Written entirely by Catalina Velasquez, because Iulia was such a lazy ass and didn’t write anything about Bogotá. Iulia took the risk of her fans (parents) reading about the aguardiente and posted it here, selected the photos and edited the text, so that’s something too, ok?!
INTRO
Well hello, my name is Iulia P and I’m from Romania. I created this portal in order to keep some memories from my trip, but before going any further, let me talk a bit about myself… All right, all right, who am I kidding? I can’t talk about myself, that’s why someone had to write this for me:
[…keeping this part to myself]
Iulia likes: to write lyrics (she started at an early age, her greatest hit was written when she was little), good music (Blink 182, Ska P, CRO, Emil), bad music (Reggeaton, I guess no one is perfect), to not miss anything even if she’s exhausted ( maybe someone can relate to that), to try new things, to cook, to read (she said she will read 2 books per month this year, we’ll see how it goes) , riding her bike, Sushi, to see the good in others (almost in silence, without anyone noticing), Güaro ( not really, but she can manage to drink it), to travel, Arepas and Cross-Fit.
Iulia doesn’t like: The altitude and waking up so early. That’s it.
(Catalina Velasquez. Maybe Iulia’s FF/BFF.2019)
Let’s go back to the main purpose of this portal. The trip. Last year I decided to go to South America. The idea was in my mind for a while and I wanted to visit some countries from that part of the continent (continent, not continentS, that’s right, America is ONE continent, NOT three). I decided to embark on that journey with one close friend, Andra. We really wanted to visit Peru, so we put it in our list, and then, because we wanted to visit an additional country and we met a girl from there (who needed to chill a bit when talking about her country), we decided to include Colombia in the list. Andra, who had extra days off, decided to include Ecuador, as well on her list, as for me, it will be only Peru and Colombia.
March 13 THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
We arrived on time at Bogotá’s airport at 7:30 p.m. from Madrid. Catalina, the girl from Colombia, was supposed to meet us there. She was also arriving to Bogotá from Barranquilla at 9 p.m., so the idea was to wait for her and then go to her place (she went crazy about us staying at her place for a few days, we didn’t have a choice, we had to say yes).
We were super tired, and it turned out Cata’s flight was delayed. We finally met her at around 10:30 p.m. Ok, ok, when we first met her, we didn’t know what to do. She was running all over the place and talking super fast. I could notice she was excited. After our encounter, she left us and run once again because she needed to get money from an ATM, or that’s what we understood, we just wanted to go to bed! In the end, we took a taxi and our journey begun.
Wait a second, because the night doesn’t end here. While we were in the taxi, we heard the most disturbing thing one could have ever heard giving the stage we were (which gave me a tiny clue of what was coming, it was just the tip of the iceberg): “So, I know you’re a little bit tired, but … how would you feel about a free-tour tomorrow morning?”. Then she started to speak fast again, I think she was describing all the things that she had planned for us. I declined the offer for the tour and kept thinking, how in the world are we going to manage to do all that stuff?
Finally, we arrived at Cata’s place. We met her family, including her dogs, and then I had my first encounter with truly pure happiness … Arequipe. Catalina gave us a bag with traditional food from Colombia, and among all the things, I found happiness packed in a small container. After that, I FINALLY went to sleep.
March 14, I FOUND MY BFF
Andra and I woke up in Cata’s bed (she went crazy again and we had to say yes to staying in her room). We sort of had a good sleep considering the jet lag and a thousand hours of connections/waiting/flights we had the days before. We talked a bit with Cata (she kept talking fast and moving all around), but Cata’s dog was sick, so she had to go to the vet. In the meantime, we started to talk to her dad. I had been warned about the devotion her dad had for Elon Musk, but never thought it was going to be THAT level of devotion. I felt like I was in school, receiving a lecture about cars, rockets, Tesla and the almighty ELON. I’m pretty sure he will start an Elon Musk church in the short term. What a crazy family this is!
