30 Jun 2025
It’s in La Candelaria, the historic part of Bogota and a must visit for food, people watching, shopping, and history. Luis was the tour guide and his English was outstanding, especially having only learned it circa 2018. He communicated with me via WhatsApp before the tour to discuss conditions and to arrange driver pickup from my hotel in Tequendama. As any good food guide would do, he asked about food and drink preferences and tailored the tour to that. He made sure to try to get in all the Colombia traditional drinks and food, and his knowledge of food and general history were really good (he even discussed the science of coffee roasting/brewing and Colombia climate for agriculture…as a scientist, I really appreciated that). He was also accommodating when I wanted to stop in a store or two to buy chocolate or clothing for gifts to folks back home. In one shop, he was very familiar with the graffiti artist’s artwork and motivations. As for the food, I was blown away by the variety and do not think I will encounter hardly any of the same foods and drinks unless I try really hard to find it in LA or NYC, and even then. Here’s a tip for busy days (Sunday) and tourist season, book for earlier times because restaurants run out of some of the popular traditional dishes. Luis knew this and asked me if I wanted to start 2h earlier after explaining the situation (original time was 4p). One of the better food tours I have been on and I’ve been on them in many cities.