Bogotá is famous for its Sunday Ciclovía, when bicycles take over 70 miles of pedestrian-friendly streets. The best part of the weekly ritual is the people-watching: I saw dads teaching their kids to ride tricycles; a man transporting his children (and pooch!) in a cart attached to his bike; and I met a few guys cruising around on custom-built chopper-style bicycles. I even had a chance to try out one of these souped up bikes myself and let’s just say it takes practice to sit back and peddle.
Bottoms up!: A new shot bar offers colorful drinks with sexy names.
It’s been two and a half years since I was last in Medellín, and the transformation that I first wrote about is even more noticeable with the number of restaurants, bars and hotels that have recently popped up. Right before going, I kept hearing about the new wave of violence that has doubled the city’s murder rate since 2008. And I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous. You see, even Colombians (or in my case, the daughter of Colombians) know that the price of life in Colombia can be cheap. But I was pleasantly surprised. And I’m not the only one that seems to like it here. The gringos have descended in full force. One cabbie lamented the number of men that come here—not to see Botero’s famous gordas—but to hook up with the ladies.
Death by chocolate
Feliz Dia de los Muertos. Today is the day when Mexicans remember the dead. They wear wooden skull masks and eat sugar skulls engraved with the name of their loved ones. It’s a great way to deal with losing someone you love. While in Mexico City, I met a young woman whose 20-something-year-old brother had recently died. She told me that the Mexican view of death helped her come to terms with his demise. She didn’t see it as an end but as the continuation of something else. It also made her appreciate her time on this planet a little more.
I was very proud of the friends that participated in today’s marathon. Though they wore quite conventional athletic gear—at least in comparison to the folks pictured here—they did a great job.
I cheered the runners at the 25th mile point and began to have those “what if” thoughts as I saw the diversity of people inching towards the finish line. It was truly inspiring.
They say that after a certain point it’s all in the head and I wonder if I could convince my mind to undertake such a daunting challenge. Hmm, I’ll have to ponder that a bit more.
New York magazine’s travel issue is finally out. Here are some of my contributions to the bargain hunter’s winter-travel handbook.” The photos are from my personal collection.
Bogotá, Colombia
Steamed snook and other delicacies, for a fraction of Paris prices.
The scary, cartel-dominated years of the eighties and nineties are clearly over for Bogotá, which has recently rolled out a much-admired public-transportation system, a network of hilltop parks and museums, and now a world-class restaurant scene that’s considerably cheaper than other dining capitals. The most evolved cooking is happening in La Macarena, where Cartagena transplant Leonor Espinosa invents dishes like the fish-egg tartare ($14) at Bar de Leo (571-334-3085), and steamed snook gift-wrapped in a plantain leaf ($21) at Leo Cocina y Cava (571-286-0050). Chefs in the northern part of the city are hyphenating like crazy; at the Franco-Colombian Criterion, the European-trained Rausch brothers prepare a nightly five-course surf-and-turf tasting menu ($50). Spend the night at 104 Art Suites (from $150; 104artsuites.com), which has twenty rooms, each featuring the work of a different Colombian artist.
Extras
• 5 p.m. hot-chocolate santafereño at La Puerta Falsa $2.50
• Pre-Columbian artifacts exhibit at the Museo del Oro $3.50
• Bicycle for cruising the Sunday Ciclovia from Bogotá Bike Tours $14
Valparaíso, Chile
An underrated cultural epicenter with favorable currency rates.
Like a Latin American version of San Francisco, artsy, freewheeling Valparaíso teeters on 45 precipitous slopes overlooking the Pacific. Always a good bargain given Chile’s out-of-the-way location and weak currency, the city expects its creative juices to be overflowing in January, when it hosts an international triennial called the Universal Forum of Cultures (fundacioforum.org). Pay 50 cents to ride an antique funicular up to Cerro Alegre, where the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes (56-32-225-2332) will soon open to the public. From your cliff-top perch, compare historic paintings of Valparaíso to the real thing out the windows. On top of another hill, Cerro Cárcel, is the ex-Cárcel (parqueculturalexcarcel.blogspot.com), a onetime penitentiary that’s now an informal cultural center. Replenish with a chorillana (fries, eggs, grilled onions, and sautéed steak piled high) at rowdy café Casino Social J Cruz (56-32-221-1225), then head out to the disco pub El Huevo (www.elhuevo.cl). Stay at the meticulously designed Cirilo Armstrong Hotel (from $73; ciriloarmstrong.com), whose owners will organize tours to their artist friends’ ateliers.