Ok. This paragraph is fully dedicated for the highlight of the day, the week, the year, my entire existence. I FOUND MY BFF. Since Cata took longer than expected at the vet, we went out to grab something to eat at a cafeteria close to her place with her dad. Her dad left, and after a few minutes, I saw her. We clicked immediately. It was love at first sight. She was the friend I’ve been always looking for. Someone who could truly understand me, and I could talk about anything. Someone who looks after me and I know will always be there for me (I’m sure she didn’t like any Cro songs, but who cares). She was an old lady, so a truly old soul (like me). Basically, she told me everything I needed to know about Colombia (and also life, so much wisdom in one mind) and turns out, besides being the coolest, she was also a fortune-teller. I think she even invited us to eat at her place. I didn’t see her again, but that meaningful encounter was more than enough. My life was complete.
After saying goodbye to my BFF, we met with Cata and headed to historical part of Bogota. We took an Uber and we finally started to explore Bogotá. I was excited and my brain started to work the way it always does. It started to notice the little things on the road that usually regular people don’t see. The traffic, the people, the graffiti, the organized mess, the beauty in the greyness, the smell, the sounds. Soon, we arrived at our first destination, a free-graffiti tour and who would ever thought that there were more foreigners, like us, waiting for the tour to start?
All right, so here comes the educational part: “The Colombian capital, Bogotá, has become one of the most artistic – graffiti friendly cities in Colombia and Latin America, with hundreds of professional graffiti artist who are in constant search for public spaces, free walls and also some private walls where locals – Colombians express in an artistic style ideas, abstractions paints and feelings of Bogotá, Colombia’s social, political or economic general situation. Between 2010 and 2013 the Graffiti culture had the strongest change from a simple – easy graffiti to graffiti with a very complicated work, great beautiful styles and with social, political or economic messages. The regulation of the practice of graffiti in Bogota does not change until a young graffiti artist of 16 years old from Bogotá was murdered by a police man. That case highlighted the need for regulation and consolidating bases and actions permitted limits of the graffiti, the police and political officials in Bogota.”
We finished the tour and I was pretty much in sync with Cata, because we paid the same amount of money for the tour (the way we calculated the amount was the same, a bit weird). After going to a shop and the bathroom, we were hungry. We didn’t have lunch and it was around 5:30 p.m. so someone suggested us to go to a restaurant called “Nativa”. We entered, we checked the menu and instantly, we loved it. Andra ate tamal (a traditional Colombian dish) and I ate a hamburger and a quinoa arepa (that tasted like heaven), but with a twist, vegetarian, it was delicious. During our luner (lunch and dinner), I showed my awesomeness… I started to talk. After we were done, we met two friends of Cata. Espitia and Juan.
We talked for 5 min with Cata’s friends and then, we decided to go to a free art exposition at the MAMBO (Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota). We got to the entrance and we had to get in line because it was packed. While we were there, I met Pipe, another friend from Cata. We got in, and then my brilliant mind started to check the artwork. I stared at artworks that nobody was staring, and I took my time to analyze them, which made me get lost from the group for a few minutes. Cata was once again in a hurry, and was a bit worry because she couldn’t find me, in the end, she found me and told us we really needed to go to “Andres D.C.” to meet some other friends. Our first party in Colombia!!
We ended up in a mall, but then we found an entrance full of colors music and baskets of free fruits (that I instantly checked and tasted). We went inside and the place was huge inside. It had like five floors and we went up to the fifth. There, we found Alexa, Cata’s coworkers and some other friends. We started to chat with everybody and then, I saw Cata’s happy face holding a bottle with some sort of water, she was pouring it into everybody’s glass. The water was called “Aguardiante”, I took a sip and it was awful, so I quietly left the glass with most of the drink there. In the end, Cata noticed it and made me drink a lot of shots. Oh boy, that girl really likes that stuff … and I don’t get why!!!!
Anyways, “Andres DC” was pretty cool. It took us a while to get to the dancefloor, but once there, I got to dance and most importantly, I had my formal introduction to “reggaeton” in Colombia. That was pretty much the beginning of the end of my good taste in music. After a while, I understood that “Colombia is LA país de la fiesta”.
As soon as we were done with the party, we took an Uber and we headed to Cata’s place. We were super tired, but once again I heard her voice: “So… I know you are a bit tired, but we need to wake up early cuz’ we are going to the Salt Cathedral”… and then she started to talk really fast and non-stop. I could see she was really excited, but OMG can you please turn it off???
March 15, PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, LET ME SLEEP
As I said it before, we were supposed to wake up early, but that didn’t happen. Cata’s dog was still really sick and she had to go to the vet again. I was not happy about that, but I got to sleep a bit more and cope with the hungover … oh wait, I didn’t have one! At least that awful drink Cata gave me didn’t destroy my digestive system!
In the end, we decided to go to the Salt Cathedral (a bit later though). We took Transmilenio, Bogota’s bus rapid transit system, to meet Alexa in the north part of Bogota. After we met with Alexa, we took a bus to go to Zipaquira. During the bus ride, I sat near to Cata and once again I noticed that we had a lot of common, I even discovered that we kind of made our parents travel abroad because we wanted to take advantage that they are 100% healthy. A bit weird though.
We finally got to Zipaquira. We were told we would have free entrance, since Cata knew someone who knew someone, who knew someone that could let us in. The plan didn’t work and we had to pay. We went in and made the tour… and now the educational part: “The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá is an underground Roman Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine 200 meters underground in a halite mountain near the town of Zipaquirá, in Cundinamarca, Colombia. It is a tourist destination and place of pilgrimage in the country. The temple at the bottom has three sections, representing the birth, life, and death of Jesus. The icons, ornaments and architectural details are hand carved in the halite rock. Some marble sculptures are included. The Salt Cathedral is considered one of the most notable achievements of Colombian architecture, being described as a “Jewel of Modern Architecture”. The cathedral represents a valuable cultural, environmental and religious patrimony for the Colombian people.
The cathedral was nice, but to be honest the one that we have in Romania is nicer and its entrance fee is not as expensive as the one here. Oh well, we needed to check it anyway. We got out of the Salt Cathedral quite late, so we looked for a place where we could have luner (lunch/dinner). The food was pretty decent, we talked for a while and after that, we took a taxi to go to a possibly forever home in Zipaquira for a dog Cata was fostering.
We let Cata and Alexa to do their thing and check it, so we didn’t go in to the place. The visit was really quick. Cata didn’t say much, so we took a bus to go back to Bogota. When we were arriving to Bogota, Cata burst into tears. The poor girl felt the pressure of having to give the dog away, not being ok with the people she had to give it. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to hug the poor girl, so I proposed a group hug (that my friend is called empathy and I have a lot). Andra started to be emotional too. After a while everyone calmed down. I must say, I was exhausted. But we were not done yet. Although we were in Bogota, we needed to go back to Cata’s place and take a Trasnmileno. When we were finally inside of the Transmileno I felt packed like sardines, but we were almost there.
Once we arrived, I was so relieved. My feet were sore, and I could barely speak/walk. I wanted to sleep really bad!!! But then, Cata spoke: “So … I know you are a bit tired, but we have a party waiting for you!” Are you kidding me? Please, please, pretty please, let me Sleep!!!! Cata saw our faces and she understood we needed to sleep a bit, so we agreed to have a one-hour nap. She waited, she woke us up and then we got ready for the party.
First stop was “Disco Jaguar”, where we met with Pipe and Juan. The place was promising but it was a bit empty. We danced for a while, we heard some reggeaton and one of the greatest hits in the world that made us think of Cata’s BFF… Joana, Jo, Jo, Joana. All right, we gave it a chance to the place, but we needed some more action, so we went to “Asilo”, Cata’s favorite place. It was really crowded and I kind of liked the vibe. Before going, I heard the reasons why Cata loves it: In Asilo everyone is treated as an equal, no one cares how you dress or look, they appreciate good music, everyone can do what they please because no one is going to judge (there was one time a girl took her shirt off and run everywhere and no one really gave a damn), it’s an alternative state of mind and last but not least, it is cheap. Everything was going well until I saw Cata’s happy face, holding a bottle of the awful water and pouring it in shot glasses. Why, why, this again??? I was doing fine, until I saw the “desgraciado” shot glass again. We stayed there until they kicked us out. Finally, we grabbed something to eat in front of Asilo, which is kind of a tradition for Cata’s friends.
