What a day in Bogota! This is a city of 9 million people, with many different districts and a lovely historic center called Candelaria (where we will plan to stay when we bring a small group here). Bogota is over 8000 feet high and surrounded by mountains, so has a very pleasant climate. The weather moved from clouds to sprinkles to sun and now thunderstorms today, keeping the air clean and the mountains clear.
More on Candelaria and its charms in a minute, but first a few of the interesting events of the day. The U.S. and Colombia have been negotiating a free trade agreement for over a decade and Presidents Obama and Santos just signed the document. Apparently, President Santos didn't check with the campesinos (farmers) of Colombia because they are livid over the agricultural provisions.
As a result, they've blockaded the roads leading out of the Bogota, with the goal of shutting off the city's food supply. In the process, they've also created a monumental traffic jam throughout the city. Our drive from our hotel in the north of Bogota to Candelaria took about 30 minutes this morning. Our return--same route--took 2 1/2 hours, thanks to streets shut down by striking students at a couple of the universities and some campesinos on the sidewalks, blocked from the street by a row of policemen in riot gear (all quite peacefully regarding one another).
President Santos, who reportedly refused to recognize the farmers' protests yesterday, is now working to resolve their demands and get them to go home to their crops. The newspapers have photos of thousands of people filling the roadways going to the villages outside Bogota. Next the teachers went on strike. Now the students are joining in. Here is a man with a big problem to solve!
Along the way, we watched (since we were stopped in traffic anyway) an unfortunate cabbie trying to lift his front tire out of a deep hole left when someone stole the manhole cover in order to sell it for food. Soon a group of men gathered to give him advice and, a few, to try to help lift the front end high enough to regain the street.
Back to charming Candelaria, home to the Parliament, Presidential Palace, City Hall, Cathedral and some wonderful museums. Our first visit was to the Gold Museum, which shows the history of gold working in Colombia from about the 7th century until the Spanish Conquistadors grabbed all they could and enslaved the indigenous people. The Museum has beautifully-displayed exhibits of the multitude of fine gold objects made by the different tribes of this region. These photos on this page are just a few of the more than 60 I took at the Museum.
We wandered through the central plaza, filled with pigeons stealing the corn sold by the street merchants to tourists--to feed the pigeons. Just off the plaza is a beautiful church reminiscent of the Siena Cathedral in Italy. It has Moorish architecture on one side and beautiful stained glass windows of flowers rather than the usual saints. Just lovely.
Tomorrow we will visit several museums and a mountaintop church called Monserrat. Since we cannot get to our next destination, Villa de Leyva, because of the campesinos roadblocks, we will stay an extra day here and and extra day in Medellin before heading to Santa Fe de Antioquia, a colonial village outside Medellin. The area around Medellin is a major flower-growing area, so we will get a chance to see this important crop and learn about its production and export.
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