8/3/14
We have a full day off today. A group of us would like to visit the Museo Nacional followed with a lunch excursion to Tabula, a restaurant Anthony Bourdain has visited and made famous in the USA. My colleague Martin has serendipitously come across Bourdain show on Bogota and Tabula just before his trip here. And we are all willing to follow him. Vickie and Alvaro our local colleagues from Medellin will also join us for lunch. After lunch we will venture to an open air market place at the outskirts of Bogota under the guidance of our elegant friend Vickie.
As we head toward the Museo Nacional on 7th avenue, our colleague Walter, a Cuban descendent, who is in almost full command of Colombian culture since he comes to Colombia several times a year, tells us that over the last decade or so, the municipality in Bogota has been closing all major roads to traffic on Sundays, so that families, children, bikers, strollers of all kinds from all walks of life can enjoy the urban outdoors and engage in physical activity. That is exactly what we observe, 7th avenue with its sidewalks have become a trail enjoyed by hundreds of bikers (albeit without helmets), families and children, dating young people enjoying a leisurely walk, roller bladders, and many more.... No wonder obesity is not as prevalent in Colombia as it is in Iowa, yet, when I declare that at the conference, my audience will chuckle that makes me wonder whether I haven’t seen all of Colombia and its problems, yet…
As we are enjoying this all too spontaneous, unexpected parade of Bogotan society, we realize that the northern end of the “parade” is much more colorful that turns into a true parade: La Fiesta de Bogota is unfolding before our eyes: the tropical vibrant colors on faces, arms, and attire, elegantly moving bodies in variety of dancing, meditative balancing of beautiful bodies over some 4-5 feet long sticks allowing dancers tower over all of us... All bring big smiles to the faces of everybody in my group. We all decide to take our time and walk along the parade in the opposite direction. We sometimes dance along with them on the sidewalk, sometimes try to listen to them in an attempt to understand the in-between-lines messages in the drama being displaced by some sections of the parade...
What is most interesting is that several processions have clear, thought provoking themes. Two of these are clearly very satirical about the Catholic Church: one brings the inquisition theme onto the stage with priests clad like klu klux klan members in black attire... The other clear out loud mocks priests! Many display human rights, women's rights, child rights and labor rights themes. In its colors, movements, and music this fiesta, may be very similar to those I saw in New York City or New Orleans, but in terms of content, there is much more thought, ideas, and camaraderie in this fiesta whispering out loud what Alvaro my Colombian colleague said in one of the dinners "Spanish took our gold and left their disease and religion with us" suggesting that the Colombian society needs to move on away from violence toward a sensible peace allowing all walks of society to flourish.
I embrace his thoughts with a fully open heart and mind especially when youth in the parade end up right up against our faces in their dance reaching out to us with an invitation to something humane, loving, and communal... Although I don't understand the words, body language is so very telling, I almost don’t need words. I like these people, the good people of Colombia coming from the schools, from the shops, from the many universities, and work places, expressing themselves openly and in peace...
We finally arrive at the Museo Nacional. My favorite part of the museum is the third floor Botero Hall. Although Botero Museum displays significant amount of Botero's signature style work with his large objects, men, and women, and children, and fruits, and animals, all in “hyper-alimented” form, this hall has a different feel. I approach one of the paintings. The boy in the painting looks like he is almost large, but not quite. I don't think it is Botero's. However, when I read the plaque, it sure is his. I look at the painting next to it. It is of expressionistic style, but figures are not large at all. I am again convinced it is not Botero's. It sure is, too. It downs on me that this must be a chronology issue and check the dates. Sure enough, Botero painted in a different style all together in 1950s and 60s.
His large figures started appearing in late 1970s into 1980s. Now I look at all of them, they are not totally distinct from one another, really. The two styles actually blend in together over a continuum, I find clues to his emerging "large figures" style in the earlier ones, too. As many mentioned, one of the most important characteristics of this museum is that it was a jail one time. Fortunately, some visionaries decided to turn this architectural beauty into a museum rather than tearing it down to build a modern museum in its place just like Muse D'Orsay, which was once a train station and still carries the characteristics of such. I like such wise "two birds in one stone" approaches to history and art.
After the museum, the highlight of the day will be our lunch at Tabula. We are all excited about it. It happens to be just behind the Museo Nacional. How convenient, we walk up a block into a lovely street on which a dozen or more old colorfully painted small homes are aligned on the left side. One of them is Tabula. We enter it, to the left is a space like a courtyard, which is the main restaurant hall. It is covered with a glass roof, hanging half way down to the wall, we saw from the street, which I thought was a separate building. Walter learns that the main restaurant was actually a parking lot at the end of the last century and was later on integrated into Tabula. We have a large square solid wooden table around which are very heavy, sturdy wooden chairs. I recall seeing Anthony Bourdain eating at local, very low key, humble eateries in his travels. This place doesn't look like one, I guess he tries high end places, too. What a pleasure, this way, we will try a high end restaurant in Bogota along with our Colombian friends, who have not tried this place before, either.
We have a fantastic lunch, with black beer, red beer, light beer, a wonderful Chilean red wine to start with followed with local bread and humus (this is the first sign, this place actually may be playing with fusion cuisine (reinforced with the name, that also sounds like middle-eastern). We are served multiple appetizers, side dishes and couple of main dishes, which we all savor. By the way, the tradition at this restaurant is that no one person orders their own food. Whatever we order is to be passed around and to be shared.
And on the street in front of Tabula after devouring their exceptional food
I love it, that is what we do when we go out at home, it creates such a community sense! After a period of elegance of allowing others to make the decision, some voices are heard more decidedly like Ben declaring "give me chorizo, I will be happy". So, one of our side dishes is that. Somebody mentions the variety of potatoes (I bet it is Teresa) in this country, we order a potato dish. Without yuca, a Colombian meal cannot be complete, we order that. Couple of salads, a lamb stew and a beef knee joint grilled in the oven completes our menu. We all agree, it was a phenomenal lunch, with just the right ingredients, and amount. And guess what, with all the food we ate until we all felt stuffed followed with coffee, per person cost was less than $30...
We finalize our trip in the open air market: The little village had become an open market place all its streets lined up with vendors and shops. Most of the vendors are either Mestizos (descendants of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry) or Mulattos (descendants of mixed European and black ancestry). There are some indigenous and some Zambos (descendants of mixed indigenous and black African ancestry) among European descent Colombians. We all get into shopping mood and I buy a shawl for a friend and a wooden serving tray, the artist of which is the wife of the seller, who lost her arms to an accident. All the wooden trays were made by her using her toes! Ed, who is a pediatrician working on disabled children and I jumped on the trays, he bought two and I one. Bonny bought a silver ear ring for her daughter in addition to Teresa, a coffee connoisseur, buying three balls made up of coffee beans glued together to don her desk at work. We are all happy one more time at the end of the day having discovered new intricacies of this pleasant town of Bogota.
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| Colombia is doing her best to use art as the antidote against violence |
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