Back That Month Up | Bogotá
Sticking up for The Boges
The People
Kaizen was all over the place this month. We had people exploring Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, and even Antarctica. For those of us in Bogotá, we went to our first fútbol match, celebrated the Super Bowl, threw surprise parties, danced to Me Rehusó on on a chiva bus, had mariachis delivered to our apartments at 11 pm, and got kai-razy on the Colombian coast.
The Places
Colombia
BOGOTÁ
Bogotá. Bogie. The Boges.
I really feel like The Boges doesn’t get enough love around the RY circuit and I think it’s unfortunate.
I personally think that The Boges has a lot to offer, but it feels like people tend to focus on a few unsavory aspects, which, to be fair, every city has.
These ones, though, seem to be what people focus on when they talk about Bogotá, and then they seemed to get passed down through the grapevine to other Remotes, causing people to not expect much (which, yay! low expectations) or not give it a fair shot.
Well, I’m going to go all Olivia Pope and do my part to try and change the narrative by singing the praises of the lovely Colombian capitol.
Before I do that, though, let’s address some of those criticisms:
Yes, the increase in theft compared to other cities we’ve been to is real and got intense for some peeps (no, seriously — check out Steven’s incredible story).
Yes, you have to try quite a bit harder to explore and experience some of the city’s character.
Yes, the sidewalks are literally walking death traps ready to break your ankles at any given moment with their uneven, jagged, and sometimes just flat-out-missing concrete.
Yes, WeWork’s elevators are probably the least efficient pieces of machinery designed in all of human history.
All that being said, The Boges has a lot going for it, too.
From a Remote Year perspective, Bogotá has some of the largest and nicest apartments that we’ve had; it has vibrant and universally loved City Team members; the tracks and plus events that I went on were all very memorable; and it has a beautiful WeWork coworking space with free flowing beer all day, multiple rooftop patios, and frolicking dogs around every corner.
It’s also got tons of awesome neighborhoods to check out — including a city center that will surprise you with its character and charm, an unexpectedly excellent craft beer scene, lush parks that break up the sea of grayish concrete buildings, people being active at all hours of the day, tons of delicious international restaurants and cafes to give you a break from two months of Colombian food, and a shocking amount of dog walkers walking, like, 20 dogs at once literally all over the place.
It might not be the sexiest or most stimulating place that we’ve been, but in Month 11, that’s not really what I’m looking for.
Man, I’m tired!
I don’t want to be overwhelmed with a list of things I “should” be doing.
All I want is a city with nice people, a go-to cafe or two, and the option to get silly off of Aguardiente and dance to reggaeton on a Wednesday night if I feel so inclined.
By my calculations, The Boges is a perfect ✅ ✅ ✅.
THE FINAL “EPIC SIDE TRIP”
It had to stop somewhere, didn’t it? I mean, we couldn’t keep up this torrid pace for the entire year.
I’m referring to side trips, of course.
Kaizen loves its side trips and deviations, which probably explains why they’ve been progressively getting longer, grander, and more expensive as the year has gone on. I mean, they’ve gotten so substantial that I’ve had to create separate blog posts and videos just to do them justice!
We all pretty much decided that Month 12 was going to be off-limits in terms of side trips, so we decided to go out with a bang in Month 11. Thus began an epic two-week escapade throughout Colombia and Panama because we could.
Casa en el Agua
[Morpheus voice]
What if I told you that there was a floating hostel in the Caribbean that takes a two hour boat ride from Cartagena to get to and once you’re there, there’s nothing to do except swim with your friends, drink tropical drinks with pineapples and coconuts in them, listen to reggaeton, eat lobster, and nap in hammocks?
That’s right. You’d get your keister over there as soon as you possibly could, gosh darn it.
Such a place exists and it’s called Casa en el Agua. After booking more than half of the available hammocks (aka the beds) a month prior, we flew back to Cartagena, from where we would take the aforementioned boat ride to our island/hostel paradise.
I’m not even going to try to explain how incredible our two days and nights at Casa were in words, so just look at these pictures.
Barranquilla
After getting back from Casa and subsequently consuming the most collective McDonald’s I’ve ever seen one group of humans take down in a single sitting, we made our way to Barranquilla to pay homage to the hometown that blessed the world with Shakira.
Oh, and to partake in Carnaval, too (but mostly Shakira).
We were told two things about Carnaval de Barranquilla: (1) it was the second biggest Carnaval in South America and (2) you will get your phone stolen.
Turns out we weren’t lied to on either account!
Basically 90% of Kaizen was in town for Carnaval, and before the group I was with even got there, multiple phones had already been stolen. These fkers were good, too. So good that some people could feel the phone being lifted from their pockets, but by the time they were able to look around (you know, like 0.4 seconds later), they couldn’t tell who it was.
It certainly didn’t help that the crowds were huge and they were probably being sprayed in the face with foam and flour while simultaneously being force-fed Aguardiente from a carton.
I was able to avoid theft thanks to my trusty fanny pack and the fact that after 11 months of traveling, my pants are fitting pretty snug 🤰. I can barely get my phone out of my pockets myself, I’d love to see someone else try to get it out of there unnoticed. NICE TRY, SUCKERS!
