The Week of Living Dangerously

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Photo by Leopoldo Ramírez Silva

In fact, word is that this city of some 7 million souls is beginning to blossom, particularly in its affluent northern section. “It’s changing,” Oldham agreed, “but I don’t know if it’s that Bogotá is getting safer or if it’s that the rest of the world is just getting more dangerous. Maybe the rest of the world is catching up to Bogotá.” Still, restaurants and nightclubs are springing up around his house, right in the middle of the northern revival. “When I first moved there, I was on the outskirts, you know? There wasn’t anything.” His rich neighbours, who used to wait for their annual trip to Miami to splurge, are staying in town more often these days, frequenting their own fashion boutiques and chic little bakeries.

Once I’d arrived in Bogotá, a solo introductory walk down Carrera 5 through the city centre revealed two things: First, I was in no danger as long as I kept my eye on the sometimes hectic traffic; second, the Bogotáns I encountered were Parisian in their mannerly self-possession and stunning in their variety. The country’s ethnic mix means that the sidewalk population at any given streetlight might include a strapping Aryan heldentenor or two, a cluster of stoic Mayan deities, some sharp-suited General Alcazars out hunting down Tintin and the endless succession of miracles that is Colombian women. (“Our women are all pretty good,” agrees a female casting agent for TV commercials that Esther Farfán introduces me to later on.)

Bogotá sits on a plateau about 2,600 metres above sea level, running north and south between two ranges of the Andes. There’s a rainy season in the fall, but for the most part the temperature is temperate, resembling, at its best, a crisp spring day. The old centre of the city is home to La Candelaria, a historic district full of twisted streets and hordes of young Colombians, university students from some of the city’s 25 universities. A host of attractions – from the Museo del Oro (while touring its over two tons of gold, I write in my notes, “You can see why the Spanish went crazy”) to the 1567 San Francisco Church, dank and redolent of Christ in the New World – radiates out from the Plaza de Bolívar, home to most of the city’s historical architecture. It’s all very easy to wander through and loaded with evidence of Colombia’s often tortured past. For a breather, and an overview of the city, I head to the Andes.

To reach the top of the riotously verdant slopes of Cerro de Monserrate, which sharply borders the city on the east, you have three options: a creaky 12-kilometre funicular railroad, a Swiss-built cable car or a 1,550-step stairway, much used by penitents. I go with the easiest (Swiss) option and can’t figure out if my increasing shortness of breath as we lurch up the slope is incipient vertigo, the onset of altitude sickness or sheer lightheadedness at the view. From the peak (3,160 metres above sea level), the full scope of the city perched on its plateau lies before me. On the other side of the mountain, the dense tangle of jungle begins immediately.

In Northern Bogotá, the new city centre, I’m staying in the heart of Zona G, a brand-new restaurant district. Northern Bogotá is fresh, full of malls and boutiques and red-brick architecture. The temperate climate, the mountain looming in the background, the dog walkers and little patisseries – I could be on the west side of Vancouver but for the absence of yoga wear and no-fat lattes. The malls are unprepossessing but busy and guarded by heavily armed guards, while a designer’s row full of Bogotá-based fashionistas and their clients is not far from the restaurant district.

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