We took an Uber to go to Cata’s place and I heard her voice again. This time I was bit scared and also drunk, but mostly scared, what in the world is she going to propose this time? Then I heard angels in my ears: “So … I know you are a bit tired, so let’s not go out tomorrow night. Let’s stay at home and watch “Betty la fea”. Oh and by the way, you don’t have to wake early tomorrow”. Finally!!!!!
March 16, I GUESS WE WON’T HAVE A MOVIE NIGHT
We slept pretty well and had breakfast made by Cata’s mom (Cata said that we’re her favorites because her mom doesn’t do that for her that often). We talked a bit with her parents and then we went to the gold museum.
And now the educational part: “The Museum of Gold (Spanish: El Museo del Oro) is a museum located in Bogotá, Colombia. It is one of the most visited touristic highlights in the country. The museum receives around 500,000 tourists per year. The museum displays a selection of pre-Columbian gold and other metal alloys, such as Tumbaga, and contains the largest collection of gold artifacts in the world in its exhibition rooms on the second and third floors. Together with pottery, stone, shell, wood and textile objects, these items, made of a– to indigenous cultures – sacred metal, testify to the life and thought of the different societies which lived in present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of the Americas”.
The museum was a delight, but after a while I was just seeing everything, even Andra and Cata, colored gold. Later, we ate lunch, yes lunch, for the first time after we arrived, we had lunch! We did a walking tour, we tried chicha (actually I didn’t, after I heard how they used to made it, I chose not to drink it at all) and Cata squeezed the Botero’s museum. I kind of was reluctant at the beginning, but I really enjoyed it. For some, that will be the end of the day, but ours, it was just starting.
We met with Cata’s friends at a place where the Colombians practice their traditional sport that involves powder and beer, called “Tejo”. I truly tried my best, I tried and I tried and I tried, oh my god do I try ♫ But I kind of sucked at it, I was one of the worst players and probably the reason why my team lost (not really, it was more Pipe’s fault). However, I didn’t feel embarrassed and made fun of me (if I make fun of me then everybody lowers their guard). And just so you know, everybody told me that I did a good job (Good job Iulia!). I should believe them. Right? Right? Pat, pat for Iulia.
It was getting late and I thought: I guess we won’t have a movie night. We went to a bar called “Mono Bandido”, where they were celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day. The vibe was pretty chill, and they were serving green beer, which tasted awful, not as bad as “Aguardiente” though. More of Cata’s friend came and I started to talk to some of them. After a few beers, Cata’s friends wanted to go to a salsa party, but she FINALLY understood we were exhausted and allowed us to skip the party and go back to her place and sleep. Yes! Sleeping!!!! Now that I think about it, sleeping and resting has a more meaningful connotation since I got to Bogota and I started hanging out with Cata.
March 17, RIOHACHA, HERE WE GO.
This day was one of the easiest days we had so far. We helped Cata to take the dogs out and then her parent took us to the airport in order to go to Riohacha, our next destination.
When we got to the airport, we were able to see colombian’s moms behavior at its best. Cata’s mom invited us to lunch and no one was able to convince her that we were actually the ones that wanted her to invite her. In the end we did what she told us to do, because that’s how it works. Cata warned us, but we didn’t listen. “Listen Linda, Listen Linda, Listen honey”.
We ate, we said goodbye to her parents, and we took our very light bagpacks (after I faced the universal dilemma to check it in or not … like hammocks, tents, hammocks, tents) to go to our next destination. Riohacha, here we go!!!!
Wait … this doesn’t end here
April 3, BYE
We got to Bogota from el Eje Cafetero in the morning and this time we didn’t stay at Cata’s place, we stayed at a hostel close to our favorite restaurant in Bogota, “Nativa”. It would be our last night in Bogotá and were going to meet Cata and Cata’s friends to say goodbye in the afternoon. While Cata and her friends were working, we decided to go to Monserrate, since we had promised her we would go. We did it, even though it was cold, raining and foggy (what a good friend I am).
