Bogota Bike Tour
I recently took a fun and informative bike tour of Bogota. Aside from seeing lots of the city, Juan the tour guide explained each site’s significance and historical background. Bike tours are my new way to see a city because you can see much more in less time. And it’s good exercise.
I had taken a tour with this company before. I briefly mentioned it in The Brick Incident. The owner Mike is an American expat from San Francisco. He’s been in Bogota for three years, South America for much longer. He worked as a freelance journalist covering Latin American stories. One day I was researching kidnappings in Colombia and came upon this 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. I was surprised to see the byline: Mike Ceaser. He’s left journalism for this bike rental endeavor, just as Bogota and Colombia are beginning to develop a respectable tourism industry. Check out his company, Bogota Bike Tours and Rentals.
Juan is the tour guide. He’s a nice guy – very progressive. He also works for a human rights organization and spends half of his time in Ciudad Bolivar – a Bogota slum and one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Latin America. Juan lightly injects his socially-conscious commentary into explanations of the city’s sites and their societal context.
The tour I did back in April was the brief 7 Churches tour, which carted us around to seven historic churches near downtown. I enjoyed it so much that I made tentative plans with Mike to do a longer tour – preferably the longest. The longest tour they offer is the Simon Bolivar park tour. That park is only a mile or so from my apartment and hosts the annual Rock al Parque, the biggest rock concert in Latin America.
The tour starts out with Plaza Bolivar, the city’s principal plaza a few blocks from La Candelaria. On this day, there was a city bike race which ended in the plaza so it was crowded. Juan pointed out and explained the Presidential Palace, etc. etc. etc. And he pointed out Congress, citing the ridiculously high percentage of congressmen who are currently in jail or pending trial for supporting paramilitaries.
After the plaza we rode west to Parque Tercer Milenio. This park was built in 2003 on what was the worst part of a neighborhood called El Cartucho, which I’ve heard more than once being compared to hell. Alejandro and Winston told me about it – they were in the height of their addict careers in the neighborhood’s heydey. Its economy was 100% drugs and prostitution. After being dubbed one of the most dangerous places in the world, the city tore the neighborhood down. Razed it. But El Cartucho is a story for a later post.
The city replaced the neighborhood with a central police station and a big park (Parque Tercer Milenio). The park is now home to displaced Colombians. Thousands of Colombians have been displaced from country pueblos by FARC and paramilitaries, and they come to the city with nothing. They build tents in this park to live in. There’s a huge tent city right out in the open. The park is safe during the day. The people aren’t addicts and junkies, but normal families that were displaced and have nothing. Sad.
Our next stop was the Plaza de Toros – the bullfighting ring in Bogota. Juan explained how there are often animal cruelty protesters outside. And that he is often one of the protesters. Juan is vegan, which I imagine is a major pain in the ass to pull off in Latin America. Juan and Mike are very anti-bullfighting.
After the bullring, we hit Parque de la Independencia. It’s named Independence Park because Colombia’s liberation from Spain was planned there – in a planetarium, where the Spanish believed the people to be watching the stars. The beautiful park features a planetarium, the modern art museum, and more.
After these sites, we rode freely up La Septima (Carrera 7), a major thoroughfare running north close to the mountains. Despite living only a few blocks from La Septima in Chapinero, I didn’t know that the three east-side lanes are shut down to traffic every Sunday and holiday. So bicyclists have free reign on that side every week.
Further up La Septima, we stopped at a park with a seemingly city-sponsored, public aerobics dance. Everybody parked their bikes and Juan kept watch. There was a large stage with an aerobics instructor, large speakers, and a large crowd of almost 200 people dancing aerobics. Grown men made up about half of the crowd, dancing as if nobody was watching. The American girls gushed over how cool this was and how they wish their city had something like it. Juan came up to me and said something like, ‘Isn’t this cool?’ And I said something like: Naw, dawg. I explained that I realize there is a cultural difference here, but in my country: don’t no grown-ass man do no cott-damm aerobics class, dude. He understood.
Then we passed through Chapinero to see some small park around Calle 76. Beautiful. After taking pictures there, we went to Usaquen in the far north. After three months in Bogota, I was completely unaware of this upper-class neighborhood featuring an artisan crafts market, bars and restaurants, and all kinds of things to do. We also went to a cemetery around there. Cemeteries in Latin America are cool because of how much they decorate the tombs.
After Usaquen, we headed west to Carrera 11, turning south and passing through Zona Rosa. After Zona Rosa, we continued south into Chapinero, turning west at Calle 67. The girls noted how quickly Chapinero turns to shit after crossing Avenida Caracas – again, I’ll describe Chapinero in a later post. Soon after crossing Caracas, Juan warned us that we’d be going through a small dope spot, but that it’s relatively safe during the day. 7 de Agosto turned out to be a pretty ugly neighborhood not far from my apartment. The streets were potholed up and there were drunks and young hoods starting their afternoon activities. We whizzed past.
We worked our way south some more until catching Calle 63, which we took to the large and beautiful Simon Bolivar park. It’s crowded with families and kids playing soccer. It was nice to see grass for miles. And there’s a huge lake.
After hanging out for a while, we started the long trip back to La Candelaria. Nearing downtown, Juan warned us that we’d be passing through the Zona de Tolerancia – the main red light district of Bogota. I’ve heard that’s not a safe place at night, but it wasn’t dark yet. A lot of prostitutes were on display, which was interesting to see (passing by quickly on bicycles before it was dark).
We got back to the shop around 6pm. The tour started around 11am so everybody was beat.
I’d highly recommend the tour to anybody passing through Bogota, especially if you’ll only be in town a couple days. Again, check out Bogota Bike Tours and Rentals if you’re interested.
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3 Responses to “Bogota Bike Tour”
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I grew up in Belgium riding bicycles everywhere, and I’d love to have one here, but I just don’t know if I want to navigate Cusco traffic on a bike. I don’t want my death certificate to say “killed by a Tico”.
your blog post is very detailed!! … i should be linking your blog to mine! hola from panama city!
p.s. love the shout out we got for gushing over the aerobic exercising in the park. you need to try it out! hehe.
got a good belly laugh out of “killed by tico”
here in my city (cleveland ohio) it’s so easy to ride in the streets. I do it all the time. However I average 20 mph. Downhill I hit 30 mph very often and i go about 25 when i bike with the wind. There is no way I would bike in peru except side streets of miraflores and san isidro