In Colombia, graffiti art aims to boost Bogota slum

On Sundays, residents of Ciudad Bolivar in Colombia's capital, Bogota, take in an unusual sight: tourists riding the same cable car that ordinarily carries thousands of workers to their jobs on weekdays. A 15-minute ride on the TransMiCable takes visitors from one end of the neighborhood to the other.

From the cable car, tourists can see many colorful old buildings stacked on the mountainside like toy blocks. Most of the facades are covered in murals. Bogota consistently ranks as one of the world's most street art-friendly cities.

Tourists can disembark at the El Paraiso viewpoint station, which offers a sweeping view of the capital from its southernmost edge. Afterwards, they can stroll along the Street of Colors, where a series of murals depicts everything from tales of the neighborhood and its inhabitants to tributes to Colombia's rich flora and fauna.

"We wanted to remove some of the stigma attached to Ciudad Bolivar, using art," Luisa Sabogal, a 24-year-old resident of the neighborhood and co-initiator of the Bogota Colors project, told the AFP news agency. Sabogal and her colleague May Rojas launched their project in 2016 and called on international street artists to paint the walls of the neighborhood and the facades of the houses.

The area now attracts around 400 tourists per month — a boost to the local economic situation, with new businesses selling food and drinks and offering guided tours. Ciudad Bolivar has around 660,000 inhabitants, more than half of whom live in poverty according to official figures.

With many of its residents working in other parts of Bogota, the opening of the TransMiCable cable car in 2018 was a huge change for Ciudad Bolivar. It used to take people around 80 minutes to ride on local buses along narrow, winding, mostly unpaved roads to leave the neighborhood. Now, the same journey takes just 15 minutes.

The cable car can transport 7,000 people per hour in 163 cabins — around 20,000 people every day. It's also an important attraction for visitors who want a bird's-eye view of the mountain city of 7 million people.

"The goal is that Ciudad Bolivar becomes one of the main tourist sites of Bogota through investment in local businesses and infrastructure," said Andres Santamaria, director of the District Tourism Institute. The city is building a tourist center for the area, and is training an additional 40 official tour guides. For now, there's just the one: Rojas.