1st Stop: Colombia

So here begins our journey in Colombia!

If I had to describe Bogota in one word I would say "colorful." Quoting Laura, she described it as "feeling like I am living in a giant playhouse with bright houses and murals on every street of El Calendaria", that is the neighborhood our hostel is in. The weather is rather chilly and we have been given a lot of crap for complaining about the cold, being we are from Minnesota. I have had constent chills since I got here, being we got soaked our first day and have not had the chance to warm back up. We have no hot water, and have not seen much sunshine since we´ve been here. Yesterday we used a technique of doing sit-ups and push-ups in our beds to warm up before going to sleep! We got this idea from Theresa, our supervisor for O´Neil Language Academy; she did this when she was in Spain and had the same problem of being constantly chilly. (Back to the freezing cold water... Laura told me her Dad´s advice about the hokey-pokey showers "you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out..." to avoid the icy water). Great idea!

Besides the chilliness of Bogota, and all the fears we had before coming here, we have found this city very pleasant. By day, the street we are staying on is beautiful and harmless (night is a different story, as there have been a couple robberies in the area the last couple nights, they're harmless though.) We felt entirely comfortable walking alone to breakfast our first morning to a great little cafe where we had a typical breakfast of hot chocolate, bread and cheese. Here we planned the rest of our day. We realized that after the delays in our getting here that it no longer made sense to venture on a 20 hour bus ride to Cartagena, a beach town on the north eastern coast, as we would have very little time to explore both cities. We instead decided to visit el parque de los periodistas, where they had a flea market going on, selling anything from blender parts, to naked barbie dolls with missing legs to broken cassette tapes. Laura and I were laughing so hard and sneaking pictures, while trying not to offend anyone. After the market we ventured to a city, named Zipaquira, about an hour away. After a taxi ride to the bus station and a ten minute wait in the rain we got on the bus and would have had no idea we missed our stop if the young hottie a couple seats over hadn´t told the two gringas to get off the bus. After a soaking wet trek uphill for about a half hour and stopping every couple blocks to ask for directions, we were at Colombia´s most famous tourist destination, "el catedral de sal," the Salt Cathedral. The cathedral was born from an old salt mine, dug straight into a mountain. Here, we got a tour from an eight year old and got to taste the walls. The cathedral was absolutely amazing and well worth the trek that left us soaking wet!

The trip back from Zipaquira was a little more eventful than necessary because we ran out of money after stopping to eat some arroz con pollo and ajiaco soup (chicken, potatos, corn and capers). Here we accidentally broke the cardinal rule and let it get dark, while in an unknown area, before making it onto a bus back to Bogotá. We managed not to panic, got down from the hill, got to an ATM and got to a bus. We did however miss our stop in Bogotá and had to take another bus and a dark walk to find a taxi to get home. Our taxi guy had no idea where our hostal was; he drove us around in cirlcles until we eventually had to direct him! Upon our return to the hostel we changed into dry clothes and met some cool British guys who are staying in our same hostel. We had some cervezas with them and decided to go visit another hostel down the street that is known for their "party atmoshpere." Here, we preceeded to drink and play games with our new American, Colombian and British friends until 3:30am, when we finally were escorted home by a security guard who patrols the streets at all hours. At this time there was a very large group of us so we felt safe but he still felt it necessary to walk with us, so we let him. We arrived home safely, watched a little t.v in the common area with our new friend Nick from England, who we are hopefully meeting up with again in Cusco Peru, and went to sleep! What a great first day?!

On day two in Bogotá we got sandwiches at Restaurant Mora Mora, which is recommended in the Lonely Planet, then had another long uphill hike to el Teleferico, a cable car that takes you to the top of a hill in Bogotá, giving you a spectacular view of the city! Wesley (one of our British friends), Laura and I spent a couple hours at the top exploring and taking crazy pictures. We got back on the teleferico to go down, just in time for it to start raining again... making it yet another wet walk back home... We stopped at the 'La Casa de Simon Bolivar' and at a couple local bars to drink a cerveza or two (the main beers here are Aquila and Club Colombiano,) while watching the Spain/Honduras World Cup soccer game with the Colombians.

After the game we decided that since we have the luxury of having a kitchen at our hostel we should do some cooking and save some money on dinner. We went to a local market with Nick and Wesley and picked up ingredients to make a fantastic meal back at our place. Thanks mostly to Wesley, we had an amazing pasta dinner with veggies and mashed potatos, and of course beer for the Brits! (All I really did was heat up the arepas, a food I ate daily when I lived in Venezuela.) I did also set the table and do the dishes, so I contributed a little! After dinner we walked to the main part of town to find a Colombian game we were told about by some local Colombian girls. All we were given was a general area and were told it's a game where you throw things at the wall and paint splatters. We were unsuccessful at finding the place and it turned out to be a wild goose chase, putting us in a borderline-sketchy area. We decided to play it safe and mark it down as a failed attempt. We, instead, decided to grab a cocktail at a friendly looking restaurant in a more safe location!

Later last night we worked on making a plan for our trip/border crossing into Ecuador, debating the cost of a flight vs the time and potential complications of the bus... We debated this forever and finally took the advice of the British men to flip a coin and stick with the result. We did and the result is.... we are flying. As much as the cost sucks, the cost of missing our Galapagos Islands cruise on Thursday would be worse, and being that we have heard far too many horror stories of the bus ride taking anywhere from 28 to 53 hours, and other wierd things happening, it seemed wise, not to mention how 'not fun' it sounds to sit on a South American bus for that long... Also, I think my parents would be happy to hear I'm not crossing the Colombian border via bus in the middle of the night. :)

This puts us at today, Tuesday June 22nd. We have spent a lot of our day doing logistic stuff on the computer, writing emails, finding people to stay with in our upcoming countries and booking connecting flights. We will stay here in Bogota one more night and then should be arriving in Quito Ecuador tomrrow afternoon!....... All in all I would put Colombia in the success category of backpacking! We made a few silly mistakes and put ourselves in a few sketchy situations but we got ourselves out of them and have learned from them! Now off to Ecuador!!!