Bogota: Parades, police and parilla's

  We arrived ok. As did the bikes with minor scrapes to my handlebar tapes only. Great stuff. The wheel the bike on and off the aeroplane that Lufthansa offer is certainly worth a look at though their poor selection of in-flight films was less amusing to us! As we got in late evening we arranged to stay at Chia - 20km North of Bogota and headed there via a waiting taxi (which had a bike rack)... so far so good!  We got up for breakfast and were greeted by a steaming hot bowl of fish Caldo! It's a sort of soup/stew concoction  that is eaten with Arepa (corn pattie) then scramble eggs and washed down with Tinto (black coffee flavoured with Pannela (pre-processed sugar). A slight change from the usual cereal and large mug of coffee!

As we'd decided that we would take the first day as a rest day - to fine tune the bikes, adjust to the altitude (2,640m or 8,660ft) and the climate. So we headed into Bogota to take a look around. We thought we'd visit the famous Gold museum and maybe take in some of the old squares and soak up the sunday cyclovia (essentially they shut off loads of roads so people can safely cycle around the town with little or no traffic). We took the bus in and then changed on to the super fast/efficient Transmilenio which is essentially a rapid bus transit that has its own dedicated lane to travel into the city and out again. Fantastic model - much like the underground trains but an above ground bus!
As we got off at our stop we were aware of loud noises, shouting, whistling, drums and of course the vuvuzelas!

Excited to explore and find out what was what (and it was in the same direction as the museum) we headed up the street to be greeted by armed police everywhere! There were armoured cars parked around whilst the protestors looked like they were putting on a carnival/parade! There were dancers and fire-eaters and jugglers intermingling with those yelling slogans (which we didn't understand) through old loudspeakers and holding banners. It seems that the 1st of May is a 'holiday' in

other countries and we had stumbled upon the Labour Day parade - which is a big deal in Colombia evidently! 

Armed police lining the street next to me and Hannah with armed vehicles back up!

Labour Day Parade

Mingling with the parade dancers

Consequently the gold museum, in fact ALL the museums were closed. We followed the parade for a bit as it was held in good spirits and even the armed police seemed to be enjoying it too. The end point for the parade was the Plaza de Bolivar - the main square in the centre of old Bogota. Usually it is full of pigeons and hawkers and the occasional llama (for tourist pictures). However today the stone plaza flanked by the cathedral, congee and palace of justice was full of banners and police and protestors standing around the large statue for the liberator of Colombia.

Plaza de Bolivar

 Leaving the melee behind us we went in search of some lunch. We wandered through back streets with some pretty fantastic graphity/street art displays which were lined with people selling tat/junk much like a car boot sale back home (without the cars!). There seemed no end to the different types of 

street art topics that we saw and they were certainly a welcome 

splash of colour added to quite a grey, sombre appearing city.

As we wandered around we spied, actually, to be accurate we smelt a great place for dinner. There was an amazing looking parrilla (Argentinian BBQ) with all types of meat and fish outside the long trestle tables to entice us in. We just about managed to finish our over-laden plates and roll out back on to the streets.

 We had discovered (via the Lonely Planet) that although all the museums were shut the Cerro de Monserratte (hill and lookout point with a church on its top) was still open. We vowed to walk up in order to get the legs exercising a bit before we cycle tomorrow and also to try and redistribute what we'd just eaten! However on getting to the bottom of the hill it turns out the walk was shut (too dangerous apparently?!) so we were forced to go up in a cable car and then return down in a funicular! There was a phenomenal view of Bogota (little wonder as we were at 3,200m) with no fog or clouds. There were so many people in the mass at the church at the top they were even stood outside listening which was quite surprising compared to UK - though it was a Sunday I guess.

Funicular down

Looking up to Monserratte from the cable car

 

Bogota birds eye view

Having returned to Chia we packed the Panniers, poured over the map to plan a rough route... Zipaquirá (and it's salt mines) and then further North towards Villa de Leyva... Exciting!