I landed in Bogota the capital city of Colombia at 6:17am from La Paz. With no plans for Bogota or Columbia I arrived very unprepared. Before I left La Paz I had done a little research. Normal plans when booking my accommodation area and a general idea what I could see and do. As I’ve mentioned previous (too many times), I wasn’t in the best of shape when I left Bolivia so my usual prep was even less than I would normally do.
I arrived in Bogota shattered – after my eventful journey to the airport in La Paz, the obligatory waiting at the airport, short flight (I think I got 45 minutes shut eye). To make matters worse my cough seemed to have reared its ugly head. Looking back at my notes and emails I thought I arranged the pick-up from the airport with the hotel, but I can’t find any details. That being said, we went through some interfesting areas from the airport to my accommodation, Hotel Bogota Virrey. It made me hope my hotel was in a less “interesting” area. Thankfully it was.
Taking in the sites, smells and feel of the city, all I could think about was sleeping. I never sleep on route from the airport to anywhere, I’m security conscious that way. On route I’ve never seen so much street art ever! Every wall, bridge, pillar was awash with graffiti. By and large most of it was very good, more like a never-ending mural; not being able to tell where one picture ended and the next started. Coincidentally, graffiti would kickstart my exploring of Bogota.
Accommodation
My hotel, Hotel Bogota Virrey near the Centro Commercial Andino, was nice, a lot more luxurious that I had become accustomed too. Arriving early can be a double-edged sword; you have the whole day ahead of you, but only if the hotel allows you to check in early. Hungry and tired, as luck would have it I just missed breakfast…so stupidly I had a double espresso! Thankfully after hanging around the hotel like a lost soul for about an hour, my room was read. Interrupted by coughing fits, I had the best night’s sleep in weeks! That was pretty much my first day in Bogota…I don’t even remember where or if I even had dinner.
There was nothing wrong with my hotel, clean, good price, friendly staff etc. etc. except it was far away from the action. That part of Bogota, around Veracruz or Germania, is about 11.5 km away. Hotel Bogota Virrey is nearer what I would call the shopping district, like the area where I stayed in Kuala Lumpur. Easy access to nice trendy restaurants, shops, malls, and plenty of big nightclubs….only two parallel roads aways I could hear them in the evenings – with the window closed it didn’t prevent me from sleeping.
Day two was almost as unproductive as the first. I had only booked the accommodation for 3 nights; that’s my safety net in case I don’t like the place, area etc. like I normally do – my modus operandi. Though Bogota is 2600m above sea level my energy levels were much better. Not too surprising, at least 1000m lower than La Paz. After only the first night, cough still there, I was feeling so much better. Motivation levels were considerably up too, and I use this to get my shit in order and come up with a plan for at least the next two days. I hardly left my room the second day, I don’t regret it either.
Part of my planning, I looked at other cities and locations in Colombia, bloody expensive! Bogota was ok price wise, but I was bowled over by how expensive accommodation was in some of the other cities. Maybe it was just the time of year I was there. I resigned to myself that Bogota would be my last stop in South America until my flight to New York. Mildly disappointed, nothing to lose sleep over though. My body and brain were tired, I’d use this opportunity to recoup and take things easy.
Graffiti Tour
What could be easier than a graffiti group tour. This way I could take things easy, get a lay of the land and more importantly, get moving. Through a little internet research, I found a tour with some good ratings, no charge, and I didn’t have to do any planning. Meeting point was at Estatua De Simón Bolivar / Simon Bolivar Monument/Statue at 12:30. Booked my place online through www.bogotagraffiti.com; they did two tours per day on most days if my recollection is right. I booked for 14:00.
Bogotagraffiti tour
- Meeting point, dome monument at Parque de los Periodistas (Cra 4 & Ave Jimenez, in La Candelaria), Nearest transmilenio station is “Las Aguas”
- Tour times, 12:30 and 14:00, lasting about 2 hours. Private tours are available, these are charged for
- Tours are offered in English, though can also be done in Spanish or German
- Cost, it’s free, but they do ask for a donation (this is not obligatory). They recommend $15-$20 donation. This is mentioned in the booking confirmation email, and only mentioned again at the end of the tour.
The tour doesn’t cover a very large area, making a loop ending near where it began; covering around 2-3km max. Even so, there is so much to see. This is only a very small fraction of the street art on display in the area. I’d see so much more on my returning days. Our tour guide, an artist himself, had a wealth of history about street art as a whole and especially about Bogota graffiti; knowing some of the artists personally.
One of the first questions that came to mind…how do the artists get way with it? Many of the pieces, huge murals, would take days to complete, impossible to do so incognito and unseen. Our guide explained, but first a little on Bogota’s graffiti history. As throughout the world, graffiti in Colombia dates back thousands of years. Starting with petroglyphs, this evolved to what you see today. In more recent times this has been infused with influences from around the world.
Modern street art in Columbia has its roots in “La Violencia” (The Violence); a ten year civil war form 1948 to 1958 between Colombian Conservative Party and the Colombian Liberal Party. Then, graffiti had strong political overtones. Ranging from tagging, posters, stickers, slogans. Now, graffiti is an artform. With less tagging these days’, stencils, free-hand, large complex murals, stickers, posters and every other format possible are sprawled across the city.
…is it legal?
No. It was decriminalised after police shot 16 year-old Diego Felipe Becerra in the back whist he was tagging his art. The police tried to cover up with murder with bogus stories, like Diego being a criminal but the truth eventually came out. After that, that Mayor decriminalised graffiti. He even invited artist to decorate some buildings. These days it’s still a bone of contention to some, like marmite, some like it, others don’t. Some local artists even complain that it has become commercialised with graffiti more reminiscent of advertising than street art. It’s even been suggested that because it isn’t illegal it can’t be classified as graffiti.
There is more to Bogota than street art. However, as I said at the start, this was an easy way to get into the swing of things. So, as you can see, this post has more pictures than writing. I took other pictures during days; this will be included in other post and on my FB page. They weren’t included in this once because it broke the flow.
One last thing. I’ve tried to find out who the respective artists are for each piece, labelling them respectively. If I have labelled any of them incorrectly, my apologies in advance. Let me know the correct artist/s and I make the correction – thanks.
