Water, Water, Everywhere

Drenched pedestrians walk past street vendors taking refuge in a caged entrance on 11th St. 

With Bogotá suffering unseasonable downpours, it's appropriate that La Candelaria's Luis Angel Arango Library (on 11th St. across from the Botero Museum) is holding an exhibition about Colombia's water.

I visited the library while the rains had turned 11th Street into a river. On the next corner uphill a group of street vendors and their children had taken refuge in an entrance, where they appeared to be caged in.

Colombia is one of the planet's most water-blessed nations. But lots of those water resources are threatened by pollution, erosion and deforestation. One of the worst cases is Bogotá's own Rio Bogotá, which you can smell long before you can see.

But Colombia also has Agua de Panela, a popular drink made using sugar cane.

A wealthy white family on an outing down by the river. 

A car floats downhill in La Candelaria. 

Indigenous people canoe down a river. 

A steamboat on the Magdalena River, immortalized by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Panning for gold on a riverside, perhaps in the El Chocó region. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours