Bogotá is not Chaotic

I’ve lived in Bogota for about ten years. It is a city that is often described as chaotic by tourists and locals alike, and I am here to argue that it really isn’t.

Photo by Random Institute on Unsplash

Let’s start with by establishing a lay definition of “chaotic,” which I think is what most people imagine when using the term. Such a definition may be best summed up by what Merriam-Webster explains as “a state of things in which chance is supreme” or the Longman dictionary defines as “a situation in which everything is happening in a confused way and nothing is organized or arranged in order.”

As such, I would argue that most people’s lay use of the term “chaotic” is synonymous with concepts like “unpredictable.” Let’s think of it from the point of view of the tourist.

Of course Bogotá appears unpredictable to people who have not lived here long enough to gather sufficient data about what is normative and what is out of the ordinary. To such a person, the fact that Bogotá traffic shuts down because of protests, that it was difficult to get on a Transmilenio at 5:30pm, or the fact that somebody on the Séptima asked you to bet on a guinea pig race all seems random. Unpredictable! Things just happen and you have no way of expecting any of this. Just so chaotic!

But having lived here for ten years, I would argue that none of this is unpredictable or without order.

It is entirely predictable that traffic will be awful during morning and afternoon rush hour. If you find it surprising, it says more about your lack of data than about Bogotá’s unpredictability. This is entirely predictable.

“But the traffic is chaotic!”

Is it?

Cars predictably drive on the streets. Motorcycles predictably zig zag between them. Cyclists predictably switch between the street and the cycle lane. A recycler predictably takes up an entire lane of traffic while pulling his cart.

I would say that it is perhaps more “high stimulating” or “high input” rather than chaotic in that “following no order” way. There is a lot happening, but with few exceptions, it is always the same thing that is happening. It follows a rhytmic order that you come to expect. You are only thrown off by it because you are new and therefore do not know what to expect, not because there is nothing to expect.

Similarly, it is totally routine that when there are large-ish protest marches in the city, certain main roads are closed or blocked, and people have to stay put or get off the bus and walk stretches that might normally be more appropriate for public transportation. This is not a situation in which, as the Longman dictionary suggests, “chance is supreme.” Everyone knew to predict this. Chance was not involved. Only a newbie didn’t see it coming.

Similarly, there is always a guy on the Séptima asking you to bet on his guinea pig race. There is also always one or several Michael Jackson impersonators, and a guy dressed like a silver Carlos Vives statue. They are also always on the same street, year after year. Very little about the Séptima is “up to chance.” It is basically the same experience every Sunday.

I think, instead that some places are “low stimulating” while others are “higher stimulating.” For example, Cincinnati and Helsinki, my two other cities, tend to be a bit lower stimulating. Fewer people on the street, fewer cars, fewer sounds, and Bogotá, in comparsion, tends to be “higher stimulating.” There is just more to see and hear at any one time. But it is actually very predictable, and therefore not chaotic. And I think people conflate concepts like “lively” or “highly stimulating” with “chaos.” Cities can have “a lot going on” without it being unpredictable or just a product of chance.

I would also argue that things that feel “chaotic,” such as people’s Plan B when a main artery of the Transmilenio is shut down, have strong elements of predictability. The cause is usually always a protest. It is not that it is caused one day by an invasion of iguanas (they do not live in Bogotá) and the next day by a swarm of locusts. Similarly, how people respond to such a shutdown is also not totally “disordered,” but follows a series of ordered questions. What roads are blocked? Is it too far to walk? Should I walk somewhere else and take a different bus? Should I call a moto?

Just because the observer is confused does not mean that there is not an order. It might just mean that they are not steeped enough in the data to be able to recognize the order. Just because something feels confusing does not mean that it inherently lacks pattern or predictability. It might just mean that you are new on the block.

And this is part of why I feel just a slight twinge of pain whenever I see travel bloggers from “low stimulation” cities describe “high stimulation” cities as “chaotic.” Or in other words, “first world backpackers” marveling at “big, Global South cities” and feeling that they are in the middle of something “chaotic.” French is confusing to people who don’t speak it, but totally undestandable to people who do. And if one declares that “French is totally chaotic,” it doesn’t mean that French actually IS totally chaotic (disoredered or a product of chance). It might mean that one is a total beginner who has confused one’s own perceptions (I do not understand French) with a supposed objective “truth” (French is inherently un-understandable).

I realize that most people, tourists and locals, do not spend time thinking about the meaning of “chaotic.” But I would still argue that the implicit acceptance of “Bogotá as chaotic” fits in with this othering discourse (North Americans and Europeans thinking about Latin America), and even “self-othering” (Colombians thinking of themselves as an opposite in a binary where North America and Europe are “ordered” and they, therefore, are not).

If you only see Bogotá as “chaotic,” I think that you came prepared to see only what you were told you would see, and that you haven’t stuck around long enough to actually observe the rhythmic predictability of its mornings and afternoons, and the different circadian rhythms and people that actually inhabit its different neighborhoods.

I do not mean that nothing is a product of chance, but that chance often gets given too much credit by people who haven’t taken the time to really observe.