My Favorite Underrated Cities: Part 2-b, Bogota
The cities that I love even though everyone told me not to stay for long
Part 2-a, Bogota is here: https://medium.com/@kt0909/my-favorite-underrated-cities-part-1a-santiago-9f840319bb34
More about the lovely capital of Colombia.
Montserrate cable car
Possibly the only iconic tourist site in Bogota, excluding the museums. I’ll give my conclusion first: I’m glad I did it, but it lacked the facilities to make it a well-run tourist site.
The idea of this site is simply, to take a cable car up to the mountain overlooking the city of Bogota. Much like most places of similar nature, there’s also a small walking area and some overpriced restaurants up there.
This is what the cable car looks like.
With all due respect, this is the worst and slowest cable car mechanism I have ever seen in my entire life. There’s only one car to go up and one to go down, each with a capacity of about 40 people if you really squeeze in. The problem is, that it’s one massive cable made into a circle, which means that only when one side goes up can the other side go down. Meaning — let’s say you are going up, and you can’t make it to the car that’s about to leave, you must wait for about 20 minutes for the car to go all the way up, fill up people from above, and then wait for these people to leave from the car before you can finally enter. I probably got on the 3rd or 4th car and I was so drained from the waiting before I even got on.
And then we finally got on the cable car. The air pollution was so bad you could barely see anything at all. I just started laughing because of how ridiculous the view was. Rather than feeling any sense of disappointment, I was very amused and asked to be photographed with a “view of Bogota” as soon as we arrived.
The area up the mountain has about 15–30 minutes of available paths to walk and explore. We went around and took some pictures before leaving before the sunset so we could visit a cute cafe in the area.
We ended up in a cute cafe that was very green, half outdoor half indoor, with great food and drinks. We had plans to make dinner so we only got some cafe and drinks.
My flat
I don’t usually write about my living conditions, but the flat in Bogota that I stayed in was truly one of the most comfortable experiences during my trip. The place I was staying at was in Chapinero, on the Calle 58 Carrera 4. It’s located about 10 minutes walking from Theatron, the biggest gay club in the entire LATAM. It’s also close to countless restaurants, cafes, bars, etc within 10 minutes by foot.
I usually set a budget of around 30 USD per night, and in many cities, you are lucky to not live in a dumpster — unless you are willing to stay in a hostel room. Bogota is one of those big cities that have plenty of great service apartments for very affordable prices. Compared to hotels, I prefer to have my own space for cheap and a kitchen. I could not care less about having a front desk or security — given that I have chosen a safe neighborhood.
I stayed for a total of 11 nights in a row, and it almost felt like “home” for a while relative to all the other places I stayed at. I was comfortable.
THEATRON
The sheer size of this nightclub is insane. It is remodeled from an old mall, and the whole building feels like an endless maze, like a museum almost with each room having something to be discovered. The 18 rooms and areas of this 4-story complex each play music of a distinct style, and hence attract different crowds. The thing I most looked forward to before coming to Bogota was exactly this club. I went there with Argemiro on a Saturday night.
To enter the club, you must go from the underground parking lot area. The guiding signs are very clear, and there’s always a line, even though we arrived as early as 10 pm.
It’s hard to holistically show how the club looks because it’s basically a collection of rooms connected to one another. Below are some of the snapshots:
Closer to 1:30 or 2 am, the biggest room started to feature an extravagant drag show, and they really put in the energy and work into it. The choreography, the energy, the stunts, and the stage special effects. I was so excited to have been able to witness this in person, but it also made me extra picky whenever I saw any drag performances. The only place on par with this level of production that I’ve been to was probably Nectar in Manila — except Theatron has a more elaborate stage, which makes sense considering that it’s literally converted from a real theater stage.
I had my jaw almost to the floor the whole time I was watching this performance of reggaeton/pop remix and performance:
Just wow. I stopped being excited over any drag shows simply for having drag queens. It takes a lot to stimulate my senses now after seeing this masterpiece.
Another day at Zona T
After taking a quick 2-day trip to Eje Cafetero, I returned to Bogota for the final 4 nights. First order of business: going back to the posh shopping area of Zona T in Chapinero to grab dinner with my tutor, Diego. We were due to meet at a really nice Italian restaurant of his recommendation, called Storia D’amore. I had previously stopped by in the afternoon for a plate of desert, and I thought the environment was absolutely fabulous.
