Advertisement
Published: December 4th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Wednesday - 31 October - Today i took a 5 hour bike tour of the city. It renewed my enthusiasm. It was an excellent insight into the history of Bogota. We visited a coffee factory, a fruit market the size of two football pitches, a cemetery, the red light district, the abortion zone, sampled street food, i even hung upside down on some graffitti (apparently it's what the kids do, not bad for an old bird, still your flexible friend!). I even made a new friend, captain Jack the Llama. It was hallow's eve and the city was thriving for it. Everyone was dressed up, especially the little kids. When we got back to the hostel someone had broken out the rum and people were chatting about what they would dress up as. I hadn't intended to dress up as my friend Kate who i'd met in Chile was arriving at 12 that evening, but one thing led to another and i ended up painting some faces and getting involved. When there were no more faces to paint, the guys decided i would be a tiger/leopard/cat!! Kate arrived just as i was being dragged out to a bar in full dress.
Unfortunately she had been quite ill so was unable to come out with us but we all ended up having a great night! I went out with Thorben, German wind farmer who had arrived earlier that afternoon, Natalie, teacher from London and sisters Leiza and Cassie. Thorben would literally talk to anyone, he was good fun, and sorted us out for a party venue!!!
Thursday - 1 November - Kate and i eventually got going around mid morning and headed for the Salt Cathedral housed in a salt mine in a town 50km north of Bogota called Zipaquira so a bit of a trek to get to. It is completely underground and spreads a whopping 75m long and is 18m high, apparently it can accommodate 8,500 people, who flock there for Sunday masses. It was dark, smelly and religiously eerie. Worth a visit but it took all day, when we got back i just wanted an early night, but got talking to Thorben and a few of the other guys in the dorm, who were supposed to be going out drinking, but i think were looking for an excuse to stay in because we chatted until late about everything
and anything.
As Kate was on the cycle tour, Thorben and I headed out early to get breakfast then started our mammoth tour of Bogota's museums. We went to Art museums, Botero's museum, the mint, police and army museums, the plaza de Bolivar and some churches, amusing ourselves as we went. Thorben started it with daring me to jump into an art installation, without hesitation i readied for a leap when someone grabbed me, luckily it was just Thorben but the museum security looked on disapprovingly!! next we went into an army supply store, Thorben calmly enquired about an AK47.... nobody got the joke, the sales women had a look of panic plastered across her face and i ran out of the shop in a fit of giggles. The day continued in the same light humor. having spent the whole day on our feet and famished, we ate in a local kitchen, then headed back to the hostel to find the others to take a trip up Cerro de Monserrate for the sun set. Not many wanted to join us so we headed up for sun set, the clouds masked most of the city as travelled higher up to
the summit. We wandered around and gasped at the view through intermittent clouds. After sundown we went back down and got ready to hit the town!
It turned out that most of the hostel was up for a big night out so we all got a few beers each and sat around chatting whilst we waited for everyone to get ready and the taxis to arrive. Kate had made new friends on the bike tour, Scottish Pete and a northern monkey, i forget his name, so they came along too. We headed back to Zona Rosa in the northern sector of the city where we had been for Halloween. We all met at an iconic landmark, the Irish pub!! before heading to a nightclub, I got talking to Pete and some American's who had just arrived that day and ended up getting separated from the group, regardless we hit the clubs hard and Pete and I moshed until we couldn't jump anymore. We left the club to try to find the others and randomly they were sat outside in the street having wandered around and not really going anywhere for hours. they had a plan to head towards a
nightclub nearer to the hostel so we all bundled into cabs again and headed for the hills. I ended up in a cab with Thorben and an american guy. we wandered about trying to find a club after being refused entry to Piso 30 (30th floor) because we weren't local and ended up in Radio Berlin. It was great fun, salsa music on the top floor and club beats downstairs. Thorben and i danced until about 6.30am when we decided to walk back to the hostel. as the sun came up, we passed a street vendor who was playing "it's ladies night" so i begun to dance around the bollards to the tune, he followed us and i kept dancing until the following got a bit freeky, and we ran away!! We got back to the hostel and a few people were still up.... looking at the table i saw why..... cocaine, phials of the white powder were left on the table, everyone's pupils were dilated. I thought it was fascinating to watch them and got chatting to Paul, a posty from the black country in Scotland, who educated me as to how to score cocaine. He would ask a
taxi driver to either take him to a drug dealer or a street where he could buy drugs. He would sit and watch the crowd paying careful attention to who the locals headed for, then would ask someone (a street vendor or random) who he should talk to, if they pointed to the same person that he had been watching, he knew they were legitamate!! It was quite fascinating the whole transaction! By now it was after 7am and i had a flight in a few hours so there was no point in going to bed. I stayed up with the coke heads! At 8am, Kate, having not gone out with us, woke up and came downstairs, she was most amused that i hadn't been to bed yet, we said our goodbyes for the next couple of hours at least and said i would meet her in the hostel at Cartegena with Pete who was coincidently booked onto the same flight as her then i got my cab to the airport! Luckily the cab driver was switched on and took me to the right airport after i told him to go to the international one and when i actually needed
the domestic terminal way across town from the other, could have been a costly error!! started to wonder whether no sleep was a good idea or not! Nevermind, i can have a short sleep on the plane.... not so, i met Thorsten, another German, in the queue at checkin. we got chatting and realised we were on the same flight, we chatted the whole way there and he offered to take me to the hostel i was staying in, which was really kind of him. He was in Cartegena for business but would be free for the next couple of days so we agreed to meet up in the evening. It turned out that i didn't get to have any sleep so by 10pm i was literally falling asleep standing up so we didn't get to meet up in the end.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.123s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.1028s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1mb