That first night out in Barranquilla was easily one of the most fun nights of the entire year. Check out the video above for some great clips — the pictures I have don’t do it justice.
Cartagena
We had a couple of days to kill before a smaller group of us sailed to Panama, so we went back to Cartagena for the third time in two months to relax for a bit before the sail (lol, I’m really gonna miss being able to say sh*t like that).
Being back in Cartagena felt so damn right. I’ve loved this place since we first visited for NYE, but this third visit really solidified itself in my mind as one of my favorite non-RY cities.
After two days of exploring the mind-blowingly beautiful streets and taking loads of basic girl-in-front-of-fancy-old-door IG pics, we met the Capitan of the sail boat taking us to the San Blas Islands at a marina in Cartagena.
Sail to San Blas Islands
On the surface, sailing from Cartagena to Panama via the Caribbean sounds exciting and exotic. In reality, it was nearly two full days at sea in a sail boat with 15 other people in rough waves that made it hard to do pretty much anything other than nap, eat, and hope you don’t get sea sick.
Once those two days were behind us, we made it to the San Blas Islands of Panama for four days/nights of living in a screensaver.
Panama City
After six nights of zero connectivity to the outside world, we finally rejoined society in Panama City for a short-but-sweet 36 hours. Knowing we had a limited amount of time in the country, we did our darndest to embrace local Panamanian culture right from the get-go: by going out for pizza and getting Thai massages (it’s called CULTURE, sweetie, look it up). In my defense, it was the best Thai massage of my life.
Our one night was well spent in an Airbnb that could easily double as a house used in The Real World (MTV, if you’re reading this, which you obviously are, please cast me for the PC season — I really miss this house so much and will do anything to go back. I’m not one to be involved in drama myself per se, but I can provide some comedic relief and I’m great at egging on drunk people already in fights!).
The Things
Spanish Update: Progress!
Last month in Medellín, I was feeling a little down about my Spanish progress. Lima started out so promising in this regard, and then by the end of Medellín, I felt like I had regressed — or at least not gotten any better.
I told Kaizen’s very own International Language Czar, Valentina, about my struggles and she told me that this was normal and that she always experienced a struggle period right before she started to really grasp the 5,439 languages she has learned.
In the least surprising news ever, she knew what she was talking about!
My barometer for success has been how often locals compliment me on my skillz. I had a couple day-long streak where I was getting compliments from everyone I talked to — my barber, my Uber drivers, and even locals who hosted our tracks.
These weren’t generic conversations about the traffic or weather, either. I had a full-on conversation with one of my Uber drivers about everything from Carnaval to the Pablo Escobar days and how it affected him to the current state of Colombian politics.
Another highlight came at one of our tracks where I got to play translator between our track’s host and my fellow Kaizen’s who didn’t speak much Spanish. I even cracked a couple jokes, which, in my opinion, is a sign that you’re getting to that next level in a language.
A “Super” Birthday
I’m not a big birthday guy, but on Remote Year, you don’t really have a choice in the matter because you are traveling with people who, especially by Month 11, care about you and want to celebrate you — even if left to your own devices you’d probably choose celebrate by Rappi-ing pizza and watching WWII documentaries.
I am lucky enough to have friends that wouldn’t let me do that to myself and helped plan the perfect Día de Miguel.
It started with Super Bowl Sunday, the night before my birthday, when I was surprised with the most “me” gift I’ve probably ever received: the card game “What do you Meme” (think Cards against Humanity, but with popular memes instead) and a gift card to one of my favorite places on Earth, Wanderlust Yoga in Austin. Oh, did I mention that there was an expertly hidden Smirnoff Ice waiting for me inside the wrapping paper and the card was written on the back of a puzzle of one of my favorite memes (the “y tho” meme)?
My actual birthday started off with one of my favorite things in the entire world — breakfast. Dee had found all of the ingredients to cook me a proper English breakfast that would have made Queen Lizzie blush. After work, we went to my favorite cafe in Bogotá, Canasto, for my favorite meal + some Kaizen Kreativez time. The night was wrapped up at the movies where 15 of us saw the Oscar nominated, Darkest Hour, which is based in the WWII era.
Football + memes + Wanderlust + home-cooked breakfast + Canasto + blogging + WWII-era movie = one lucky Miguel.
And just like that, our time in Colombia is in the libros. Colombia is going to go down as one of my favorite countries this year without question. How could it not? I mean, it gave us Shakira.
It’s hard to believe 9 weeks in this amazing country has come and gone. It’s even harder to believe that we are now heading into Month 12.
Yikes!
Until next time, Colombia. I love you long time.
Salud, Bogotá!
Before you go, don’t forget to back these months up, too!
- Europe: Split, Prague, Lisbon, Sofia
- Asia: Hanoi, Chiang Mai, Kyoto, Kuala Lumpur
- Latin America: Lima, Medellín, Bogotá, Mexico City
📸 cred to Iris Crowe-Lerma and Zach Boyette for some of that magic up above
