Nadia Comes to Bogotá!

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Lucky me, I received another fantastic visitor in Bogotá - Nadia! This girl is a great friend and ongoing inspiration. We met in the first few months of college at a Led Zeppelin cover band concert. Naturally, we quickly became BFFs and even lived together for the next 3 years. She now lives in Washington, DC and works for USAID, and more directly for the situation in Syria. Like I said, she's an inspiration! She is also the first person to visit me while I have lived in TWO countries! (She and Lauren were my visitors in South Korea.) When she told me she had a week of vacay, I knew exactly what our plan would be - the Colombian islands!

Nadia arrived on a Saturday night, and I pretty much took her home for a chat, a beer, and bed. She was a doll and brought me some goodies, including grits! Yay! We wanted to wake up early and take advantage of our short time in Bogotá. Since that first day was Sunday, I took her on a short bike ride around the neighborhood on Ciclovía. We went down the 26 so that she could see really cool graffiti by Farid Rueda (Mexico), Stinkfish (Colombia), and more.  I also made it my mission to find as many small Colombian treats for her, so we tried pan de bono (bread made from cheese) and avena (oatmeal drink), and a granadilla (fruit). When we ended the short bike adventure, we stopped and ate tamales across the street from my house. They were delicious, as always!

After we ate and changed, we, and another German guest staying with us (Gloria) took an Uber to Montserrate, the church on top of a mountain in La Candelaria. It´s a must-see for all of my visitors! The path itself has been closed due to weather conditions affecting its stability, so we took the funicular train up the mountain. Because it was a Sunday, there were a lot of people wandering around, but it wasn´t overwhelming. We were really lucky with the sunny weather and had great vistas!

Once we came down the mountain, we walked down to the septima (7th avenue), which is a partly-pedestrian street that leads down to the Plaza Simon Bolivar  in el centro. The street always has a ton of hustle and bustle that is interesting to see...of course, it can always be overwhelming, but Nadia loved it. We got to watch some guinea pig races and saw a ton of creepy mimes/those people in costumes/paint who stand silently and scare everyone. We stopped for a coffee at a local Juan Valdez, where there just so happened to be an incredible classical guitarist playing outside on the sidewalk! Coffee and a show :)

Energized from our coffee, we headed towards my friend's house in La Calendaria because she was hosting a picnic for friends. We stopped in the plaza del chorro close to her house so I could buy some chicha (corn liquor)  and beer for the party, and at the fruit stand so that we could make a fruit salad. We arrived at Nicole and Mauricio's place, which is an old monestary converted into apartments. It is stunning! There was a group of 15 or so, and put had blankets in the grassy quad in the center of the building. We forged ourselves on good food, drank a lot of beer, wine, chicha, and refajo (mixture of beer and Colombiana, a soft drink). It was lovely to chat and relax and watch Mauricio and a few others attempt slack-lining! Around sunset, we went to the rooftop for gorgeous views of the city and sunset beers. Once the sun went down, we went into the apartment for more food, drink, and a dance party! Nadia even DJ'd haha. We went home around 9pm so that we could go to sleep - we were exhausted from the long day! Plus, we had a flight early the next morning to....San Andres!!





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