High times in Bogota

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Buenos Diaz Bogotá: Things are pretty cool in Bogotá in fact its freezing cold & it rains in big huge thunderstorms most days around 3 PM! I didn’t realise somewhere so close to the equator could be so cold, I guess its got something to do with the fact we are almost at 10000 ft.

After arriving at Bogota Airport, Danny & I decided it would be prudent to share taxi costs & have safety in numbers so we headed into town & stayed at a great hostel called El Cafecito, a lovely big old house with big rooms, fireplaces & a nice restaurant & bar. We got chatting to the barman Santiago & got invited “out” with his friend Charles when he finished his shift.

Unfortunately….it was the start of holy week so lots of people had left town for the coast for the holidays. The 1st place we went to was no more than a shop front with lots of people drinking rum. The 2nd place was a strip-joint that wanted heaps of money from the “gringos” to buy rum for everyone & the 3rd place we went to was an illegal underground bar (on the roof) that didn’t even open until 3 AM & stayed open until there was no-one left alive. We had to sneak in under the gaze of the local cops & army guys all with M16 assault rifles who were stopping cars in the street. After we decided it was all shite & time for bed (6 AM) we had to queue up at the exit & wait for the cops down the road to bust someone on the street so that we could get out of there.

After escaping this place we walked down the street with our 3 Colombian minders to run into a huge group of Mariachi players…it was all very surreal, but I guess that’s what happens when you go out with strange men in a strange town on a Catholic holiday!

Santiago got fired for not showing up at work the next day! I was bored with this hostel already as there was no English speakers & I needed to get some intel’ on the trip North so we moved to the Fatima Hostel in Bogotá City, great move lots of mixed races from all over the world. That’s when I bumped into Emma & Andy from Australia….and drank copious amounts of rum from Tetra-pack cartons.

I did the usual touristy things & visited the Gold Museum & the Presidential Palace; yes if you look closely you’ll see that it’s not a wall on the corner of the railing but a machine gun booth!

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