Bicycles are making their way through Bogota's traffic nightmare
Each morning, hundreds of cyclists ride through the socially disadvantaged neighbourhood of Kennedy in southern Bogota.
Gripping their handlebars, labourers, seamstresses and students are choosing pedal power over cars and buses.
A cheap alternative to public transportation and an effective way to beat Bogota's horrendous traffic jams, the bicycle has taken off in one of the world's most congested cities.
"It's a practical way to get around for the people of Bogota, also because we are poor," said Carlos Felipe Pardo, founder of Despacio, an NGO that supports alternative forms of mobility.
Ricardo Buitrago's bicycle repair business has taken off in the six years since he started it.
Hands blackened with grease, he says up to 10,000 cyclists use the bicycle lane in front of his workshop every day.
One of them is Maria Ellis. She lives close to her office in Bogota, but it still takes her more than 1.5 hours to get to work.
"By bike it takes 25 minutes, so the bicycle is much better," she smiled.
Traffic nightmare
Bogota's eight million residents dread every car journey. At rush hour, crossing the city can take up to three hours.
In 2019, 880,000 daily journeys were made by...