A home for my words.

---

Bogotá Recap Video

---

I’ll be honest, I originally had zero plans of going to Bogotá because it’s too cold and rainy for me. But when my first stop in Colombia at a coliving didn’t workout and I needed a nearby place to stay, I decided to give this city a chance. If you find yourself heading there as well, here are a few things that I suggest.

What to do in Bogotá, Colombia

Botero Museum

Fernando Botero (1932-2023) is probably the most famous visual artist out of Colombia and even though he’s from Medellín, the best place to see his works are at the Botero Museum in Bogota! There, you can see sculptures and paintings featuring more than just the rotund features he’s famous for. I particularly enjoyed his paintings of fruits and buildings. This incredible museum is completely free and on the same grounds as a museum called MAMU (also free) and a cafe, where you can get an authentic cortado.

Cafés

Thankfully, one of my longest-held language exchange partners from Tandem lives in Bogotá. I got to spend time with him and his wife, going to cafes and even watching a stage play one night! Here’s a photo dump of some of the cafes I spent time at and what their names are:

Plaza Distrital de Mercado la Perseverancia

It’s nice to head to this area with locals because it’s a really bustling mercado. My friend’s wife spearheaded our mission and took us around as she reviewed menus and questioned waiters before finally settling on a place where I could get one of my favorite dishes, fried fish and fries. The food options are incredibly hearty and reasonably priced. I also recall live entertainment from a man who played a series of instruments, many I’d never seen before and which came from indigenous groups.

Social Life

Bogotá has the most active TimeLeft scene of any city I’ve tried it in. There are dinners on Wednesday and Friday nights, drinks on Thursday nights, and coffee shop meetups on Wednesday mornings and Saturday afternoons. They even had their first ever Bogotá TimeLeft running event during my final week. It was pouring, in classic Bogotá fashion, but about 10 of us braved the elements and made the best of it. Only one of my “English” dinners was actually in English, but I was happy that Bogotá made sure I was using Spanish a ton during my time there.

There’s actually a massive WhatsApp community that formed from TimeLeft users in Bogotá. The main group had nearly 800 people in it when I first joined, which was overwhelming. Thankfully, there are subgroups that are more manageable and focused on shared interests like hiking, yoga, music, arts, etc. You can join any of those groups here: docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1gS-ZV7paZm664I57k5Hc4uDRyttG_9MeKcWVL1Aay2w/mobilebasic

Graffiti Workshop

Bogotá has a lot of street art; much of it consists of street tags, but there are also some stunning portraits and murals. That’s why I was so happy when I found a workshop where I could practice graffiti for myself! I skipped the chance at doing a graffiti walking tour for a few reasons: I’ve already done those in Toronto and Prague, and I’d already admired plenty while walking or taking taxis around the city for the month that I was there. What I specifically wanted to do was get a hands-on experience. It created a dream to one day have a big wall where I can practice to my heart’s content.

Parque Metropolitano Simón Bolívar

This is the largest public park in Bogotá and thankfully the sun worked its way out on the day that I visited with a friend from TimeLeft. It was a charmed experience getting to sunbathe and people watch all day. There are a number of juice, ice cream, and food vendors throughout the grounds, a lake at the center, and public restrooms that require cash payment.

Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of things to do in Bogotá. For example, Monserrate is popular for tourists, but I never went. It was a combination of trying to plan a hike or cable ride up in a way that worked with my schedule and fearing Bogotá’s rapidly changing weather. I wanted to find myself close to home rather than on a mountaintop should the climate turn rainy and frigid again. In fact, some mornings I woke up and the gloom and chill outside kept me in bed all day. I quickly learned to go for a walk somewhere — anywhere — whenever the weather showed it’s good side.

While I ended up enjoying my time in Bogotá, I’m far too weak against the cold to consider it one of my go-to destinations lol. I was grateful for the wonderful people I got to spend time with and equally happy to head to warmer pastures.

