La Candelaria, Bogotá

Bogotá has quite a reputation as an uninteresting city. However, I was pleasantly surprised by my visit there. To be fair, I stayed in La Candeleria area nearly the entire time, which I realize is not representative of the city as a whole, but I enjoyed this area.

La Candelaria is the historic center. Many of the buildings were originally built by Spanish colonizers, lending this part of the city an oddly European feel. However, the churches and mansions here are beautiful to look at. The giant Bolivar square is at the center of La Candelaria and is filled with people in the evenings.

I ended up taking one of the free walking tours of the city, which was a great way to get a lot of the history of the place and see the major sights. The tour included the Botero museum. Fernando Botero is one of the most famous artists from Colombia and his work has a very distinct style.

The Museo del Oro is also worth a visit. It contains gold, copper, and silver artifacts dating back to some of the earliest indigenous tribes in the area. The museum walks you through the history of metalworking and how the artifacts were used by the indigenous people.

There are also gorgeous murals on the walls and alleys of La Candelaria. The artists here have turned graffiti into a beautiful addition to the city. It was fun just to walk down the streets and see it all. Being a large city, the variety of food here is more diverse. It was the only place in Colombia I managed to find tofu (I know, cliché that the vegetarian misses tofu, but I do!). Really though, there are restaurants catering to every cuisine and street vendors selling all the Colombian classics, from arepas to obleas to shredded mango. I particularly liked the obleas with arequipe (arequipe is Colombian caramel and is spread between two wafer-like cookies called obleas – yum!). I also had to try chicha while I was there – a fermented drink made from sugar cane. It is a traditional drink in Colombia, but when beer started to become popular there, the beer companies tried to slander chicha by printing posters and propaganda telling people it was bad for them and to drink beer instead. Now chicha can be found again in many of the bars in La Candelaria. It is not quite what I expected – it has kind of a tangy, fruity flavor and is very grainy, but I enjoyed trying it.

I didn’t make it up to the iconic Monteserrat since I was in Bogotá on a Tuesday and the hiking trail is closed on Tuesdays, but I still feel like I got a nice taste of this area of the city. If you’re passing through Bogotá, it’s worth spending a day walking through La Candelaria and experiencing the intriguing sights the city has to offer.