We NEVER Knew Colombia Looked Like THIS (until we came here) 🇨🇴 Bogota

We NEVER Knew Colombia Looked Like THIS (until we came here) 🇨🇴 Bogota

Good morning here from the beautiful capital city of Colombia, Bogotá. This is actually one of the biggest cities in South America. And apparently if you lay over the map of Paris on top of Bogotá, you’ll see that Bogotá is almost 17 times bigger. So that’s why every area here is super different. So we’re going to start off with the central area, which is right now you can see very chaotic, noisy, lively music everywhere. And after that we’re going to move to a local neighborhood which is a lot quieter and peaceful to show you what life is like where locals are living. And then after that, we’re going to show you around the surroundings of Bogota, the nature sceneries and also neighboring towns as well to show you how diverse Bogota is. But first, today we’re going to start off with a delicious breakfast. Colombian breakfast, guys. Feels like we’re in Cuba, not in Colombia. Wow. Here is a retro car retro American cars. Anyway, this right here is already the restaurant that we’re going to go to. The name of it is called La Puerta Falsa apparently it is actually the oldest restaurant, one of the oldest restaurants here in Bogota. And we’re gonna check it out. Alina is just a little bit traumatized from her bike ride just now. We actually rode almost an hour to this neighborhood. People in Bogota driving crazy. I feel like they’re driving so dangerous. my hands when I arrived, I was shaking like this. You know, it’s not like Southeast Asia, because Southeast Asia people, they’re driving scooter and they’re driving super slow. But here in Colombia, people driving motorbike and then driving between cars everywhere. We ordered the traditional soup, ajiaco, which is a very classic Colombian soup that a lot of household, a lot of local Colombians love drinking. And also we ordered the tamal, which is kind of like a leafy thing wrapped with rice and chicken inside. So it’s going to be really delicious as well. Well, I’m sure. And one special thing about this place is that they also have hot chocolate with cheese inside and it comes with kind of like a side bread. And I love that we’re sitting here, the balcony and there is like live music, guitar performance outside. And just now it’s so weird, I saw a llama just walking on the street, which is something you won’t see in our local neighborhood. It’s only in central like this. Just so much going on. Alright, so all our food has arrived cuz the portions here are so big. Hot chocolate with cheese, first time trying. Pretty sure you meant to melt it first. hot Chocolate is not that hot. Oh, really? It’s warm, but cheese nice. Now, the ajiaco tasted like a thick potato and corn soup loaded with shredded chicken. So it’s very homestyle and comforting. Especially pairing with rice and avocado on the side just works really well together. And the portion was massive too. This is like home food for me because it reminds me a lot of Hong Kong food. I also quite like the tamal probably more than Alina did, because it reminded me a bit of my home Hong Kong food, Lo Mai gai, which usually is wrapped in lotus leaves, but here they use banana leaves for steaming. The flavor was also super delicate and savory, with a mashed corn dough texture on the outside and meat on the inside. So it’s quite an interesting dish that’s worth trying in Colombia. What’s the total damage? Total damage is 77,000 Colombian peso for so many dishes. And the food was so delicious just now. The coolest thing about this area, it is packed with very colonial style architectures, especially this square right here, which is the most popular square in Colombia, surrounding us here. They are all really important government buildings apparently. So that one behind me there, that one is the Supreme Court of Colombia. And on this side right here, this is apparently the biggest cathedral in Colombia. And on the other side over there, this is the Congress Building. And on the other side, the last corner, that is the mayor’s office. So all these architecture surround surrounding the square. It kind of reminds me of back in Europe almost like, though it seems like people’s attention not really on the architecture, but they are mostly distracted by the pigeons that are chaotically flying around the square, which feels like to be the real highlight. They are not even scared of me. They don’t even fly away. They react to food only. It’s interesting. When you’re at the square, a lot of people will start approaching you. For example, like just now, there was this shoe shiner trying to approach me to shine my shoes. And also, you can see because there’s so many pigeons here, some people actually use this as a business. They start selling seeds to feed the pigeons. And it actually worked because a lot of people are feeding pigeons right now. You see this area, La Candaria, is the cultural and historical district of Bogota. So there are lots of colonial style architecture that is still standing. So it kind of feels like we’re stepping back in time, which is so different to the rest of Bogota that we’ll show you later. The one thing that really stands out in this area are the amount of artistic graffitis. Graffiti