Bogota, heart of Colombian culture

Part II

JAN WESTMAAS

A day after we arrived in Bogota, two English-speaking guides, Rafael and Natalia, turned up promptly at 9 am at Hotel Dann on Avenida 19 to escort us on a walking tour of Candelaria.

With a group of this size and with limited acquaintance with Bogota’s vibrant city centre, in no way was I going to undertake this without the aid of local guides.

However, having been on previous occasions to Plaza Bolivar, the Gold Museum (Museo de Oro), the Botero Museum and the Church Museum of Santa Clara with its 17th- and 18th-century baroque interior, I knew enough to inform our guides that a visit to these places was an absolute necessity. With 15 Trinis per guide, we set off, brimming with excitement, on our walking tour.

The one trepidation I had was how the more elderly members of our group would fare walking on Bogota’s pavements, which recently had become notorious for the uneven paving stones that pop up on them every now and then. It had become so bad that a vigilante group known as the minesweepers, led by a 35-year activist, Francisco de Nicolas, resorted, in broad daylight to spray-painting, in bright pink with a black cross, any loose paving slabs they came upon. Apparently, Nicolas’ 90-year-old grandmother had tripped over one and had broken her nose.

Luckily, no member of our group met a similar fate.

Both groups eventually rejoined at the Museo de Oro. The city’s most visited museum is also easily accessible to anyone using the
transmilenio (Bogota’s mass-transit articulated bus system). You simply get out at the station marked
Museo de Oro.

To everyone’s surprise, there was no entrance fee for pensioners or over-60s of any nationality. In fact, on Sunday absolutely no one pays to enter this gorgeous place. The vast majority of our group, 23 retirees, paid no entrance fee and the seven “youngsters” paid a mere 4,000 Colombian pesos each (about US$1).

“The visit was worth every peso,, said one traveller as she was making her exit.

“Every peso, indeed,” I thought to myself.

On the first floor of a building that was formerly a prison are the entrance and a shop-cum-restaurant. On the second and third floors are housed innumerable items made of gold by Colombia’s diverse indigenous or pre-Hispanic peoples – the Muisca, Quimbaya, Zenu, Tierraadentro, San Agustin, etc. Thousands are on display for public viewing every day of the week, except Monday and
Viernes Santo (Good Friday).

You can spend a lifetime in there, if you get too engrossed in what you are seeing. The curator deserves full marks for the logical way the collection is laid out and labelled in English and Spanish.

On the second floor is the Working of Metals Gallery. The exhibits are displayed according to their place of origin. This is accompanied by concise descriptions of how they were made (the manufacturing process) and what they were used for. Among the exhibits in gold are many dual forms from nature, like frog/jaguars and human/eagles. In this gender-conscious age, visitors will be pleased to see the exhibits showing the important role women of the Zenu group played in religious worship.

The third floor, the offering room, had me intrigued. The exhibits revealed how the shaman used gold in religious ceremonies and rituals. I was particularly drawn to one which showed gold figurines being thrown as offerings into Lake Guatavita.

The lake was sacred to the Muisca people and is to the northeast of Bogota. One theory is that by throwing their golden figurines into the lake, the Muiscas were paying homage to the earth which had provided them with much bounty. The mere thought of a lake filled with gold inspired Spanish conquistadors’ frenzied search for this priceless metal and, consequently, the mythical El Dorado (Golden Man).

Our visit to the Botero Museum nearby was just as captivating, even for a person with the slightest interest or knowledge of art. Thanks to Fernando Botero’s generosity, entrance is free. You cannot fail to be drawn to the unique work of this world-famous Colombian artist/sculptor, whose signature pieces are well-rounded, whether they be animals, people – still-life portraits, market vendors, dancers, drug lords, dictators or even his interpretation of the Mona Lisa. As you probably guess, given the limited time we had, it simply was not possible to see and enjoy everything.

