After first night in my friend's house I moved to hostel in old part of Bogotá called Candelaria. My first impression of Bogotá was "THE COLD". Temperatures are similar to England in spring time. My second night, because of jet-lag, I woke up at 4am. I came down to kitchen to make a tea but I realise it was really cold out there. I very fast returned to my bed and stayed there till 8am.
Than I was about to go out. I really didn't know what is going to be like to be a stranger in Bogotá down-town. So I took my passport, about £20/€24 in local currency "pesos" and waked to old centre. I went to Plaza de Bolívar - iconic part of Bogotá and than walked around street named Carrera 7. After 10 minutes I realised that if you don't seek attention, nobody is brothering you. My local friends spent a lot of time talking about precaution. I agree, you have to be careful but it is not so bad. They told me for example that I can't have my Canon 550D camera on my neck. I have to hide it. After 2 days I've seen quite a few people taking pictures and nothing happened to them. Police is omnipresent in Bogotá. And if not police, there were many private security guards with big dogs watching every move around. Once I was going in taxi and I saw a guy having his bright pink coloured Panasonic DSLR camera on neck and just walking around. No problem. I believe a lot depends on part of the city you're moving around.
I made copy of my passport and visa and this paper now I'm carrying with me as documentation in case of police check.
On afternoon I met guy Hugo. We made contact through Couchsurfing.org. He's a freelance photographer and he invited me to participate on presentation of nature restoration project. We went outside the Bogotá to very nice valley that suffered forest fire few years ago. We've seen methodology of native forest re-plantation and elimination of invasive species. We returned to Bogotá after sunset and took a bus to get closer to my hostel. We walked little while via night submerged city. It was easy because they made few avenues a pedestrian zones. There were many street sellers of fruits, newspapers, cigarretes, food, hot non-alcoholic drinks and artisan goods. As we was walking I noticed a guy, typical rapper from ghetto. He has exact image of bad boy you can see in rap videos. I thought I was happy he was just walking, mining his business.
Foto: Hugo Rubiano http://hugorubiano.tumblr.com/
Unexpectedly, my friend Hugo turned and call him! He knew him because he was taking pictures in ghettos and made friendship with those guys. They talked a bit, shook hands and we gone. I was glad they were friends! :-) Actually Hugo offered me to go with this rap group to walk thought rough parts of Bogotá. Well, we see :-)))
I have to say I my first impression of Bogotá was much better as most people told me. Of course I'm cautious and I hope I'll stay that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment