For the last two days of the trip we returned to Bogota before flying back home. For this time in Bogota, we're staying in the nicer north end of town in a neighborhood called Parque de la 93. After a couple hours of people watching and walking around, we started to feel like we were in a larger version of Madison Park. Fancy cars, lovely park spaces, and plenty of beautiful mommies with strollers.
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| Park 93 on a Sunny Saturday |
Park 93 is literally a neighborhood around a park on 93rd St. There are several dozen restaurants around the park and on the adjoining streets. It's all very pleasant and super safe with single women and kids walking around at all hours.
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| People relaxing at Park 93 |
During the day the park was full of couples and kids, with a huge play area teeming with toddlers. At night families and couples would stroll around after having a nice meal at one of the restaurants in the area. We really enjoyed our stay here and will miss spending every moment of the day outside. All the restaurants are open-air, and when it gets cool at night, they fire up heat lamps.
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| A Chivas - a traditional Colombian party bus |
It was a fairly mellow area, with some live music and the occasional party bus swinging through to pick up or drop off folks at a couple of local discos.
The next day we rented bikes and took park in Ciclovia, an event we had been looking forward to the entire trip. Ciclovia is a wonderful Sunday event in Bogota that has spread throughout the city and to all the other major cities in Colombia. Every Sunday and bank holiday they close 100 km (60 mi) of main streets in Bogota and open them up to bikes, walkers, skaters, and any other form of human powered activity.
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| Stacie on a street for Ciclovia. |
This is an amazing concept! Of the 9 million people in Bogota, each week 2 million take part in Ciclovia. This number was at first hard to believe, until you grasp that Sundays are treated like national holidays, with nearly every type of retail establishment closed.
Out on the roads, you see all types of participants, hard-core riders, lots of runners and roller bladers, strollers, seniors, kids with training wheels, and even some yoga on the side. There's free repair stands and food vendors set up all over the place.
There are truly so many people out on the streets, it would be hard for someone to attempt a real road-biking work out. It would be like driving fast and weaving through city traffic in your car. You can do it, but you'd look like a jerk and risk hurting someone.
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| This is a map of Bogota, the streets in red are closed to cars for Ciclovia. Keep in mind, Bogota is HUGE. |
They station each intersection with police, to direct any surrounding traffic, so it's very safe and has a sense of order on the roads (contrary to Colombia's usual organic driving style). We did notice that it doesn't take much to start breathing hard in Bogota at 8600 ft!
This was such a fun and amazing way to spend the morning! And the people watching was non-stop. People were clearly enjoying the day--families hanging out together enjoying the sunshine, teenage girls roller-blading in packs, and skate boarders gliding between bikes. One of the best parts was that it was a completely relaxed, non-competitive environment. Everyone was welcome and everyone could participate.
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| Justin waiting at a stoplight with a bunch of other riders. |
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| Heading across town, up the overpass, toward Calle 7, which is right at the base of the mountains. |
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| Yup, you see it all at Ciclovia. This picture was too good to pass up. |
We were cracking up watching this gal try to get her dog onto her bike. Her dog had had enough and refused to go any further. First she tried to wrap it in her sweater and strap the dog to her back, but that didn't work. Eventually she got the dog to straddle the bars and away they went. Classic.
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| Here we are enjoying a night at Park 93 |
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So that's our Colombia trip. It started out a little rough, but by the end of the trip we really fell in love with the place. Salento was a treat and Villa de Leyva was by far our favorite spot.
Tomorrow morning we hop on a flight to Atlanta and then on to Seattle. We're a bit sad to leave, but looking forward to seeing our kitties.