Medellín

Recap Video

---

Medellín immediately impressed me with its nearly perfect climate and city streets lined with trees, plants, and flowers. Still, I made it a point to visit the city’s botanical garden:

Jardín Botánico

This botanical garden is free, so I figured there was no harm in checking it out. Just 15 minutes or so into my visit I felt underwhelmed and I disappointed that I’d paid for a cab to visit it, but then I realized I just needed to explore more. It ended up being fun to slowly unveil the park to myself despite not being given a map. There was a library housed on the grounds that looked like it would have been fun, but it closes midday, and I wasn’t allowed to enter. There’s also free Wi-Fi in one section of the garden, and I saw a woman working from her laptop! You can also picnic there, which plenty groups of family, friends, and little ones celebrating their birthdays were doing. I spotted one iguana, which I would have missed if two little boys weren’t closely surveilling it. Much different from my visit to Parque de las Iguanas in Guayaquil, where the entire park was crawling in iguanas! The wildlife at this public garden didn’t stop there though. I also saw butterflies mating for the first time; I didn’t know they could stay locked together for so long!

Lastly, I saw a familiar and joyous South American scene: a girl taking her quinceañera photos. The dresses are always so beautiful, and it’s something I’ll miss about Latin America. Things really pick up at the botanical garden in the afternoon, so if you want to be there in quiet definitely go during the morning. It was a wonderful place to explore while identifying plants with my Seek app.

Volunteer / Digital Nomads for Good (DNfG)

There’s a group called Digital Nomads for Good (DNfG) in Medellín that helps nomads find ways to volunteer while temporarily calling the city home. I briefly volunteered at Fundación Jardín de Amor, a house that offers somewhere safe for children to live. You can find all of the organizations that DNfG supports by visiting their Instagram and joining their WhatsApp group. They have plans to ultimately expand to other locations around the world. I think it’s a great model because plenty of nomads want to find ways to better integrate with the communities they are visiting.

TimeLeft

Surprisingly, Medellín’s TimeLeft scene had nothing on Bogotá. The only events are dinners on Wednesday and Friday nights and unfortunately, they’re all in Poblado. I think it’s a missed opportunity to not offer the option of having dinner in Laureles since it had many of the same restaurant brands without the reputation of being less than safe. But I’m mostly just sour I had to commute over to Poblada from Laureles! Some dinners were less populated than others, but people weren’t as late to dinner as in some cities. If you attend a TimeLeft dinner there, be sure to ask someone at the table to be added to the WhatsApp group if you’d like to meet up for Afters or head to local city events with a group.

The Arts

There were plenty of improv shows throughout Medellín and I even got to see a ballet program. As is common, it felt like most of the NomadTable events were focused on partying, but I did visit the Medellín Museum of Art on a special free entrance day with folks from the TimeLeft WhatsApp group. For that specific museum, I highly recommend visiting on a free day. There were only two exhibits that really stood out to me, but it was nice getting to enjoy their small outdoor spaces interspersed throughout the exhibits.

Creative Blocks

I’m usually not much of a coworker, preferring to do my writing in solitude, and having professional work that requires me to take private meetings. That said, Creative Blocks (https://creativeblocks.club) was such a pleasant addition to the pursuit of my personal projects. The group takes work time seriously. There are time blocks for getting things done, and blocks for getting a dose of socialization. At the end of the day, people often grab dinner or drinks. They also have a chapter in Toronto and plan on expanding to more cities in the future. Sessions are free and you only pay for whatever you consume at the cafe housing the group on that day. Should our paths ever overlap again, I will happily join future Creative Blocks sessions. I highly recommend you join them if you’re ever in their available cities.

WhatsApp groups (+issues)

Medellín is of course a popular location for tourism and nomads. With this is mind, there are plenty of WhatsApp groups that one can join. The website mdecommunity.com/communities is a great place to start. That said, many of these groups make you jump through hoops in order to join. While it’s done in the name of safety, I ended up deciding the hassle was only worth it for the writing group and the Laureles neighborhood group. 

One wonderful thing about Medellin are the views. Pretty much anywhere you live, you’re likely to have sight of the lush green hills surrounding the valley. The color contrast between the brown homes nestled among the hills often reminded me of looking out of the window in my study abroad home outside of Kathmandu.

Comuna 13

This is one of the main places tourist visit in Medellín. The hilly community was taken over by guerrilla militias during Medellín’s civil unrest in the late 1990s.

I chose a tour that took us beyond the tourist hot spots and brought us into the homes of people who had lived through those times. As we sat in the living room of a man who seemed to have a hobby of collecting fitted caps, he told us about an incident where he was shot him multiple times. One bullet is still lodged in his face.

