Monserrate is one of Bogotá's main tourist attractions and is visited by both locals and visitors passing through our city. The view from the top is unparalleled in the city, whether at dawn or dusk. However, many of the tourists take the funicular or the cable car and miss out on the truly Bogota experience.
For some of the city's inhabitants, Monserrate is not just a tourist attraction, or a religious temple, but a place for outdoor physical activity. Its pedestrian path from the circunvalar to the top of the hill is almost 2.5 km long and has a height difference of about 500 meters. This is quite a challenge even for those who are used to climbing once or twice a week. Bogotá is already 2600m above sea level and climbing 500m higher is not only a challenge for leg strength, but also for cardiovascular effort. And the opportunity to exercise, breathe clean air and meet up with friends became an incentive for this unmissable plan for active travelers visiting our city.
This plan starts with the desire to see friends in a sporting environment and then we arrange to visit the hill, usually early in the morning. On the designated day we find ourselves at the bottom of the pathway at 5am where there is already quite a lot of activity. Several groups of people get ready to climb and you can see the street vendors selling food and drinks to those that come without having breakfast.
Generally, although we go together as a group, when we go up we break up so that each one goes at their own pace, this in the end is a personal challenge. The goal is to get to the top, the time and number of breaks and stops along the way is not important. Once we reach the top, we meet again, some do more exercise, others eat or drink something, others visit the temple and we all take a moment to enjoy the view of the city and finally we prepare to go down. At this point, depending on how much energy we have, we go down the path again on foot or we take the sports ticket of the funicular (cheaper).
And this is not a one-time plan! We don't get tired of doing it. Each time there is one more personal obstacle to overcome: the climbing time, whether I climbed up and down on foot or just climbed and whether I climbed only once or several times. Share our Bogota challenge and climb Monserrate on foot!
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