is actually considered legal in most areas, of course, not government buildings and all that, but most areas actually considered decriminalized. Unlike other countries, like for example, in Hong Kong, if you paint on a subway, definitely you get arrested very soon. But in Bogota, I like that It’s about the freedom of expression through paintings and also the creativity as well. You can see there’s so many really beautiful, colorful graffiti all around the streets of Bogota, which is very impressive. In Russia, usually if you see graffiti on the wall, so it will be something like this and it will be something like bad walls. But here, graffiti, it’s totally art. Just look at this. It just make the city even more prettier if without graffiti. Can you imagine? Well, here’s the thing. As soon as we step away from the center just a little bit, we immediately felt uneasy and so different. To be honest, guys, now we’re walking in this area and I don’t feel safe at all because a lot of homeless people, a lot of like weird people under drugs, a lot of people smoking marijuana. This area, compared to the area we live in, which feels a bit more dangerous. And also they hear everywhere police patrolling around. You know, having police, it’s a good thing, but having too many police makes it feel even more dangerous. When we arrived to Bogota immediately, our bodyguard of our building told us, don’t put your phone here, because you know, usually I like to carry my phone on myself. They said, don’t put for your phone here, don’t hold in your hands, otherwise someone will come. And two times they told us two different people. So feels like it’s so common in Bogota. So now we’re actually going to head up to the mountains of Bogota. This is the tallest mountain in Bogota. It’s called Monserrate. And to go there, there are two ways to go there. One is cable car. Another one, it’s a funicular, a mountain climbing one that we saw from a far just now. It look super steep. And this is the ticket booth, apparently called taquilla. taquilla. It’s kind of like a diagonal elevator. we should go to the first one Whoa. The weather here is so different. If there’s anything you guys know is that we love a good cinematic mountain vibe. As foggy as it is, the better. Also when you come up here immediately you feel the air is much colder as well as the air is a lot thinner as well, just because we are a lot higher. And the coolest thing about this, it’s actually 3,000 meters above ground. So basically if you stack out four tallest buildings in the world, Burj Khalifa in Dubai is basically the height of this mountain, which is super tall. If you look down at Bogota, even Bogota is actually one of the tallest cities in the world. It’s 2,600 meters, which is three Burj Khalifas. That’s why usually in Bogota, the weather in general is very unstable because it’s mountain weather, unpredictable. You know, just now at the square it was all sunny, super hot, and all of a sudden, boom. Weather change, Start raining and wearing jackets. This place is famous for altitude. It’s so high in Bogota that you can see the entire beautiful city of Bogota supposingly. And I guess the view. Nice view, nice view. It’s like a diffuser here. It’s okay. Be patient. Maybe later the fog will go away like in Fansipan. If you guys haven’t watched our video from Vietnam. Fan Sipan, we went to the tallest mountains in Vietnam. That was super cool and cinematic. Go to watch now. Not now. After this video. Look at this. So cinematic. Looks like second time in our life. We are so lucky because the sky go away. Now we finally can see the city So lucky. Who’s so lucky? So beautiful. So lucky, huh? So beautiful. I know. I’m so glad we waited. Yeah. Welcome to another day here in Bogota. And today our plan is actually to show you our local neighborhood because so far we’ve only showed you a lot of the touristy side of it. But I also want to show you what locals are living here like. So currently we actually staying in an area called Cedrito and it’s a kind of like a family friendly middle class neighborhood where there are lots of parks and greeneries around. At one point we even considered living in here, in this neighborhood for even longer time just because everything here just feels very livable. It has all kinds of facilities you need transportation. And just the fact that it is very dog friendly in this country and there’s so many facilities built specifically for pets made Alina fall in love with this neighborhood as well. I don’t know how Justin doing this, but he always know how to choose good area. And I like because every single building in this area, you can see they have security guards. We feel here super, super safe. And you can see on the streets there’s not a lot of, you know, gangsters, homeless people around. Almost like empty streets, just people walking casually with like dogs and also a lot of greeneries around. I think that’s what important to make it a very good and livable place is that there are A lot of walking spaces as well. I think Colombia being such a pet friendly country is so surprising because no matter which area you go to in Colombia, so it’s like in Bogota you can see so many pet owners, so many different kind of dog breeds as well. Yeah. And I love it. Make