Last days in Bogotá

Some highlights from our last three days in Bogotá:

On Friday, the four of us (Traci, Nathalia, Ale and I) decided to have our "night out on the town," so we put on our best clothes and took a buseta, or "little bus". They are pretty affordable, at $1300 pesos (about 50 US cents). Our first stop was in the Zona Rosa, the fancy part of town, where luxury shops share the road with restaurants and bars. We had some pretty good local beer, but decided the crowds were a bit too "nice," and headed over by taxi to Chapinero, the nearby "gayborhood." Apart from having lots of gay bars, Chapinero has the reputation of being a pretty pesada (heavy) neighborhood, and several people, including the taxi driver, told us we should be very careful. We're New Yorkers, though!

We started the night at what's probably the biggest gay nightclub in Colombia, Theatrón de Película. It's the kind of place that we'd never go to in the US, but thought it was worth a try here. After a $10 cover (though it included a free drink), we went in. Inside it was already hopping -- almost exclusively men, and on average very young looking (18-25, probably). They had two separate dance floors, and then a third floor that was a really cool open terrace. We stayed there most of the time, danced a bit, then tried more dancing on the second floor, where they even had go-go dancers. We left at about 2:30am, and walked a couple of blocks, but not finding anything else good, we took a taxi home.

Saturday was a pretty slow day, but we eventually made it to the Museo Botero. Fernando Botero is probably the best-known Colombian artist. The Museo Botero is run by the national Banco de la República, and has free admission; all of its art was donated by Botero (who is still alive and well). I expected to see lots of great Botero paintings and sculputures, which were definitely there. But we were both blown away by all of the other modern art that Botero must have somehow collected and then donated to this museum. Work by, among others: Picasso, Pisarro, Roussau, Dalí, Miró, Chagall, Giacometti, Ernst, Léger, Klimt, Matisse, Degàs, De Kooning, Torres García, Bacon, Calder, and Moore. It was pretty amazing.

Eventually we made our way to the airport, to drop off Traci, and then to another night at Chapinero, albeit a much shorter one, with no dancing. Most of the gay bars we found were very much of the umph-umph-umph heavy dancing music variety, and very gay: lots of rainbow-colored lights, etc. I think this is fairly common when the gay culture in a city is still "under development," and people are either closeted or out with a vengeance, so to speak.

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Note on photos: we haven't developed any film yet, but have some digital photos that should be up soon!