In the supermarket I was able to find 8 different beer brands available in Bogota:
Unfortunately something happened with the picture of Aguila and I already drank the can hehe.
So I tasted so far Aguila, Club Colombia, Poker and of course Heineken. My favorite? Club Colombia, but for sure you should try all of them once to be sure that you are not missing out on anything.
One interesting difference between Colombia and Holland is by the way that in Holland most men drink beer when they go out or in the house. In Colombia and I think in many Latin American countries many men instead drink Whiskey, Rum or some local alcohol like Aguardiente (Fire Water) in Colombia. Aguardiente is I think still the most consumed alcoholic drink in Colombia and it is surely something special so I will dedicate a separate post on it when we decide to open another bottle.
Having lunch in Portal de la 80 (a big mall at the east side of the city) is an interesting experience as there are about 25 fast food places to choose from. There are several hamburger places but some are amazingly expensive (El Corral, 16000COP for a combo). Not wanting to spend too much this day we checked out the cheapest offer for a combo meal. In Del Rodeo they offered 2 combos of a Hamburger, fries and drink for 17000COP, about 10USD. The combo is relatively simple but tasted exactly as you would expect a hamburger and fries to taste. For that money it was a good filler and healthy fast food is very rare anyway. If you want a more deluxe hamburger you should try out El Corral. It is a lot more expensive but the taste is possibly a little better.
Del Rodeo you can find all over Bogota:
Cr. 7, No. 13-43
Av. Boyaca, No. 131ª-25
Cr. 11, No. 70-66 Centro Comercial Palatino
Centro Comercial Portal 80 (Trv. 100ª, No. 80ª -20)
Centro Comercial Punto 170
Same for El Corral but more on that later (when I actually eat there)
Ah and Del Rodeo has also delivery: 01-900-331-5111
One visit that I forgot to write about is the day that we went to the Planetarium at Calle 28 con 7 next to the Parque de la Independencia I wrote about before. You will also see the Plaza de Toros (bull fighting arena) in the close neighborhood of it so it should be relatively easy to find.
The Planetarium is especially popular with families with little children as there are some handy craft activities and also the show probably is made with them in mind. Before going in, the guard told us that in July 2008 they will put a new digital system as the analog system that they have now is too old and too limited.
The show we saw “Mitos y leyendas del cielo” – “Myths and Legends of the sky” was interesting but a little slow for my taste. When the new system is there we will go and check it out again as the entrance is cheap and when we can borrow some kids from a cousin or something it will be fun to see their excitement.
Last week I was attending a family meeting, not sure where or when but that is actually irrelivant for this post. For some reason we started talking about how things are different between Holland and Colombia. One of the hardest things for my wife and I am sure for the rest of my Colombian family and friends is that Dutch people tend to be very direct and not always that diplomatic.
An example:
Me asking the bill in a restaurant: “Oye, me puedes traer la cuenta?” (Hey you, can you bring me the bill?)
My wife asking the bill: “Disculpa senorita, me puede hacer un favor? Me podria traer la cuenta porque prefiero pagar en unos minutes. Muchisimas gracias!!” (Excuse me miss, could you do me favor? Would it be possible to bring me the bill as I would like to pay in a few minutes? Thank you so much!!)
One other thing that I noticed is that Colombians like to speak in extremes, especially the females. hehe
If I have dinner and I like something but it is nothing really special, I will say: “esta bien”, which means “it’s ok”. In Colombian that gets translated however as: “wow I really did not like it”
If you do not say that something is “delicioso!” (delicious) it is not good and people might even be offended. Something in the middle is not acceptable, so either really good or really bad.
One other interesting difference is that Colombian ladies (especially the moms and aunts) like to feed everyone like there will no food in the country tomorrow. So in dinners, parties etc, you will always be asked if you want more and they can be very convincing. Me being kind of skinny makes things worse I think as they think that I am underfed and need to gain some fat. The concept of no is no, has taken a long time to sink in, but now they realize that if I say that I am ok and do not want to eat more, I really mean it
For sure there are many other differences both good and bad, but these are the few we had a good laugh about recently and more will have to follow later. I will take a notebook with me to make sure I remember more…
It were actually only about 20 minutes but there are some parks in Bogota where you could easily spend a day just chilling out and playing some futbol (soccer hehe). I have heard about Parque Bolivar but have only passed it on several occasions. Soon I will go and check it out and write about it.
About two weeks ago however we were close to the center and crossed through this park:
It is not very big, but nice enough to get away for a sec from the busy streets and enjoy the green combined with the very blue skies we get here often. If you are wondering what the above palm trees are doing in the middle of the not tropic Bogota, you are not alone. Even my father in law did not know that the national tree the “Palma de Cera” can be found here high in the mountains. I have seen them also like this:
If you look closely you will see me at the bottom hugging the tree. I am guessing that this tree is about 30 meters high. This specific tree you can find close to Armenia. Not sure exactly where though haha
Being two and a half years married is a good reason to celebrate, so we did…
As the restaurant I had planed to go to, decided not to be open at a Sunday afternoon (!!!), I had to impress my wife with my “backup” plan. Going to Zona G is than always a good option as here you will find probably the best restaurants of Bogota all together in a few blocks.
After passing most of them (as they seemed too boring), we saw a nice looking restaurant and crossed the street to go in. For some reason we passed it however and noticed a place across the street called: Darpapaya. Directly translated it means “give opportunity” a strange name for a restaurant, but it intrigued us enough to step inside and check the menu. When the waiter said the place serves Latin-Asian fusion, we had to try it out. The table next to the window was reserved (and several others actually) so we took place on the terrace which in the end did not turn out to be as cold as we expected.
The staff was pretty friendly and the menu made our mouths water instantly. We like to always share and taste different plates and most of the time the entrees are the best. This time we chose a carpaccio of salmon with a mayonaise sauce of wasabi and a ceviche of mixed fish to start off. A ceviche is one of my favorite starters and the Peruvian version is famous in Colombia and is served with a amazingly good sauce. This carpaccio and ceviche were far from the standard ones and tasted simply amazing.
For the main course we took the bife …. (forgot the second part). It is a plate with some chunky pieces of tender beef, served with a peanut sauce, a fried ball of criolla patato with cheese and some green beans. Also this plate was superb! So good actually that we had to try the deserts. The cheesecake of grapes was a great finisher.
As you can tell we really liked the place and even though it is a little on the expensive side (we paid 81.000COP, 50USD), for a nice occasion I can really really recommend it.
In the streets of Bogota you will find people begging for money and others that sell for example flowers or garbage bags to make some cash to eat.
We always put all the lower value vueltas (change) that we receive, in the ashtray of our car so we have something to give to the people in need or buy something that we really do not need hehe.
Today we walked to a restaurant and came across an older man that started talking to me as we passed. My first impression was that he looked like an upscale beggar and was going to be prooven right. At first I said that I really did not have any cash with me (which I thought was true), but after checking my pockets I noticed I had a 100COP (0.05USD) coin. I gave it to the guy, but I hardly had put it in his hand, when he told me that this was nothing and he wanted to give it back!!
In the Netherlands we have a saying “hij die het kleine niet eert, is het grote niet weert” (hope I wrote that correct haha). It means that he who does not respect the little, is not worth of the big. If I see a 50COP coin on the street, I will pick it up. Money is money. After we told him what we thought about him giving me back the money, we left him there hoping he would find rich people later. Pretty sure that it will not help him to move on up though. Sayings are there for a reason!
Ah and if you think I am cheap or have no respect for homeless or poor people, you are wrong and should read the post again.
