Last step Bogota

Bogota, a huge city with a population of over 8 million people, roughly the same size as the capital of Peru Lima. Chaotic, loud, and lots of traffic, just like Lima. In Peru, I quickly realized that I prefer smaller cities. However, it's a good thing to visit such cities to get a different perspective of the country. Bogota is the capital of Colombia and was my last stop on my journey through South America.

In total, I stayed in Bogota for a whole week. A Colombian friend in Germany arranged for me to stay in a Panadaria (bakery) for a week. The owner was a very good friend of hers. David (a friend of mine) also stayed at this bakery for two weeks when he arrived. The Panaderia is run by a whole family who welcomed me warmly. I was impressed by their hospitality.

The family, consisting of mother, father, children, grandmother, and many other relatives, live together in a two-story house. The family's bakery is located on the ground floor. The family lives on the first and top floors. On the second floor, a room was specially provided for me. The family lives a bit outside the center in the south of Bogota.

The first two pictures show the view from my room to the street. You can see that the neighborhood is rather simple. The two big potholes in the middle of the street can be normal here. The two pictures reflect well how many people live in Colombia or Peru. Hardly any green spaces, houses are rather simple and serve their purpose. It's not really about aesthetics or anything like that. Of course, not every city or neighborhood looks like this. I think it's also because of the lack of money why so many people live like this.

In the other pictures, you can see the bakery from the inside. Colombians love many sweet pastries and sell different things. Salty pastries must not be missing either. Things with cheese are typical here, like bread with cheese inside. For a German, the bread is quite soft and would almost be a sweet roll in our homeland. In Colombia, as well as in Peru, it is normal for locals to go to a bakery at any time. Whether for breakfast, lunch, coffee, or dinner. The bakeries open at 6 am and don't close until 10 pm. Dinner in a bakery is quite unusual for us Germans, but it's normal in many countries in South America.

Activities in the city of Bogota:

To be honest, I didn't do much during my time in Bogota. I was personally exhausted from traveling and couldn't motivate myself to explore the city much. I visited the center of Bogota twice. Once I visited the center on my own and the other time I took part in a graffiti tour, which was attended by nearly 20 people from different parts of the world. The center is quite big and divided into several parts. I visited the 'La Candelaria' center, which is considered quite safe because many police officers are responsible for security. In this neighborhood, there is a large pedestrian zone, many museums, shops, and hotels/hostels. The other parts of the city center are considered unsafe. Personally, I only experienced one threatening situation. A homeless person tried to rob me of my money. He threatened me with a carpet knife. In broad daylight on a wide street. I don't know if the man was just bluffing, trying to harm me with the knife. In this situation, I decided to just run away, as I could assess well that the man, a bit older, would definitely not catch up with me. And that's exactly what happened, the man didn't even try to chase after me. If he had a bigger knife or a gun, of course, I wouldn't have been able to run away. After that moment, my heart was pounding a bit. I had never been threatened in my entire life. I was glad that I participated in a graffiti tour after that. After my almost four-month journey through South America, that was the only slightly threatening situation I experienced.

A popular tourist activity is visiting the church of Monserate on a hill. On weekends, hundreds of people flock to the hill. There are two options to conquer the hill - walking or taking the cable car. I chose to walk to save money on the one hand and climb the hill with my own feet on the other. Unfortunately, as is so often the case in Bogota, the weather went crazy and I had to walk in the rain at times. The ascent was steep and exhausting. When I reached the top, I couldn't enjoy a good view of the city because the fog or clouds made the visibility difficult. On beautiful days, you can actually see how big the city is from here.

On the night of September 19th, it was finally time for my flight to England. In the next blog article, I will talk about the very short time in London and report on my homecoming.