Highlights

By Richard McColl

Visitors to Bogotá are treated to some of the most striking contrasts in a Latin American capital. From sparkling new boutiques and elegant restaurants frequented by the well-to-do to the opulence of a time past as seen in the Centro Histórico, Bogotá offers the best of big city living. Of course alongside these positives are the scourges that blight every major city: begging, delinquency and crime. Travelers will be enchanted by the cultural wealth of the capital, and Rolos (as citizens of Bogotá are known) will inform you with certain alacrity that their city is the “Athens of South America,” so called for its polite and well-educated populace. Once they have finished regaling you with the obvious high points of the Museo del Oro, the Plaza de Bolivar, the Santuario de Monserrate, the Casa Quinta de Bolivar and the modernity of northern Bogotá, they will most unashamedly state that, given Bogotá’s altitude, they live 2600 meters (8,530 feet) closer to the stars!