Bogotano for a Few Weeks
I spent 3 weeks in Bogotá (a week longer than expected) as I waited for approval to travel to Chile. I settled into a daily routine, thanks to a weekday Spanish class, and a neighborhood to walk around. My time was also spent solving issues with my bike and equipment, including the best tune-up I've ever had. Other than a few parks, a viewpoint, a town, and a play, I didn't do many tourist outings. This may also be due to the frequent downpours of cold rain this time of year! Instead, I moved around the city entranced by the streets, and how people were using them. The highlights were: the ciclovía and the TransMilenio.
Bogotá is the birthplace of ciclovía, and it is decades old at this point. It happens on large streets all across the city. And it is more than once a week. This meant the signage for the car closures was remarkably minimal - just a board and some caution tape. But it was well staffed, and well attended. As a visitor, I was able to cover a large part of a large city in my first day in town, thanks to the connections between ciclovías. The first section of this video shows how smoothly the flow of bikes travels through the central business district.
TransMilenio was also visible in the video - it's the bus system that functions like a metro. I'll share my thoughts on using this world-famous transit system in another post!
