Bienvenidos a Bogota!

We've been in Colombia since Friday, but I haven't had a chance to post before now. Here are a few highlights from our first few days in Bogota!

Starting the trip off right, we visited the Bogota Beer Company, the "cerveceria pequena mas grande de Bogota" - the biggest little brewery in Bogota. The beer was pretty good, and ending our travel day with delicious bar food was a nice transition for our trip.


After a blissfully restful night, we set out to explore part of the city. We rode the Transmilenio, Bogota's bus system masquerading as a metro, and did quite a lot of walking. We walked around the Candelaria, Bogota's historic city center.


We saw the Justice Palace, Congress Building, City Hall, and the Cathedral (pictured above). We also saw the Casa de Narino, the presidential palace, and it's fancy guards. Below is a photo demonstrating the awesomeness of my zoom lens, because we weren't allowed to get very close.


We were pleased to see lots of cyclists around (Colombia is known for amazing cycling performances on the mountain stages of road races), including the one below who stood out wearing the brighter versions of the colors on the houses:

The first museum of the day was the Botero Museum, brimming with his signature voluminous figures in paintings and bronze sculptures. I'd like to point out that Colombia's most famous artist was way ahead of his time in terms of his love of little birds:

After the Botero Museum and some lunch (hard won, I might add, as it was the Saturday before Easter and lot of things were closed), we headed to the Gold Museum. We had a great guide take us through one of the exhibits and tell us about the symbolism and cosmology of the early inhabitants of Colombia, as shown in the beautiful items in the museum. In addition to all kinds of body ornaments and containers, there were some beautiful spindles in the museum:

There are more pictures from Bogota to come, as well as updates about Medellin and Guatape (today's day trip)...