Bogota Update-----Dead nuns

Well I bet that got your attention. Since my last post I´ve been museum hopping around Bogota. One of the places I went was the Banco Nacional de La Republica Museo de Arte. I´m not quite sure what the Banco Nacional is but I think it might be their treasury or whatever. Regardless they have a couple of pretty cool museums in one building. The first is a numismatic museum, a history of the coins and money used in Colombia. It is pretty interesting. But the other is the art museum. It isn´t huge but what it lacks in size it makes up for in quality. They have paintings and sculptures by a number of heavy hitters: Degas, Chagalle, Picasso, Renoir to name a few. They also have a collection by a Colombian artist named Botero. His paintings are very popular all over Latin America. They never did a thing for me. He paints fat people and fat things. Every subject he paints is fat. People, with and without clothes, animals, trees, fruit all fat. I don´t deny the man´s talent but as I said looking at fat people does nothing for me. I imagine if you google him you will find pictures of his art and you can decide for yourself. But I digress, there is one wing of the museum dedicated to------Dead nuns. In fact that is the title of that section Monjas Muerte. It is nothing gross or disrespectful they are all paintings of nuns in coffins. I don´t know what the motivation was for this and as much as I don´t wish ill on anyone after all those years of catechism I can´t say I was sad to see all of them in one place. So now you know the reason for the second half of the title. Another museum I went to was dedicated to Colonial Art. I actually found that sort of boring. Most of the paintings were portraits of people of whom I knew nothing about and cared even less or they were all religious in nature. So no great reviews for that place. The next place was the museum of fabric and clothing. If it hadn´t been free I never would have gone in. Actually it was more interesting than the museum of colonial art. It showed what people wore before the Spanish got here (the natives) and what the Spanish wore and the Colombians have been wearing since colonial times to the present. It was interesting but I´m still glad it didn´t cost anything. Next was the Military Mueum. This was actually pretty cool. The Colombian Military through the ages. Displays of swords, uniforms, guns, airplanes, artillery all sorts of cool stuff. So if you are into that kind of stuff, as am I it is really cool. And it´s free. Then the big one, the Museo Nacional. It is a good way to blow off a few hours on a rainy day, which is what I did. After Simon Bolivar I know nothing about Colombian history. So all the portraits of the countries forefathers didn´t really do anything for me. But the rest of it was pretty good. The dioramas of colonial dwellings etc. There are also some art exhibits. I know I´m not doing a very good job of making this place sound interesting because it truly is. I truly enjoyed it. I think I may be Bogota´d out. I yearn to get back to tropical weather. It has been in the 60s here most days. It also rains a little every day. However they do have hot water here. The first place since I left Mexico. So either tomorrow (saturday) or Monday I am going to leave and go to San Agustin. I don´t know if it is going to be any warmer but it will be interesting. There is an archeological park there where they have Easter Island type of statues. Nobody knows anything at all about the culture that created them. So that is what is next on the agenda. Then from there to Quito Ecuador. So that´s it for now.
Hasta la Vista baby
The road goes on forever and the party never ends
Charlie