Colombia - Part 1 - Bogota

One of the only reasons I will purposefully get up early on a Saturday for is when I'm going on holidays. Those of you who know me, know I'm not a morning person but Saturday 25th August I was up dressed and ready to fly the friendly sky half way round the world to start our holiday in South America. Tom & I got to the airport on time and went to line up to check in and they asked us for our visa's. EXCUSE ME??? What visa? I had checked online and the Sth American Embassy said we didn't need one, but the USA government says you need one for the States even if you are just TRANSITING! Can you believe it. We were going to be in Houston, Texas for exactly 2 hours before boarding another flight to Bogota. We weren't even going to leave the airport. How annoying. Luckily you can go online and get them so off we went to a corner to put our application in. Mine came back straight away approved, Tom's was pending. Oh well we thought it will be fine by the time we fly. But they wouldn't check Tom in and the flight was closing in 10 minutes. We kept refreshing the screen on his iphone but it wasn't happening. Crunch time came and I had to go thru to board without Tom, what a start to the holiday. Luckily by the time I got to Houston, his visa had been approved and he was scheduled to fly out the next morning. Changing flights was free, thank goodness. But that still left me in Bogota for 24hours on my own, bummer.
 I arrived in Bogota Saturday night at 9pmish. Luckily I managed to get my baggage, change my currency and hop into a legal cab straight to the hotel. It was in a bit of a rundown area but some places look better in the day. The hotel was great. Rooms was gorgeous and comfy and I managed to find an english speaking channel on the telly so got my pj's on and settled in to watch Law & Order.

The next morning I woke refreshed and eager to go exploring. A breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancackes, fruit salad, croissants and a biscuity thing and I was full to the brim. I was there was a local cycling tour so I head in that direction. The streets were fine and the buildings multi coloured.



The cycling took us all of the city, there were about 8 of us and the guide spoke English. We saw the main city square with all the offical buildings & old cathedral, we cycled through the markets, stopped and had a local drink of some kind of milky fruit thing (very tasty), through the red light district. This was so weird, the women were half naked, some with no tops on, just chatting away to each other whilst we cycled past. Crazy.

Then we hit the cementary. It was really beautiful as there were family tombs in there and also past assassinated presidents. It was interesting to here the guy tell us the history of Colombia. Then it started to rain, and it was getting cold so we headed to a local cafe the guide knew and had tea/coffee & cake. After I got back to the hotel it was soon time for Tom to turn up. He arrived about 9.30pmish and was quite tired so after a beer it was off to bed to watch Total Recall.



Sunday morning Tom & I headed up Monserrat to get a birdseye view of the city. It was soo windy and cold but it was lovely to have a look around. The church was pretty and I was told that some people walked up the mountain on their knees to go to the church! Luckily we took the cable car ride up. After this I took Tom to the square to show him round then it was time to head back to the hotel to pack up and head to the airport to meet Charlene and fly to Cartagena. I couldnt' wait, 5 months since I had seen her and I was excited.