We got up a little after 06:00, which wasn’t that early considering how early we’d gone to bed the night before.  We got packed, and met Julio at 07:45.  Our first stop today was at Monserrate, the church on the large hill above downtown and La Candelaria.  Julio told us that the cathedral at the top was based off of, and almost a replica of, Montserrat in Barcelona.  We’d just visited Montserrat in September, when Justin’s parents visited us and we’d met in Barcelona first.  Julio told us that the spelling in Colombia (Monserrate instead of Montserrat) was because of a prohibition against Catalan that was in effect in the Spanish empire when the building in Colombia was constructed.

We got to the funicular spot at 08:00.  In addition there’s also a cable car to ascend the mountain, and if you’re feeling up for it, a zig-zag trail as well.  [Julio said it takes 45-60 minutes on average.]  Today, for some reason we had to take the cable car instead of the funicular.  We noticed the cable car was built in Switzerland, and we wonder what percentage of cable cars worldwide were built by the Swiss.  At the top we peered out over Bogotá, which was largely shrouded in clouds and fog, but it was getting incrementally more sunny by the minute.

We went inside the church and checked out the Black Madonna.  Seeing the one here was a much easier endeavor than in Barcelona.  The church also had a fallen Jesus statue portraying the crown of thorns, and a small offering room with thanks from people whose prayers had been answered.  Usually the prayers were for items related to health, job, or residency.  Julio mentioned something about the church being supposedly a curse for unmarried couples, so there’s a superstition that boyfriends and girlfriends go in separately.

Back outside it was a bit clearer, and Julio pointed out some landmarks in Bogotá, some of which (like Plaza Bolivar) we’d already noticed.  He pointed towards the north and mentioned that the northern areas are more prosperous, and that there’s an unofficial border at 63rd Street that marks the “right (wrong) of the tracks” so to speak.  Julio also pointed out the two restaurants on top of Monserrate, Casa San Isidro and Casa Santa Clara.  Both have sweeping views of the town below, and are quite popular.  The cable cars and/or funicular keep running until the restaurants close for the night.  Apparently the Santa Clara restaurant was physically moved decades ago, re-constructed piece by piece atop Monserrate.

Julio gave us some history of Bogotá and Colombia.  Originally the area that is now Colombia and Panama was called Nueva Granada, because of its resemblance to Granada in Spain.  Nueva Granada was one of four kingdoms in New Spain.  When the new world decided to get independence from Spain, Simon Bolivar helped in 2 of the 4, Nueva Granada and the highlands.  He collaborated with the folks who led the rebellions in the other 2 kingdoms, but was personally involved in the other 2.  The Brits helped the locals against the Spanish during the wars, and after the war, the Brits received free trade for their assistance.  This led to a re-thinking of the major port cities, because Cartagena had been the biggest port city because it was the easiest to defend.  But with the Brits now allies instead of enemies, Barranquilla took precedence because it was at the mouth of the Magdalena River, the longest in Colombia.

Before we headed back down from Monserrate, we checked out an area with a bunch of labeled plants.  We were around 2800 meters (9000 feet), so even though we were close to the equator, the plants were much more temperate than tropical.  A lot of the plants looked like things you’d see at the Strybing Botanic Garden in San Francisco.  We took the cable car back down and started walking into and through downtown.  On the way we passed a former home of Simón Bolivar that was now a museum.  We walked through a private university that Julio mentioned was $8000 a semester, so basically on par with USA colleges.  

We passed by a street with a ton of street art, and we asked Julio how (if at all) the art is “arranged” such that people aren’t painting where it is undesired, and/or over other street art.  Apparently most of it is largely pre-arranged now, either by the government or by property owners who want something unique and eye-catching at their place of business.  It used to be frowned upon, and there were lots of beatings, shootings, etc.  The cops actually killed a teenager many years ago.  But then in 2013 Justin Bieber spray-painted a wall in Bogotá with a literal police escort as he went around, infuriating the street artists.  So they went out en masse the next day, hundreds of them, all but daring the cops to be hypocrites.  Ever since street art has been endorsed and embraced by the city.

