Robert's Travel Blog

 1.  My hotel is in the city center, which is more upscale than the off-of-center I was staying in in Bogotá.  Think taller (but not too tall) buildings and wide avenues, etc.  BA is often described as having more of a European feel than most Latin American cities, and based on just a day I'd concur.  The obelisk, the "center" of BA: 2. The Hotel Avenida is very old-fashioned, so old-fashioned that it has the kind of elevator that requires you to close not only the interior but exterior doors before anything happens, and comes to a jolt when it gets to the requested floor.  And lets you curse the clueless who didn't shut the doors when the elevator doesn't come. It's the first time I've stayed in a hotel with one of these.  My feet have never been cleaner! 3. It was easy getting around in Bogotá, numbered Calles ran west to east and numbered Carreras ran north to south.  A typical address "Calle 18 #5 56" so that was on Calle 18 and nearest cross...

 Fresh-squeezed sugar cane, COP5000 ($1.25).  I didn't try the "Wafles 17 cm of Pleasure."

 "Home" costs are about $100 for phone/streaming subscriptions, plus $100 per month for travel insurance. I've stayed in three hotels, $20/$25/$38 a night, most of that time in the $25 a night one, which combines location and price. Food I mention below, let's say $8 a day for fun. My only other expenses are ciggies ($3.50 a pack here!!!!) at $2 a day, books at $2 a day, and toiletries plus haircut plus clothes at $2 a day. Of course, that assumes I don't do anything touristy/interesting, but if my math is right, that's less than $1400 a month. So the answer is yes! P.S.  But I'm getting the "enough time here, time to move on" itch again.

 is boring.  Breakfast is pretty much as you would expect, sometimes with rice or tamales, always with (exotic to me) fruits.  Lunch and dinner are pretty much the same - maybe soup, a hunk of meat, rice, (sometimes) avocado, beans, maybe salad.  The only real variety is that what type of meat you choose.  Even the Colombian specialties, bandeja paisa and ajiaco, are basically variations of the same . . . BUT there are some highlights, namely the street food.  Best of all are empanadas, which probably need no introduction, filled with beef or chicken (/+ cheese or mushrooms). The hotel I'm staying in includes a filling breakfast, the only problem being that I don't generally eat breakfast, since it makes me feel bloated and sluggish.  But, I usually do, then have a pick-me-up (coffee plus a pastry) in the afternoon, and a couple of empanadas or similar for dinner.  Sometimes I skip breakfast and have a traditional lunch/dinner (see above). There a...

Not much to say aboout the Botanical Garden -- mostly it's just planted pathways with benches.  There are collections of e.g. orchids, but not many, so it's better to think of it as a large park rather than a botanical garden.  Still, I spent a couple of pleasant hours wandering around and thinking.

 Sunday is Market Day, and the streets off the main drag are filled with junk -- carefully laid out.  Really, it looks like a gigantic yard sale in a poor neighborhood.  The whole thing is a little sad, people who would be glad to make a few thousand pesos/a few bucks.  By 6 p.m. it's all over.  Most of the stuff is packed up and sold away, but sometimes the vendors just leave their unsold stuff behind.  By Monday morning the streets are clean again.

As you can guess, this is Colombia's National Museum, built in a re-purposed prison. The layout is a bit . . . random, by which I mean pick out a general topic ("Colonialization," "Water," etc.) then group together a number of fairly specific exhibits related to that topic.  In other words, it's a bit of a jumble.  But an entertaining jumble nonetheless. This is by Fernando Botero, Colombia's most famous artist, although he's better known for his "fat people" paintings and sculptures: Every str8 man's dream?