Whoa! Our trip Bogotá was beautiful. So intense, dynamic and delicious, and as always, fleetingly short.

I went with Antibalas to perform at Rock al Parque, a three-day (FREE!!) festival produced/funded by the city of Bogotá, featuring three stages, probably 100 or so regional, national and international bands, and over 300,000 people coming through.

It was so much fun but not without its challenges. Each band only had 50 minutes to perform--we're just getting warmed up and into our third or fourth song by then. Bogotá is also (8,660 feet) above sea level. The altitude was no joke when it came to singing and blowing air through a horn. The cold weather (55F) was not ideal for tropical music but nonetheless it was a jam and a privilege to rock for such a great audience.

Highlights:

Seeing Javier Bonilla and his group present Afro-Colombian music at Bar El Chaman. Arepas, of course, and lots of good coffee. Some delicious vanilla-steeped rum at bar Matik Matik with insane vinyl DJS, hanging out with one of my favorite bands--La 33-- at the birthday of Santi, the pianist, meeting master quena/flautist Fabian Triana and receiving a beautiful quena as a gift along with his music, digging for second hand vinyl in the flea markets thanks to tips from Quantic.