We saw a statue of a female martyr Policarpa Salavarrieta, or La Pola for short.  Most rallies or protests involving feminism now start at the base of her statue.  We walked along a windy street, one whose path mimics the river (now underground) that used to travel through the city.  On that street there were lots of Ceroxylons, perhaps alpinum.  Julio mentioned that the “river” is the border between the neighborhoods of La Candelaria and Santa Fe.

We got to Tejo Ancestral right at 10:00 for our reservation.  Stephanie and her team had helped us book this about a week prior, as just before we left Tenerife we re-watched the Anthony Bourdain episode on Colombia and we remembered we wanted to try Tejo on our trip.  So it got squeezed into our La Candelaria tour this morning.  Julio explained rules to us as we recorded, then threw a bullseye as if on cue.  We played us versus him, and we stayed close (not sure if he was using his off-hand to humor us), but he threw a bullseye to close us out.  

After that game the two of us played some more.  Crystal hit the ring multiple times, and even hit the gunpowder paper, but never set it off.  Justin had one bullseye and a couple gunpowder hits.  During our hour there we had three rounds of drinks, and determined that was about the appropriate amount of alcohol for peak performance.  We enjoyed our time there and started thinking about the logistics of putting one at our place in Tenerife.  

It was just a short walk from there to the Gold Museum, our final stop of the morning.  Many of the pieces at the museum are incredibly intricate, and Julio explained how they were constructed.  Beeswax was used to make a model for what would later be gold.  The wax was formed into very intricate shapes, then wrapped in clay that was left to dry.  The wax was then melted, leaving behind a mold that could be filled with liquid gold.  After it dried, the clay mold was broken, leaving behind the gold. 

It turns out “Gold” was a bit of a misnomer, as the vast majority of pieces were from tumbaga, a mixture of copper and gold.  The copper was stronger, but the gold was shinier.  But after an acid bath on tumbaga, the gold ions go towards the surface.  One of the reasons that there were so many gold masks for leaders was because with a mask, the leaders never showed their age, and it was a bit easier to pull off the facade that the leaders were higher beings than commoners.  We wandered around for a little over an hour, then grabbed a coffee (well, Crystal did) before getting back in the car and heading to the airport.  

We were back in the same terminal for the third time this week.  Today we were in the G gates instead of the H gates, but all the restaurants were by the H gates, so we went to Zyrope again, this time with some food from Katios.  We kept our eye on our flight on the monitor, and left maybe 15 minutes before boarding was due to start.  But just as we passed through security, we saw our flight was delayed by 2 hours, and now we were in an area with basically nothing to eat or drink.  When we sat down, we got an email stating that our SMR-BOG flight for next week had changed.  While we were having a good time here, the constant changing of flights was ridiculous and infuriating.

We managed to convince one of the security folks to let us out of the security area, and she said that was fine, but to come see her when we came back rather than go through the security line.  [This seems like a major security issue, but thankfully we had nothing nefarious in mind.]  We just went back to Zyrope, which killed another 60 minutes.  We talked about where to travel in 2025, and discussed Turkey, Benelux, Iceland, the Southwest USA (already confirmed), Slovenia, and Uruguay and northwest Argentina.  We’ll see what comes to fruition.

Our flight didn’t depart until just after 18:00, so we wasted the entire afternoon at the airport - for that amount of time we probably could’ve just driven (about 6-7 hours).  The flight was fine once we boarded.  The flight was supposedly delayed because of weather, but it never rained in Bogotá, and when we landed we didn’t see any evidence of rain in Neiva either.  After landing we met Lucy and Hernando, who would be with us tomorrow as well.  In the car, Lucy mentioned something about spending only 1 hour in Tatacoa tomorrow, which was wrong and also objectively nuts.  So we reiterated the three things we wanted to see.  She messaged someone, and we heard nothing more, so we hoped everything was going to be fine.  

At our hotel (Yararaka Boutique), we just went straight into the room and called it a night.  There was no roof on the respective rooms, so it was like our downstairs in Pahoa.  Some people were still awake, but it wasn’t really any louder than the first night we had at the hotel we’d left this morning.