Colombian Gold Museum
We went on a Thursday afternoon to the Colombian gold museum only after we had a grand breakfast at our hotel in the middle of Bogotá. This museum is located on the eastern side of the town which is really hard to get to. Bogotá is in my opinion a very dirty unorganized and unkept capital. The taxis seem to change their fares depending on how you look. It seemed as if I spend a lot of money on taxes they change their minds every hour on how much they’re going to charge you. This was the only problem I see that came up during the time in Bogotá that and one another incident that I will describe at the end of this blog. We took the bus this time and it was quite a deal of transfer and walking for blocks and blocks I had very comfortable shoes on but the walking in the pro florist show cause me to get these giant blisters on the back of my heels and so walking with any kind of shoe,Made me feel like I had cement blocks on my feet and the pain was really intense aside from that I was enjoying the craziness of the buses. The entrance fee to the museum was very inexpensive it was roughly 2 dollars per person to get in and well worth the two dollars. There were a lot of people in the museum mostly visitors and tourists but it was pleasant there was lots of security it was beautifully done and really clean. The artifacts in some cases were a bit overwhelming to think that these indigenous Indians in those days the pre-Columbian’s prior to the Spaniards invasion and raping of the villages of all the gold, and supplies they had from growing cotton, sugarcane, corn, mining for emeralds, and so much more.It was impressionable to stand there in a room with all this ancient art and gold and to think that thousands of years back they knew how to process the gold in such a way to create beautiful artifacts.
The first thing we saw was a beautiful conch shell made of gold, crude,roughly done but it was evident the intent of the art of recreating nature.
As you walk thru the museum , there is a succession of years and that they proceeded to develop their skills in creating gold pieces each level of the museum represents a different year or time frame and a lot of the pieces are very crude in the beginning but as you go to the next level you can see the progression there were so many pieces that were so intricate and tiny I mean really really tiny. it’s fascinating to think they had the capacity to do this without magnifying glasses without equipment and I’m talking tiny less than an inch ,the birds, the gods the animals The nature they recreated in such detail is beautiful.
I we stopped half way thru the tour to have a good cup of Colombian Coffee and rested our feet. They had a nice gift shop with artifacts. Displayed and lots. Of items from Colombia. What a great way to spend the afternoon.
After we walked out to th plaza and found numerous shops and stands selling everything you can imagine, great gifts and Souvenirs. I had to change my money to pesos so we found this hidden place on a second story of a building close by, with. Private entrance and locks and exchanged my money. We found a cute restaurant on the corner and ate a wrap with a glass of wine the total cost for us both was 12 dollars. I am finding Colombia is very reasonable, great food, and happy people. Then the worst! Helen decided that we should take the bus back to the hotel since it cost so much for taxi, i was totally against it at that hour of traffic and so many people. The. Truth be it Bogata is so over crowded and is dirty and to me disturbing that there are so many in one area. Entonces! And so!! We go! Walking to the nearest platform asking at every corner. Where is the bus for calle 115, well this was the worst senearo ever! So we walk about ten blocks, find the correct platform. We get in the crowd no line, only a huge group of people waiting to mash together in this enormous bus of four lengths. We proceed to follow the crowd. Mine you I am experiencing the worst pain in my feet, blisters in the back bleeding, people in front on side ,peopling standing on my feet. Smashing me into other people taller than me pony tails in my face . While guarding my purse. And trying to not fall when the bus takes off and stops! OMG never take the bus In BOGATA!! Unless you like being a sardine! Then it hit me I was like going nuts with all those people on top of me the next stop I told Helen in Spanish YO NO PUEDO MÁS!!! I could not take any more I leaped out of the bus pusihing people so i could thru the door way before it closed and took off again
Helen was stuck and could not get thru, finally she pushed too and the people were yelling at us both. I was so infuriated I just walked ahead to clear my. Mind wow! That was crazy. Well it started getting dark and were were a long way from the hotel, we tried to flag a taxi ,standing on the street corner yelling and waving but everyone passed in a speed you can not even believe! Leaving us on the corner for more than an hour. Finally I walked and walk and got a space in the road where the car could actually pull over for us, and waved one down. Helen nor I spoke for more than an hour after that, we got the hotel I took a hot shower. Immediately!followed by Helen. Then we laughed our heads off adding this to our crazy adventures! Honestly it was if were packed in like sardines, it was so weird! I just do not know how people do it every day. We had a great breakfast the next moring and left for Medellin,a 9 hour Bus ride over bumpy mountainous roads,but so Beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment