Bogota Museums

There are many museums in Bogota for free or very affordable so it's easy to see a lot of different stuff. I like many different types of museums but these pictures are mostly from art museums. There was a free little museum about the city with old maps and information about it's growth which was interesting, but the stuff to really keep in pictures for memories is usually the art.

Bogota Street Art

I don't like annoying tagging and sloppy spray paint is ugly. However, street art is a whole other thing if it's good and in the right places. It shouldn't detract from what's already there. Bogota has some nice street art in La Candelaria. They're not spread all over the city in places you wouldn't want to see it, so overall I think it's an interesting part of the city where it is. There's a guided walking tour available but we had plenty of time to relax and explore on our own. We stumbled on most of the street art in our regular walks around so here's some of that. There's a particular walking street at the end of Plazoleta Chorro de Quevedo worth checking out for a variety of reasons.

Monserrate Above Bogota

We didn't lack enough oxygen in Bogota so we headed higher to Monserrate to overlook the 3rd highest capital city. Monserrate's highest point is 3,152 m (10,341 ft) on Wikipedia but there's a sign that says 3,170 meters. Whichever figure is right, it's fairly high even though it didn't look like a huge move up from the 2,640 m (8,660 ft) elevation of Bogota. 

Bogota - La Candelaria

We spent a chilly wet week in Bogota. It's the 3rd highest capital city at an elevation of 2640 m (8660 ft). It isn't hot at that elevation and it can get rather chilly at night, but most buildings don't have heating. The whole place was accepting of whatever nature gave them other than having the occasional fireplace. It was common to see people with their coats on inside everywhere including while dining in the restaurants.

El Ávila Quebrada Quintero

I wrote about Hiking El Ávila National Park before but it's something people do again and again here. It's a great place to be in nature that's really close. The path I wrote about before is very popular for exercise but there's a right turn towards a waterfall area called Quebrada Quintero that's also really popular. Here's some pictures of that direction.

World Happiness Report 2018

The annual World Happiness Report is out again and March 20th is the International Day of Happiness. The report measures six key variables supporting well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, and generosity. I first saw this in the news in 2016 and wrote about it then. It's interesting to see how the rankings change for the countries I've lived in and will live in next.

The top 10 is dominated by Nordic countries. Sweden is #9 and about the same as the previous 2 years I've looked at this since I lived there. The U.S. slipped from #13 to #14 last year and slid further to #18 this year. It's not a good trend so we definitely need to work on those key variables contributing to everyone's well-being instead of mostly benefiting the rich and well-connected. We could learn a few things from the countries above us on the list. That's assuming happiness is a shared goal in American society and the metrics for this report are the right ones. Wasn't there something about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at one time in our history? It's worth looking at more deeply.

Top 20

1 - Finland, 2 - Norway, 3 - Denmark, 4 - Iceland, 5 - Switzerland

6 - Netherlands, 7 - Canada, 8 - New Zealand, 9 - Sweden, 10 - Australia

11 - Israel, 12 - Austria, 13 - Costa Rica, 14 - Ireland, 15 - Germany

16 - Belgium, 17 - Luxembourg, 18 - U.S., 19 - U.K., 20 - United Arab Emirates

Caracas Museums

We took a tour of some local museums we haven't seen before. We started with a look around the architecture of Teatro Teresa Carreño but we couldn't see inside the theater since they were setting it up for something. We stopped in the natural science museum (Museo de Ciencias Naturales) with a lot of stuffed animals. We spent some good time in the fine arts museum (Museo de Bellas Artes). All of these buildings are in an arts district together near Parque Los Caobos. The day ended with the national art gallery (Galería de Arte Nacional).