I’ll admit it: Bogotá was the place I was the least excited to visit in Colombia. I even almost skipped it because I had read so many horror stories of muggings and I hadn’t found any articles in which people were raving about the city. It seemed like most people were rushing through Bogotá, hitting up the most important museums and moved on to the next place.
There were only two reasons that made me want to go to Bogotá: I had heard that it was the city with the best street art scene in all of Colombia and it happens to be home to El Theatron, the largest gay club in all of South America. I had to check it out, even though that meant leaving my hotel after dark, a thought I found somewhat daunting before I even arrived in Colombia’s capital.
Once I got to Bogotá, however, my fear vanished almost immediately. The day of my arrival I was already meeting friends in Plaza del Chovorro De Quevedo in La Candelaria, Bogotá’s oldest neighborhood, which I had heard wasn’t very safe at night. Apparently this plaza is where the city was founded in 1538, and the surrounding neighborhood with its still intact and well-preserved Spanish-colonial buildings quickly became my favorite neighborhood in town. It was a drastic difference from the shiny office towers in the Chapinero neighborhood, where I was initially staying. In La Candelaria, I found myself surrounded by small, one-story, colorful Spanish-colonial houses, there were still some cobble-stone streets, and there were several colonial churches. I could barely put my camera down on my strolls through the neighborhood!
By Dani – Full Story at Globetrotter Girls
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