I stayed put in Bogotá this week! The farthest I went from home was to the botanical gardens, which are only about 12.7 kilometers, or around eight miles, from my apartment in La Candelaria (the historic center of Bogotá). Even though it's only eight miles, it took about a half hour to get there because we went on a Sunday, when many streets are closed for a tradition called ciclovía, where bikers, skaters and joggers are free to ride and run in the streets sectioned off for them. They close the streets from around 6:00 a.m. until about 4:00 p.m. Other than the Uber to the gardens, I really only ventured around my neighborhood this week.
The farthest I've traveled from Bogotá was 653 miles (about 90 minutes by plane) to Cartagena, a port city on Colombia's Caribbean coast, where I spent a lot of time on the beach! I've also visited Medellín, the so-called City of Eternal Spring (260 miles from Bogotá), where I visited Comuna 13, which used to be considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world but is now a heart of history, culture and tourism for the country. In Santa Marta, about 608 miles from Bogotá, I hiked through Tayrona Park and visited a neighboring pueblito (small town) called Minca to swim in the Marinka Waterfalls.
