after medellin, i had a layover in bogota for about 24 hours on my way to the amazon, and i'd like to think i made the most of it! bogota is a sprawling city of 10 million people pretty high up in the andean foothills. when i was there it was overcast and chilly, which was rather refreshing. i learned as i went that uber is available in bogota, but illegal. so the meetups have to happen under the radar. my drivers kept calling me and trying to explain things in espanol, and then cancelling when they found out i couldn't communicate. finally found out they were calling to a arrange a clandestine meetup point in a parking lot or somewhere else than the curbside. when a nice driver who spoke english finally explained this to me, things got a lot easier, lol. she said the police impound the car on the spot if they find out someone is ubering. if we were to be pulled over, i am a friend, not a customer. for this reason they insist you sit in the front seat too. i'm cool with being a friend!
i stayed in a nice area called usaquen, which used to be its own town but has been swallowed up in the bogota sprawl. there were cobblestoned streets along which i got a nice dinner and walked around. in the morning i headed downtown, which took over an hour in the very slow-moving traffic. i went to the main central bolivar square, which is surrounded by government buildings, and is famous as the site of a siege of the colombian government by m-19 guerilla tanks in the 1980s. nearby is the most famous museum in colombia, the museo de oro, which is all about pre-colonial gold and metallurgy, a topic which inspired the mythical city of el dorado. the museum only cost $1 to visit and was actually very impressive - one could easily spend a few hours there. bogota is in a valley overlooked by a mountain viewpoint called monserrat which can be reached by a cable car which i tried to take up, but ran out of time.
the whole reason i was trying to stick with uber is that taxis in bogota sadly have a terrible reputation. in the past they have been some of the most dangerous taxis in the world, with famous "million dollar rides" around to atms at gunpoint, and druggings of passengers for amnesia. at minimum, one could expect to be ripped off. even today, the taxi fare is not metered, but the meter has a number which corresponds arbitrarily with the rate the driver wants to charge, which may or may not be on a laminated piece of paper in the back seat, which the driver may have just switched out for you when he saw you weren't a local. apparently the taxi cartels have lynched uber drivers to protect their turf, and of course they are the lobby behind uber being illegal. anyway, i got in a taxi out of necessity to make it to the airport on time, and it went all right. whew!
solid day in bogota!
i stayed in a nice area called usaquen, which used to be its own town but has been swallowed up in the bogota sprawl. there were cobblestoned streets along which i got a nice dinner and walked around. in the morning i headed downtown, which took over an hour in the very slow-moving traffic. i went to the main central bolivar square, which is surrounded by government buildings, and is famous as the site of a siege of the colombian government by m-19 guerilla tanks in the 1980s. nearby is the most famous museum in colombia, the museo de oro, which is all about pre-colonial gold and metallurgy, a topic which inspired the mythical city of el dorado. the museum only cost $1 to visit and was actually very impressive - one could easily spend a few hours there. bogota is in a valley overlooked by a mountain viewpoint called monserrat which can be reached by a cable car which i tried to take up, but ran out of time.
the whole reason i was trying to stick with uber is that taxis in bogota sadly have a terrible reputation. in the past they have been some of the most dangerous taxis in the world, with famous "million dollar rides" around to atms at gunpoint, and druggings of passengers for amnesia. at minimum, one could expect to be ripped off. even today, the taxi fare is not metered, but the meter has a number which corresponds arbitrarily with the rate the driver wants to charge, which may or may not be on a laminated piece of paper in the back seat, which the driver may have just switched out for you when he saw you weren't a local. apparently the taxi cartels have lynched uber drivers to protect their turf, and of course they are the lobby behind uber being illegal. anyway, i got in a taxi out of necessity to make it to the airport on time, and it went all right. whew!
solid day in bogota!
