Alice In “Where The Hell Am I?” Land

Going for a night out in Bogota is an adventure when you are new to the city. Especially, if you go out with locals you never know where you will end up as the trend is to bounce around to different locations. Typically you can expect to start the night off early (around 6-8 p.m. or right after work) drinking at a small liquor or grocery store. People do this because the beer s cheap and its is a good way to save money before going to another location.

Another way to start the night is to drink in the street. Bogotanos usually pick a random spot outside and sit on the ground. Especially in La Zona Rosa, you will see crowds of people hanging outside on the street right in front of a club while inside the club is totally empty. I was told the law says that you aren't allowed to drink on the street, but I haven't seen anyone get in trouble for it.

Once when I was walking in La Zona Rosa around 10 p.m. with a friend, I noticed that people were really drunk. Fighting and throwing up. This is behavior that is more common at 2 a.m., but he explained that they are college students that get out of class around 3 p.m., start drinking, then are waisted by 10 p.m.

On this particular night, we started drinking right after work. I work in La Zona Rosa, so we met at the Bogota Beer Company. It was 5 p.m. This bar is so popular its not even funny. A good place for a tourist to get a feel of the bar scene. It has the vibe of a Brittish bar, which also is a popular trend. The food is good – I recommend the chicken wings. Its funny to watch people eat chicken here because they use gloves.

After drinking a couple at another place, we went to a reggea bar named Casa Babylon which is a nice break from salsa and vallenato. At this point we are very drunk. When the bar closed, ½ went to look for an after party and the other ½ went to sleep. Other options could have been El Cha Cha, which is good for electronic music and has a nice view because it is at the top of a hotel. Anyways, you get the point. I feel like my story is dragging because the most interesting part really happens at the end, so I'll just get right to it.

After spending the night at my friend's house, I got kicked out at 6 a.m. With a horrible hangover. Apparently, I had to leave early before his parents woke up so that they wouldn't see me in the house. Unlike the U.S. Most people live with their parents a lot longer. They go out and have just as much freedom as people who live alone because it seems like parents are used to it too. If you do need a private room for some reason, there is a booming motel industry specifically for sex. It's pretty obvious why people go there because there are paintings of naked people on the wall – classy. It is so common for horny teenagers to go there that the motels are really nice with flat screen TVs, “love chairs”, and jacuzzis for cheap. Another neat part about the motel is that they have a little sliding door in the room so people can deliver alchohol (and other things) to the room without disturbing the guests.

Once I got kicked out, I had nowhere to go. It was too far and I was too embarrassed to go to my aunt's apartment and had to be at work in a couple of hours. I decided to wait around my office and look for a place to take a nap. There was nowhere to take a nap, but since I was so drunk/hungover, I thought it would be a good idea to sleep behind the Alice In Wonderland movie display at the mall. I was able to sneak behind it without anyone noticing because it was so early, but while I was sleeping a crowd gathered around to work on the display. Even a security guard walked around it several times without noticing. I slept well enough on the ground, but it was kinda cold. Two hours later I popped out on the other side to go to work. I think the security guard noticed something was weird when I walked out, but probably though it was his imagination.

How To Ride A Bus in Bogota

The public transportation system in Bogota is hard to learn and use. Even if you want to learn how to use it, it is impossible because there is no information (brochures, maps, etc) about the bus routes. It is so bad that it is likely that this blog post contains the most information about how to use the bus system in Bogota. So, to tourist, here is what I have learned so far and I hope it helps. My only resource has been my Aunt – who has been very helpful, but she grew up in Bogota so...Otherwise, I would have no idea how to get around.

Compared the the U.S., the Bogota bus system is unorganized because it is not run by the government. Instead, it is a mix of private companies who rent out buses, hire drivers, or drivers who own their own buses. For this reason, the bus system works on whoever can make the most money, not necissarily providing a public service. Because of this, you may find buses competing to pick up passengers, often weaving though traffic, crossing lanes of traffic to pick up someone on the other side of the road. Other times, they may just drive right past you in a hurry to get home.

Waving down a bus, is not the hard part. There are a lot of buses to choose from, so just stick out your hand and you'll get one to stop. Once you get a bus to stop feel free to jump on or off whenever you need to. Often, it is not suprising if the bus driver lets you off in the middle of the street or you have to weaver in between cars to get to and from the sidewalk.

The hard part is trying to figure out where the buses go. It is hard to figure out where they go because, instead of a map, they have signs on the bus that are supposed to explain the bus's route. For example, the sign will say “122, K 15, Chapinero, Unicentro K 19 , Calle 134, Exito” But basically if you are not familiar with the city, this route doesn't make any sense.

What the sign is trying to explain is “Bus #122 will go down Carrera 15 through Chapinero (a neighborhood), until goes past Unicentro (a mall), then it'll take Carrera 19 until it turns onto Calle 134 and drives by the Exito (store). The problem is that in between these random landmarks, the bus could turn another way to get the next landmark, so you don't really know if it is going straight there or is taking a longer route. It's best to learn the names of the neighborhoods so at least you know you are going in the correct general direction. For example, if you take a bus that says “Unicentro” you know you'll end up around the mall eventually. Other than trial-and-error with the 30 buses that say “Unicentro”, it's a guessing game on which bus will take the best route there.

I really don't think that even people who grew up in Bogota know where these buses are going. I think it is a regular guessing game until you finally figure out which is the correct bus for you. Even Bogotanos often jump on to a bus to ask “Do you go by this and that place?”. If the bus driver says no, then they just jump off and wait for the next one to ask. I recommend you just ask so that you don't end up in the middle of nowhere like I did. If you start to see bonfires in the middle of the dirt road, you have gone to far.