In the afternoon, Cata came to our hostel a bit earlier than expected. She brought some stuff we left at her place and a plastic bag with something inside. I, because I’m always so curious, asked for the content in the bag, but she didn’t say much. I was already considering all the possible things she could have in the bag. Oh my brain, it works in mysterious ways.
We talked a bit, until Andra mentioned she had a jacket she wanted to get rid of, so she offered it to Cata. We went to our room and we asked Cata to put it on. Oh let me tell you, the weirdest thing happened. Cata was nervous and didn’t want to put it on in front of us. It’s a jacket, not underwear!!! She even said she was a bit weird and that she could not do it in front of us. She got out of the room and changed in front of a lot of visitors. So in front of us no, but in front of unknown yes. Weird.
Cata got Andra’s jacket and we decided to give her some presents we bought for her and her parents. I didn’t know it at that moment, but usually people close to Cata don’t give her the best gifts. She often receives things that she truly doesn’t like and don’t match her personality. This time it looks like what we gave her made her really happy, so I think she truly liked them.
A few minutes later, Pipe and Juan arrived, and we asked for some cocktails. While we were waiting, I noticed how Cata passed the bag to Pipe. I knew something weird was happening. Pipe went to the bathroom and came back. He had a weird face and I also heard them talking in Spanish in a suspicious way, very secretly. I passed by Pipe and … OMG, Pipe’s 2 centimeters of T-shirt that was showing (since everything else was covered by his jacket) caught my eye. Now I knew, I’m such a smartass, this was a surprise (that I destroyed). All of them took their jacket off and showed proudly their “Mangotraficante” t-shirt. I looked like a little kid really excited. I started to laugh and also to cry. And maybe, just maybe, someone cried a bit when she saw me crying.
All of us put the T-shirts on (we looked like badasses) and took a taxi to go to the “The Drunken Fox”. Espitia’s band was going to play and some of Cata’s friends were going to meet us there. We got a bit late there, but the place was quite empty, so we decided to go to a bar to drink some beers. The bar was a bit alternative and it had cheap beer, so we were all happy. After a while, we went back to “The Drunken Fox”. This time there were more people and Espitia started playing. We was wearing some black sunglasses and singing songs written by the band. The highlight of the concert happened when he played a cover of the “Artic Monkeys”. I danced and enjoyed every second of the song (Crap! I should have gone to Estereo Picnic with Cata!!). So far everybody was drinking beer, but Andra and I felt like that night deserved something special, hence, we bought … Aguardiante! Yeah, what can I say, it was our last night and we started to like it (but only a bit, to be honest we only bought it because Cata really likes it). We were still making funny faces as soon as the “güaro” was touching our mouths though.
After the band played, we went out and tried to find a place to keep up the momentum. We went to “Genoveva”, a really crappy place, with crappy alcohol. However, it was opened on a Wednesday and we had a lot of space to do whatever we want. We drunk more “güaro”, which should have not been a surprise (between us, I was letting most of the shots handed by Cata on a table, where no one could see them) and we started to dance. By that moment, I knew by heart the greatest hits of reggaeton (shame on me). La Chama, Justicia (no soy una bandida, yo soy una dama), Te Vi, Joanna and la Chica Gucci, you name it, I’ll sing it!
EPILOGUE
Cata really wanted to say good bye to Andra and me. It was our last night in Colombia and even though we were going to see each other again, it was not going to be in her beloved country. But we were drunk (Iulia’s intervention) and tired and I just wanted to sleep, so we didn’t pay much attention and went straight to bed. Basically we broke Cata’s heart.
Poor Cata, I guess the only thing we can do to make things up is … TO GO BACK TO COLOMBIA AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I’m pretty sure Cata’s family will receive us as members of their family (they already said it). I don’t know, but I have a feeling that in Colombia we will ALWAYS be welcome.
Aventurile unui curcan calator 