We caught up and had a great time at the restaurant. We ordered a drink each, an appetizer to share, and two plates of mains. Since this place was a little more high-end, the bill turned out to be nearly 30 USD per person — which is still incredibly good value for what it offers.
Diego was eating little that day so I ended up eating a larger portion to help him finish his plate. I absolutely love being that person to finish everyone else’s food. Great time!
There’s another anecdote about Zona T. My black and white, classic checker vans were so worn off after going on hikes and literally everywhere on my trip, it became grey and black checker shoes that seemed unsalvagable. Lots of people in any touristy area offer to clean people’s shoes for money. I ended up paying this guy 10,000 pesos (2.5 USD) and he went down and started SCRUBBING. He went IN. It was probably the most capitalistic thing I have ever engaged in in my entire life. Any local person would probably tell me that I overpaid, but I already felt bad enough for how little I paid for this to be done in this way.
Unfortunately, after all that, it was still grey. Just a little bit less dirty. I decided I would just buy another pair of shoes instead, so Argemiro and I went to Zara a few days later. I bought a pair of cheap white tennis shoes which ended up hurting my feet. As we exited the store, naturally I was going to throw it into the trash can. Argemiro stopped me and told me to put it above the bin so that people could take it. “Who wants my dirty smelly shoes anyway?” I complained but still left it on top anyway. We proceeded to visit a Massimo Dutti store next door for no more than 3 minutes. I looked towards the trash can where I had placed my shoes, and they were already gone.
Departing from Bogota
After spending 11 days in Bogota and a total of 40 days in Colombia, I fell in love with the country. I loved the people, the energy, the cuisine, and even the chaos that often prevailed out of nowhere which gave the trip an extra kick of excitement.
I spent the last day with Argemiro, who had been my travel companion for the past 3 weeks. We spent the afternoon with his friend, Dayana, who’s also from the coast but lives in Bogota. As my last proper meal, we got lunch at Salvator, a pizza chain that honestly feels just like Pizza Hut. It was… what you’d expect from a pizza hut, although he insisted that it was really delicious. I would not particularly revisit that place, but if somebody proposed to go I would not oppose it too strongly either.
As my flight to Manaus was set to leave at 10:40 pm, we had a whole afternoon to kill. We ended up going to a bowling alley, which was super expensive (no wonder nobody knows how to play). As the sun set and my departure time approached, we somehow ended up drinking beers at the empty seating area in Carulla, a high-end supermarket, before calling two consecutive Ubers to get my luggage and go to the airport.
I left feeling so empty because I genuinely enjoyed the country so much. I had a great time with Argemiro as my companion, and I had to say goodbye to everything Colombian at once. It felt heart-breaking. I ended up crying at the airport and on the plane because the emotions were just too much. As exciting as Brazil appeared, I was not ready to move forward. Neither did I have enough money to pay extra to reschedule my flights. I took screenshots of the lyrics to Hoja en Blanco by Dread Mar I, so I could fully soak into my bitter-sweet melancholy as sat once again, all alone, on yet another flight to yet another country. I will be back, I said to myself.
Final words about Bogota
For short-term vacation, I understand why Bogota is not a city that people would like to spend too much time in. It offers many of the similar things that many Western countries do. What’s more, the reputation of it being “dangerous” doesn’t help either. My hypothesis for why there is such a large disparity between how safe I had felt versus what many travelers perceive is as follows: many of the “fun”, and “social” hostels are located in the center, La Candelaria area, which is not exactly the safest zone at night. Whereas in the nicer areas such as Chapinero, there are barely any homeless people on the streets, which I found to be a refreshing sight for big cities in LATAM.
I genuinely love Bogota and I could see myself living there. If I were to summarize a few cities that I could live in for 6 months, it would be Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo. Obviously, it would be helpful to have an income from external sources, either that is from your own business or past savings in order to enjoy much of what I could take advantage of.
An extra point on a personal note: I’ve grown to identify cafes with great environments as a comfort zone of mine — having lived in Taipei and Hong Kong all my life. Bogota fulfilled that part of my psychological need for something familiar after 1.5 months of non-stop traveling.
