Eating, Drinking and Dancing Our Way Around Bogota

Ten million people call the vibrant, passionate, sprawling, subtropical urban jungle of Bogota home. We are very fortunate to have two friends, Gustavo and Federico, whom we met while living in Australia, who call Bogota home! 

Bogota From Monserrate 

So, we started off our time in Bogota at Federico's home to pre-game before heading to the trendy Zona Rosa for a night of clubbing. Being the budget backpackers that we are, we turned up with the cheapest bottle of aguardiente (think sambuca in strength and taste) we could find in La Carulla. After being told by both Gustavo and Federico that they don’t drink that stuff, we proceeded to take enough shots to finish nearly the entire bottle before we left for the club. After  dancing the night away among a well-dressed crowd and buying a couple too many expensive drinks at the club, we stumbled back to our hostel in Zona Rosa.

Holy hangover-Batman was all I could think to say when I woke up, but the only word that came out was...WATER! After devouring a slice of pizza each from the place next to our hostel, we hopped in Gustavo’s car to head to his house in Ubate,  the countryside of Bogota. The drive was pretty, but as we continued to drive, my hangover continued to get worse. After stopping to get $10 bottles of Absolut vodka for the night's festivities, it took all I had not to spew right there in the back seat! We finally arrived and I made a beeline to the bathroom to expel last night’s fun! 

View Point at Ubate

After a great day, we were hungover party-poopers who fell asleep around midnight while the party raged on to the early hours of the morning. We felt refreshed the next day and started to tackle the neighborhoods of Bogota through our stomachs.

To say that we were getting tired of Colombian food, especially street food , at this point in our trip would be an understatement; so we decided to take advantage of the hundreds of eclectic and trendy dining hotspots that Bogota has to offer. Since we were staying at Federico’s we had about $20 / day extra to dedicate to food and drinks!

We were not afraid to do the Macarena, and ended up at the fabulous TAPAS Macarena for Spanish-style meat, cheese and wine one night. Another night we treated ourselves to Indian food at Flor. De Loto. While lacking in spice, the samosas and curries were good enough to satisfy our craving for some Asian flavors. Being that we met while working at Hard Rock Cafe Sydney, we always make it a point to visit the local HRC, but this time we splurged and got a delicious, huge Mac and Cheese burger. Our final night, we treated ourselves to desert and a drink at the spectacle the is Andres Carnes de Res. We went to the one in Zona Rosa, and it was definitely worth the visit! 

Clockwise From Top Left: Andres Carne de Res; Tapas Macarena; Hard Rock Cafe; Dessert at Andres  

In between all of our eating & drinking we busied ourselves with the cultural and artistic activities of Bogota. We spent a lovely afternoon strolling the streets of the old historic district, La Candelaria, taking in street art between El Museo do Oro and the Botero Museum. 

Clockwise From Top Left: Botero Museum; Garden at Botero Museum; Museo del Oro; Street Art at La Candelaria 

We spent another afternoon making our way to Tequendama Falls and seeing the old abandoned, haunted Tequendama Hotel. The Hotel is said to be haunted by the ghosts of the many guests who committed suicide during their stay there. Creepy!!! The mist from the falls adds to the eerie feeling. The falls are beautiful and definitely worth the trip, but it was really sad to see how the falls and river have been destroyed by pollution. At one point on the bus ride everyone (we were the only foreigners, so these were all locals) covered their mouths and noses because the smell is so bad! 

Haunted Tequendama Hotel and Tequendama Falls 

We took the cable car up to Monserrate on our last afternoon and stayed through sunset. The views are spectacular with the Bogota sprawl tucked into the mountains. At nightfall, the Colpatria (tallest building in Bogota) lights up and puts on a mini lightshow with its continuously changing colors. If you only do one thing in Bogota, a visit to Monserrate should be it! 

Views Of Bogota From Monserrate

While Bogota has a reputation of being a dangerous, former drug-war battlefield, we did not see this side. From the moment we arrived, we saw a hip bohemian city that shocked us with the kindness of its trendy residents. In fact, within our first 30 minutes, we saw a girl drop money while exiting the TransMileno (Bogota's bus version of a metro) and a young man run after her to give it back to her; we then felt the kindness firsthand as another young man allowed us to put credit on to his TransMileno card so that we wouldn’t have to purchase one for $3000 additional pesos ($1.35). Finally, on the night we went to TAPAS Macarena, a couple of policemen stopped us when we were crossing a bridge to get back to the TransMileno and warned us that it is kind of dangerous to walk at night in this area of the city, and then offered us to escort us back to the station to make sure we were safe.

There seems to be a fine line between a seedy, dangerous city and trendy, boho chic one; Bogota seems to have crossed over to the latter. So, move those hips to the music and feel the pulse of this metropolis through all it has to offer.

Note: We are by no means saying Bogota is a super safe, stroll about carefree and unaware of your surroundings kind of city. In fact, we heard several firsthand stories, including one from our friend, of robbery at knife-point in Bogota. We are simply saying that we did not have any situations in which we felt unsafe.