Despite massive improvements and a tourist boom, Colombia is struggling to shake off its international image as one of the most dangerous countries in the world – fueled by years of civil war and violent drug cartels. While the other cities we visited are starting to have thriving tourism, Bogotá still has a bad reputation and attracts serious warnings about taking care of personal safety and belongings.
Despite the warnings, we decided to spend four nights in Bogotá, firstly because we needed to be there to fly to Chile but also because we generally find the internet makes everything seem worse than it is.
We arrived on Christmas Eve so decided to buy ourselves a present and have a break from hostels and stay the first two nights at a nice hotel (Hotel Cabrera Imperial) in the ritzy Zona Rosa department. This very touristy part of the city is not real Bogotá. It is packed with expensive restaurants and shopping centres (with all the backpacker essentials like Luis Vuitton, Cartier and Prada). The real definition of gringolandia! This certainly wouldn’t be where we would recommend for independent travellers. However, two nights in a big hotel suite with access to the rooftop hotel gym to trim down (before fattening back up at Christmas lunch), a king sized comfortable bed and most importantly a clean, private bathroom with a powerful hot shower was a real backpackers fantasy come true!
We splurged again and had Christmas lunch at the W Bogota Hotel where we enjoyed a great buffet roast turkey (pavo), beef and pork; a good selection of local food and most importantly unlimited bloody marys and mimosas. After about 8 plates of food and the same number of cocktails we dragged our fat bodies back to Zona Rosa and binge watched old Christmas movies in bed!
Returning to the backpacker route we moved to Botanico Hostel in the historical centre of town – La Candelaria. This is a far more Colombian area with almost every available wall covered in street art, colourful buildings and a diverse range of people although still packed with gringo friendly cafes due to the huge number of hostels.
Things To Do in Bogotá
After two very lazy days we dropped our bags off and headed straight to the Gold Museum (Museo de Ora). I couldn’t believe how popular this place was – every tourist in the city must have been there – and whilst it should have been interesting (it is packed with golden artefacts many dating back thousands of years) I just struggled to get into it, possibly because it was so crowded. It felt more like ticking off an item from someone else’s itinerary rathan than something I actually craved to see.
We should have instead gone to the Bottero Museum which is meant to be great but we decided we’d seen plenty of his (really cool!) art in Medellin. Or the Museo Histórico de la Policía which was recommended to us and where you can learn a lot about Colombian’s turbulent past and was definitely on our list but somehow we missed it.
To burn off a few bites of the Christmas lunch we hiked up to the Monserrate which has stunning views of the city and is really worthwhile. You can (and most people do) take a funnicular up but we opted to do the one hour steep walk up. At about 3,000m altitude (and having lost our acclimitisation) this was a sweaty and puffy walk. The views made it well worthwhile though! The walk up closes at 1pm so you need to get there fairly early. It’s pretty busy up top but offers great views of Bogotà to give a sense of how big the city is!
People warn about security on this walk but (while being aware of our possessions and not carrying any unnecessary candy) we had no issues and the entire way was very busy and often had police and little shops. The most dangerous thing would have been stepping on one of the many sleeping dogs.
Nearly everyone we’d met recommended the free Bogotá Graffiti Tour which started from a park (in English, Journalist Park) in La Candelaria. Although the tour group was massive we loved the tour and the explanations of the meaning of the art and background of the artists.
While on the tour we saw plenty of artists working on their latest masterpieces.
Eating and Drinking in Bogotá
Although we had a great Christmas brunch at the W Hotel, I certainly wouldn’t have that on the standard backpacker budget. We can definitely recommend the following in La Candelaria:
Amazing value vegetarian food at Nativo Arte y Comida. With huge mains costing less than $4 this is very backpacker friendly. We tried a couple of different vegetarian pastas – both were good.
A more upscale but still somewhat affordable option at the bistro style restaurant – Capital Cucina y Cafe. This small restaurant fills up quickly so best to get there before 7pm. We were definitely not vegetarians that night and had very tasty steak and chicken, washed down with a really good (but fairly expensive) house red!
Good coffee and a relaxed vibe at Cafe Union. They also had really good WIFI that helped us get a few photos uploaded for the blog!
Safety in Bogotá
I have to admit, we did find Bogotá to be one of the cities we were most aware of our surroundings in the last year. There are many people sleeping rough on the streets and as the sun went down each night we could see there were far less tourists about. The advice locally, especially in La Candelaria, is to avoid walking alone at night and we opted to follow this and eat at places close to the hostal. As in any big city – it’s good to be aware of your surroundings and don’t flash around cash unless you are inviting people to take it!
If you are looking for more information, you can read more travel blogs about Bogota on wordoftravel.com
Next up: we sadly say goodbye to one of our favourite countries so far and head to Santiago, Chile (with a one night layover in Lima on route) where we will spend New Year’s Eve.
