I got to Manizales yesterday evening after a really beautiful afternoon's drive through the mountains. Gwen was there to meet me at the lovely house she is staying in - she has a lovely little rooftop suite that belongs to a very nice family (who have a very nice housekeeper who cooked me up breakfast this morning). I took a shower and then we headed out to see a play with some of the friends she has met here. (She has been teaching combination theatre and English workshops to numerous schools and theatre companies for the past 3 weeks.)
The show was one woman and all in Spanish, and neither of us got much of it, but afterwards we had a great time with the cast and crew hanging out on the back terrace of their theatre, drinking local rum and talking art, politics, and tongue twisters. The view was amazing from the terrace, but every view in Manizales is amazing. The city, which is incredibly clean and prosperous, is nestled among the mountains and manages to feel surrounded by the mountains but full of open spaces just the same.
The past days have been just as good as the first ones...
It rained on Monday, and it was also a national holiday, so many things were closed and many things were too wet to enjoy. But the fact that there wasn't much to rush around to meant that some special things could occur...
First stop was the Botero Museum. It was one of the best museums I have ever been to. Botero himself donated both his own paintings and works from his collection (a couple of Picassos, some Calders...) and he arranged the paintings. I had seen his work before, but standing in front of them I found them so very moving. So human. Funny and sad at the same time.
The Botero Museum is part of complex that also contains a museum on the history of money and coins in Colombia (not that interesting to me, though well presented) and some other galleries with art ranging from colonial times to the present day, There was a mindblowing black and white photo series of feet and legs, with maps written on them. The legs belong to people who were displaced during "the violence" and the maps are of their journeys and what happned to them along the way (crossed mountains, massacres, car bomb, etc.).
Had a "chocolato completo" (bread, hot chocolate and a chunk of soft white cheese that you melt in the hot chocolate) at a Bogota institution called La Puerta Falsa, and then a coffee at Juan Valdez (yes, Juan Valdez), the Colombian Starbucks, at the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Center, where you could sit outside covered from the rain and watch people slosh by. And then I went down to the Plaza Bolivar to visit Alejandro, the man who is on a hunger strike to start a dialogue about peace. He invited me into his tent, and I accepted, and we sat in there taking shelter from the rain and talking for over an hour. People would come by to talk every so often (including MexTel, who was looking for me... but didn't stay for too long because he spotted another tourist to talk to). But Alejandro is in need of someone to manage his campaign... anyone know a community organizer in Bogota? He is a pretty amazing person...
At one point a man dressed in indigenous clothing came by with a girl and gave Alejandro some coca leaves. They are helping him get through the hunger strike; he gave a few to me to chew. They do give one a lift (and are legal in Colombia... they are not cocaine... cocaine is a derivative of the leaves) that was pleasant and did not make me as jittery as drinking too much coffee.
So after I left Alejandro, I ran into the coca leaf man and his girlfriend. His name is Sek and she is Marisol. He didn't speak English, and so he called his roommate, a German professor who speaks English and we made plans to meet at Plaza Bolivar at 5pm.
And that's what we did. His roommate James was a funny, awkward, geeky science guy. Sek is a Nasa (or Paez) Indian who is the first person to be employed by the Universidad de los Andes as an advisor on bringing traditional indigenous philosophy, healing and spirituality into play in the university's curriculum. He was really an amazing guy! We went back to their apartment near the univeristy (which is near my hostel) where we had tea and Sek explained the Nasa cosmology to me, how they use coca leaves for spiritual purposes, etc... He also is an artist and showed me one of his paintings; he uses all natural pigments from the earth and often leaves his work outside in the elements in order to have them transform and influence the work.
So it was a day of meeting two very interesting men. Glad it rained!
The next day, it was also overcast but I decided to take the cable car up to the top of Montserrate, the hill and church that overlook the city, anyway. Because going to the top of Montserrate is the sort of thing that tourists are expected to do... The church is not very interesting, and all your could see were clouds once you were at the top, but the cable car ride was fun, and after I was up there for about a half an hour, the sky cleared and you could see the huge expanse of Bogota. Which goes on and on and on!
After stopped by a photo exhibit at the Univesidad de los Andes (the Vargas Brothers, who took photos in a provincial city in Peru in the first part of the 20th century; http://camara-de-maravillas.blogspot.com/2010/02/estudio-de-fotografia-los-hermanos.html) I got a cab to Paloquemao, a huge fruit and vegetable and meat and many other things market about a half an hour from the center of town. Really interesting... once again, so many fruits that I have never seen before! Bought some Colombian passion fruit and some mangosteens. Then got a cab to the Museo de Oro, which is a really beautiful and relatively new museum about the history of Colombia's indigenous people told through the motif of their use of gold.
And then hopped in another cab and headed up to North Bogota, near the Zona Rosa, to meet up with my friends Thaddeus and Tatiana. North Bogota is like another world. It is the new part of town, where well-off people live, and where all the real action is. Thaddeus and Tati have a great little apartment on a quiet street right near a beautiful park and lots of restaurants and shops. We went to a special supermarket that just sells fruit and vegetables (Alex Moede! This one's for you!). The great thing about that place was that they have labels on everything, so I was able to take photos with the names of the fruit attached! Bought some more fruit... a feijoa, a something costeno, and one other...
Then we went to take a look at Andres DC, an over-the-top story restaurant that is the Bogota version of a place called Andres Carne de Res, a place out in the countryside that is an institution. It's hard to describe... they have actors who do little skits, and live music, and eclectic decor, and apparently great food. We went to eat at Andres' new place - Plaza de Andres - which is a food court. This was great becaues we could choose a bunch of different things. And I really had not been having great food... filling, yes, but not too flavourful. But what we had was really delicious. Arepa de choclo - a sweet arepa stuffed with cheese - and a steak and an assortment of chorizo and these little papas criollas - baby potatoes that were delicious. And juices... Tati had a combination of passionfruit and blackberry in milk, I think I had feijoa, and Thaddeus... lulo?
It was great to see them and their side of Bogota. Bid goodbye, got a cab back to the old part of town, and packed... Sad to leave Bogota, but happy to start exploring other parts...
We are going out soon to dinner with Gwen's hosts and the organizer of the program she is working at... so more later...
x m
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