RIPTA Rider Reader 5/7/25

A weekly column you can read on the bus — or anywhere in the world.

After playing in a huge ultimate frisbee tournament in Medellín called Torneo Eterna Primavera (“The Tournament of Eternal Spring”) on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Easter Sunday of Holy Week, I took a ten-hour bus ride to the Colombian capital of Bogotá, where an astonishing ten million people live in a highland basin nestled in the northern Andes Mountains. (I’m back in the US now writing from Simple Merchant Coffee, my favorite cafe in Newport.)

I stayed in a very generous friend’s apartment in Bogotá’s Chapinero neighborhood for about a week, drank a lot of good coffee and got in a good amount of sightseeing, research, and writing. Bogotá is chock full of cool (and affordable) cafes, restaurants, bars, bookstores, and art galleries.

I also did a bicycle graffiti tour during the weekly Sunday Ciclovía, visited the Gold Museum, and strolled through the beautiful botanical garden adjacent to the city’s largest park, Parque Metropolitano Simón Bolívar.