How a German showed me Bogota

Colombia is world-wide known for three things:

1. Cocaine 
2. Pablo Escobar
3. Andres Escobar, the football player who got killed after he made an autogol that eliminated the country from the 1994 World Cup

In 2001 my family moved from Bogotá to the US, escaping the escalating violence barraging Colombia. Yet my father stayed behind, meaning I would go visit at least once a year. Abroad I showed an excessive pride of my nation, fighting against stereotypes, defending its natural diversity and it's people's warmth. Yet I was well aware of its limitations: The FARC rebel forces controlled most of rural Colombia. 

When I met Jens I was curious. He was German, spoke Spanish, and lived in La Candelaria, Bogotá's old colonial downtown. It was 2008, a few years into president Uribe's war on terror. Colombia was better; Foreigners could come, albeit exercising caution.

La Candelaria is one of the most picturesque and well-preserved colonial areas of the continent, but I never go, because it requires not wearing jewelry, a purse or your cell phone. I found German Jens to be naive: he was just asking to get mugged. Or kidnapped. Or both. 

Yet he became my friend, and invited me over to his house. To La Candelaria? I didn't think so. But after a little convincing I made the trip. The area is filled with small restaurants, coffee shops and book shops hidden inside the courtyards of the old, Spanish mansions. I walked around my city's downtown, eyes wide. Jens took me around by the hand: the stunned child who grew up to stay away from dangerous places. 

More than anything, I felt embarrassed. I knew it wasn't my fault that I didn't know my city. A place's threats are more evident to the locals who have had to live with them than to foreigners, who see them with a telescope. But joy overpowered my embarrassment. My city, the one I was so defensive about, didn't need me to fight for it. It fared very well all by itself. How lovely, how charming, how breathtaking is Bogotá!