La Candelaria (Downtown)

Today was spent walking the downtown area of Bogota, an area known as La Candelaria. During the day this area is bustling with people because it houses universities, all of the major government buildings, as well as a multitude of residences, museums, restaurants and miscellaneous shops.



A few photos from when we arrived

The central area downtown called La Plaza de Bolivar houses all of the major government buildings. In fact, the President actually lives in a "palace" (similar to our White House) located behind the building in the photo below. We were not allowed to take pictures of his house, however, for security reasons. Naturally, this area is packed with security.

El Senado

La Alcaldia: where the mayor lives

El palacio de lievano

La casa del florero: where the Colombian revolution started

La catedral primada

The streets of La Candelaria are long and skinny, and the buildings are old, Spanish-style, multi-level constructions. Towards the back of the photo below, you can see what the residences in this area look like. Milton was telling us that the people who own houses in this area never sell them, because the location is so choice and once the insides of the houses are renovated, they are fantastic places to live. Note also the beautiful green mountains in the background; from almost anywhere in Bogota you can see these mountains, and depending on their appearance the locals predict the weather for the day.

A photo of Julian with a couple of the guards in the area

La iglesia del colegio leon trece

Although we don't have a picture of it (because it looks like any other building), it is worth mentioning that we checked out one of the most famous libraries in Latin America: La biblioteca de Luis Angel Arango. It holds an impressive collection of books, and for this reason is extremely important not only in Colombia but also world-wide.

While in the downtown area, we also stopped into the Museo de Botero. This museum holds both the private art collection of Botero (including works by Picasso, Monet, and other remarkable artists) as well as an extensive collection of works by Botero himself. Botero is perhaps the most famous Colombian artist, most well known for his gordos, or "fat people."

Views from inside the museum

After leaving La Candelaria, we took a twilight drive through one of the best universities in Colombia: La Universidad Nacional. Because this university is basically free for its students, those who wish to attend must pass a very rigorous exam in order to enter. For this reason, many of the alumni are very intelligent and are quite well known for what they have gone on to do after graduating La Nacional. The university itself is absolutely massive. In fact, the university provides bicycles to its students for use on the campus grounds because walking from one side of the campus to the other would take forever (literally...we estimated that the campus probably covers at least 10 square miles). As with many universities, this is also a center for extremist movements and at time is home to riots and uprisings. Milton tells us that this is not so common anymore, but before Julian left Colombia for the states he remembers a number of clashes between extremist students and the police. You can still see lots of socialist graffiti on the walls of some of the buildings. The pictures aren't the best, but you can tell that there are lots of green lawns, trees, and buildings. I would love to go back during the day and take a bike to ride around the grounds, but I don't know if we will have time!

After we got home, Julian cooked us a fantastic meal of filet mignon with a rich (but not creamy) mushroom sauce... now it is time to relax and starting thinking about sleep so that tomorrow can be another productive, fun day!

Hasta manana!