December 31 - January 2
Hello everyone!
New year, new location. New continent, even. Welcome to South America!
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| Atop Monserrate, 3200m above sea level |
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| Not clothing I will be culturally appropriating |
I’m starting 2025 in Colombia, specifically its capital: Bogotá. I’m quite naive about this country, with my knowledge not extending much further than Narcos and Shakira.
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| Bogota is an 11 hour flight from London |
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Wikipedia tells me Bogota is the fifth
biggest city by population in South America |
My naivety meant that I spent the day before flying from London desperately trying to find some warm clothes. I had packed for a country close to the Equator, which I assumed would be scorching. The dash to buy clothing came after realising quite how high Colombia’s capital sits above sea level…
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| That's the high. |
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Mountain Warehouse provided me with a last-minute gilet.
Admittedly, I wasn't looking at good as this lady in the Botero Museum. |
2640 metres. Almost double the UK’s highest point, Ben Nevis. This explains why the temperature rarely breaks 20℃, and why I’ve spent a few days pretending that a gilet is fashionable.
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| Note the lack of shorts. I brought one pair of trousers... |
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| To warm up, humans often eat soup. This is the national dish of ajiaco. |
So what of Colombia’s capital? Well, it is big. Enormous, actually. A population of 10 million isn’t exactly crammed into the centre of the country. The city itself is a narrow sprawl, stretching for many miles to the north and south.
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| Carrera 7 is a long road, much of which is pedestrianised |
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| Financial district |
The best way of understanding this sprawl is by getting above it. Going even higher, specifically up the hill which is Bogotá’s eastern flank: Monserrate.
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| To paraphrase Ed Sheeran, it's the church on the hill |
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Being 3200m up, the Sun was strong. I bought
sun cream the following day as a precaution.
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Climbing this was how I brought in my first morning of 2025. It is quite a steep climb, with over 500 metres of vertical elevation from the southern neighbourhood of La Candelaria. When you’re starting at close to 2700 metres, where the air is relatively thin and lacking oxygen, it can become a bit of a chore if you haven’t acclimatised. Many take a cable car. I was never going to do that, and I hadn’t acclimatised, having arrived just over 24 hours before. I also had had quite a few beers to celebrate bringing in the New Year. In spite of all of this, I was fine on the climb.
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| Your options are this walk or a funicular |
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| The trail is 1605 steps |
The view shows a number of skyscrapers in different areas of the city, as well as many, many different neighbourhoods. Areas vary from La Candelaria and the city’s historic centre in the south, to the more affluent areas like Chapinero to the north. Interspersed between them are areas visitors are explicitly told not to visit, like Santa Fe.
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| View of the finanical district |
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| The view of northern Bogota |
Atop Monserrate is a Christian sanctuary. Built between 1650 and 1657, it is often visible no matter where you are in the city, and a popular spot for locals to visit. It certainly has a spiritual vibe to it.
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| A service was in session when we arrived |
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| There are also shops and cafeterias at the top |
Bizarrely for a city of 10 million people, being atop Monserrate was by far the biggest volume of people I saw in my first couple of days in Colombia’s capital. I was expecting a huge New Year party to accompany my first night. That may have happened, but very few people were in the district of La Candelaria. Fireworks popped up at around midnight but seemed sparse, random and distant. Luckily the hostel was lively, so this was where we enjoyed our last night of 2024. For the first time in 3 years, I made it to midnight…and not much further.
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| A lack of fireworks |
As the city returns to normal after the holiday season, I imagine the noise and vibrancy of Bogotá will show its true colours. For now, it’s been a calm, slightly chilly start to my week in Colombia, appreciating the relative quiet of the big capital from up high.
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| I'm sure it will liven up - and restaurants will be open - in the coming days |
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| A rainbow of colour to welcome in 2025 |
