Life in Bogota is complicated, especially as a non-colombian (if that term exists), that does not speak Spanish. It gets a lot more complicated when you are a vegetarian. This in a country, until a few years ago, the concept of veganism or its more common cousin lacto vegetarianism did not exist.
Rewinding to end of 2013, when I was new to Bogota, I remember asking for a vegetarian option in restaurant, only to be given rice with chicken and vegetables. Well, my tryst with looking for the perfect vegetarian restaurant in Colombia began.
I discovered that there are restaurants that are run by the Hare Krishna community that provided excellent vegan options with healthy breakfast and lunches. During my many travels in Colombia, I have been to some of the best Hare Krishna restaurants in Bogota, Granada, Bucaramanga, Neiva etc. They are inexpensive, with awesome taste and offer a daily menu.
On one of the days of lockdown in Colombia, a few years ago (Lockdown because I did not know Spanish and was too shy to travel on my own to explore the country) I decided to go on an adventure outside Bogota. By then, I was living in the northern part of Bogota, which practically is nearer to the small towns of the Savannah than to the center of Bogota. Hence, I went to the North Portal of TransMilenio to look for options to go out of the town. I had a fair amount of idea on the buses because I had taken buses a couple of times to Chia, another town outside Bogota. This time, I wanted to further away and I chose Tabio. Why Tabio, no other reason than that was the first bus available at that time in the portal. To give you a background, the buses between Bogota and other small towns in Savannah are collectively called as “Intermunicipales” that start from various different portals or the terminals of transmilenio in different directions of the city. Me living in north, the nearest portal is the Portal del Norte.
Tabio, sounded good to me as the cost was just about 4000 pesos to go, and maps showed about 45 minutes of travel. I got down in a place where I thought was appropriate, and I looked for the center of the town. I was just about a couple of blocks from the center.
After spending sometime there, I was hungry and started looking for vegetarian options or restaurants that were vegetarian friendly and I found this wonderful place Machay Alimentos Artesanales - less than half a block from Tabio’s center. This place has a lot of wonderful vegetarian and vegan options that include hamburgers, arepas, tamales, daily lunch with rice, proteins, salads and soups.
The food was so amazing that I promised myself to go there again when I get a chance. Then after a week or so, I extended the adventure to Tenjo, another small town just about 15 minutes away from Tabio. There another search in maps and I ended in Jikama, in the center.
Thus began my tryst with exploring restaurants in the Bogota Savannah region. I later expanded my travels to include towns such as Cajica, Sopo, Zipaquira, Nemoccon, Bojaca, etc, all the while exploring restaurants that were either vegetarian or vegetarian friendly in these little towns. A lot of these places, I discovered were run by people that are extremely friendly and welcoming of foreigners. Eventhough in some places there were no official vegetarian option in the menu, people have gone out of the way to prepare a good vegetarian meal.
As of writing, I have travelled to 17 Colombian departments (equivalent of states) and never once, had issues in finding a decent vegetarian meal.