Art is everywhere in Bogota. It’s is not confined within the four walls of a church or museum. It’s on the city’s graffiti-stamped walls, it’s visible in the delightful floral decorations peddled on the streets and in the varied ways vendors display their fruit for sale in the markets at the street corners. Art resides permanently in the public space and you expect at any moment to see it manifested in one way or the other.

Not too far away is Plaza Bolivar, with the statue of the Venezuelan liberator, Simon Bolivar, in the middle. The visionary who failed to realise his dream of a
Gran Colombia is in the right place. Unfortunately, he’s not in the best condition, unlike the presidential palace, the cathedral and the
Capitolio which dominate the square.

As we are leaving, the inevitable pigeons scatter frantically as if to hasten us out of the square. It’s getting close to 1 pm and we’re heading to the
Puerta del Catedral restaurant, where I’m honouring a promise I made to the group of a complimentary typical Colombian meal. Unfortunately,
La Puerta Falsa, the oldest restaurant in the city (1816) was too small for our large group. For non-vegetarians (the majority) , I offered
ajiaco, a creamy soup comprising three types of potatoes, chicken, and bits of corn on the cob topped with
guasca (a local herb). For the few vegetarians (my wife among them), I offered a specially adapted
bandeja paisa. Minus beef and pork crackling., their dish comprised rice, red beans,
arepas a la plancha (grilled on a metal plate), avocado and strips of fried plaintain.

At 9 am the following day we’re packed and ready to leave Bogota. We’ll be travelling southwards and will be leaving the department of Cundimarca and entering the department of Huila, where we overnight in Neiva, its capital. It’s a journey of at least 300 kilometres. With stops on the way, including a mandatory lunch stop somewhere en route, we hope to be there well before nightfall.

Paul, our driver, greets us, makes the sign of the cross and advises that the bus has an in-house toilet that should be only used as a urinal in the event of an emergency. His remark draws a chuckle from some.

By 4 pm we arrived at Neiva, in a valley of the Magdalena River, at 442 metres above sea level. We had descended some 2,200 metres since leaving Bogota.

It was a different Neiva from the lacklustre, shabby one my wife and I had visited 49 years ago. Before checking in to the ultra-modern GHL Hotel, we went to the
Malecon (waterfront) to view two monuments – the Monument to the Cacica Gaitana and the Mohan Tower (
La Torre de Mohan).

Both are massive. The former, the
Cacica, stands out brilliantly in the middle of a public plaza. It was built in 1974 by renowned Colombian sculptor Rodrigo Betancourt to honour Gaitana. She was a
cacica (female leader) of the Yalcon people from the Upper Magdalena River Valley who killed the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Anasco in the 16th century. Betancourt’s sculpture tells the story in great detail. It graphically depicts conquistadors and natives in pitched battle. You can see clearly a native wearing an eagle mask shooting arrows at two horses and a knight.

An even more gruesome experience is the sight of Anasco at the centre of the monument with a cross, shield and empty eye sockets, being dragged by Gaitana with a rope!

The Mohan Tower, while very imposing and impressive at first glance, on closer examination, I found to be in a state of utter neglect. Inaugurated in 2002, it’s the work of master sculptor Emiro Garzon. It is conceptually sound as it incorporates aspects of pre-Colombian culture to create the magical, mysterious, scary figure of Mohan, who inhabits the river and protects it from pollution and decay.

In addition, at 20 metres high with a staircase inside, it was meant to serve as a lookout for residents and tourists to view the city and its river. Unfortunately, because of poor maintenance, the vision of its creators only briefly came to fruition.

Still, Mohan had me mesmerised. I think about him up to today.

With our thirst for art and culture partly quenched, we continued to the posh GHL Hotel, where we were checked in by cheerful and welcoming receptionists.

Once settled, most of the group hastened to the mall nearby to shop and/or to have dinner. The few residents I chanced to engage with, I found rather charming and forthcoming. I had read somewhere to expect this from the
opitas, the term used affectionately to refer to the people from the department of Huila.

With another four-five-hour journey the following day to the archaeological ruins of San Agustin (declared a World Heritage site by Unesco in 1995), deep in the countryside, most of us turned in to bed early.