me feel like I wanna. I want to have dog here because around here. A lot of like dog cafe. Friendly dog. What? Snowball. Oh, wow. Wow. Like a white fox. See? And they’re all friends together. Yeah. Like a group of dogs just hanging out. And this is the kind of scenery that we’ve been seeing every day. And the coolest thing about Bogota in particular, like during weekdays, you see a lot of dog walkers. They hold maybe a group of seven or eight dogs together. Maybe they pay a small amount to these dog walkers. Because I think Bogota in general is a very city city, you know, so that’s why people don’t really have a lot of time to take care of dogs during weekdays. You know, it’s always was my dream to have a dog and just go to park and spend time with dog like this. Oh, that’s so cute. I cannot. Every time when I walk in in Bogoto in Colombia and I see a lot of dogs in the park and just. Oh, so jealous. I want to. Oh, my God. We just spotted our favorite dog. It’s our dream dog to have in the future when we do camper van, which is the Australian shepherd. They have got a lot of them here. A lot of huskies of Australian shepherd. But Australian shepherd, this color is exactly what we want. Why so cute? Hello, hello, hello, hello. He’s so fluffy. He’s so friendly. It’s not your snack. So friendly. He was like, walk me. Well, this is the friendliest husky I’ve ever seen. See,like hug me, in Bogota It’s so easy when you stress in life. Just come to the park. Look at all these dogs. Play with them. It makes you happy. This is my daily dose of caffeine. As some of you guys might know, we’ve been living in South America for over three months now. And we’ve been practicing our Spanish almost every day using the app Rosetta Stone, which is a language learning app. Just because we’re thought for the rest of this year in South America, Spanish is the predominant language. So why not make our life easier? And that’s where Rosetta Stone comes in. The sponsor of today’s video. With as little as five minutes, I can do the classes anywhere I want. I’ve done them in a taxi before. I’ve done it in restaurant when I’m waiting for a meal. I’ve even done it at home when I’m eating breakfast. Also, Rosetta Stone uses a technique called dynamic immersion. So basically it’s like in real life when you pair a word with what you see and hear from native speakers in their own accent. And that’s why it’s so effective. And also because of the true accent feature. It listens to how your pronunciation and gives you feedback instantly so you sound like a local. We found that even if you speak a little of the language, even if you struggle a little bit, and that’s okay, it tends to show respect and also breaks the ice. And most of the time locals, once they hear you speak their local language, they actually will get out of their way to help help you. So yeah, if you ever struggle with learning new language or finally want to start to learn one, Rosetta Stone is actually offering a lifetime unlimited subscription for over 60% off. And that’s with access to 25 language for life with just one payment. Now let’s get back to the video. I can say that when we first arrived Bogota, one thing that really caught our attention is like a lot of attention to details of the city planning as well, especially the roads. I’m going to show you now example, this might appear to be like a normal intersection road, right? But actually you can see there’s some details here like these dotted metals that is placed on the floor. I think as car is approaching this intersection, you’re meant to slow down and you’ll be notified with these metal dots thingies so that it alerts the cars to slow down for pedestrians or for intersections just to be watch out. You know, when we walk around our neighborhood, we notice these buildings and architecture just have this really chill and cozy vibe that makes you want to stay there. There’s nothing too fancy, but everything looks very well organized. It just has its own unique aesthetic, especially with the greeneries around. There’s this beautiful laid back atmosphere to it. It’s also super clean here. We’re both very impressed by the urban planning in this area. You can hardly find any trash on the streets and everyone seemed very considerate. There are also designated bike lanes that are built throughout the city like this one, so that people if during the weekdays they want to exercise, they could use this. Bugoda weather is so weird. Like yesterday it was so sunny and hot and all of a sudden now it’s so damn cold. And also it’s windy and it’s rainy. And that’s the thing about Bogota. The temperature here is super unpredictable. I think one thing that surprises the most coming to Bogota is the amount of international food options. Especially, you know, I’m a foodie and I come from Asia. We have being so far away from home, of course we missed some Asian food and we’re very surprised. In Bogota we find so many authentic Asian places to eat. We’ve been eating very well, actually. We had Korean food the other day, like Korean barbecue and also Japanese. So many other cuisines that you wouldn’t normally find in other countries. It’s all in one place, Bogota. And I think the reason why is because Bogota is such a populated city with over 11 million