Bogotá City Highlights Guided Bike Tour

La Candelaria, where the ride begins

La Candelaria is the oldest part of Bogotá, where the city was founded in 1538 on a terrace below the eastern mountains. Its steep, narrow streets are lined with colonial houses painted in bright colours, with heavy wooden doors, iron balconies and red tile roofs, alongside universities, museums and small cafés. The tour starts here, at the bike shop on Carrera 3, where you choose your bicycle, adjust your helmet and get a short safety talk.

Your guide gives you the background to Colombia's capital before you roll out: a city of millions at 2,640 metres above sea level, with a cool, spring-like climate all year. Bogotá is also one of the most bike-friendly cities in Latin America, with a large network of cycle lanes and, every Sunday and holiday, the Ciclovía, when main roads close to cars for cyclists, runners and families.

A traditional fruit market

One of the most loved stops of this Bogota fruit market tour is a traditional market hall, such as Paloquemao, where farmers and traders bring produce from every climate zone of Colombia. Piles of tropical fruit fill the stalls, next to sacks of potatoes of every colour, fresh herbs and huge bunches of flowers. Your guide introduces the vendors and helps you taste fruits that are hard to find elsewhere.

Expect to try fruits such as lulo, sweet and tangy granadilla, creamy guanábana (soursop), maracuyá, uchuva (cape gooseberry) and pitahaya, each with its story and its use in Colombian juices and desserts. The tasting is included in the tour. Markets are busy and lively, so keep your belongings close and follow your guide through the aisles.

Coffee roaster and street art

Colombia is famous for its mild, aromatic coffee, and on this ride you visit a traditional coffee roaster in the city. You see the green beans, the roasting machines and the different roasts, smell the coffee as it comes out of the drum and learn how growers in the mountains, roasters and cafés connect. It is a short, sensory stop that explains why coffee is such a big part of daily life in Bogotá.

Between stops, the route takes in some of the city's best street art. Bogotá has become one of the world's great graffiti cities since the city began to tolerate and even commission murals, and huge colourful works now cover walls along main avenues and in the centre. Your guide explains the artists' styles and the social and political messages behind many of the paintings.

La Santamaría bullring

The Plaza de Toros de Santamaría, opened in 1931, is a striking red-brick ring in a Moorish revival style, set beside green parks near the international centre of the city. For decades it was the main bullring of Colombia, but the country has voted to end bullfighting and the building is increasingly used for concerts and cultural events. Your guide explains how the city's view of this tradition has changed.

It is a photo stop from the outside, and the surrounding area, with its parks, museums and tall towers, shows a more modern side of Bogotá than La Candelaria. Riding here also gives you a sense of the city's layout: the mountains always to the east, the long carreras running north to south and the numbered calles crossing them.

The Central Cemetery

Bogotá's Central Cemetery, opened in the 1830s, is a national monument and an open-air museum of the country's history. Behind its gates lie an oval of grand marble mausoleums, chapels and sculptures for leading families and public figures, and long walls of burial niches decorated with flowers, photos and handwritten notes. Some tombs are visited by locals who believe they grant wishes, so you may see people leaving messages.

The visit is calm and respectful, and your guide shares the stories behind the monuments and how they reflect Colombia's social classes and turbulent past. It is one of the most surprising stops for many visitors and an insight into local beliefs. The cemetery is usually open during the day; your guide adapts the visit to its opening hours.

Tejo, Colombia's national sport

The ride ends with a game of tejo, a sport with roots in the time of the Muisca people who lived on the Bogotá plateau before the Spanish arrived. Players throw a heavy metal disc, the tejo, at a sloping board packed with wet clay about 20 metres away. In the centre sits a metal ring with small paper triangles filled with gunpowder, called mechas, that explode with a loud bang when hit.

Tejo was declared Colombia's national sport in 2000, and playing it is a fun way to meet locals and share a laugh with your group. Your guide shows you how to stand, swing and aim, and keeps score. Even beginners usually manage a bang or two. If you are looking for things to do in Bogota that feel truly local, this is it.