Corruption Accomplishes Something

Jumpin' Jack Flash

During his last year as mayhor, Gustavo Petron built this nice wooden platform along Calle 26 across from the Central Cemetery and furnished it with tables and chairs for folks to sit around or enjoy lunch. Despite the noise and pollution from the adjoining avenue, the area was actually used - for about a month, until the tables and chairs all disappeared.

Further west along Calle 26, the city build similar platforms, but these were never even furnished.

The whole project stank badly of an administration ladeling out public money to friendly contractors - no matter the usefullness of the work- which is a long-winded way to say 'corruption'. (They also installed bike racks in a place where nobody would want to park a bike -which racks were promptly stolen.)

But the public expense has not been completely useless. The wooden platforms have become popular skateboard parks, as these photos attest. And the huge city-funded murals don't harm the visuals at all.

The below scenes, further west along Calle 26, with backdrops of murals by Toxicomano y DJLU, are in a stretch where the Petro administration built wooden platforms, but never did anything at all with them. Is that corruption compounded by mismanagement?

Happy skateboarding!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Annual Skateboard Day

Skateboarding with a flag on La Ciclovia.

Today was the annual Skateboard Day, which strikes me as one of Bogotá's most refreshing events, thanks to its combination of youth, spontaneity and a healthy defiance of convention.

Hundreds or thousands of skateboarders on Plaza del Rosario.

A wheelie in the Parque Nacional.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Skating and Biking in Barrio Egipto

 These young people were skateboarding and biking in this skate/bike park along La Circunvular, in between the hardscrabble Egipto, Belén and Los Laches neighborhoods. I wondered whether my camera was in danger, but the kids were friendly and most interested in talking about illegal drugs. They seemed impressed that I'd grown up in California, where marijuana is almost legal.

These are poor neighborhoods, troubled by crime, unemployment and gangs. And the area is suffering further insult, as the city widens the La Avenida Circunvalar, slashing the neighborhood in two.

A mural by a group of local youths called 'Emigrantes' defends embattled Mayor Gustavo Petro. 

Residents walk past an empty lot in Egipto. Homes and businesses were demolished to widen the avenue. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Downhill Racing in the Parque Nacional

A few scenes from today's downhill skateboard and trike competition in the Parque Nacional in Bogotá. Racers came from throughout Latin America and and also the United States.

Trike racers speed downhill.

Arms outstreched, a skateboarder nears the bottom of the hill.

Crossing the finish line. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Scenes from World Skateboarding Day in Bogotá

Skateboard power on Plaza Bolívar.

Today skateboarders celebrated their annual World Skateboarders Day with a show of power in numbers. They gathered on Plaza Bolívar and skated north to the the Parque Nacional, filling Ave. Septima with an estimated 5,000 'boarders, stopping other traffic. A skateboarders' Critical Mass - something bicyclists have never accomplished here.

Raise that skateboard high!

Rolling downhill in the Parque Nacional.

Cruising north on Ave. Septima.

Skateboard power!

A skateboard family.

Observers on the sidewalk. Notice the tie vendor taking pictures.

Leaping for it in the Parque Nacional.

Oooops!

Skateboard anarchist.

Super cool skateboarders.

Only a small minority of boarders are female, but this girl was going for it on the downhill in the Parque Nacional in Bogotá.

Go Skate Day.

Skateboard love.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours