A city where millions of people live and everywhere you look you see people, all kinds of different people from various neighbourhoods. While I was in Colombia, I learned so much about the Colombian culture which I am very grateful for. Love sharing my perspective with you!
Pico y Placa
So, first of all, Bogota: a city of 12 million people and therefore an enormously amount of traffic all day long. For that reason they have “Pico y Placa” which is a restriction for specific cars (based on the last number of the number plate) during specific times of the day. For example; if your number plate is VDW 862 and Pico y Placa is that day for even numbers, you are not allowed to drive in Bogota from 6:00-9:00 and 15:00-20:00. This restrictions is for cars with a yellow number plate. Taxi companies and other service companies have white number plates. As you have read, did I only mention cars. Motors and scooters do not have Pico y Placa, therefore, you see them everywhere in the city. I think I have never seen so many motors on a high way. Oh another thing, all vehicles are allowed to pass from either the right and left side, so yes; chaos!
Public transport
Most of the time, in Bogota they wait in the queue for the public transport as in Santiago. Every time, I forgot to make a picture in Santiago, but now in Bogota I didn’t. It is so cute for me and polite! Something which we could learn from as Europeans.
Besides that, I found the city very clean and I felt save (maybe because I was always with a Colombian). Of course, in some neighborhoods it was less clean and you shouldn’t go alone there, but that is then also a thing you don’t do.
There is this thing, which I every time couldn’t stop getting annoyed and shocked of and that was black smoke from the cars and trucks. I didn’t know it would do so much to me to see and smell it (it was very disgusting also), but it apparently did.
Food rituals
Another point is that the Colombian people, like I think the rest of Latin-America, also eat big during lunch. Dani told me it is normal to have a housekeeper who cleans but also cooks the meals. Yeah mom, your life would be much easier haha. And and and, their food is all so delicious, but not the most healthy food with the maximum of vegetables though. Something typical is for example; Arepa with egg. Arepa is mix between bread and pita, and we ate it for breakfast but also sometimes for lunch.
Besides that, are the people all so extremely kind and lovely. So, heartwarming for me and sort of unbelievable at the same moment because I am not used to it. They help you and try to make sure you enjoy the time you have in their country. The touristic attractions aren’t also very busy. I think that people still have that sort of bad image of Colombia, but from what I have seen and experienced so far, they/we really shouldn’t, because those people and this country is something special! Everything is further by the way so cheap for us (compared to Euro’s), so yeah, there shouldn’t be any other excuse.
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