Colombia. General information about Bogotá

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1 Colombia I was born in Colombia and at the age of one I moved to Scotland. From then on I travel back to Colombia every two years with my family. For the first time, this summer, I travelled to Colombia by myself to visit my family. Below I have written some information on my knowledge of Colombia and the cities I visited during my trip. General information about Bogotá Bogota is the capital of Colombia. It is also the largest city in Colombia and one of the largest in South America. Bogotá is located high up in the Andes Mountains and sits at 2625 meters above sea level. The current population is 7,612,128. As Bogotá is quite high up in the Andes the average temperature is only 14 degrees centigrade.

2 General information about Medellin Medellin is the second largest city in Colombia and is also located the Andes. Medellin sits at 1500 meters above sea level and has a sub-tropical climate. As the city is located in a valley and many of its districts are on slopes, temperatures can be slightly cooler on the surrounding mountains. My uncle stays half way up a mountain outside Medellin and the picture above was taken from his house. During my stay in Medellin we walked further up the mountain from where he stays and I was able to experience the rain forest s beauty of the plants and some unusual insects. Here are some pictures of some of the plants:

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5 Third world experience What you will find in Colombia is that people will do absolutely anything they can to make money. In the cities you often find people selling, cleaning your car or putting on a show for you when you stop at the traffic light. Other ways of making money also include selling food on the side of the road and shoe shining. In Colombia it is normal for working-middle class people to have a maid that cooks and cleans for you during the day. As the shanty towns in Colombia can spring up at any time, this means that the well off and the poor can end up living next to each other. As you can see in the picture there are favelas with apartments directly behind them!

6 Army All Colombian men are required to spend two years in the army in the fight against guerrillas. The guerrillas control a large amount of the country side and care is required when travelling by car between cities due to high level of kidnapping. They operate a system called la pesca milagrosa (lucky fishing) where they block the road and stop cars to see who is in them and how much money they may have. However, if you visit Colombia and travel by plane between cities, Colombia is a relatively a safe country. In the last few years, the Colombian government has increased the presence of army in the roads so that people can travel safely and enjoy the beauty of the Andes Mountains. Colombia s exports Colombia is rich in natural resources and it mainly exports petroleum, coal, coffee and bananas. In addition Colombia is famous for emeralds and cut flowers. Although Colombia is also famous for the production of drugs compared to the western countries, the consumption is relatively low. The farmers who grow the coca are very poor and are paid very little money however, drug barons and guerrillas make vast amount of money smuggling into Europe and USA Transport and congestion In Colombia many people travel by public transport so the buses are very busy. Recently, in Bogota, a new transport system similar to the trams called The Transmilenio was introduced. This is a form of rapid transit which was developed to compensate for the lack of subway or rail system. Bogota suffers from terrible traffic congestion and in order to reduce this, the Mayor started a system called pico y placa where depending on your car number plate, you can only travel at peak times on certain days. By Katrina Finlayson