Orientation
Bogota is relatively long and thin, stretched out along one arm or cordillera of the Andes, as the Andres splits in three on reaching Colombia from the south. The mountain runs to the east of the city and forms the backdrop to most areas of the city, topped by the iconic Monserrate church. The altitude takes your breath away – its over 2,700 meters above sea level, rising to over 3,200m at Monserrate. Today Bogota has a population of around 11m, or around 20% of all Colombians. Its known as Colombia´s fridge; because it is usually quite cold and wet, and because people say it feeds anyone who comes to live there. We felt the cold & wet description a bit unfair; when we were there most days were cold in the mornings and evenings but got up to the mid-20s in the afternoons. It did lash it down with rain most days but not for long.
Foundations
People say the city was founded in 1538, centered on the Chorro de Quevedo plaza, where we sat and had beers and watched buskers in the afternoon sunshine. There are two other plazas of note in the city, named after the two men who led the independence movement. Santander Plaza by the Museo de Oro and Bolivar Plaza, which is surrounded by the Cathedral, Courts of Justice and Parliament buildings. Apparently all cities in Colombia have a Bolivar plaza, marking the country´s independence from Spain in 1810 as one of, if not the, most significant moment in the country´s history.
I didn´t know this before, but following successful independence movements across the continent, the country of Gran Colombia was created in 1819, encompassing modern-day Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, parts of northern Peru, NW Brazil and part of Guyana.
Gran Colombia didn´t last long – the terrain was so difficult to navigate it was quicker to travel to London from northern Colombia than the capital. Federalists won the argument over centralists, and the countries split, with the exception of Panama which remained part of Colombia for much longer – until 1903 in fact, when the US bought it so they would be able to control the planned canal.
Politics
Throughout its history, Colombia has always had a right-wing government, right up until 3 months ago. In 1964, both the FARC and the ELM were created, as peasant movements fighting for social justice and the rights of the poor. They both had communist beliefs, one Colombian likening their differences to the differences between Marx and Lenin. Both operated in the countryside and left cities pretty much untouched. In the early 70s, the M-19 was founded. They were not communist; they were fighting for better democracy, and operated exclusively in the cities. They were involved in the siege at the Courts of Justice in central Bogota. In 1989 they demobilized, forming a political party.
Drugs & Guns
From the late 60s, cocaine started to become more popular in the US, and its production and processing in Colombia rose sharply. Colombia was known as the world-leader of cocaine for many years. This brought a huge amount of violent crime – cartels were formed, and the FARC and ELM got in on the act. The Medellin cartel, led by Pablo Escobar was the most notorious, responsible for the kidnapping and murder of hundreds of people. The Cartels started to fight the FARC, the ELM and other guerrilla groups for domination of the drugs trade, and then lobbied the government for the creation of paramilitaries to assist them in suppressing the guerrilla groups. The US started to fund the “War on Drugs” from the early 1970s onwards, paying for the creation of paramilitary groups to fight both the cartels and guerrillas. The paramilitaries significantly added to the violence, some of them getting involved in the drug trade themselves. Bogota became known as the most dangerous city in the world with an average of 2 bombings or 164 deaths per day during the worst periods.
Today
Luckily things are very different today. The government agreed a historic peace deal with the FARC in 2017 and enacted policies to enable farmers to switch to producing legal crops. Prior to this a number of other paramilitary groups had been demobilized. The country is now far safer than it has been for a long time.
Despite the violence, Colombian society continued to develop over the last 50 years in terms of health and education. Of course, there are still problems. Education is private and very expensive. 60% of Colombians live on less than $2 a day. There are few public services and society is still highly unequal, with stratifications largely still based on racial prejudices introduced by the Spanish.
But there are some great positives; public transport is fantastic, there are cycle lanes and a public cycle hire scheme, and roads are closed to traffic on Sunday mornings. I love that many of the traffic lights depict women instead of men on the pedestrian crossing signal. Police presence on the streets is strong (which is necessary as the level of petty theft is very high – we´ve had to be very careful of our mobile phones). And there is a strong sense of community.
Recently, the government painted the roofs of houses in a poor neighbourhood in the south of the city which made a huge difference to people´s sense of pride in the in environment and in turn the level of crime in the area.
Overall, Bogota feels like a city emerging from a dark and dangerous time; the scars are still very evident but people are hopeful for the future, proud of their culture, sense of community and their potential. We loved out time there and would thoroughly recommend it to fellow travelers.
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