Flying to Bogota instead of riding the bus was a better option because the price was about sixty dollars more but eleven hours less. Bogota is a cold and rainy city. We had to break out the long pants, jackets and umbrellas for our stay there.

On our bicycle tour of the historic center of town we saw the city’s murals and historic sites as well as the unusual garbage museum and played the Columbian bar game Tejo. A local hoarder has created a garbage sculpture on the street corner and turned his home into a garbage museum. Michael went into his house to see the “museum” which is basically a rather sad collection of the items being hoarded.

The tour also included a stop at a bar to play Tejo. Our guide explained that this game is considered “low-class” by many Columbians. For the game, the target is a large round clay board that has triangle papers filled with gun powder pressed into the clay. The participants toss underhand (like slow-pitch softball) a two pound iron disc. When the disc hits the paper with gun powder there is a loud bang (the first time someone hit a target I screamed). Points are awarded for hitting the papers. Playing the game is free but you have to buy beer while you play. We only stayed for one beer so we never got really good.

“Tejo”, a game of skill, finesse and courage but mostly beer drinking in like horse shoes with gun powder.

The National Museum is in an historic prison in Bogota. We liked this picture because it shows how they build new in with the old prison construction with the newly built glass structure of the Juan Valdez Cafe.

One of the highlights of our tour at the Police Museum is the “War on Drugs” exhibit. Detailed explanations and artifacts including guns and money counting machines of the Pablo Escobar era bring the narco cartel story to life. This and the guerrilla war are painful memories of Columbia’s past that they are working hard to put behind them.

A funicular took us up the mountain to the Monserrate Cathedral. The grade up the mountain is about forty-five percent. There can be a beautiful view of the city but the low clouds had rolled in by the time we got to the top so the view had disappeared.

With ten million people Bogota is a very large city. We only saw a small portion of it in the five days we were there.