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Published: August 8th 2007
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From Medellin it was off to the capital Bogotá. Another long bus journey of 9 hours which we decided to do during the day but shouldn’t have bothered as all you end up doing is sleeping anyway so should have saved it for the night. Bogotá believe it or not reminded me of Manchester about 15 years ago, lots of similar 70´s looking buildings but built more recently and especially the climate it was always grey and rainy! It was nice to be home!
Our first night in the Platypus Hostel was very cold. Our room was in a part of an old colonial building that looks like it should have been condemned a few years back and the room consisted of just a bed with cold tiled floors and we spent most of the night snuggling just to keep warm! For what we were paying 9 pound a night it was expensive and not worth it. The next day we checked into a much nicer Hotel for only a pound more. Firstly it was nice and warm, and with a private bathroom and had cable TV so I could catch up with the football! I got to watch the
Blackburn game and first leg of the Roma game.
Bogotá was nice enough and a few local attractions but nothing spectacular. We came close to going to a football match but couldn’t get tickets as it was the local derby between Millonarios V´s Santa Fe an El Classico as they are known. We looked into it a few days before and nearly bought away tickets but the guy selling them said we wouldn’t be safe so we left it. He told which parts of the stadium would be safest but the tickets were sold out. We went to the stadium on the day but no luck. One of the main reasons it was so hard is they both play at the same stadium so any tickets were like gold dust. I was gutted as the match turned out to be a classic with Millonarios winning 4-2 and the scenes on the T.V looked amazing, loads of flags and banners and everyone going mental! Looking back I wish we just got the away tickets and tried our luck as I think we would have been o.k. We will have to keep trying in other S American countries.
One of
the other reasons to visit Bogotá was the Museo Del Oro (Gold Museum) One of the most important in the world with over 34000 gold pieces. Unfortunately it was closed for refurbishment and will not open until Dec 2007. We were looking forward to viewing all the Incan gold artefacts. It looks like our luck wasn’t in when it came to Bogotá! We did do a nice visit to a local town which is famous for a salt Cathedral, named because it was built in the undergroud salt mines. It was first only a small chapel for somewhere for the miners to visit during working hours and then it got very popular and is now a huge underground expanse with many different rooms with certain themes. The place was impressive and must look good when everybody sings, as it must get very loud.
We ended up staying in Bogotá longer than we really wanted to due to the up and coming Semana Santa (Easter festival) as we wanted to be somewhere where they celebrated it in style. We looked into a few places and they were booked up so we ended up choosing Tunja which is known as the
The modern Church!
You no longer light candles you put money in a slot machine and the light comes on! City of churches so thought that would be a good place and it was only 4 hours from Bogotá.
A small note to add about Bogotá, 3 months after we left.
I have had a few emails over the last few months and a met a few people planning to travel there and the main question was is Bogotá and Colombia safe. For me and my girlfriend Colombia was one of the safest countries we have travelled, which was mainly due to the large police force they have. It felt like they were on every corner and not once did we feel threatened and because of this felt totally at ease. Some people might think the number of police is a bad sign but either way your never going to win, not enough or too many police, I know what I would rather have!
There have been a number of capital cities in Central America where we wouldn’t dream of going out at night due to the dangers but Bogotá was no problem and went bar hoping until the early hours with no problem and like I mentioned before was similar to Manchester, lots of trendy bars
and cafe shops to chill out and people watch.
Colombia has a world wide negative reputation and because of this a lot people will always think twice about coming. We stuck to major towns and cities and didn’t go off the beaten path because of the chance of Gorilla activity in these areas, so just use a bit of common sense. Colombia is a big country as big as Spain, France and Portugal so large enough to stay away from any dodgy areas. I think to sum it up, if you think Colombia is too much of a risk then don’t bother with any of South or Central America.
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