Simon Bolivar's Sword

Reflections on La Candelaria and Crime

May 1 - 3

I remember trying to stay warm in a tiny, box like room just off Kathmandu's Pie Alley in 1985. With wooden slats for a bed and the thinnest mattress imaginable I would, by candle-light, snuggle in my sleeping bag reading a novel picked up from a second hand book store in the area. That was more often than not, my evening's entertainment. The streets were dimly lit, covered in mud, strewn with trash and controlled by bands of mangy, vicious dogs that needed to be beaten off with sticks. The atmosphere was almost medieval and the area was not exactly safe. Close by there was the pie shop along a grimy lane which stank of piss and where illegal money changers and drug pushers did business. Apart from the obvious the Pie Shop served Tibetan momos, bowls of spaghetti and hot lemon drinks. There was music every night and guaranteed company and conversation. It was a place to exchange hair raising stories from the road and seek a little Western respite from the hard slog of travelling through the Indian subcontinent. I remember that Pie Shop as a little oasis where a relatively new breed of traveller, "the backpacker", sought refuge from the dark and cold alongside Hippies, who were beginning to look decidely older and a bit out of place.

Fast forward : Bogota, 2011. Here we are twenty six years later taking refuge from the dark and cold along Calle 13 in the Candelaria district. I'm astounded by the simiarities with Kathmandu's Pie Alley and its grimy, fascinating environs. We are three stories up in a ramshackle "apartment" paying a good deal more than the fist-full of worthless rupees, but still the price of a room is relatively cheap. We are snuggled up in bed, me with my net book cursing the WiFi connection which constantly drops out, my wife reading her Kindle with its fresh download of novels. There has been an evening down pour and outside the cobbles are coated with a slippery patina of mud.An overturned garbage bin lies at the curb of an intersecting lane being picked over by dogs and the occasional beggar. You would think twice about walking the streets of this part of La Candelaria at night. Shady types hang out on street corners, eyes glazed, faces drug ravaged. Music blares from the hole in the wall restaurants and cafes of the neighbourhood.

We are a stone's throw from Plaza Chorro de Quevado where it is thought Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada established Santa Fe de Bogota in 1538. La Candalaria stretches about 20 blocks in all directions - in fact it is the oldest part of Bogota. The closer you get to La Candelaria's main square, Plaza Simon Bolivar, the more strikingly beautiful the architecture becomes -- 16th to 18th century colonial, 19th century neo-classical, touches of faux Mudejar and Gothic as well as Art Deco.

...Want to read the remainder of this story? It is available in my book, 'The House on Lopez Cotilla - A Journey through Latin America' (Kindle Direct Publising, 2012)