Farewell, Colombia (Definitely Not Columbia)

Diana says I used her to see her country, and I have decided not to contest the charge.

Exhibit A: the accused

Diana and I met in Nepal the year before, as hiking pals and then roommates, which is how you learn everything about a person, including how they handle a cold shower at altitude. When she said "come to Colombia," I took it as an invitation rather than a pleasantry. She took it as evidence.

The plan required me to swap my rusty Portuguese for even more limited Spanish. Spelling was a separate project. It is Colombia, with two Os, a point Bogotá takes seriously enough to sell trucker hats about it: IT'S COLOMBIA NOT COLUMBIA. I bought one. I grew up in Portland, next to the Columbia River, so the U is muscle memory I am still working off.

For the record, she was the perfect partner for it. The defense rests.

Up Monserrate, with tea

We started where Bogotá starts: looking down at itself from Monserrate, the mountain on the city's eastern edge. You go up by cable car or by funicular, and we did both, which felt efficient and slightly greedy.

The summit sits at 3,152 meters. Bogotá itself is already around 2,600, so the ride adds another half kilometer of thin air on top of a city that has none to spare. We handled it the Colombian way, with coca tea, served at the summit's Restaurante Santa Clara with a glossy chocolate dessert on the side for structural support. Coca tea is as ordinary here as chamomile, and the view of the whole city spread across the savanna below was worth every short breath.

Seven courses and a Viche martini

Then lunch, which became the afternoon. Prudencia is in La Candelaria, the old center, and serves a seven-course menu that changes every month, much of it built around a wood fire. Literally: in the courtyard, a cook works a tiered iron grill over open flames, skillets stacked like a wedding cake.

We started with a Viche martini. Viche is about as Colombian as a spirit gets: a sugarcane distillate made by Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast, which Colombia's Congress recognized in 2021 as their collective, ancestral heritage. In a martini glass it tastes like someone's grandmother has opinions about your gin.

What followed was an afternoon of laughter over one of the most divine meals I have eaten in Latin America, and I have eaten a lot of meals in Latin America.

Museums, llamas, and the dead

Day one was not done. Museums. Llamas. A nightcap at Andrés D.C. during its Noche de Muertos, with Catrina dancers in sugar-skull makeup and flower crowns working the staircases, because we were there in early November and Bogotá does not let the season pass quietly. A full day of escapades, and we still had legs. For now.

Day two: Danny, and the mud

We roped in her brother Fabian (also known as Danny, which I chose not to question) for breakfast, then took him with us to go looking for altitude on purpose.

Cerro Pan de Azúcar is páramo country: high, open, moody Andean ground above 3,300 meters, the kind of trail that challenges the mightiest trail buffs and then hands them a view of an alpine ecosystem that looks like nowhere else on earth. It also hands them mud. Climbing up muddy slopes is my specialty. I do not say that with pride. I say it with boots.

Why the páramo is wet on purpose

The mud is not a maintenance problem. It is the whole point.

Páramo is the high-altitude ecosystem of the northern Andes, above the treeline and below the snow. Its signature plant is the frailejón (ours were in yellow bloom), a shaggy, silver-leaved thing that looks like a palm tree wearing a sweater. Those hairy leaves catch moisture straight out of passing fog and cloud. The water runs down the stem into the soil, and the soil, thick with generations of dead leaves, holds it like a sponge and lets it go slowly, even in dry months. Colombian researchers call páramos water factories, and they mean it literally.

The catch is speed. A frailejón grows roughly a centimeter a year. That two-meter plant you just squelched past has been on duty for about two centuries. Damage a stand of them and the recovery is measured in decades.

Bogotá knows exactly what this is worth. About 70 percent of the city's drinking water comes from the Chingaza system, fed by the páramo northeast of town. When Chingaza's reservoirs dropped to record lows in 2024, the city rationed water by neighborhood for most of a year. The squelch under your boots is, more or less, the capital's tap.

The grand finale

Our last day was a whirlwind: a flea market, more fantastic food, and exquisite Colombian coffee brewed in a glass siphon, with carrot cake, which is the correct way to end any trip and most arguments. Then heartfelt goodbyes, and hopes of a speedy reunion that I intend to hold her to.

To the Nepal crew

To our shared friends from Nepal: we missed you. Somewhere between the coffee and the cake we were reminiscing about yaks and glorious mountainscapes, which is what happens when two people who met on a trail run out of trails.

If you go

• Monserrate. The summit is at 3,152 meters. The cable car and funicular do not always both run, and schedules shift by day of the week, so check the official schedule at monserrate.co before you go.
• Altitude. Bogotá sits around 2,600 meters. Give yourself a day before anything strenuous, and save the páramo for after Monserrate, not before.
• Coca tea. Legal and everyday in Colombia. Whether it actually prevents altitude sickness has never been properly proven, so treat it as comfort, not medicine. And leave the tea bags behind when you fly home: coca leaf is a controlled substance in most of the world.
• Prudencia. Carrera 2 #11-34, La Candelaria. The seven-course menu rotates monthly. Book ahead and check the hours; it has been reported as lunch-only.
• Viche. Ask for it by name. Look for bottles made by producers from the Pacific coast, which is who the law protects.
• The páramo. Waterproof boots, layers, and a local who knows the trail. Stay on the path; you now know how old those frailejones are.
• Spanish. Rusty Portuguese will get you surprisingly far, and then, suddenly, not at all.

The verdict

The fastest way into a country is through someone who was there before you arrived. Diana was right: I used her. I would do it again, and I am counting on her to let me.