La Candelaria's Churches

Crowds leaving the 400-year-old San Francisco Church.

During Easter Week, Bogotanos visit La Candelaria's many churches, lining up to enter each one to pray.

When the Spanish colonized Latin America, spreading Catholicism was one of their justifications. As a result, La Candelaria is full of centuries-old churches, including three right alongside each other on Seventh Ave, just north of La Jimenez.

Naturally, the event becomes a mixture of religious devotion, street fair and public market - even with a drizzle.

Praying outside the Iglesia de la Veracruz.

A man begs from those waiting to enter La Vera Cruz Church.

Candles and prayers for sale.

The Cathedral, on Plaza Bolivar

Selling prayers, incense...and something more secular.

Interior of The Cathedral

The much plainer La Veracruz church

Las Aguas Church, on La Jimenez Ave. 

La Candelaria Church

A mime entertaining across from La Veracruz.

Wet worshippers.

Rosary beads.

Pray for a sunny day. Religious CDs and umbrellas. 

In front of San Francisco church, a man announces the end of the Bible.

The weathered wall of San Francisco Church.

A military parade past La Catedral de Bogotá.

La Catedral caught in the sun. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Shopping for Easter in Paloquemao

Look at my dried, salted fish. 

Paloquemao, Bogotá's second-largest fruit (and everything else) market, is packed these days with folks buying for Easter meals. Naturally, the fish section is hopping, but fruits and veggies, particularly avocados, are also moving fast. Maybe it's also that Colombia's wonderful avocadoes, in all of their varieties, are in season.

An avocado cart.

Sliced bagre on top. 

Tasting avocado. Colombia's got dozens of great varieties. 

Try some avocado.

The Las Nieves market was also hopping. 

Fish plates

A guame cart.

Incense cart. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

History According to the M-19

The M-19's propaganda tent in front of the new Justice Palace, where the group staged its bloodiest attack.

Probably, it could only happen in Colombia - or Locombia, as some call it.

Soldiers lead survivors out of the Justice Palace. Some were later executed by the army.

In 1985 an idealistic, armed guerrilla group called the M-19 attacked the Palace of Justice on Plaza Bolívar, taking the justices and employees hostage and making a series of political demands. The government counterattacked violently. When it was over, the palace was destroyed and about one hundred people had been killed, including 11 of the 12 justices and some guerrillas and building employees.

An M-19 guerrilla, looking like Che Guevara. 

Previously, the M-19 had committed kidnappings and murdered at least one hostage, attacked the Dominican Republic's embassy, taking ambassadors hostage, and maintained urban and rural guerrilla bands which battled with government troops.

A similar group operating today would undoubtedly be on the U.S.'s list of terror organizations, its members hunted thru city and jungle.

But the M-19 demobilized and turned into a political party. That party disappeared and several of its one-time leaders are now on the other side of Plaza Bolivar, in Congress. One, Gustavo Petro, even ran for president.

The M-19 launched their movement
by stealing the sword from a statue
of Simon Bolivar.

Is this an argument for engaging terrorist groups instead of bombing them? Can anybody conceive of FARC leaders Manuel Marulanda or Alfonso Cano Colombia's Congress? Or bin Laden in Afghanistan's Parliament? For all of those guys' sins, perhaps we'd all be better off with them spouting propaganda than hiding in caves, plotting attacks.

But whatever the advantages of incorporating violent groups into the political system, it certainly doesn't seem right for them to be able to rewrite history, without a response, on the nation's most important public space.

The tomb of union leader Mercado. The M-19 kidnapped and
murdered him and tossed his body out on a street, calling him
a 'traitor to his people.' 

Certainly, the M-19 guys have every right to assert, even without offering evidence, that leftist icon Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated by 'the oligarchy' - in contradiction to the historical evidence that he was shot by a mentally ill man with unknown motives. (Read the account in the autobiography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez - no spokesman for the oligarchy!)

The M-19 can conveniently forget that it kidnapped and murdered union leader Jose Mercado, an Afro-Colombian to boot.

The M-19 can forget all the undoubted violence and human rights violations they committed as guerrillas roaming the countryside and portray themselves as innocent, idealistic, smiling young people.

They can forget that the M-19 was born out of an alleged fraud against a one-time military dictator, who shut down newspapers and massacred protesting college students just a few blocks from Plaza Bolivar.

