Dear Bogotá,
We’ve been circling each other for a while now. Long enough that arrival no longer feels like arrival… more like reentry.
Every time I step onto your wonky sidewalks and breathe in that dry, restless air, I remember why you’re not easy to explain. You don’t open up fast. You don’t perform. But there’s always something happening just under the surface, and if I stick around long enough, I start to feel it.
You don't care about first impressions.
Monica grew up inside you… deep deep inside. Seriously though, long before remote work made our location optional and cold weather became something we could dodge, you were already on the radar. When we met in Montreal, she didn’t talk about you like a destination. She talked about you the way people talk about home. With a kind of matter-of-fact loyalty.
Since 2020, you’ve been our second home. Not in a poetic sense. In the routine way. Winters spent comparing empanada stands, getting to know some gym regulars, and enjoying Sunday walks. You don’t reward urgency. You just keep going.
Sitting higher than most cities, the altitude gives everything weight. Your mountains aren’t a backdrop. They lean in. They shape the air, the weather, the pace.
In La Candelaria, your buildings slump into each other like tired elders who’ve earned the right not to smile for tourists. Streets tilt. Stones catch my shoes. History doesn’t have to announce itself here. It lingers in wall murals that fade unevenly. In shop doors that creak like they’ve been there forever.
You don’t curate memory. You let it live.
And your people move the same way. Slowly, carefully, with that low-frequency alertness that says: we remember what happened when we weren’t careful.
Sundays Are the Truth Window
If someone really wants to understand you, they shouldn’t start at the bars. They should walk outside on a Sunday.
Streets close. Cyclists take over. Families drift into lanes usually claimed by traffic. Little dogs with their little sun visors. Toddlers in dinosaur onesies. Middle-aged couples in matching sweatpants. People dancing in the streets. No performance. This is when you show who you’re really for.
During Christmas and New Year, it becomes even clearer. While Cartagena cranks it to 11, you fold inward. Lights go up. Music spills from kitchens. Beer flows. But your energy stays close. Toward family. Toward home.
You’re not a city obsessed with being seen. You’re a city that knows what you’re looking at.
Living with You Means Playing the Long Game
You don’t chase affection. You don’t promise escape.
What you give, if someone stays, is rhythm.
Work happens. Plans stick. Friendships build over time, not over drinks at some random bar. You don’t pull people in fast. You wait. You let them find their way.
And once they do, they’re in. Not because they earned it. Just because they stayed.
You don’t pretend to be easy. But you make sense, eventually.
And that, Bogotá, is why we keep coming back. Not for reinvention. Not for escape. But for the way you make space for something steadier. Something earned.
So here’s to you! With your altitude and mountain views, your beautiful people, and your quiet kind of clarity.
No fanfare. No declarations. Just a quiet kind of loyalty that knows where it belongs
