Cerro de Monserrate

Just to the east of downtown Bogotá is a row of mountains that stops the city from spilling out in every direction.  The generally angular shaped and tan coloured buildings comes to a sudden end at the base of Monserrate, one of these mountains that stands over ten thousand feet above sea level (>3000m).  The mountains are covered in almost entirely uninterrupted lush green forests, sprinkled with the occasional tropical bird and flower.  One of the only exceptions to this thick floral blanket is Cerro de Monserrate.

The statue of The Fallen Lord or El Señor Caido has made the church a major site for pilgrimages in the time since its founding in the 1640s.  While most pilgrims tend to walk the long hike up the mountain from its base in downtown Bogotá, there are other less physically intensive options.  These are especially nice for the less acclimated to the altitude, which is almost twice that of Denver, Colorado.

The long line at the base of the mountain was initially discouraging, but we were hurried to the front of it when someone ushering people around noticed we were tourists.  We bought round trip tickets for the funicular and cable car for about 2.75USD a person.  An easily acceptable price for the savings in humiliation caused by trying to trek up with lungs that had been breathing Minneapolis air at less than a thousand feet above sea level until the day before.  The closest option for the assent, minus walking, was an angled set of tracks that glides up through the forests and a tunnel.  The funicular was opened in the 1920s, but has undergone a few facelifts since then.  Most recently in 2003 the cars were replaced with modern glass ceiling vehicles that give an almost complete 360° view on the way up or down.

At the top, there are a number of opposing views and scenes to absorb.  The miracles attributed to El Señor Caido and its housing church may be the primary reason for most peoples visit, but I think the most interesting aspects of Monserrate are these contrasts.  There are elegant disparities between natural and cultivated, and affluent and near destitute.  Almost immediately after reaching the top from the funicular, it is rather obvious that the expansiveness of the city is equally opposed to the vastness of open mountainous forests.  Looking to the west from the mountaintop, nearly all of Bogotá is visible.  It reaches far to the horizon and into the slight haze that covers the city.  Peeking just over the other side of the mountain is a large valley filled with more lush forests, nearly no signs of human presence at all.  From the city, the mountains appear lush, but look only like a boundary.  The extent to which they continue outward is only visible from the bordering peaks.  At the apex of Monserrate, the two come together to allow the viewer to experience both, a transitional zone of sorts.

Without wandering too far, the mountaintop appears to be an isolate of high culture.  That is not to say that only upper class citizens come to visit the church.  It should go without saying that it is a common place for people from all walks of life.  What it does say is everything is nice and well kept.  Even though surrounded by trees, the walkways are all clear of any leaf litter, no garbage is strewn about, and everything is nicely painted.  Even the air is clear, as if the groundskeepers had a hand in its clarity.  There is a nice restaurant in a Victorian style home, beautifully whitewashed that serves seafood and other nice but still traditional Colombian dishes.  Around the back of the church however, this all changes dramatically.  Suddenly there are little shops with corrugated roofs that don’t match, taped together stools, dirt on the ground, offensive smells of garbage, and begging children.  The restaurants back here feature various sausages, soups, and whole cooked chickens.  Souvenir shops have taken advantage to the tourist presence to hock their goods.  The quintessential Colombian experience was shaven down to chocolate covered coffee beans, Kuna crafts, and of course coca products.  Now, I have been offered coca before, cocaine in Panama most frequently, but never like this.

Coca tea is touted as one of the local cures for altitude sickness, and was one of the most visible products at this particular market.  In the last booth on the right, a woman was selling bags of coca leaves and chocolate covered coffee beans. We stopped to look at her bags of beans, consider who all needed one back home, and enjoy a snicker at the blatant presence of something we considered so illegal as coca leaves.  She caught my glance and asked if we would like to try some.  Before I could answer, she had started her electric kettle, explaining that it was good for the thin air and had a nice calming effect.  Two minutes later I was sitting at a plastic child’s table with a shot glass sized plastic cup of molten lava hot brownish green tinted water with coca leaves steeping in it.  The flavour was just faintly sweet and very earthy.  She spoke of its many other supposed benefits from weight loss to anti-aging properties before we continued on our way with a few handfuls of coffee beans.  The active ingredient coca tea is the same as in a line of cocaine, but at about one-tenth the levels.  It can be decocainized, which is like decaffeination, with a much more exciting name.  I can’t say whether I felt more acclimated to the altitude, skinnier, or younger after my drink or not, but I can say it was a miniature tea party unlike the any I have been to before then.

 Each of the tickets for transport are good for both the funicular and cable car, so having taken the funicular up, we decided to take the cable car back down.  The cable car was opened in the 1950s and offers a slightly more spectacular view of the city.  The car hovers above the trees, allowing for a more uninterrupted panorama.  The entire experience caused a complete paradigm shift in understanding the size and placement of Bogotá.  Only from outside the city, can the scope of it be understood.  It became very easy to feel small and lost in the giant city after seeing it all from above.  Looking back on Monserrate from anywhere in downtown exacerbated that feeling, but also gave a good anchor of where we were at any time.

22 August 2010