population. So that’s why it attracted a lot of foreigners coming to this city to live in. And that brings the influence of other cuisines coming to the city as well. We’ve came to one of our favorite restaurants here in Bogota. It’s called Wok. And this place, the reason why we love it so much is because it’s such a Asian fusion place with a lot of authentic Asian food. And it comes with this cute little newspaper as a menu. And in terms of their food, they actually serve a lot of Japanese, Chinese and also Thai and Vietnamese food. We came here a lot of times already, Vietnamese food wise. We tried the pho last time and it was quite authentic. And this time I want to try something different. So I choose today Rollie, because this place is specialized on rollie. And today you can see it’s a lot of people here because it’s a Saturday and people just love this place so much because the prices is affordable and the quality is super good. But today I decided something that is very authentic to Thailand as a as well, which is the Pat Kapow, I think that’s how it’s called, which is like stir fry, minced beef with basil, which is a very classic dish in Thailand. So let’s see if it tastes authentic like Thailand or is it going to be like a Western version of it? Hopefully not, because so far the food has been like very nice. Smells authentic, looks authentic. This is why I like this restaurant. No, I’m eating at a restaurant so far from home, but at the same time I feel like I’m tasting food from home. It’s kind of funny, but for some reason we accidentally shot everything in slow motion here. But anyway, the food was fantastic, very authentic. We love this place a lot and probably have already come here for five to seven times during our stay. In Bogota, you know guys in Colombia, it’s so interesting. Tip system waiter, after you finish eating, will come to you and ask, do you want to give me tip? And if you say yes, then they will include to the bill some like 10 %. But if you say no, then they will just like remove it. So interesting. It’s like they’re not forcing you, but it’s. I don’t know, we. We never say no because it’s so. It feels so bad how you can say no to, to. To staff who serve you food. So we’ll say okay. So so far we’ve explored what’s within the city of Bogota. It is very chaotic. I know. But today we’re going to do something different because you also want to check out what’s surrounding Bogota. So we’re going to go to something very unique which is going to a salt mine crafted into a cathedral. So what I mean is a cathedral inside a salt mine, deep underground. And we’re going to go check it out Today. to get to the salt cathedral, we decided to take an old retro train. Now the ticket costs around 160,000 peso for both of us and the journey takes about two to three hours. But the coolest thing about this train is that on the way you’ll see a lot of beautiful greeneries apparently and also some live traditional music. Someone is going to perform on this train. I didn’t even know it’s two hours. Just now Justin told me it’s two hours. I thought it was going to be like 15 minutes drive. But this train looks super retro and to be completely honest, we are not properly caffeinated. Alina, this morning said coffee-nated. Yes. I wake up today 6am and I thought we can drink coffee, but it’s too early too like coffee shops all closed. Yep. So apart from looking at the view, we also need to catch up on our sleep time. This is not just any regular train because there is live music on board. Singing, Spanish traditional music. Well, obviously we don’t understand anything, but it was really cool when the whole train starts singing together. Now of course there are workers pushing trolley selling some snacks and drinks. And the view outside the window is just awesome. You see green hills in the distance, nice nature sceneries, farmlands. And passing by all these small towns. One of the coolest thing we noticed when leaving Bogota was that since it was a Sunday, the entire road was closed off just for people to exercise, like for running, biking, roller skating. And apparently this happens every Sunday and on special public holidays. I mean when have you ever seen an entire city closing down a lane just for people to exercise? And surprisingly many people actually participate in this, no matter the age. It’s almost like a weekly opportunity for a family gathering or friends meet up during the weekend. But the coolest thing has to be that a lot of people also brought their dogs along. You can see all kinds of different breeds there running along, the owner like best friends going for a run together every weekend. I think it’s becoming one of my favorite cities around the world just because, you know, there’s international national food, it’s pet friendly, people are sporty, see so many dogs everywhere. And yeah, just the fact that people in this country are also super friendly as well. I think Colombia people are some of the friendliest we’ve met around the world, despite, you know, the bad reputation in the past. We just now went to eat lunch and we found a super interesting place here in the town. I didn’t expect this, but it was cafe in this kind of tropical Bali vibe, which is looks super unique. We ordered pizza and also we order