Plaza Bolivar, Simon Bolivar's statue, and the Justice Palace which was left destroyed after the M-19's attack.

They can ignore the evidence that cocaine king Pablo Escobar helped finance the M-19's attack on the Justice Palace, for less-than-idealistic reasons of his own.

They can portray Colombian history as a conspiracy by an evil oligarchy against idealists like themselves. But history is lots more complex than that.

Yes, the M-19 had idealism and contributed in its way to the development of Colombia's present democracy. But that doesn't justify whitewashing history.

In a free country, the M-19 has a right to rewrite history as they choose. And they should feel more than privileged to be allowed to exhibit their distortions on the nation's plaza mayor. But history deserves the right to a reply - someplace more prominent than on an obscure blog in English.

The M-19 exhibition with the Cathedral in background. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Championship of Cruelty

Kill that bird! (Photo: El Tiempo)

Colombia just hosted another championship, altho it didn't receive the attention of the upcoming under-20 Football World Cup - but these folks may not have wanted attention.

The city of Cali hosted Colombia's Seventh Cockfighting Championship, with about 360 fighting birds and 1,200 cockfighting fans. They held some 74 fights every day - which meant almost that number of killings - with $10,000 for the champion.

Cockfighting, like bullfighting, coleo and corraleja, are exceptions, out of tradition, to Colombia's law against cruelty to animals. However, altho animal rights advocates always demonstrate against bullfighting, I've heard of no protests against cockfighting, perhaps because the fights are much smaller scale and receive little media attention. Or perhaps because we empathize less with birds than with fellow mammals.

Animal with spurs on is ankles.

But, cockfighting is, if anything, much crueler than bullfighting. In cockfights, the animals slash each other with blades lashed to their ankles and stab with their bills and are often left mortally wounded. And the men who train the animals just stand around betting and cheering. In bullfighting, at least, the bullfighter puts his own life and limb at risk. And, if he does it well, the final kill is relatively quick.

I've heard there are hundreds of cockfighting pits in Bogotá alone, but I've never seen one. I have, however, seen men training fighting birds in public parks. I even got in yelling match with a neighbor who clubbed my friend's dog running after a rooster the guy had left in a park. Evidently, he had privatized the park. So much for love of animals.

Years ago, while bicycle touring thru Venezuela, I stayed overnight with a family who raised fighting cocks . I told the man I believed it was cruel. 'But I love these animals,' he said, embracing one in his arms. 'They're like my children.' And he really was dedicated to the animals. But he didn't cheer his real children on as they fought to the death with other kids.

Perhaps as punishment, the family made me sleep on their back patio - amongst the cocks' cages. I learned that roosters do not crow only at dawn, but all night long.

Perhaps appropriately, I've heard of fighting roosters killing their owners. In this California incident, police broke up an illegal cockfight. While he was fleeing with a bird, it slashed its owner's femoral artery.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Problem with Palm Sunday

This woman was selling leaves outside of Santa Ana Church in Teusaquillo. But I don't know the species. 

Today, Bogotá celebrated Palm Sunday, or Domingo de Ramos, the start of Easter Week. But while the day provides an opportunity for people to express their faith and visit beautiful old churches, it also carries an environmental cost: The traditional blessing of leaves from palmas de vino y de cera, wine and wax palms, is devastating those trees in the wild. The palma de cera is Colombia's national tree.

Children parade with palm leaves. (Photo: Amoabogotaonline.com)

Police confisticating wax palm fronds.
(Photo: CAR)

City officials have prohibited the practice and encouraged alternatives, such as using corn husks or live seedlings, which are planted afterwards. The Ministry of the Environment has even promoted making religious offerings out of junco, an aquatic weed which is choking reservoirs - thus killing two birds with one stone.

Palm Sunday also saw polemic between church leaders, who used the day to preach against legalized adoption by same-sex couples and gay-rights activists demanding the right. The Constitutional Court is expected to rule soon on the issue. Gays attended mass wearing shirts with phrases such as 'I am gay, I have kids and I'm Catholic' and 'Homofobia isn't Christian.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Stilts Parade in La Candelaria

This evening members of the Teatro Taller de Colombia staged this parade on stilts down Carrera 2, one of La Candelaria's most historic streets. It's part of a play named La Oposicion, which the theatre workshop hopes to perform in Holland next year.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours