Bogota & San Gill

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Here we are in the city that I probably have the most concern about my personal security that we have yet to visit. We have about 6 days in Bogota to start with for the sole purpose of getting our Brazilian Visa for one of the final parts of our journey. So we arrive late Sunday night (as there are no flights that arrive during the day from Mexico) and go about collecting our luggage and passing through security etc before being allowed to escape. We join the queue to pre-pay and catch our taxi and we finally make it to our hostel.

Our hostel is nice enough and has a small kitchen and several common areas to chill out and an awesome theatre room we a great selection of movies to watch. Too tired to care about eating we head straight to bed to wake early and get to the Brazilian embassy.

All good plans go astray sometimes and today we suffered such. After we get a taxi to the other side of town we enter into something close to a ghost town...turns out that it’s a public holiday today and everything is shut! We make do and walk down the road a little and explore and finally come upon a nice looking cafe and have what would now be termed brunch. We work out pretty quickly we are in a more affluent part of Bogota as pampered pets are trotted past with owners in more upmarket sportswear. After lunch we walk a bit further and find a supermarket open and do a small shop for breakfasts and something for dinner before catching a cab back to our hostel.


We get to know the taxi drive to the Brazilian consul well by the time we leave Bogota. Tuesday we repeat the Monday procedure but at least today we know where we are heading and how much it will cost. We make it into the consul and after a short wait we are seen by one of the surliest persons I’ve dealt with in a long time. She snapped some words at us and then ignored us as we stood gaping and trying to work out just what she was going on about. Turns out a review of rules in the last month and we have to apply online and produce a credit card.

We hunt down an internet cafe, do our applications on line and trudge back to the consulate where we realise we don’t have our credit cards with us and offer to fax/email them before 1pm to have a huffy response of it must be together, the time now is just on 11am. We hailed a taxi and head back to the hostel, I ran in and grabbed the necessary visa cards and went back to hold the taxi whilst Jay got his and we were heading back to the consul again in no time, this time we have everything asked of us and at 12.45 we have our visa in the system....4 working days you can collect it on Monday.

Fine we hang around Bogota for a few more days and then head to San Gill, a not so relaxing journey that takes about 7 hours, of the bumpiest, windiest roads. Every stop that the bus makes a touter comes onboard to sell their wares and as we are at the front of the bus every time they board, they stop next to Jay and have all their stuff in his face and he isn’t too impressed.

We make it to San Gill and a $2 taxi ride gets us across the small bridge, through town and up a rather steep hill to our place of abode for the next 3 days. It’s a small hostel run by an Australian, Sean and the Mocondo is a brilliant place to stay. There is plenty of adventure stuff to do out of here and as we sit and chat with other guests we decide what we are going to do the next few days.

I can’t remember the order that we did some things but we headed down to the local markets for an early fresh juice and wandered around for a little bit and decided we would visit another town, Barichara, about an hour away. The town was very quiet and somewhat abandoned we have arrived right on siesta and there no one around, so we do a few laps of the town and 1 hour later we head back to San Gil. Apparently it’s good to head out here for dinner where you can be served the local delicacy of your meal covered with live ants...hmm not that adventurous.

On the Sunday we decided to go paragliding and as we were preparing to head downstairs, I turned to put the laptop away and managed to put my back out, oh having a great day. I decided to still go with everyone and make a decision on if I go up when we get there. After a quick demonstration on what to do during takeoff and landing Jay is nominated to head out first with one more gentle pilot’s. The winds are slowly starting to pick up and the next person to take off is Charlie, fortunately Charlie’s done this before and after about 6 attempts of taking off the pilot finally gets the wind and chute right and she’s off.
Once Charlie’s up in the air the wind starts to get stronger and as Jay touches down ever so gently there is a delay in the next few heading out. I can tell Jay had a good time as he was grinning from ear to ear and totally buzzed from the experience.

I finally make a decision to head up and would be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t scared. I couldn’t relax into the seat thing as it hurt my back a bit but overall the experience was breathtaking. Where we are we can see a massive canyon and the scenery around us is amazing. It was an awesome experience to feel so free in the air.

I chilled out the next day, mainly to try and rest my back and Jay headed out with Charlie and her partner to some rock pools. The day after Jay and I walked down to the Botanical Gardens that were pretty cool, grabbed some chicken before heading out to another local waterhole, Pozo Azul. We quickly devoured lunch and caught up with some others from the hostel for a swim. After a short while we headed up the road to another local spot where you can jump off an 8m or so ledge into the pools below. I erred on the side of caution and decided to be photographer for the boys jumping off and climbing up next to the waterfall to do it all again. A bit further down the road there is a big waterfall that you can walk under but there is a steep decent so I waited on the side of the road whilst the boys went down to check it out before we walked back into town.

Tonight is Monday and it’s local football night where the tourist vs. the locals. A big group of us head up the hill, and up the hill and up a bit more of that hill to get to a small concrete football field about 1/4 the size of a normal pitch but enough for a quick game. Our lot decide to warm up with a bit of a game and must have scared the locals off because no one showed up. But the boys played for 45 minutes and some battered and sore and some with blisters we all headed back down the hill for bed.

We ended up staying in San Gill for 2 days more than initially planned and then we finally head off to Ville de Leiva for a night before heading back to Bogota. The trip took most of the day and we arrived late afternoon, found our hostel then walked down the road to check the town out and sighed with relief that we aren’t spending longer than 1 night here. It is a quiet town that you can do a few day treks from and they have a complete dinosaur skeleton just down the road as well. We have arrived too late to view it and frankly we are not overly enamoured with this quaint little town.

Finally back in Bogota we head straight in and grab our passports with visas and we are both feeling complete now we have them back and this leaves our last day to do a bit of sightseeing in this town. We head up to a church that is on top of a mountain that overlooks Bogota and we are lucky enough that it the clearest days we’ve had in Bogota. Up on the hill we look over the areas that we are familiar with, try and work out where the hostel is, Zona Rosa (the flash upmarket area, sort of like a cafe strip of Melbourne) and then head down to Zona Rosa to find some coffee and lunch. The clouds have started moving over and whilst we are having coffee it starts to rain and then hail, this goes on for about 5 minutes and stops.

From here we wonder around trying to find something to eat that won’t break the bank, we are seeing subway banners everywhere and finally work out where it is and head into the shopping complex, well head in after we have had our bags searched by security. Whilst we are lunching the heavens open up again and we are talking serious rain. It is bucketing down out there and there are massive thunder claps and flashes of lightning to go with it. An awesome sight till you need to go out there to catch a taxi to get back to the hostel. Eventually the rain eased off and we quickly grabbed a cab to get back.

Finally its Saturday morning, we fly into Quito today and it is about the time our fight is taking off that I finally double check the flight myself and realised that we have missed the flight. Most of the day is spent in airline offices trying to sort out if we can get on a plane today or not and after an excruciating ½ hour or so being told that they can’t do anything here you’ll have to go to the airport. There is a flight that leaves at 1640 and at the moment there are seats. Jay tries to chill down watching a movie and eventually I can’t stall any longer and we head out to the airport just after lunch. Neither of us has eaten yet as we are both too stressed to think about food.

At the airport we find the counter and queue, I have taken the precaution and printed out the rules of the airfare we are travelling on and although I offer this to the girl who serves me when we first say our greetings she hands them back to me. I stood at the counter for a good 40 minutes with Jay looking after the bags off to the side chewing his nails. Finally I am told I have to call another airline and get them to change. Not taking this as an answer I point out that the rules say that they can make the change at the airport, much laughter goes about and finally they change the flights and we are on the 1640 plane. This is the first time I have ever missed a flight an after all the mucking around that we went through I promise this will be the last flight I ever miss.

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