machachino cappuccino. And everything is cost just like a 58,000 Colombian peso for whole meal, which is, I think the city is super affordable. And oh, I love food here. Oh my God. We’re going to the cathedral inside a salt mine. And I want to just take a moment to appreciate this town that we’re in compared to Bogota. Even though it’s just like an hour away, it’s completely different atmosphere. No tall buildings, just like this very short colonial style architecture all around. It kind of reminds me back in country town when we went to Salento. So we’re already here at the entrance of the cathedral. We get tickets. It cost 236,000 pesos for two people. And this included also the guide in English. You know what’s included in this price? Wi fi. What a necessity. I feel like I’m going to a proper amusement park, like you know, one of those roller coaster rides in Disneyland. And like the tunnel gets dimmer and dimmer in lighting. This feels like it. So we’ve already made it inside the salt mine. And from what I did research about this place, it’s actually very interesting because this cathedral was actually built many years ago when a group of salt miners started mining for salt And at the time they want to have a safe space to pray. So that’s why they built this mini chapel inside this cave. And over time, because, you know, erosion and everything, it became very unstable for the cave. So that’s why the government actually rebuilt this whole cathedral using the existing one and transform into a more stable structure. And just now when you walk in you can actually see lots of reinforcement. Apparently those reinstalls are used eucalyptus and also like metal steel to reinforce the mine so that it doesn’t collapse. So now it’s much safer in this cathedral. And this actually took five years them to build. And we are currently 180m deep underground. And instead of a small chapel, now it’s actually a big cathedral with lots of cathedral halls, sculptures. You can see big crosses like this. So it’s now way more developed than before. I got really curious just. Just now I was wondering. Hm? Can you eat the salt inside the salt mine? And apparently you cannot. Like technically you can, but it’s not really for that purpose of cooking. It’s more for industrial purposes. I’m thinking only about one thing. I want to try salt. I’ll try. Alina is the kind of person. Is it safe? I don’t know. Let me try first. If anything happens. No, it’s just a rock. Looks like they hide from me all salt. They already mine all salt. So there’s no salt anymore. Just go home, go kitchen and use your salt. It’s the same. There’s no difference. Underground tastier. No difference, difference. This is salt. No, this is salt. It’s a salt. My girlfriend is so weird. So salty. Of course it’s salty. But what you’re tasting here is pure 100% salt. I like it. Tonight when Alina goes home, my stomach doesn’t feel good. Don’t know why. We live once. You want try? try too. You should try. Yes. Say in the comments if Justin should try, try, try, try. So salty. No need to buy salt anymore. Just. You would think this salt mine is a tourist attraction only. But it’s actually actively in use. And that right there is the cathedral hall. You can see people are actually doing the usual church ceremonies over there. At the moment they were singing, just then they were giving speech. And this cathedral hall is grand. So everyone here collecting salt from this hole. And if you put closer to the lightning so it’ll be shiny. I need to put super close. Oh, it’s become transparent. Looks like we found here a cafe in the middle of this place. And the coolest thing is if you look closer, the workers inside, they’re wearing a helmet. That’s true. Because it’s dangerous to be here working here. Because anytime any second can something fall down from the ceiling. This place again is very dog friendly too. They even provide little trolleys for your dogs to ride in. Where you ever seen in the country that they allowed you to go to cathedral with dogs? And inside the salt mine, you also find a lot of small salt sculptures for sale. Everything from cute animals to beautifully carved religious figures. And you could tell all these are handcrafted because they look slightly different, all of them, but they all look very delicate. A lot of people also pick up bags of local salt to take home for cooking, because why not? That’s so heavy. Wow. Okay, okay. Wait, wait, wait. It looks like people are built differently here. I don’t know. Online it says usually these kind of salt, you cannot really eat it. It’s usually for commercial purposes. But apparently people here actually buy whole bricks of salt like this in a bag. And after that, they break it down into smaller, powdery, or sometimes they would knock on the floor and just break into bigger pieces And for seasoning, rather than having to walk 200 meters back up to the ground on the way out, we actually instead took an express Thomas train back to civilization. Honestly, guys, Bogota is such a cool place to live, and we never expect to feel so cozy like at home here in Colombia. And that’s it for this episode. Hope you’ve enjoyed it and thank you for watching. We’ll see in the next one where we show you the nature side of this beautiful country.