Extras
• Tour of poet Pablo Neruda’s nautical-themed house, La Sebastiana$4.50
• Pisco sour and live bolero at the city’s oldest bar, El Cinzano $3.50
• Metro ride to neighboring seaside resort Viña del Mar $3.50
Glasgow, Scotland
Chockablock with galleries, starving artists, and the pubs they drink in.
The Glasgow School of Art used to be a feeder school for the big-league art galleries in London. Now its graduates are sticking around to take advantage of Glasgow’s cheap rents, prodigious pubs, and burgeoning art market. If you can, time your trip to hit the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Art in April 2010, when hundreds of young artists will be jockeying for their big art biennial moment (glasgowinternational.org). Duck away to the still-grungy West End (reminiscent of a pre-condo Dumbo) to visit former New Yorker Kendall Koppe’s Washington Garcia (washingtongarciagallery.com) below a series of disused railway arches. In the same art ghetto sits SWG3 (swg3.tv), a crumbling warehouse commandeered by a rotating group of artists, musicians, designers, and dancers, who often throw circus-themed parties. The finer points of screen-printing and woodcutting are debated in Merchant City at the vegan eatery (and microbrewery, concert venue, and record shop) Mono (monocafebar.com). If you overdo it on heather ale, the Brunswick Hotel (from $80; brunswickhotel.co.uk) and its compact minimalist rooms are a five-minute walk away.
Extras
• A dozen local oysters at just-opened Crabshakk $22.40
• The Malt of the Month at the Ben Nevis whiskey bar $2
• Indie show at the music venue of the moment, Captain’s Rest $10
The November issue of Latina is currently on stands and celebrates “the culture, people and beauty” of Mexico. Having just visited El DF, I, too, may have a tiny Mexico obsession (I’m already devising a plan to return!). The country has been getting such a bad rap lately that it makes sense to highlight its many positive sides—and there are a lot.
For the issue, I interviewed Mexia and Raul Antonio Hernández, sons of Tigres Del Norte (think Mexico’s version of the Rolling Stones) band member Hernán Hernández, who are charting their own course in the music industry. One of the highlights was talking to the guys’ dad and hearing about how he left home as a child to provide for his family. I also profiled four female Mexican rappers breaking barriers in the hip-hop world, which is a huge feat considering Mexico is still a machista culture. And I contributed to a larger piece about all the great things Mexico has given us.
The magazine is loaded with other cool pieces, including a pictorial about an amazing crew of female parkour practitioners and a great list of must-see Mexican movies (I’ve seen six out of 25; better get cracking). You have to check out the magazine.
All the news that’s fit to hang.
Who knew hawking newspapers could be a dangerous job? Check out this guy’s precarious set-up as he hangs the day’s headlines for all to see. The two fellas on the left aren’t doing such a good job at spotting him.
It’s a plane. Wait. It’s my plane.
I was recently in El DF and was shocked by how big it really is. We were flying over the city for a good 40 minutes before we touched ground. Even cabbies act like they’re heading to a foreign place the minute they’re asked to go from one part of town to another. “Do you know how to get there?” was a familiar question. “Um, no,” was the usual response. And despite the addition of new bridges, rush hour is still a nightmare in Mexico City. Still, I managed to see a lot and enjoyed every minute of it—except the traffic, of course. Stay tuned…
I really enjoyed walking the boardwalk in Sandwich, Cape Cod, last weekend. Built over salt marshes, creeks and dunes, the original structure was destroyed by a hurricane in 1991. Locals were able to donate planks to rebuild it. If you look at the photo below, you’ll notice that they’re all individually engraved (messages run the gamut from declarations of love to inspirational thoughts).
The boardwalk leads down to Town Neck Beach and is especially worth a stroll in the evening, right before the sun sets. On my jaunt, I stumbled upon a couple of girls trying to catch crabs with chicken thighs on a string; a family of good-looking blondes having their portraits done by a pro; and lots of dog-walkers.
