Ciclovía

Since 1974 Bogota’s roads have been closed to cars every Sunday so its people can come out in their thousands to cycle.

This is how I found myself joyfully free-wheeling down one of the city’s main highways as part of a group taking the famous Bogota Bike Tour. 

We were in good company as about 1.7million people turn out for Ciclovia each week, around a quarter of the city’s population.

It was a happy accident that I booked my tour for a Sunday as I had no idea about this incredible 76-mile cycling utopia until I was in it. 

I’d love for there to be a time when Colombia isn’t synonymous with cocaine, but instead with this kind of mass reclamation of the streets - the world needs to know!

With our guide, Santiago, leading the way, we rode down the highway, through suburban neighbourhoods, taking in epic graffiti art, learning more about Bogota and drinking at a brilliant fair trade coffee joint.

On the surface, Bogota is a sprawling concrete jungle, so it was great to see it through the eyes of Santiago. 

He arrived here as a child with his family who were forced out of their home town by paramilitary groups in the 1990s

Today, he describes himself as ‘down the middle’ and he likes his politicians the same way, praising the city’s current Mayor, Claudia Lopez Hernandez, of the centrist Green Party, for her diplomacy. 

We saw a mural depicting a woman holding a cotton reel, with a length of thread attached to a boy riding a condor - the bird being Colombia’s national symbol. 

Santiago explained that the cotton represents community and the boy the future of Colombia. He said the act of weaving was a metaphor for building community, and that because so many men had been killed or been away at war over the years, it is the women who are rebuilding Colombia and raising its future leaders. 

Over coffee, I asked him whether Bogota was politically in step with the rest of Colombia. He told me, no, like many big cities, it was more progressive than the rest of the country. 

But in true Colombian style, it wasn’t long before we put politics aside for a while to have some serious fun. 

Thanks to a game of tejo, I can now claim to have had the best time possible in Bogota for 4000 pesos (90p).

Our group shuffled into what we thought was a small cafe only to find a giant building out back, akin to a ramshackle school hall. 

It had a bare concrete floor, the walls were covered in bright red, yellow and blue murals depicting the national beer, Aguila, and the roof was made of plastic sheeting. 

Close to the walls, large wooden frames, measuring maybe 1m x 1.5m, stood on their ends, filled with a 30cm layer of thick clay.

Santiago showed us pieces of paper folded into triangles, he opened one up to reveal a little pile of gunpowder, before placing the triangles in a circle on the mud.

The aim of tejo, is to throw stone disks at the paper triangles to make them explode, while working your way through a crate of beer.

It’s as amazing as it sounds!

Apparently we have indigenous women to thank for the basic game, when the Spanish saw them playing, they decided to up the ante with the gunpowder. 

What did the Spanish ever do for us?…

Nowadays, men tend to play while women watch and drink the beer, but Santiago told me his girlfriend is challenging the patriarchy of his friendship group and demanding to play. (I think we’d get on :-))

Tejo is typically Colombian; hugely social, hyper competitive and loads of fun. 

It was a glorious way to end my trip - beer in hand, lobbing rocks and whooping at every ear-splitting bang. 

Thanks, Colombia, you’ve been a blast! (Even if we did have to cycle back in torrential rain, I loved every minute).

Quick note: I changed the name of my guide as I didn’t have the opportunity to ask him if he minded me recounting some of his story in this blog.