Friday, November 21, 2008

This is indeed hallowed ground...


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In the post below, I wrote about where Bogotá is situated on the globe and within Colombia. Now I'm going to talk about where I'm currently situated within Bogotá.

Like most big cities, Bogotá is a city of neighborhoods. For the time being, I'm staying in a neighborhood called Bavaria. You may be asking yourself why a neighborhood in a Latin American city is named after a region of Germany. I was wondering the same thing. I was delighted to find out that it was in this part of the city that the first brewery in the country was established back in the 19th century, the brewery eventually grew in to Bavaria, SA and was the tenth largest brewer in the world before being purchased by uber-brewer SABMiller. I am trying to honor this legacy by drinking as much Club Colombia as my budget can afford.

But I digress...

My apartment in Bavaria is situated where one of the busiest streets in the city, Avenida Caracas, meets Calle 32.
Bogotá is organized in a (sort of) grid of numbered streets and avenues (calles and carreras) similar to New York City. My spot on the (sort of) grid puts me about a mile or so north of the main downtown area, el centro.

This part of the city is defined by one thing, construction. Not unlike my former home of Chicago,
Bogotá is experiencing a rapid re-development near the center of the city typified by luxury condo high-rises (I can see four going up on my street alone.) In addition to new buildings, new sidewalks promise to help alleviate heavy weekday pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

More to come...



1 comment:

Rocktagonal Intercourse said...

Good Talk! Can't wait for more juicy details.