Safe and well in Bogotá

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Hi all
Will try to make this a quick one - I desparately need a shower and breakfast.

So, I arrived safe and well in Bogotá. The flight was a bit late (maybe an hour - honestly I just lost track of time after a while).

For those desparate for follow-up info on the food situation with Iberia - yes, they do serve food for free on the long-haul flights.
The flight was long. I guess that it seemed longer because of the ridiculously early start and the delay at Madrid. Also what didn't help was that there was just a communal entertainment system and the selection of "entertainment" wasn't really to my taste. I watched what was on but with the Spanish soundtrack selected to see how much I could understand...did ok-ish I think.
One thing that I have to warn you about with Iberia is that they always play the most amazingly dull piano music through the PA until you're well into the flight. It's like "Richard Clayderman plays a selection of the most dreary songs ever".
What was really cool was the live video feed from the tail of the plane as we were taking off and landing. It's great to watch. Well, I don't know that I'd buy the DVD but it's fun nonetheless.
So overall, I'd give Iberia 5 out of 10. I've travelled with better carriers but I've also travelled with worse and, when all is said and done, they got me and my bags to my chosen destination in a safe and fairly timely manner.

So having arrived, I got through immigration (they gave me 60 days in Colombia which should be more than enough). Then the customary customs which is a bit more involved than I'm used to in that it involved XRaying the bags after you've collected them. But all very friendly and it didn't take long so no problem.

Then stepping outside, I was bombarded with taxi touts shouting "taxi taxi taxi"...the trick is to just look them in the eye and say "no gracias" and then they go away. I found the rank for the official taxis and organised a cab into town. Was about 25.000 Colombian Pesos which equates to about £8 if I'm not mistaken.
The cab driver was friendly and I used the opportunity of the ride to practice my Spanish on him. My teacher suggested that I should try just wandering up to people and asking directions even if I know the way somewhere because it's good practice - I've sort of extended that idea a bit and I'm going to force my Spanish on anybody who will listen! hahaha

So, I arrived at the hostel (The Cranky Croc in the Candelaria district) and I'm really impressed with the setup here. Speaking to some of the other travellers, it seems that this is about as good as it gets in terms of hostels in South America. Looks like I started with the best! I'll post up some pictures later. Ah, yeah, sorry that there aren't any pictures for this posting. I didn't take any last night. But I'll post some up later, no doubt.

Well, this was supposed to be a quick "I'm here" post so I'm going to leave it at that for now.
Looks like the sun is coming out. Time to go see the city!

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Comments

[anita]

Excited
Looking forward with baited breath to the next update!