Gold and Graffitti

There are a couple of things you notice about Colombia’s capital, Bogota as you arrive. Firstly, it is very, very busy with hideous traffic. Secondly, it is cold. The days we were there it was between 13 and 19 degrees C. After spending the last three months in the tropics – this is cold. Out came the jeans, jumpers and trainers – not to mention rain jackets and it rained a lot. On a night, I had three blankets on my bed and still had to get out my sleeping bag as well. This was not the weather I was expecting! There was someone however, that Bogota did have in its favour. It has the BBC. No – nothing to do with British tv but the Bogota Brewing Company. I’m a non beer drinker – I do not like the stuff and because of this, if I wanted a drink whilst in Colombia I had to order extremely expensive rum and cokes. So the thought of going to an artesian brewery was not all that appealing. But on its menu it had a drink which comprised of half beer, half cider. Cider by itself was not listed on the menu. We asked if it was possible to just have cider on its own and after a little discussion with the manager (no one had ever wanted just cider before),I was given a pint of cider. It was beautiful. Better in fact than most of the ciders we get at home. I savoured it because there was no chance of a second drink – we had already caused the pub to run dry of its very limited cider reserves! We went back the following day. They had restocked but they had also listed cider on the menu and made it the same price as the craft beer. Still it was well worth it. Wonder if it will be another 4 months before i get another drink?

If you go to Bogota, the number one thing to do is visit the gold museum. This is the advice you get from everyone. So the museum was our first port of call. I was absolutely amazed by it. Even people who don’t like museums were blown away by it. There are so many exhibits and some of them are incredibly tiny – the size of a pin head. Others are so delicate. Some are so valuable they are kept behind giant vault doors. Others are kept under dark lights as to not damage them – making them difficult to see but your eyes do adjust eventually. There is a room where you wait to be allowed in. Only so many allowed in at a time, then the doors are closed behind you. It is completely dark. Then slowly lights illuminate certain spots, revealing pieces of gold. The room has been turned into a magical art show. I later found out there were over 5000 gold pieces in that room. I loved it! This is one time to believe the hype – the gold museum is definitely worth it!

Bogota is also full of graffiti and street art. It attracts world-renowned artists to its streets and some of the murals over 7 stories high. The graffiti tour we did here was different to the ones in the other Colombian cities. The murals here are far more political and unlike other cities, the police and artists here have a chequered past. In 2011 police shot dead a young graffiti artist and then tried to cover it up as an armed robbery. The trial for the corrupt policemen is still ongoing. But it did lead to the artist being viewed more leniently. Then when street art was still illegal, police escorted Justin Beiber and allowed him to paint on a street in 2013. This led to a 24 hour graffiti protest by the real artists who were up to that point being abused and extorted by the police. Now the general population are very much behind the artists and these days if the artists are caught in the act, then they are fined by the police and let go. On our tour, we learnt about different styles, the history of the different artists. We even met a couple of the artists in a studio they have where they sell smaller works. Murals are commissioned by small business, to make their premises look more attractive and the Red Cross even commissions murals.

The above image (on the left) is the one commissioned by the Red Cross. They did so to highlight the 83,000 people who are still ‘disappeared’ from the civil war. The majority of the street art in Bogota is to make political points – this contrasts with the street art of Medellin whose main purpose was to lift spirits and give hope for the future. They were some political messages there – just like there are some art works here, whose purpose is simply to be breath-taking and beautiful. A number of public spaces have also been allowed to be ‘arted’ up. This is a park and basketball court.
My last night in Bogota was spent doing something equally cultural. We went to see Captain Marvel at the cinema. The film was shown in English but had Spanish subtitles added. It was amazing how quickly the sub-titles faded into the background and after a short while you didn’t notice them anymore. It actually helped make the film easier to understand because when one character called another character by name, the name would be written in the sub-titles so it was much easier to pick up when there were many new characters in a scene. It also means I am now ready to see Avengers: Endgame when it is released.