Semana Santa

Hello everyone, offering number three from Bogotá is right here.

This post has taken a lot longer to publish than I'd planned but things here have been rather hectic and stressful so I've only just got round to finishing this.

So this past week as you all should know was Semana santa (Holy week) or as we know it in the UK, the Easter holidays. In Bogotá it's common for people to use this week to leave the city to visit family in the countryside or to go on holiday. For this reason, originally Nico and I had planned to leave the city as well and spend a few days with Nico's friend Santiago at his farm in the country. I was really excited for this as I had already been to and seen most of the best things in Bogotá and fancied a change of scene. The night before we were supposed to leave, I was about to start packing when Nico sent me a message saying that Santiago had had an accident and therefore unfortunately couldn't receive us. Understandably I was pretty disappointed and what's more, cancelling our trip left a big hole in my week. So I used this time effectively by continuing with my main job in the studio-translating the website into English which despite having to repeatedly type 'All Rights Reserved' was actually quite an enjoyable activity.

Good Friday was the highlight of a somewhat bleak week when I spent the day in the city centre. I took the Trans Milenio out to the Museo Nacional which is slightly northward of the cultural downtown. The museum houses a large scale amount of artifacts dating back to the Muisca (Pre-Hispanic) period as well as many sculptures and paintings- expect to see some more fat naked pictures by Botero and tonnes more information on Colombia's history. Although many of the exhibitions were solely annotated in Spanish, providing an extra challenge, I found the museum to be quite interesting and considering it was free entry- a bargain!

Museo Nacional

More Botero paintings 

 

I then headed into the centre and spent quite a while on the Carrera Septima. The street was a real hub of activity and it seemed like nearly every man and his dog had the day off and it was packed with people. There were loads of people selling things out on the street such as footbal shirts, shoes, electrical goods and LOADS of food and amusement was provided through the various street performers and entertainers. Later on, there was a parade to mark Good Friday which made la Septima even busier. The parade involved a large variety of people though the most prominent were the Colombian military who had a marching band and battalions of armed soldiers in full uniform who were then followed by members of the Catholic church carrying religious tributes to mark the occasion. All the music, shouting and shere mass of people made for a very frenzied atmosphere and it was a great spectacle.

Carrera Septima, street artists

street dancers

Guinea pig racing!

Good Friday parade

Since then, things have taken a turn for the worse. My Easter weekend was uneventful at best, I started feeling quite lonely in the studio and various issues between me, Maritza and Daissy went unresloved. Everything reached a point where I could no longer continue working and living in the studio so on Thursday I packed my bags and left. I met up with Mauricio again who invited me to football training at the university before then spending the night at his home. Friday morning I moved into a hostel in La Candelaria which will now act as my base for the rest of my time here in Bogotá before I fly back home to the UK next Thursday. So far, my experience in the hostel has been very different to that in the studio and I look forward to telling you all about my final week.

Until then.

FP

#FraserOnTour