I tried asking if the people who had lived through those times were offered any government therapy programs. It was clear there was a lot he’d had to do for survival — things he didn’t feel comfortable telling people who couldn’t relate — and figured therapy would be a great place to unload the horrors living in his head. However, the tour guide let me know that wasn’t a question we were going to discuss. As the day slipped into night, our group had become increasingly intoxicated by the sweetened aguardiente offered to us throughout the tour, and we left the man’s home for a final stop. I took the opportunity to press the tour guide once more. He simply said therapy wasn’t a thing that people were going to do, no matter what urges they had to unburden themselves. It’s something I still think about.

Medellín’s train system is efficient and remarkably clean. The train cars have large windows with sparklingly vistas of the the city and there are security guards throughout each station. A far cry from my experiences growing up in NYC.

Parque Arvi

Parque Arvi was one of my favorite things in Medellín. To be specific, it was actually the commute there that I recall most fondly. I knew you needed to take two different cable cars to get there, but I had no clue how rapidly and how far away from the city it would bring me! I ended up doing a guided tour, which was nice in the sense that my guide taught me cool things like which plants can be used to squeeze out a ton of water and even chopped a plant to scrape out some of its juice and calm some bug bites that I got, but he also had a super loud voice that scared away the pretty birds LOL. I suppose that was the tradeoff; he took me through trails I wouldn’t have found on my own and certainly could not have navigated my way out of solo!

Day Trips

Guatapé

There are many digital nomads who are seeking out smaller places off the beaten path of populated cities. Although I only spent a day in Guatapé, it seemed like a perfect place to stay if you’re looking for a small, beautiful place without too much commotion. I’ve seen some other nomads say they found it boring, but I’m starting to realize that some of the places I adore, others find not lively enough. I’m just a girl who wants peace and quite (:

Guatapé would be a great place to force yourself to improve your Spanish, and it attracts people for it’s colorful buildings and the 740 steps up La Piedra! At night, it seems like a place that would offer a dose of local life while still having restaurants and clubs. Plus, if you’re looking for tourist things to do outside of the town, there’s still the chance to hike or take a helicopter ride above La Piedra, rent jet skis, or pay for a party boat. I even saw some restaurants and cafes on docked boats as well, which looked cool.

Do not trust GoogleMaps for taking local buses around Medellín. There are comfortable and affordable shuttle buses to and from the international airport that are great though, especially if you’re traveling light.

Cartagena and Palenque, Colombia

My trip to Cartagena wasn’t so much of a nomad trip as it was a standard vacation. I only went for four days. While there, I did a tour of the walled city (with another tour guide who spoke at a wildly loud level….maybe it’s a trait that lends itself to the industry? haha), visited Palenque, which is known as the first officially freed Black town in the Americas and a place I highly recommend, and did a day pass at a local resort.

The only thing that soured my trip is that somehow someone was able to make fraudulent charges on my credit card. Given the type of info that they had on me and the fact that I largely used cash while I was there, I had a suspicion that the fraudulent charges actually came from someone at the hotel. I even found another review of the hotel on GoogleMaps with someone who had the same hunch. For that reason, I won’t be naming the hotel, which is a shame because I had no other problems there and found it an affordable and comfortable place with great views.

I also found that as much of a lovely time as I had at the resort with my day pass, there were some unsavory moments that also felt like potential scam setups. This could just be my own paranoia, but that resort also had a review on an elaborate scam that took them for hundreds of dollars and threatened their life while they were there. So when my Spidey senses told me there was likely some operation between a certain beach vendor and the cops who happened to be having a beverage at the hotel, I listened to my gut.

So, Cartagena was a strange experience. I really enjoyed it as a short trip and the absolute lizard in me loved the heat I so often heard people complain about, but it felt best suited as a quick trip where you keep your wits about you.

In Conclusion

I had plenty of good moments in Colombia while also learning more about my needs as a nomad. I consider that a win. There are other islands and coastal cities that would be cool for me to visit in Colombia, but I don’t know the next time I’ll be back.

This is the longest it’s taken me to finish up a blog post. I was really dragging my feet on publishing this one, which is unlike me. So, I am just going to leave this where it is and not stress about it anymore. I hope it’s been useful to you!