First Visit to Bogota

I spent the second half of last week tagging along with Scott on his business trip to Bogota. It was my first time in the Colombian capital, and it could not have been more different from Cartagena. Bogota is Cartagena's cloudy, more conservative cousin. The weather generally stays in the 60s year round, and the typical dress is jeans and a sweater.

Founded in 1538, Bogota sits over 8,600 feet above sea level (about 3,000 feet higher than Denver) on a plateau in the Andes mountains. It is the largest and most populous city in Colombia, as well as the center of its economy. Two things about the city really fascinated me:

1. The mix of architecture. Street by street, I felt like I could have been in any number of different cities around the world. There are houses that look like they could have been plucked right out of England. There are buildings with elements of Greek and Roman styles. There are plenty of modern high rises and apartment buildings made of reddish-orange brick. And of course there are Spanish-style houses and churches that have been around since colonial times.
2. The transportation system. Bogota is crowded and the traffic is insane, so it's interesting to see what types of policies have put in place to deal with that. They have congestion restrictions when it comes to driving, so depending on your license plate number, there are certain times when you can't take your car out. They also have what's called the TransMilenio rapid transit system, which is a bus system that operates on a designated part of the road and is meant to function like a subway system. This runs in addition to their traditional bus and taxi systems. Cartagena is working to implement something similar.

Here are a few pictures from around the city:

The Andes mountains are visible in the background

Red buses make up the TransMilenio

Bogota Cathedral

Capitolio Nacional (National Capitol building)

Variety of architectural styles all in one place (with the Monserrate hill in the background, which you can travel to the top of to visit the church and view the entire city)