Bogotá Bike Tour

So for this post, I have to go out of order because I'm still waiting for pictures and videos of our most adrenaline-filled day. So we're going to skip a day ahead to what turned out to be an unplanned day of fun in Bogotá.

Long story short, we rented a car on Tuesday and had to return it by 8:00 am on Wednesday morning to make our 8:30 am coffee tour day trip. Unfortunately, the car rental place did not open on time. Rather, it opened on Colombian time, which can be hours later. We ended up leaving the car at the rental place with a valet that worked for a nearby hotel. We took a taxi to the coffee tour pickup location only to find that we were too late. They left without us.

We decided to make the most of this experience by doing a little exploring, shopping, and the Bogotá Bike Tour.

The tour included a trip through and around various neighborhoods in Bogotá, from the historic old district of La Candelaria to the red light district. This is Kelly reluctantly posing in La Candelaria.

We had a small, intimate group of cyclists, which definitely made the tour better. One of them looked like the Spanish version of Fred Armisen. Kelly insisted that I get a good picture of him. This is one of the many attempts.

The tour guide was a young artist in Bogotá. He knew all about the local graffiti and murals in his city. The art was politically controversial, culturally significant, and beautiful. Seeing street art was as common as seeing the mountain ranges to the east of the city. Some pieces of art were meant to memorialize the dead, while others were created to promote inclusive points of view, and yet others to raise awareness of culturally important figures.

This was one piece that our tour guide helped create. I think it has something to do with the exploitation of banana farm workers. We are born from the banana.

And this:

The art spanned for miles on houses like these:

This was supposed to to be one of the better views of the city. It was a bit foggy though.

The tour also included a fruit tasting portion (no pictures). Colombia has some very interesting and tasty native fruits that don't exist in the states, including one of my favorites: Pihtaya. Or dragon fruit.

After fruit tasting, we got to play a traditional Colombian game called Tejo. Tejo is a game that involves throwing a discus at small gunpowder packets that are situated on a wooden clay-covered structure slanted at a 45 degree angle. If you hit the target, it explodes with an ear-panging pop, like a large gun. Colombians play this game while drinking beer.

I was terrible at it, but Kelly was pretty good. She got a hit! Unfortunately, I recorded every attempt she made except her successful one.

Before we biked through the red light district, our guide told us not to talk to or take photos of anyone. Nor were we allowed to stop. Well, I learned after the tour that Bogotá (and the country generally) is having a pretty severe drought. It is the dry season.

Despite all these factors, it started pouring harder than ever while we were biking through the red light district. And we couldn't stop.

Here's an idea of what the rain was like while we were biking:

So instead of continuing the normal long route of the tour, we took a tour detour and made an earlier than usual stop at a coffee roasting company. Here's our guide with a soaked German in the roasting warehouse.

Here's Kelly with Spanish Fred Armisen:

A giant container of coffee beans:

Kelly laughing, probably at me

Coffee roasting in progress:

And finally, here are some videos of us biking through the city:

Until next time! Hasta luego!