Oh pricey! Actually? Are you fairly positive?’ Such have been the reactions of assorted acquaintances to my announcement that I used to be planning a visit to Colombia.
The truth that I’ve pals in Bogota did not assuage their anxieties. And now even I began to think about situations wherein, having been kidnapped by some paramilitary renegades, I might probably negotiate some kind of communication line down which I might report scenes for The Archers from my cell in Bogota. Maybe Adam might have been on a visit researching cocoa farming, I mirrored, and located himself deludedly diverted in direction of coca as a substitute.
Such is the curious blurring between fiction and actuality in The Archers that stranger issues have occurred.
Vibrant spectacle: Dancers at a avenue competition in Cartagena
Bogota is a dynamic metropolis with a chaotic character all its personal. At 8,500ft above sea degree you’ll assume the head-rush can be obligatory. The push is all within the visitors: buses veer, bikes swerve, taxis vie for fares throughout choked lanes.
However within the tranquil historic neighbourhood of La Candelaria you escape to the town’s Spanish colonial previous. Amid the teeming hordes of scholars, travellers and native Bogotanos, the gold reveals of the Museo D’Oro, such because the pre-Colombian gold raft sculpture from the Muisca period, are dazzling.
Alternatively one can benefit from the whimsical wit of Colombia’s most well-known artist, Botero. His porcine figures are present in a museum named after him and constructed round a captivating 18th Century courtyard. Additionally housed right here is a part of Botero’s private artwork assortment, together with works by Monet, Renoir, Chagall, Miro, and Dali.
Taking within the view: Andrew on the Iglesia de Monserrate overlooking Bogota
Within the close by Plaza de Bolivar I noticed a llama sauntering by – they’re used to present rides to laughing vacationers. On one nook stands the Museo de la Independencia, housing artefacts and reveals that fascinatingly illustrate the story of the 1810 Revolution: how the combat for independence started and the way, some may contend, it’s nonetheless being fought at present.
Wanting up from the plaza – excessive within the mountains to the east – you see the Iglesia de Monserrate, which is accessible inside minutes by cable automobile. Right here you discover a sanctuary of tranquillity and spirituality, as if one has risen above the town whereas its secular city unreality sprawls magnificently however chaotically throughout the plateau beneath.
If the tumult of Bogota turns into an excessive amount of, a mere hour away lies Zipaquira and its cathedral, one of the startling buildings on the planet. With ingenuity, imaginative and prescient and audacity, a cavernous expanse 600ft beneath floor has been carved from a salt mine to kind an area for worship.
Such is the mixture of iconography, pure types, colors, and carvings that you simply really feel you are in a sodium-chloride artwork set up.
It is extraordinary to think about that on Sundays and holy days 3,000 folks come right here to worship.
At Guatavita, the legend of El Dorado resonates from the pre-Colombian previous. Cradled by crater partitions is the lake on to which the Muisca tribe rowed their new cacique (king) on a raft earlier than ritually immersing him, bare and coated in gold mud. In additional homage, hundreds of gold choices have been thrown into the lake by members of the tribe surrounding the shores.
Throughout the mountains, via the valleys, previous polytunnels (Adam would have been happy to notice) the poncho – or ruana – carrying farmers have a tendency the fields, trip horseback or stroll as if time has stopped. Being on the highway is an expertise in itself. Away from Bogota, down from the plateau and the temperate excessive floor, the temperature rises.
Roadside grills provide chorizos, hen and chilly beers to slake the thirst. Canine slumber, sheltering in doorways to flee the warmth whereas cats watch from the shadows.
Saddled up: A llama prepared for vacationer rides in Plaza de Bolivar
If it is historical past you crave, about 90 miles from Bogota, within the Andes close to Tunja, there’s a tiny bridge over the Teatinos River, marking the location the place the Battle of Boyaca was fought.
Right here in August 1819 a decisive victory was received in opposition to the Spanish within the battle for independence – with the assistance of the British – an occasion marked by imposing monuments to the generals Bolívar and Santander.
Quickly you attain the white-washed partitions, red-tiled roofs and cobblestone streets of Villa de Leyva, a preserved colonial city which, since 1954, has been a nationwide monument.
The seventeenth Century structure, that includes cool arcaded courtyards, fountains, and flower-festooned columns, is unspoilt. Dancing within the sq. and ingesting aguardiente within the bars round right here seem to be timeless nocturnal pursuits.
Additional afield, an hour’s flight from Bogota on the shores of the Caribbean, lies the Unesco World Heritage website of Cartagena, a superbly restored jewel of a walled Spanish metropolis with maybe essentially the most spectacular fortifications in Latin America, the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.
The stature of the partitions and the tunnels beneath assist the customer perceive why it was just about not possible to defeat the Spanish right here, and why they stayed till the nineteenth Century.
At night time the sun-drenched Plaza de la Santisima Trinidad is reworked right into a pure theatre. All life is right here. Youngsters race, canine strut like horses, folks mirror and ruminate.
Locals and travellers combine over a beer purchased from the store throughout the sq. and a scorching canine from a stand.
When you fancy a cocktail, maybe a cuba libre, you possibly can attempt to wake the previous woman slumbering behind her stall to combine one.
Colombia is a rustic that defies expectations. It is going to bewitch and bedazzle you. The countryside is timeless and you will find pure pleasure within the tranquillity and number of the panorama and the allure of its folks. When you’re trying to escape from the greyness of the commonplace, the heat, color and pure great thing about Colombia elevate it to the dimension of one other world. I shall definitely be going again.
Perhaps that cocoa farm of Adam’s wasn’t such a foul concept in spite of everything.
