, we learned that “azul” is rare when it comes to meat.

Take care.. We are en route to Bogota. More from the capital city.

Fern

Bienvenido a Medellin – December 24 – Christmas Eve Day

I think I left off with me working and Mike sleeping last night… Given the situation, we opted for room service which was a bit complicated in that nearly everything on the menu had cheese.. I went down to the restaurant and discussed it all with the chef.. and we decided on a modified soup (potato, chicken, and some veggies.. no aguacate, sin queso, sin espicia)… basically sin todos (without everything)! Just bland.. and some toast, although when it came it was untoasted bread. We also ordered some risotto. but I wound up eating that.. and the chef thought that a simple tenderloin might be good too… but it all came at once, and the portions were really large.. so we donated the steak to someone at the hotel, along with my bouquet of roses… Not sure what we are doing with the champagne, which they traded for red wine… Can’t take it with us, and Mike is certainly not drinking it. Mike was pretty much dead to the world, and I tried in vain to finish the development of my course on urban governance (I didn’t quite finish.. but I did get a long way into it.. Next I need to develop the graduate course for “Strategic Influence” .. whatever that means.. )

The hotel has really been accommodating; their password is a string of about 12 numbers and we have so many devices, we are constantly calling for the password since we are too lazy to write it down… I think we are fully connected now, so all should be good.

For some reason Medellin has a lot of television in English (except news).. Once I got into bed and Mike woke up, we got sort of hooked on some program that’s a bit like Law and Order but it takes place in San Francisco… and in this series they are dealing with a crime that involved Oakland.. Pretty realistic as the SFPD captain says to his cops “You’ve got to take a trip… you need to go to Oakland.. ” in a way that sounded like they needed to pack their bags for the journey!

This morning we got  bit of a late start — needed to make certain Mike could actually bop around… Once he decided he could stand up.. and walk, and not need a bathroom every ten minutes, we headed out..

Walked the supposed 15 minutes (more like 30 minutes), mostly downhill to the metro station (Poblado)– passing a nice park and a lot of residential and commercial buildings. The Poblado neighborhood is pretty upscale, quiet, and fortunately not loaded with cops and security guards (actually we haven’t seen the swell of cops and guards here like you see in Cartagena’s upscale areas or like we’ve seen in Quito and some other cities. )

We figured out the system for buying tickets (which includes waiting on a very long line until you get to the counter. They don’t have automated machines to buy metro tickets which is surprising since the transit system is very modern and efficient). Got into fairly crowded train (like NY at rush hour, but people were basically polite, on their cell phones, and no pushing.. very civil), to the Estacion San Antonio where we navigated our way to the Metrocable which is quite sophisticated and should certainly be adopted by other Latin American cities that have similar geographic conditions.

As I mentioned in a previous note, Medellin sits in a deep lush valley at about 5,000 feet high, with a river that literally bisects the city. The hills that create the valley are covered with former squatter settlements that have been formalized and now streets are paved and these neighborhoods (which house about .75 million people) are served by buses and electricity and all the basic needs. There are schools and libraries and parks. Most of these dwellings that hug the hillside are concrete frame with brick in-fill (basic housing, mostly self-built, lots of add-ons over time). Anyway, about a decade ago, the city installed an amazing gondola lift system (they have three distinct lines) integrating the city proper and its metro system with the marginalized residents living in the hills and it’s very inexpensive to use them. They say it is the first cable-propelled transit system in South America. It is totally integrated into the citywide metro system, including ticketing (Once you are on any train you can continue on without purchasing another ticket, including the cable car.) My research says that the cable system carries 30,000 people per day.

We transferred at the San Javier station.. and just hopped on.. Basically, got off the metro train took an escalator up… and there sat (or rather ran) the cable cars… you hop on (about 6 to a car) as it is moving slowly in the station.. and then off you go. The line we were on (Line J) goes for nearly 3 kilometers.. I’m not sure how high up we were, but it’s a great ride. We got off at the very top station (La Aurora) to get a sense of the city’s vastness which is difficult to describe and more difficult to photograph… At the very top, the city has built new housing for low income families.. high rises (probably to replace housing that had to be demolished for the construction of the cable lines and the creation of “roads”. )

Then, despite some Colombian who was with family members (from the states, I think), using the system as a Disney ride and told us it was very unsafe to disembark and that we should take the “round trip” and then go back on the metro or a taxi, we got off at two different stations on the way down — strolled, smiled, photographed and wandered up and down different stair paths (where entry doors and houses abutted the narrow staired paths). Hopped on and off and then transferred to the Metro and headed back.. Decided to get out of the train station at San Antonio instead of changing for our train to Poblado to “check out the action”…

By the way, much fewer English-speaking tourists here in Medellin than in Cartagena. Cartagena has transformed itself into a tourist destination — safe, beautiful, great hotels, expensive restaurants — and many Americans are visiting. Indeed you hear a ton of American English on the streets (not at that Mercado).. That was strange for us, since most of our travel (other than the summer European travel) has been in countries where very few Americans go.. and we don’t hear English. So this was different.

Well, San Antonio neighborhood is a “happening place” — it’s a full on assault on all your senses… Music blaring from everywhere, body-to-body people in the streets, hawkers, traffic (mostly stuck and not moving), food in push carts. The streets are lined for about a mile on both sides with shops, peddlers, pushcarts, and more.. We thought we’d duck into a side street to get a little air and quiet and it was even worse. Anyway, we were pretty hungry and since Mike’s stomach is still not quite back to normal, we checked the trusty iPhone and saw there was a little “vegetarian” restaurant just a few blocks away. We trekked over and nearly missed it. It was just a door on the street; the “restaurant” was up two floors. We decided to chance it.. I think it’s really some kind of Indian yoga place that has a cafeteria. We joined the food line.. not really certain what we had.. soup, some rice, some mixed vegetables, something extremely sweet (that we did not eat), and juice that we did not drink (didn’t want to risk the water).. But it was fine.. All served on metal plates — either ultra hip or prison style.. take your pick. By then after coming back into the chaos of the streets and heading back to the metro, Mike decided he just wanted a taxi since after the train we’d have the one mile uphill walk back to the hotel.

Getting a taxi wasn’t so easy. Many were empty and didn’t want to pick us up (like NY) and some were driverless (double parked but no driver), and one driver was making out on the street leaning against his taxi with his girlfriend. We stopped a cop (By the way, Medellin cops wear very special uniforms that are Italian design), and he went to the taxi we had seen (where the driver was quite engaged with his girlfriend)… When the cop realized, he said “este taxi es occupado”..

Finally, we got a taxi but he really didn’t know his way around to our hotel… he asked a lot of people, and together with what we remembered from our walk, and the iPhone map, we arrived back at Hotel Park 10.

Mike is napping and then we are headed to 7 pm “mass” at the grand basilica in the old section.. I was on a mission to light a candle for a very dear friend..

From the mass, we’ll take a taxi back to out neighborhood for dinner..

More tomorrow.

Fern

PS — If I were to organize the trip again, I’d probably skip Cartagena (despite how totally beautiful and restored it is) and spend more time in Medellin to really understand the city .. probably requires at least 5 days to get a feel… longer to “understand it”…. and we’ve only got 3 days.. Definitely not enough.. And for those who have asked.. the weather is fine, a little hot for me, but I melt at 80 degrees.. Delightful at night..