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We’re in Bogotá, Colombia! 🇨🇴 In this episode, we explore why Bogotá might be one of the most livable cities in South America and possibly one of our favourites in the world. As full-time travellers, we’re always searching for a place that feels like home… and Bogotá surprised us. From beautiful mountain views to dog-friendly neighbourhoods and incredible food, this city has it all.

Whether you’re planning a trip to Colombia, moving to Bogotá, or just curious what real life looks like here, this vlog will show you what it’s really like.

📍 Places Featured in This Bogotá Travel Vlog:
1. Restaurante Balcones de la Candelaria – Authentic Colombian Food
https://maps.app.goo.gl/YpbtFqRchk7aGfGp6

2. Plaza de Bolívar – Historic Main Square of Bogota
https://maps.app.goo.gl/PzDDuxcqtqGkFD7t9

3. Calle Del Embudo – Colourful Graffiti Street
https://maps.app.goo.gl/nBbUkDXKLUCNQjtM6

4. Monserrate – Bogotá’s Best Viewpoint
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hmvFtFV8f3eCBe8G7

5. Cedrito – Dog-Friendly, Peaceful, Quiet Neighbourhood We Loved
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Dmmbtda4znM3osjY9

6. Wok – Great Asian Food Spot (Multiple Locations)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/y9gV9x4M7FyTzH1K9

7. Turistren Train to Zipaquirá Salt Mine
https://maps.app.goo.gl/mTC1KV1Rh19mxQ8d7

8. Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral – Underground Wonder
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tkDoHZvwmtvKSRRW7

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About us:
We are Justin and Alina, a travel couple from Hong Kong and Russia. We first met on Tinder in Bali, fell in love and began our travel adventures around the world together. Now, we are chasing our dreams as full-time travel vloggers to inspire others to chase their dreams, step out of their comfort zones, and travel more!

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