Colombia

Because of my ankle mishap in Salento, I spent my first days in Bogota on crutches – it was such a drag. I can’t imagine what people who have to use them permanently go through.

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One night, returning from training, we stumbled across a Netflix red carpet event, held next to our hotel: the World Premiere Of Narcos’ 3rd season.

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Every Sunday, the city closes several major roads and thousands of people walk, run, skateboard, rollerblade and, of course, cycle in the city. It is called Ciclovia. And so, after a few weeks break, I was back on my bike joining them!

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Every time somebody calls me señor it reminds me Signor Pomodoro, a personage in the very popular Tale of Cipollino, by Italian writer Gianni Rodari.
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I had to have yet another surgery, on the same middle finger as a few months before. It was surgery #13. Will it be the lucky 13th? Hopefully.

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We had a day off because Pope Francis performed mass for over a million of faithful right across the street from our venue. Sep7imo Dia could not compete with the Pope, as opposed to the Beatles who were, according to John Lennon, more popular than Jesus Christ – let alone a Pope.

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I dined at a restaurant whose chef is the winner of Pellegrino’s Latin America’s Best Female Chef 2017 award. The food was good but not memorable. Or after years of travel, am I just jaded?

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I paid a visit to La Candelaria, the oldest part of Bogota. Along with this, I went to Cerro de Monserrate and the Gold Museum.

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I also visited the museum of “the most Colombian of Colombian artists”, Fernando Botero, with his collection of paintings and sculptures of “fat” figures, as he once (politically incorrectly) referred to them.

Bogota in numbers:

135km – distance cycled
13th – surgery
37 – bpm my pulse dropped to in the recovery room, according to the monitor
3 – USD was the average Uber ride that would bring me to the other side of the city