We spent much of this day visiting a number of popular tourist sites with Graciela and Piqui. After breakfast (scrambled eggs with sausage and choclo), we caught a taxi into downtown Bogotá.
Our first stop was the Casa del Florero (House of the Flower Vase), or Museo del Veinte de Julio (Museum of the 20th of July):
As I mentioned earlier, July 20th is Colombian Independence Day. In the 19th Century, Colombia was under Spanish rule. As with the American Revolution, there was tension between the Spanish ruling class and the local population, particularly the criollos (cree-oy-yos), people of Spanish descent who were born in Colombia. On July 20, 1810, the locals began a rebellion which led to Colombian independence (w) .
The full story, like most historical events, is complex, but apparently the spark that lit the fire was a seemingly trivial incident involving a vase. On July 20, a criollo named Luis Rubio went the home of one Don José González Llorente, a Spaniard, to ask for the loan of a flower vase for a dinner in honor of the Royal Commissioner Antonio Villavicencio. Llorente refused, a fight broke out, the vase was broken, and that started things going. It's generally considered that the whole thing was a setup - the criollos knew in advance that Llorente wouldn't lend the vase.
The museum included this depiction of the fight:
And here's the infamous vase itself:
We then walked through Plaza Bolívar:
...which included, of course, a statue of Simón Bolívar (w) :
Poor guy... covered with pigeons. I've always associated Sr. Bolívar with Bolivia - it's named for him, after all - but apparently, he was instrumental in gaining independence from Spain for Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
Some of the buildings surrounding the Plaza include the Catedral Primada:
...and the Hall of Justice:
...where we saw this interesting piece of grafitti:
...which translates, roughly, as "Long live the alliance of workers and peasants."
As we walked through the plaza, we were approached by some schoolgirls, who wanted to interview us for a school project. Terry wasn't feeling well, so we begged off, but we felt bad about it - it would have been interesting.
Our next stop was another museum, Museo Iglesia Santa Clara:
This is a former cathedral which has been turned into a museum. Here are some pictures:
The altar
The pulpit
A confessional
In that picture, the confessional looks well lit, but that's because of the flash from my camera. It was actually small and dark, and I found it down a dark, narrow and somewhat spooky corridor.
We then went for lunch to Mi Viejo, a restaurant recommended in the guidebook. This was the only other place where we had any trouble about the dog - they wanted us to sit outide on the patio, instead of inside the restaurant. Since it was a nice day, and there were other customers on the patio, we decided not to fight it. Here's a picture of the patio - the building appears to have once been a house:
After lunch, we walked down a busy street:
...passing various street vendors along the way. One vendor was selling a "pomada," a kind of ointment purporting to be useful for sore muscles. What made it interesting was that it contained extracts of marijuana and cocaine! It was a nasty green color. We bought a small jar, and Terry used it. She said it actually worked. We didn't try to bring it home with us, though.
We then came to the Museo del Oro, or Museum of Gold (w) :
Terry and Graciela elected to wait in the park outside the museum, while Piqui and I went in. The museum is filled with (mostly) gold artifacts from pre-Hispanic Colombian civilizations:
(The greenish tint in the pictures comes from taking pictures through the glass cases.)
Although most of the artifacts on display are gold, there are some others:
One interesting feature of the museum was that they would arrange a number of artifacts in a case, and project a shadow of a human figure on the wall behind the artifacts, to give an idea of how the items would have been arranged on a human body:
The highlight of the museum was a round room, with glass cases all around the walls, filled with hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of small gold artifacts. After we entered the room, the lights went down, and a recording played of aboriginal chants, which went on for several minutes. It was eerie. I recorded a sample on my phone and played it later for Terry and Graciela. And here it is:
As we left, I had Piqui take this picture of me with a new friend:
Piqui and I then walked up the street a little ways to a record store, where I bought a couple of CDs. Whenever I go on vacation, I always like to bring back music that reminds me of where I went. In this case, I bought a CD by a Colombian salsa band, Grupo Niche (w) , and a two-disc collection called "Porros, Gaitas and Cumbias" - all of which are types of Colombian dance music. I was amused to notice, however, that one of the tracks on that album was "Estambul," a jazzed-up, Latin beat version of the old novelty song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"!
Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
'Cause it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks'!
Riding back home in the taxi, I noticed a sign on a building that said "Public Beer House." Something about the sign struck me as peculiar, or out of place, and after a minute, I realized what it was - the sign was in English!
After we got back, I walked down the street and brought back some sandwiches for dinner, and some rolls for the next day's breakfast.
Here's a map showing the location of the day's sights, in relation to Graciela's apartment:
...and a closer view, showing the specific locations:
