Urban Art

Today's events were an "optional" tour, but all 12 members of our group took part. First stop was an indoor fruit and vegetable market. We weren't too excited about that, because we have visited markets in all parts of the world and they tend to all be pretty much the same.

We got to the market very quickly because today happens to be one of two days each year when private cars and motorcycles are banned from the streets of Bogota. This is done to encourage bicycle commuting and use of public transportation. Tourist buses and taxis are exempt, so we traveled unhindered.

Lulo

This market was unique in that it was so incredibly clean. There were none of the smells or slippery aisles that characterize most markets in developing countries (maybe because, in Bogota at least, Colombia seems to be beyond "developing" and all the way to developed).

Tree tomato

The other unique characteristic of this market visit was that Alejo, our tour director, made it more of a food tour than simply a market visit. He came prepared with napkins and wet-wipes, and he started buying and feeding us fruits that were unique to Colombia.

Sapote

First us was something called lulo fruit. It has a reddish exterior and even redder interior with seeds. It was fairly sweet. We tasted a Colombian variety of guava that wasn't that different. Colombian varieties of "tree tomatoes" (which aren't tomatoes at all) are just as bad as others we've tasted. But yellow dragon fruit is much sweeter and tastier than the usual, reddish variety.

Chirimoya

We encountered something called chirimoya that we'd not encountered before. It was pretty stringy and has large seeds, so hard to eat, but it was generally tasty. There was also something called sapote that was sectioned, kind of like an orange, but with a very non-citrus flavor. And finally, we were introduced to mamoncillo, which is sort of like a lychee, but with a big seed that makes it not worth the trouble to peel.

We stopped by the stall of a woman selling herbs and herbal medicines. One was a powder that you toss into the air when you have people visiting your home and you want them to leave. We don't know how it works, or if it drives you out of your own house. But for $2 U.S. we thought it was funny enough to buy a bottle, even though we can't think of any guests we'd want to use it on.

After the market, the bus drove us a short distance to an industrial area that has also been designated as a graffiti district. We were introduced to a woman named Anna who described herself as a political scientist and an artist. She took us on a walking tour that had us dodging lift trucks and semis. 

Nearly every factory or warehouse wall here has been covered with street art -- all with the permission of the management and the city. In fact, festivals were held here in 2017, 2018, and 2019 in which international street artists from around the world were invited to paint.

Most of the works were done with spray paint, although latex house paint was applied by rollers for some of the backgrounds. Nearly all the artwork makes political or social statements.

A major goal of these festivals was to move the Bogota and Colombian governments to decriminalize street art, and to encourage building owners to give permission to artists eager to paint their structures. A distinction is made between street artists and vandals who deface public spaces with gang names or drug-related symbols.

Our lunch was a traditional Colombian soup called ajiaco (ah-hee-ah-koh). It's basically a chicken soup, but with rice and avocado, in addition to beans and other vegetables. It was very filling.

In the late afternoon we had a lecture on the political turmoil that rocked Colombia from 1948 until 2016. The details become more complicated on every hearing. After this, we were visited by two veterans of the conflict. One was a man who, as a youth motivated by his Catholic faith, went into a rural area to try to help the poor and eventually joined a leftist rebel group and took up arms against the government. The other was a woman who fled a broken family situation at age 12 and found refuge as a soldier in one of the paramilitary groups.

These two told their stories, which conclude with both of them becoming disenchanted with their groups, entering a reconciliation program, and eventually getting married to each other. They are a symbol of the emerging Colombia, but they agree that many of the conditions in the rural areas that were the root cause of the conflict remain unchanged today.

As a group, we had a very nice dinner at a restaurant just a block from the hotel, then returned to pack. We have a morning flight to Medellin.